ONTROLLEDAGGRESSION in the

form of criminal apprehen-sion is the one thing wecannot practice as it mighthappen on the street. Forobvious reasons, no one iswilling to give a police dog areal bite, on purpose, to proofapprehension behavior. Yetlives can depend on the dogbeing willing to engage ahuman suspect who will notbe dressed in bite equipment.For the street police dog,therefore, it’s imperative thatwe orient the dog’s aggres-sion toward the person. Aswe teach the dog the properway to bite and to target, andto do those things undercontrol, we must never forgetthat the ultimate goal is toteach the dog to fight thesuspect with courage,intensity, and decisiveness inthe absence of trainingequipment. That requires thedog to focus his aggressionon the person, and not onthe equipment. This articlewill discuss training methods

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A step-by-step

method for

teaching and

reinforcing

human

orientation.

human apprehension

MARCH/APRIL 2008 Police K-9 Magazine 33

CBY JERRY BRADSHAW

■ A skilled decoy reinforceshuman orientation in a caninethat is used to biting a sleeve.Once the canine is human-focused, the decoy can kicktoward the canine and deliver agrip on the bite suit pants, thengo to ground and roll away.

FOCUSING YOUR PATROL DOG ON

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way to allow the dog to learn to channel drives successfullyand to build confidence. In dog training, where we oftensuccessively approximate as we move toward our finaltraining outcomes, doing that may seem to be going in theopposite direction from the one we need to go in. However,once confidence is instilled, we can train the dog to bemore human-focused without sacrificing the things thatprey training brings to the table in creating a trained patroldog — such as full, firm, and hard grips; fast and powerfulentries; and so on. Later, we will discuss the pluses andminuses we encounter when doing such training.

It is important to realize that although human-orientationbehavior can be natural in a more civilly aggressive dog, italso is a behavior that can be trained fairly easily. During earlybite development, we encourage the dog to go into prey andcarry modes and work against that natural proclivity to somedegree. However, regardless of whether the dog is prey-dominant or defense-dominant, human orientation can beconditioned in the dog with proper training.

Before we do major work in human orientation, we want

34 Police K-9 Magazine MARCH/APRIL 2008 MARCH/APRIL 2008 Police K-9 Magazine 35

but then have the decoy deliver a sleeve grip tothe dog, slip the sleeve, and then stand therepassively or walk away quietly. The dog may runaround with the sleeve and completely ignorethe decoy. That behavior is unacceptable in a

police dog. Therefore, we must teach the dog to look to thehuman for the fight and not be satisfied with taking only asleeve reward or a slipped bite suit as the end of the game.

In Europe, police and security officers frequently encoun-ter false grips. A friend of mine, who uses his security dog atsoccer matches for crowd control, tells stories about gangs ofrowdy fans confronting him and his dog. People will wraptheir forearms with leather jackets and newspapers and letthe dog grip, then shed the jacket. If the dog doesn’t comeoff the jacket, the handler is vulnerable to being attacked bythe people in front of him. However, handlers train theirdogs to immediately release the object and refocus theiraggression on the human element.

Civil AggressionMany trainers look for natural civil aggression when theytest a dog initially. They also want to see the dog focusaggression on the decoy while a sleeve is on the ground, orsee the dog spit the sleeve after a grip and come back tofocus on the decoy. Although I agree that those behaviorsare nice to see, not every dog will show them. A lot of ourdual-purpose canine prospects are naturally more prey-oriented to ensure that they do detection work successfully.Good dogs can be rejected for being too prey-oriented,because trainers do not realize that human-oriented behav-ior can be trained easily, even in a highly prey-possessivedog. Furthermore, if the dog’s temperament is very defen-sive, you may see natural human orientation, but the dogmay lack the confidence of a more balanced dog in whomprey behaviors are more pronounced.

Dogs that have more civil aggression will more naturallydrop a slipped sleeve and look back to the decoy for anotherencounter, as they are, by temperament and hardwiring, notcontent with the prey object. Prey-dominant dogs, however,often will interpret the slipped sleeve reward as a signal thatthe confrontation is ended. In the developmental stages oftraining, that’s not a problem. We need to build confidencein the young dog, and slipping a sleeve after a grip is one

for orienting your dog to the human rather than the biteequipment.

Testing for Human OrientationToo many street police dogs are equipment-oriented. Arecent video called the “World’s Worst Police Dog,”circulating on YouTube, showed a police dog runningalongside a fleeing suspect instead of engaging him. Itshould have been titled, “Bad Police Dog Training Finallyon Video.” A dog will do only what it was selected for andtrained to do. That the dog didn’t engage is not the fault ofthe dog, but rather the fault of his training.

When I teach seminars at police departments where I donot know the dogs, I do a series of tests to see whether thedogs are human-oriented. The first test has a stranger hidingbehind a car. The handler takes cover with the dog. Fromcover, the handler calls the person out from behind the carand allows the dog to see him. The dog must show aggres-sion on command to the passive subject. Many of the dogsdo not show aggression unless they see equipment, move-ment, or a direct threat. That is a problem both of humanorientation and of the dog not being properly conditionedto alert in his foundation work. Remember, most of thepolice dogs used in the United States are former Europeansport dogs, which generally have been conditioned to seeingthe sleeve or suit prior to doing bite work. If you still believethat dogs in Europe are bred for police work, you are livingin a fantasy world. Later in this article, we will discuss moreabout how canine temperament directly affects the issue ofhuman orientation.

A second test is to put a decoy in a bite suit and havethat decoy hold a sleeve. The dog is sent and the sleeve isthrown off to the side. If the dog follows the sleeve, thedecoy attacks the handler energetically. Many a handler hastaken a mock beating from the decoy while his or her dogthrashes the sleeve on the ground, despite the handlercalling for the dog to release and come to his aid.

An even more difficult test is to set up the same scenario

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the dog to be proofed to all kinds ofbite equipment. The dog should befinished with all of his prey and defensedevelopment, and be clear andconfident in his channeling work.Once those are complete, we canintersperse human-orientation workinto the dog’s regular training scenarios.The dog may need to be taught to“out” if he is too prey-possessive to beredirected to the human throughagitation. If you find that to be thecase, go ahead and train the “out/

guard” first before doing the human-orientation workdescribed next. I mention “out/guard” because manyagencies teach only an “out” and a “return,” and humanorientation requires the dog to be thinking about re-engaging the subject after letting go of the dead prey, asopposed to coming back to the handler upon letting go. Ilike to teach both “out” exercises to a dog, using separatecommands. Believe it or not, that is easy to do if yourtraining program is well engineered.

Training Progression for Human OrientationSTEP ONE: SLEEVE-TO-SLEEVE HUMAN ORIENTATION. Sleeve-to-sleeve is the basic human-orientation exercise. The setup

■ A prey-dominant dog may want to focuson the bite sleeve, even after the sleeve hasbeen slipped and is lying inertly on theground. In this sequence, (left to right) thedecoy focuses the dog away from the sleeveand back to himself, first by interposing hisbody between dog and sleeve; then (below,left to right), when the dog focuses on thehuman , rewarding him with a bite on thestick.

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MARCH/APRIL 2008 Police K-9 Magazine 3736 Police K-9 Magazine MARCH/APRIL 2008

for all human-orientation exercises in the beginning shallbe on the back tie. The dog is first worked on the back tiein defense mode to establish an orientation to the helperout of civil aggression. The dog is alerted on the passivedecoy. Once the dog alerts aggressively, the decoy canagitate the dog civilly. The sleeve can be in a trash cannearby, and the decoy can, at the last second, pull out thesleeve and deliver a grip. The dog is worked and the sleeveis slipped; the decoy then withdraws afew paces and immediately agitateshard, using a whip or a clatter stick, todraw the dog back to the human. Thedecoy rewards the dog for coming backto the human by giving the doganother grip on a second sleeve.

While the dog is being worked thesecond time, the handler must kick thesleeve on the ground to where thedecoy can retrieve it — or use a thirdperson to gather up the sleeves andhand them to the decoy as he works thesession. The decoy slips the secondsleeve, and immediately picks up the other sleeve, agitatingthe dog, and drawing him back to focus on the decoy. Thedog’s correct behavior is again rewarded with another bite.The session ends with the decoy going to ground and the dogbeing lifted off the bite (a tactical liftoff) to induce furtherfrustration toward the decoy; or the dog can be called out, ifhe knows that exercise.

The work should then progress, beginning with civilagitation, with the sleeves on the ground. If the dog looks tothe sleeves, they must be put far enough out of reach so thatthe dog focuses civilly on the decoy. Then the decoy picksup the sleeve and delivers the grip, proceeding as previouslydiscussed to trade sleeve for sleeve. This work requires askilled decoy who can read the dog, who understands

aggression, and who can make anynecessary adjustments. STEP TWO: SLEEVE AND HIDDEN SLEEVE.The next step begins with civilagitation and the decoy delivering acivil bite on a hidden sleeve. The dogis worked on the hidden sleeve andthen the decoy goes to ground. Afterthe dog is lifted off the grip, the decoywithdraws and gives the dog a grip ona sleeve, immediately challenging thedog once the sleeve is slipped. As thedog refocuses on the decoy and spitsout the slipped sleeve, the decoy givesanother hidden-sleeve grip. The dog is

worked on the hidden sleeve over the grounded, visiblesleeve. The decoy can give a re-bite on the hidden sleeveafter the dog releases. That gets the dog involved with thedecoy and helps the dog to ignore the dead sleeve on theground. Bites on the slipped sleeve are thus rendered lesssatisfying than the fights on the hidden sleeve.STEP THREE: SLEEVE, HIDDEN SLEEVE, AND BITE SUIT. Now thedecoy is dressed in bite pants from the bite suit, a hidden

sleeve, and a visible sleeve. The dog isalerted and the decoy gives him a gripon the sleeve, immediately slipping it,and agitating the dog back to him.The decoy can kick at the dog withthe bite pants and deliver the gripusing the pants, working the dog tobite the legs; then the decoy should goto ground. The dog is lifted off of thegrip and the decoy rolls away. The dogis immediately re-agitated and given agrip on the hidden sleeve. The decoygoes to ground and the dog is lifted offor the dog is called out.

The same scenario can be played out using a bite jacket.The jacket can be left open and the decoy can wear ahidden sleeve underneath it. A sleeve is first offered to thedog to grip, then slipped when the dog bites. The decoydraws the dog to a subsequent grip on the suit, the dog isworked, and then the jacket is slipped. Immediately uponslipping the jacket, the decoy re-engages the dog and the dogis given a hidden sleeve grip. The fight goes to the groundand the dog dominates the decoy on the ground. The dogcan be lifted off or called out, and the decoy then gives re-bites over the grounded sleeve and jacket a few times. Youshould begin to see the dog leaving the slipped objects moreand more quickly to engage in a fight with the decoy. STEP FOUR: GENERALIZATION. Once the correct behavior is

HUMAN-ORIENTED

BEHAVIOR CANBE TRAINED

EASILY, EVEN INA HIGHLY

PREY-POSSESSIVEDOG.

■ Left: As you train for call-offs, extractions,building searches and other skills, addhuman-orientation exercises to the scenariosto keep the dog freshly aggressive towardthe human. Sessions need not always endwith a bite and an “out.”

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MARCH/APRIL 2008 Police K-9 Magazine 3938 Police K-9 Magazine MARCH/APRIL 2008

established on the back tie, the behavior must be generalizedto fieldwork, inside buildings, in the woods, and duringbuilding searches. This work is dangerous because when thedog comes off dead equipment, the decoy risks getting bitten— which, of course, is what we are looking for. Therefore, thehandler must hold the leash during these exchanges, unlessthe exchange ends with a bite-suit grip.

The training we have discussed shouldcontinue throughout the dog’s life. As youwork on skills such as re-directs, call-offs,extractions, and building searches, puthuman-orientation exercises into thescenarios to keep the dog freshly aggres-sive toward the human. Don’t end everysession with a bite and an “out.” With alittle pre-planning, human orientation canbe fit into any training session in which abite occurs.

Challenges and AdvantagesIt’s important to be aware of the problems and advantageshuman-orientation exercises can cause in your trainingprogram. The main challenge is a problem with the grip.The dog may anticipate releasing the grip too early. If yousee the grip becoming chewy or unstable, go back to theback-tie work, and put back-pressure on the grip, workingthe calm, hard grip as we do in prey-development work.The decoy should anticipate that the grip may becomeunstable, and because the handler will be holding the lineduring most of this work, the decoy can work the dog’s gripafter every transfer, making the line tight and encouragingthe dog to counter and stay solid and calm.

Transfers should be satisfying, varying the time on thegrip prior to transferring the aggression back to the human.

Some grips should be long andsatisfying, with no human-orientationwork, some should be long andsatisfying with a human-orientationexercise thrown in. Also, civilaggression can be used (without a bite)in human-orientation exercises byslipping the suit and agitating the dogin civil clothes, then running away —going behind a door, for example —and slowing the dog by having himchase on leash. Muzzle work also canbe woven into the process. However,the handler must always be on guard toprevent the frustrated dog from gainingsatisfaction by gripping a dead preyobject on the floor or ground. If that

happens, you will set back your training significantly. One side benefit of human-orientation training is that it

will make it easier to train the dog to redirect. The dog willeagerly anticipate another satisfying bite and be more willingto come off the dead decoy to another aggressive decoy,progressing systematically to redirects onto passive decoys.

After the basic foundation work is complete, obediencetraining always should progress toinclude heeling over bite equipmentand doing “down/stays” in thepresence of sleeves and toys to teachthe dog to keep his focus on thehandler and not on dead prey.

Human-orientation training shouldbe an ongoing part of the overalltraining program for your police ser-vice dog. Decoys must learn the tech-

niques to encourage human-focused behavior, to properlyread dogs, and to react appropriately. Getting your decoyswell trained is imperative for seeing better success in thepatrol arena in general, and is especially important fortraining and maintaining good human orientation. ■

This article has been adapted from the chapter titled “FundamentalMan Orientation Exercises” in the author’s training manual,Controlled Aggression, available at www.tarheelcanine.com.Human orientation is a complicated training concept, and thisarticle is only an introduction. This training should be conductedonly with an experienced trainer who is familiar with the conceptsand techniques discussed in this article.

Jerry Bradshaw is the training director at Tarheel Canine Training,Inc., in Sanford, North Carolina. He can be contacted at jbradshaw@tarheelcanine.com.

THE DOG WILL EAGERLY

ANTICIPATEANOTHER

SATISFYINGBITE.

human apprehension

■ Left: In a human-orientation exercises, adecoy in civil clothing agitates the dog, thenruns away and hides. The dog, on lead, isallowed to pursue the decoy; in that way,the dog’s prey drive is used to focus him onthe human.

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