Don has fun with his reward
Don received a brand new towel as a reward for a hard-days-work and he turned it into a game. The remains are left draping him in the photo. Don’t trust him with your laundry.
Leave a Comment April 9, 2010
Archives – April, 2010
Half Way Done
Friday marked the half way point for Don’s and my training. During the past week we traveled to Taylorville and Decatur. We use as many different resources as possible because when we work we’ll never be in the same situation twice. In Taylorville we used the club house at an old golf course. This club house had several different rooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, a main floor and an upstairs; all with miscellaneous items inside of them. We used this setting to do room searches and make it as real as possible. The instructors hid drugs/narcotics in random places. Each handler and k9 would enter the room and begin the search like we have been taught. The k9 is rewarded after he/she successfully alerts in the correct location of the drugs/narcotics. Don has a very sensitive nose and was successful in every room. We also used the grass and other landscaping outside on the golf course for article searches, tracking, and obedience training.
While in Decatur I had the opportunity to go with handlers from several different police departments and sheriffs offices to the Macon County Jail and use the k9s to search the jail. It was interesting to see the different k9s and how each handler had a different method of searching rooms, objects in a room, and individual cells. A huge reason why each handler is different is because each k9 is different. A handler and the k9 become a team and they learn how to work with each other. Its important for the handler to be able to read the k9 and trust their ability to seek drugs/narcotics.
For training, we went to an old warehouse that has been converted into a large diverse training facility. Each room was different and had different training materials. We ran each k9 through rooms to get as much training as possible before we did bite training. Cannabis, heroin, cocaine, crack, and meth were in each room in different amounts. With the proper training any k9 can alert on a large amount of drugs/narcotics, but can every k9 find a very small amount? Finding a very small amount of drugs/narcotics is like finding a needle in a hay stack; therefore we start out training with large amounts and gradually wind down to very very small amounts. The key to success is learning the k9 and consistently training your dog. During bite work we started out using bite pillows. We would agitate the dogs with the pillows and have them come at us and hope they bit the pillow and not us. While engaging in a bite we would use different objects to make noises to see if we could scare the k9. We also worked the k9s over a variety of areas; hardwood floors, carpt, over tables and bars, chairs, cement, tile flooring. After a few bites on the pillow, a decoy in a bite suit would come at the handler and k9 as a threat to amp up the k9. Eventually the k9 was released to bite or apprehend the decoy. They decoy makes a lot of noises as though they are in pain and eventually works themselves to the floor or removes the jacket so the k9 feels like they won the fight.
Five weeks down, five weeks to go. I looke forward to being back on the street with Don. The next few weeks we’ll be traveling to different cities to train and also train at night time. I’ll update my blog as much as possible. I appreciate all the great support from my family, the community, and friends.
2 Comments April 2, 2010
