I had the great honour and pleasure of working with Police Dog 1369 Max for 8.5 years in the inner city of Birmingham. This picture was taken at dog training school at Stafford police headquarters in 1992 and it was at the school that I had my happiest days. Being paid to train a dog was the greatest period of my life and I had to pinch myself to believe that after 7 years of trying to get on the dog section, I had finally made it.
Max was a nervous dog and the usual methods of Police Dog instruction would not work with him, which was the best thing that could have happened, because Police Dog Training in those days could be a brutal thing. Dogs that didn't comply were treated very physically which was the accepted method of the time and due to Max's nature, I had a way out of what I knew to be a bad way of training.
So I set about getting Max to look to me as a source of support and confidence and when he was asked to challenge a "criminal" I would be behind him praising and rewarding which gave him the confidence to do the activity.
Where he really shone though was tracking. Tracking is where the dog uses their amazing sense of smell to follow a scent left on the ground by a fleeing bad guy! Searching is where the dog uses their nose off the ground to find him! Max was a natural and a training Sergeant later said that he was the best tracking dog he had seen.
I will use my experiences with Max throughout these articles, to illustrate various training methods and ideas and to show that anything is possible if you work together and use the right method for the right dog.
Good training Steve :-)
