A cop's best friend - police dogs

Animals, July-August, 1998 by Rick Boling

It was 3:04 in the morning when K-9 Officer Andy Thomas was called from his Idaho home to the scene of a disturbance 40 miles away. Officers reported that an armed individual, apparently intoxicated with alcohol and/or drugs, was waving a long-barreled firearm and walking up and down the highway. For three hours, the man (later identified as a Mr. Cox) threatened local and state officers, and finally the situation turned critical. When Thomas and his K-9 partner, Kai, arrived, it was clear that the only way to disarm the man without killing him and endangering other officers was to give the assignment to Kai.

While Cox waved the gun, screaming and threatening nearby officers, Thomas gave Kai a whispered command, and the K-9 immediately took off at full speed. Before he reached Cox, however, the gunman fired, knocking Kai up in the air on his back haunches. At the same time, Cox struck Kai over the head with the gun barrel. Wounded, Kai refused to give up, gathered his composure, and made another attempt to disarm Cox, who was once again threatening nearby officers with his gun. But the dog's actions created enough of a distraction to allow the surrounding officers to wound and take Cox into custody. Despite Thomas's efforts to save his partner with CPR and other first-aid techniques, Kai died shortly after arriving at the Hawthorn Animal Hospital in Pocatello.

"Although this incident took place over four years ago, it is still in my mind as if it happened last night," says Thomas, who is no longer a K-9 officer. "The kind of bond I shared with Kai is a bond that I will never share with any kind of animal as long as I live."

Kai's story is only one of literally thousands like it: stories that tell of the bravery and valor of that most enigmatic of law-enforcement officers, the K-9 dog. From those who have thwarted drug dealers, mass murderers, arsonists, and would-be bombers, to those who have sacrificed themselves in order to save human lives, the legacy of the police K-9 stands as one of the! most poignant examples of the contributions made by man's best friend.

Historical records suggest that dogs may have been used by law enforcement as early as the 13th century, although it wasn't until 1899 that the use of K-9s was first documented. In that year, Chief Van Wesemael of Ghent, Belgium, was facing a budget and manpower shortage, so he decided to fill the gap with dogs. Within a year, Ghent, was employing 30 dog teams, and by 1906 that number had risen to 60. From there, the practice spread throughout Europe, and by 1908 several U.S. police forces, including the Northeast Railroad Police, were using K-9s. But after that first surge of interest, K-9 use leveled off, then declined until the late 1950s.

"From 1907 to 1952, there were only 14 dog-and-handler units in police forces in the United States," says Samuel G. Chapman, a retired police science professor and author of Police Dogs in North America. "Interestingly, for about 18 months, from 1952 to 1954, there were no canine programs in the United States at all, but once they were reintroduced, they took off like crazy. Today there are more than 3,000 K-9 programs in this country alone."

According to Randy Mucha, an officer in Oak Brook, Illinois, whose training programs have helped several U.S. agencies establish K-9 programs, the use of trained dogs in World War II helped bring their capabilities to the forefront.

"A lot of people don't realize it, but military K-9s were responsible for averting at least 10,000 casualties in Vietnam alone," says Michael G. Lemish, author of War Dogs. K-9s in Combat. "Even now, in peacetime, they still use dogs to detect mines all over the world, a practice that continues to save human lives."

Still, it is the nonmilitary dog, or "police dog," with which most people are familiar. Unfortunately, this familiarity often comes from TV and the movies, where working dogs are mostly depicted as vicious animals trained only to attack. This image is far from reality, say K-9 experts, who point out that K-9 training is extremely complex and that attack work constitutes only a small portion of the training regimen--and is given to only one specific type of K-9.

"Referring to a K-9 as an `attack dog' is one of the problems," says Skip Brewster, national secretary for the U.S. Police Canine Association. "Their behavior is strictly controlled. I have a three-year-old granddaughter who literally terrorizes the dogs I bring home sometimes, grabbing bones right out of their mouths and things like that. These dogs are not vicious."

Training for a K-9 begins at around age one, after the dog has learned some basic obedience and has sufficiently matured physically and emotionally. Potential K-9s are carefully evaluated on their drive and perseverance when performing certain tasks. During this evaluation, objects will be thrown for retrieval to find out how long the dog will continue to "play the game." These objects vary in size, shape, and substance (balls, sticks, hoses; metal, wood, plastic, etc.) to see if the dog has an aversion to any particular size, shape, or material. They may even be thrown over a water dish to see if the dog stops to drink before or after it retrieves the objects.