K9 Behavior Basics: A Manual for Proven Success in Operational Service Dog Training

K9 Behavior Basics

Other titles in the K9 Professional Training series

K9 Search and Rescue, 2nd ed.

K9 Schutzhund Training, 2nd ed. (Coming in 2014)

Other K9 titles from Brush Education

Aggression Control

Decoys and Aggression

K9 Complete Care

K9 Explosive Detection

K9 Fraud!

K9 Officer’s Manual

K9 Personal Protection

K9 Professional Tracking

K9 Scent Detection

K9 Suspect Discrimination

K9 Working Breeds

Police Officer’s Guide to K9 Searches

K9 Behavior Basics

A Manual for Proven Success in Operational Service Dog Training

Second edition

Dr. Resi Gerritsen

Ruud Haak

Simon Prins

K9 Professional Training series

Copyright © 2013 Resi Gerritsen, Ruud Haak and Simon Prins

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Excerpts from this publication may be reproduced under licence from Access Copyright, or with the express written permission of Brush Education Inc., or under licence from a collective management organization in your territory. All rights are otherwise reserved and no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanic, photocopying, digital copying, scanning, recording or otherwise, except as specifically authorized.

Brush Education Inc.

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Printed and manufactured in Canada

Ebook edition available at Amazon, Kobo, and other e-retailers.

Editorial: Lauri Seidlitz, Leslie Vermeer

Cover design: John Luckhurst; Cover photo: Kelly Nelson/Shutterstock

Book interior design: Carol Dragich, Dragich Design

Illustrations: Sandra Hamel

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Gerritsen, Resi, author K9 behavior basics: a manual for proven success in operational service dog training / Dr. Resi Gerritsen, Ruud Haak and Simon Prins.—Second edition.

(K9 professional training)

Originally published: Calgary: Detselig Enterprises, 2010. Includes bibliographical references. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-55059-451-5 (pbk.).

1. Service dogs—Behavior. 2. Service dogs—Training. 3. Search dogs—Training. 4. Rescue dogs—Training. I. Haak, Ruud, author II. Prins, Simon, 1967-, author III. Title.

SF428.2.G473 2013 636.73 C2013-903631-8 C2013-903632-6

Produced with the assistance of the Government of Alberta, Alberta Multimedia Development Fund. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Contents

Introduction vii

1 Operational Service Dogs 1

2 Ancestor Wolf 27

3 Basic Concepts in Dog Behavior 43

4 Developmental Stages and Behavior 65

5 Expressions, Gestures, and Signals 81

6 Reading Your Dog 109

7 Operant Conditioning: Development and Basic Principles 127

8 Physical Punishment in Dog Training 169

9 Training Service Dogs Using Operant Conditioning 195

Bibliography 233

About the Authors 237

Introduction

The dog has been a loyal companion of humankind for thousands of years. This companionship has not always meant a comfortable and peaceful life for the dog, however. In living together, humans took control. From wolves (the first dogs), humans selected animals with suitable traits and domesticated them.

Our dogs today have a great willingness to adapt to their circumstances and the rules of the pack, which now includes the human family. They are a pleasant animal, able to live close to humans. From the wolf they received qualities such as watchfulness, loyalty, and submissive behavior, which are also the source of their popularity as pets and K9s.

In this book we meet the wolf, the domestic dog’s ancestor. We become acquainted with its behavior and see how and why this animal was domesticated. From that foundation, we take a closer look at dog behavior and communication signals. These are fundamental to understanding how dogs play and learn, and it is important for every K9 handler to understand these behaviors. After all, if we understand the behavior of dogs, we can more easily raise and train them.

It is a pleasure to have a K9 as a reliable companion in service. For a successful team, the parties at both ends of the leash must trust each other. For this trust to develop, it is essential for us to recognize and correctly interpret the dog’s expressions, gestures, and signals. In this book we explain them.

We then explain operant conditioning, a successful method of K9 training that can be used for all kinds of special-service dogs, such as search and detection, patrol, remote guided camera, and attack dogs. We first describe the history and development of operant conditioning training with animals and how the training works, and then, of course, we provide practical techniques in how this method can be employed.

As a K9 handler, you are privileged to know what is going on in the dog’s mind and to predict its behavior. After reading this book, you will have a better understanding of that special animal: your K9.

RESI GERRITSEN

RUUD HAAK

SIMON PRINS

Disclaimer

While the contents of this book are based on substantial experience and expertise, working with dogs involves inherent risks, especially in dangerous settings and situations. Anyone using approaches described in this book does so entirely at their own risk and both the author and publisher disclaim any liability for any injuries or other damage that may be sustained.

1

Operational Service Dogs

Figure 1.1 Dogs have served many roles for humans. In this picture, the legendary Barry, a short-haired Saint Bernard, saved forty human lives during his work as an avalanche dog at a hospice in the Swiss Alps.

Figure 1.2 Roman dog of war.

Dogs can be found everywhere people live. Through the ages dogs have helped humans as hunters and also as defenders of hearth and home. In some countries, dogs are still used for meat; in the spacious polar snowfields, they give their energy as draft animals; and they provide many other services to humans, from shepherd to laboratory animal. Some people are sensitive about how dogs are used—performing tests on or eating a dog is unthinkable for many people because they consider dogs to be loyal friends, companions, and sometimes even replacements for children.

Loyal Friends and Companions

By close and long association with humans, both in work and in play, the dog has become a symbol of loyalty and friendship. Indeed, it is as a companion that the dog is best known. In that work we find no specialists, no distinctions of color, breed, or training, yet the household pet must, in a sense, work for its living. Put yourself in your dog’s place. Would you enjoy the job of being companion to a person of your own temperament? Could you fancy yourself an unassuming nonentity, keeping out from under foot when your owners are glum, being scolded without apparent cause when they are irritable? Would you always be eager to take a walk to satisfy their whim just at the moment when you had settled down for a good snooze? And could you endure the caress of unliked, strange hands simply because those hands belong to a friend of your handler? Would it please you to obey every word, look, and gesture—yes, even unexpressed thoughts, regardless of your own wishes? It would be hard work at times, wouldn’t it?

Lord Byron and Boatswain

Figure 1.3 Boatswain, painted in 1808 by Clifton Tomson.

A powerful example of the attachment people can form with their dogs is seen in the relationship between Lord Byron (1788–1824) and his dog, a Newfoundlander called Boatswain. After the death of his dog of rabies in 1808 at Newstead Abbey, the brokenhearted Lord Byron had the dog buried behind the ruins of the old abbey church near the house. It was a special and solemn funeral. After the burial, Lord Byron called his eldest servant and told him that both he and the servant would be buried next to Boatswain. The servant was apparently not so pleased because shortly after this instruction, he resigned from his job. Lord Byron himself died as a freedom fighter in the war of independence of the Greeks from the Turks, so Boatswain was left all alone at the country estate.

Over the grave is a large, ornamental memorial. The epitaph reads as follows.

Near this Spot

are deposited the Remains of one

who possessed Beauty without Vanity,

Strength without Insolence,

Courage without Ferocity,

and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.

This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery

if inscribed over human Ashes,

is but a just tribute to the Memory of

BOATSWAIN, a DOG,

who was born in Newfoundland May 1803

and died at Newstead Nov. 18, 1808.

When some proud Son of Man returns to Earth,

Unknown by Glory, but upheld by Birth,

The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,

And storied urns record who rests below.

When all is done, upon the Tomb is seen,

Not what he was, but what he should have been.

But the poor Dog, in life the firmest friend,

The first to welcome, foremost to defend,

Whose honest heart is still his Master’s own,

Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,

Unhonoured falls, unnoticed all his worth,

Denied in heaven the Soul he held on earth—

While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,

And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.

Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,

Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power—

Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,

Degraded mass of animated dust!

Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,

Thy tongue hypocrisy, thy words deceit!

By nature vile, ennobled but by name,

Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.

Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,

Pass on—it honors none you wish to mourn.

To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise;

I never knew but one—and here he lies.

Types of K9s

Early human communities used the dog’s sense of loyalty and responsibility for their own ends. Ancient history gives us many examples of dogs used as defenders, but also dogs used for other tasks. For example, more than eleven hundred years ago, a Chinese trading company developed a dog messenger service. These dogs went out with camel caravans and brought back dispatches from the outposts. The trading company found that the advance information thus obtained was of such value that it credited ten percent of its increased sales to this service and used the money to breed better dogs and otherwise develop the efficiency of the service. A similar service was used in the first half of the twentieth century by armies around the world.

Figure 1.4 Through the ages dogs have played important roles for human societies. This picture from an ancient Greek vase shows the mythological Cerberus, a dog with (in this case) two heads.

Figure 1.5 Hunting with dogs. This stone panel decorated a mud brick wall of the palace of King Ashurbanipal (reigned 669–630 BCE) at Nineveh, northern Iraq. It was originally part of a much longer composition related to the royal sport of lion hunting. The figures leading the hounds are hunt attendants. The use of mastiffs is well represented on the wall reliefs at Nineveh.

From their earliest domestication, dogs were used as watchdogs to alert human camps about the approach of animals or humans. The Romans extended the watchdog’s activities to include duty with a human sentry. This sentinel dog of ancient times was in some respects a forerunner of the modern police dog. The city archives in Antwerp, Belgium, note that the first night watchman in Antwerp was chartered in 1597, and by 1627 there were thirty-two men on duty. Woodcuts from that time indicate that protection dogs accompanied these men. These early police dogs were apt to bite: one woodcut (Figure 1.6) shows a dog helping its handler by boldly biting the legs of a villain!

Figure 1.6 Early-seventeenth-century woodcut showing night watchmen and dogs.

Police Service Dogs

One of the oldest known police services using dogs is that of the Belgian city of Leuven (Louvain) in the eighteenth century. In 1786, the night watchmen distributed a New Year’s greeting flyer to all residents. On it was a woodcut depicting the town soldiers and their dogs. In 1793, however, the use of police dogs in Belgium was abolished. A human rights manifesto banned the use of dogs to attack people. It appears that the police dogs had become too sharp and aggressive for public acceptance.

Figure 1.7 New Yeara’s greetings from the night watchmen.

After the abolition of police dogs in Belgium, more than a century passed before public administration resumed the use of dogs in police service. Around 1880, dog enthusiasts near Malines, Belgium, began to systematically train their Malinois, the shorthaired Belgian shepherd dog, for protection and tracking work. But it was not until 1886 that dogs were specifically trained for police service. At that time, the little hamlet of Hildesheim, Germany, was a hotbed of disorder and a source of embarrassment and chagrin to the frustrated police. Captain Schoenherr, later head of the Prussian Government Breeding and Instruction School of Service Dogs at Grünheide, near Berlin, studied the possibility of using dogs to combat criminals. A few specially trained animals were tested. The dogs performed successfully and problems in Hildesheim were cleared up, largely through their efforts. The Hildesheim dogs became celebrities, and other German communities were inspired to use dogs in police service.

In Gent, Belgium, Superintendent Van Wezemael introduced three police dogs in March 1899. At the end of the same year, there were ten dogs in service, and by 1910 there were more than thirty. All these dogs were Belgian shepherd dogs, and most of them were of the Groenendael (black long-haired Belgian shepherd) and Malinois variety. As the dogs proved their usefulness in police work, they were trained in special fields of service, and today there are many branches of police dog work.

Figure 1.8 During World War I, Dutch police dogs were also trained as liaison or communication dogs.

Police Dogs Today

Today’s police dog is the natural development of the herding dog of yesterday. Aptitudes that enable a dog to succeed in one of these services are equally valuable in the other:

•The animal’s urge to guard and protect, so essential to the preservation of a flock of sheep, is just as valuable in the police service. A patrol dog’s first duty is to protect its police handler against assault.

•The dog’s tracking ability, through which a herder will find a lost lamb, is valuable to the police dog for it must frequently seek lost objects, missing people, and hidden suspects.

•The transportation of a criminal or suspect is quite like the driving of a herd and depends on similar capacities. For example, the ability of a herding dog to bite and hold but not injure or tear is also useful for police dogs. Especially in subduing older and heavier sheep and rams, the dog must be able to employ a forceful grip, which nevertheless should not seriously injure the animal. Today a police dog will usually overpower a suspect using a strong, firm grip, and only rarely must it resort to a dangerous, tearing bite.

What does the police dog do? The answer depends on the branch of the service it is in. Most police dogs are used for patrol duty. Each patrol dog is assigned to one handler and remains with this officer as protection. The dog’s ears and nose are more acute than those of its handler, so the dog is often the first to detect danger. In case of emergency, the dog is frequently a more dependable weapon than a revolver.

Figure 1.9 Strange as it may seem, the police dog of today is the natural development of the herding dog of yesterday.

Figure 1.10 A patrol dog’s first duty is to protect its officer against assault.

Penitentiary Service Dogs

The training for penitentiary service is similar to patrol dog training. The main difference is that the penitentiary dog is taught to serve with two or more guards who wear identical uniforms. The dog learns to obey their voices and no others. In prison service, dogs are more frequently called on to search for hidden people than in patrol service.

In the instruction of a penitentiary dog, the skill of searching for a lost object is combined with attacking. The dog learns to range an indicated territory much as a bird dog in search of game ranges an area, and when it finds a person, it barks to call its handler. The dog does not attack unless the individual attacks or tries to run away. In other words, the penitentiary dog’s behavior from the time it finds a person until the arrival of the handler is like that of a dog placed on guard except the penitentiary dog barks to announce its find. A dog hunts with more success than its handler because the dog’s nose can detect a person even if the individual is hidden from view.

The presence of dogs in a penitentiary has a pronounced psychological effect on the inmates. Dogs seem not to be resented as much as machine guns, yet, as a rule, an inmate is hesitant to start trouble with a dog. Most prison guards are unarmed because of the risk that weapons might be taken from them and used against them. The dog is a protector whose services cannot be stolen or bought. A dog may be killed, but it cannot be turned against its handler. A canine ally is therefore a great comfort to a guard. In several cases, a prisoner who attempted to make trouble was thereafter marked by the dog. The animal seemed able to recognize the prisoner not only by scent but