Police Dogs: Understanding the behavioral nature of attack-trained police dogs
The behavioral nature of attack trained police dogs is often ignored in lawsuits involving personal injury caused by these kinds of dogs. Instead, in most cases focus, remains on the exemplar nature of police dog training and the history of successfully apprehending suspects. However, these dogs are not automated machines - they make mistakes, and these mistakes can be costly. Thus,the behavioral nature of attack trained police dogs needs to be fully understood, particularly when it comes to those factors which govern aggressive behavioral responding. Thus,expert opinion from from an animal behaviorist in police dog attack cases might be of great value with respect to elucidating the behavioral nature of these dogs. Another area of testimony for the animal behaviorist has to do with reconstruction of the the attack. Behavioral reconstruction becomes important when the version of the police differs from the version of the victim.
Explaining the police dog’s behavioral nature differs from explanations about the kind of specific training a police dog was subject to by its canine handler. Generally speaking, the methodology for teaching a police dog the skills involved in suspect apprehension is not difficult to understand. They involve instilling in the dog through techniques of operant conditioning a tendency to respond to certain commands (from a handler) which elicits aggressive reactivity towards a particular target. In principle this is not difficult to do from a training standpoint, particularly if one begins such training early in a dog's life, and if one works with certain breeds such as Belgian Malinois dogs, or German Shepherd dogs.
No matter how well-trained in suspect apprehension a police dog might be, all police dogs can easily make behavioral mistakes, such as attacking at the wrong time, attacking out of context, attacking a suspect when not commanded to do so, and failing to stop an attack after being commanded to do so by the handler. Because of the behavioral nature of aggressive responding in dogs, and despite the extensive training most police service dogs have been subjected to prior to being deployed in the field, they will make behavioral mistakes, thereby causing injury to a victim that was uncalled for or far beyond what was probably needed. Because of the heightened state of aggressive arousal engendered in these dogs, they will make mistakes, and the dog's handler can lose control over the dog. The basic principles of animal behavior that govern police dog aggressive behavior are no different than the principles that govern aggressive behavioral responding in other kind of dogs (e.g. working dogs, sled dogs, fighting dogs, companion dogs, etc.), and these principles can be used to shed light on the inherently dangerous and occasionally unpredictable nature of attack trained police dogs.
This section of dogexpert.com will examine these issues.The reader should note that the material contained herein is authored by an animal behaviorist, and not a police dog handler, so the content herein does not attempt to review the method or procedures used in police dog training or whether it was appropriate use the force of a police dog to attack a human in any given instance. Rather, the content will include of findings about the nature of police dog aggression as it pertains to canine aggression in general, and the behavioral limitations and capabilities of these kind of dogs.
Research police dog behavior
Police dog attack results in $1.7M punitive damage award
Contact Info:
Animal Behavior Counseling Services, Inc.
2288 Manning Ave.
Los Angeles, California 90064
Telephone: (310) 474-3776
Nationwide: (800) 605-2227
email