K-9 Unit In-Training

Consistent, Insistent and Persistent

March 23, 2010

I’ve come to learn that training Don is repeating the same obedience and agility exercises, drug/narcotics detection, bite work, tracking, and article searches over and over and over, pretty much to the point that we could do them with our eyes closed. It gets boring but it’s necessary and important. Keeping high intensity and making it exciting is equally as important.  If the dog isn’t having fun then he/she won’t want to do it, and if they dont want to do it then how will they learn?  Consistent repetition is a huge key to dog training.  We strive to train the dogs in a consistent manner,  meaning when I teach Don to sit and lay  im persistent in him doing it the correct way every time.  If I dont, Don thinks it’s ok to cut corners and in the long run this ruins his potential to be a great police dog.  Our approach is similar to sports.  When a basketball player practices shooting, they’re taught the correct way to start then
 they consistently shoot the correct way.  What would be the point to shoot a different way every time the player practices?  It doesnt make sense to change or do it incorrectly,  the same goes with dog training.  The first day our instructor wrote on the board- insistent,  consistent,  persistent.  Those are the rules to training our dogs. 

This week we started practicing car searches.  Obviously this exciting for me because this was a huge reason Rochelle PD has a canine unit. A police dog is utilized during traffic stops to conduct open- air sniffs. When the canine alerts on a vehicle this gives the police probable cause to search the vehicle.  While searching a vehicle if drugs, narcotics, and/or drug paraphernalia is found then this is reasonable grounds for an arrest. While doing three different car searches Don did very well for his first day;  Don received many compliments from instructors on his drug/narcotic detection.

Don Juan is continuing to excel in his tracking abilities and article searches. Don is also  maintaining interest well doing bite exercises.

I will continue to update Don’s progress weekly particularly after learning new exercises.

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