PoliceLink

Its probably a training issue the dog has not been trained to enter confined spaces. In training you usually try to expose your K-9 to differant types of areas to search.

We use a long plastic pipe that is about 3 x 3 and about 15 feet long. We give a command of, "tunnel" and the dog runs through the tunnel to the other side. I started with the toy on the other end to get the dog to run through. Eventually she picked up on my command and I didn't need the toy at the other end.

I would even set up a training scenario where the dog engages a decoy in a confined space.

My second dog was the same when he first started.....set up some confined spaces with plenty of light and gradually decrease the amount of light over a few weeks, remember to vary the scenarios as much as possible though so he doesn't get used to that particular hide and use plenty of ball play to make it a fun exercise. After a couple of months of this my boy would crawl into anywhere.

The way the original post is written, it's hard to tell if it was a person search or drug search. I was assuming(yeah I know all about assumptions) it was a drug search. If this was a patrol dog refusing, that is even a more serious training issue. In fact, so serious the dog should be removed from the road until that problem is fixed. With a patrol dog, if I tell him to go under a house, he better not take time to "warn" me of danger. He better get his butt under the house and start searching. In a patrol dog, hesitation can be disasterous, they should react immediately. A drug dog, unless exposed to that type of environment, which they should be during training, wouldn't need to be taken off the street. Training, however should be concentrated in that area.