Police K9 Training – Teaching Neutrality with Gunfire
Working around gunfire is a necessity for most police dogs. Police K9 training with gunfire must be handled properly in order to ensure that the police dog is neutral to the noise. Unless we are careful and systematic in training the police K9 around gunfire, we can cause a number of problems like fear and unwanted aggression.
Many police dog handlers and trainers establish training scenarios that follow a similar pattern where a suspect, in a bite sleeve or suit, runs from the police K9, fires a few rounds, and is soon apprehended by a police dog. This scenario is often carried out time and time again until the handler or trainer is convinced that the police k9 is comfortable with gunfire and is ready for the street.
Unfortunately, this particular scenario is likely to cause the K9 team some serious problems in the field. This scenario simply teaches the dog to bite any one who fires a gun. If the handler or other officers return fire with a suspect, they are likely to be bitten and injured by a police dog. Now, as a police K9 handler, you must divide your attention between the suspect who is shooting at you and the police dog that is chewing on your arm.
While conducting police K9 training, specifically working a dog around gunfire, we must have a plan that is both safe and productive. When working a new dog, or dog we have never worked with before, around gunfire, we should start off with small caliber firearms or even a blank pistol and we should introduce the gunfire at a distance. it is the responsibility of the handler and/or trainer to monitor the stress level of the dog during training, by reading and understanding their body language and non-verbal communication. Our goal is to create a positive association with gunfire in a way that the dog is relatively neutral to the sound. There are many methods for creating this association, and will depend on which reinforcers work with the particular dog.
Once we have established a positive association with the sound of gunfire and are confident that the dog is neutral to the sound, the next step in training is to begin to move closer and increase the caliber of firearm we are using. We should establish some relatively sound successive approximations in order to make this successful and we should not increase the caliber of firearm and decrease the distance too rapidly. This will surely set the dog up for failure.
Once our proximity to the handler is fairly close, we should begin to introduce gunfire from the handler, from a small caliber firearm or starter pistol. This should be done with a muzzle on the police K9 for the first few sessions in order to reasonably ensure the safety of everyone involved. If all goes well, we will increase the caliber of round we are using and continue to make a positive association with the sound. The final step in this aspect of police K9 training is to work with an exchange of gunfire, between the dog team and a “suspect” in real-life scenario based police K9 training sessions.
Teaching a police K9 to work around gunfire is an important aspect of police K9 training and is one of many topics that we cover in our Police K9 Trainer / Instructor Course through our School for Dog Trainers. If you are looking to learn how to train police dogs as a career or if you are a trainer or handler that wishes to gain further training in advanced or tactical police K9 training areas, feel free to contact us at 866.200.2207 or training@highlandcanine.com to learn more.