As Training Director of the RPD K-9 Unit, I was responsible for the training and inservice training for the K-9 Unit as well as immediate supervisor for the 6 K-9 teams and all K-9 related issues. My responsibilities also extended to current legal concerns, laws governing K-9 usage, and keeping abreast of local, state and federal case law as it pertains to K-9 utilization and related issues.
I conducted approximately 800 hours of training and inservice training per year for the department. In the past year, I have attended over 400 hours of seminars on advanced Police K-9 training, tactical use and deployment, legal updates, scent detection and over the past 18 years have attended literally thousands of hours of seminars related to training concepts ranging from basic skills to advanced tactical K-9 usage.
The Reading Police Departments K-9 Unit is an "in-house" training program which utilizes some purchased dogs from working bloodlines but primarily dogs which are donated (privately and from rescues) that meet the qualifications required to be trained as Police service dogs. Training for the Police service K-9's and their handlers involves obedience, agility, article search, building search, area search, tracking (aggressive and non-aggressive), criminal apprehension, drive building, scent theory, olfactory and sense capabilities and understanding of how weather, temperature and wind play a role in area searches and tracking, etc.
The training program, consists of basic skills to meet department certification standards, field training, advanced and tactical training, scent detection, and training each handler to become proficient decoys/helpers using various level bite sleeves, bitesuits, hidden sleeves (including wraps) and muzzles as well as teaching the basic concepts of recognizing and building drives and the skills needed as a decoy for drive building.
Also over the past 4 years, I have attended hundreds of hours of training sessions and trials with Melanie Howe in Schutzhund and PSA.
