Why Police Departments Drop Their K9 Programs
By Ed Frawley
Copyright 2000
715.235.6502

This week I received a disturbing e-mail from a fellow K9 officer in South Eastern Wisconsin. A mutual friend and K9 Officer has had his K9 unit disbanded by his police department. I chose this occasion to talk about the pitfalls that face every K9 program. I talked with several friends to gather the information for this article. Maybe our thoughts can help new handlers side step a few of the pitfalls that every program is going to be faced with.

Programs fail far too often. There are a number of major reasons for this:

Poor initial planning - departments who choose the wrong vendor to start their program

Poor supervision from management

Administrators who decide they do not need the program

Local politicians who decide they do like the program

Poor education among the field troops that need to use the resource to make it valuable

Handlers who do not follow through with their responsibilities

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Poor Planning Results in Selecting the Wrong Vendor

The usual way a K9 program comes into being is an officer decides he wants to be a K9 handler. This officer then goes to his Chief (or Sheriff) and asks permission. Supervisors exercise their authority by telling the officer to look into it and get back to them with a proposal. If the handler is lucky he will get good advice from other departments who have successful programs. More often than not, the officer gets bad information and the results are not good.

There are far more irresponsible and untrained vendors who sell police dogs than there are real professionals. The odds are against a department ending up with a professional. That's why there are so many second and third rate service dogs working the street in this country. The most common mistake administrators make occurs when they start a new K9 program by selecting an inexperienced vendor to supply their dog and to train their officers.

It is hard to place all the blame on administrators for such a simple but important mistake. When you stop and think about it, how does an administrators (who has never had any K9 experience) go about selecting a vendor? Most look to local dog trainers and breeders. Unfortunately, we again find ourselves in a situation where the odds are stacked against the administrator. Most local civilians don't have the experience to offer valuable advice.

That brings us back to the same point we were at before, with the wrong vendor and a department being supplied with a dog that does not have the proper temperament and drive for service work. When this happens the K9 program is doomed to failure from the day of it's inception.

It's not the scope of this article to explain how to select a vendor, but the simplest of advise would be to look for departments with "Successful" programs and ask where they got their dogs and training.

The departments that cause me to shake my head in disgust are those that make officers purchase their own dogs. I don't have a lot of patience for a Chief or Sheriff who does this. These officers want to get involved in K9 more than anything in the world. Unfortunately a selection tested patrol dog is going to cost $3,500.00 to $4,500.00 and information for this article. Maybe our thoughts can help new handlers side step a few of the pitfalls that every program is going to be faced with.

Programs fail far too often. There are a number of major reasons for this:

Poor initial planning - departments who choose the wrong vendor to start their program

Poor supervision from management

Administrators who deci`Þâ1åâã=†@Öâ@Öâ((

www.policelink.com/training/articles/save_step_2P information for this article. Maybe our thoughts can help new handlers side step a few of the pitfalls that every program is going to be faced with.

Programs fail far too often. There are a number of major reasons for this:

Poor initial planning - departments who choose the wrong vendor to start their program

Poor supervision from management

Administrators who decide they do not need the program

Local politicians who decide they do like the program

Poor education among the field troops that need to use the resource to make it valuable

Handlers who do not follow through with their responsibilities

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poor Planning Results in Selecting the Wrong Vendor

The usual way a K9 program comes into being is an officer decides he wants to be a K9 handler. This officer then goes to his Chief (or Sheriff) and asks permission. Supervisors exercise their authority by telling the officer to look into it and get back to them with a proposal. If the handler is lucky he will get good advice from other departments who have successful programs. More often than not, the officer gets bad information and the results are not good.

There are far more irresponsible and untrained vendors who sell police dogs than there are real professionals. The odds are against a department ending up with a professional. That's why there are so many second and third rate service dogs working the street in this country. The most common mistake administrators make occurs when they start a new K9 program by selecting an inexperienced vendor to supply their dog and to train their officers.

It is hard to place all the blame on administrators for such a simple but important mistake. When you stop and think about it, how does an administrators (who has never had any K9 experience)%2POST /training/articles/save_step_2 HTTP/1.1
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