By CODE 4 K9 | SWAT/K9 Integration & Advanced Police K9 Training

Patrol gets a LPR hit on a stolen vehicle, locates it, and then pursues the vehicle when the driver begins to flee. After colliding with another motorist, the suspect fled on foot and into a residential neighborhood. The video then speeds up to the point of apprehension. You can see the PSD enter a residential yard and quickly engage the suspect, biting them in the lower part of the arm. Despite its small size, the PSD remains engaged while the suspect begins to struggle with the dog.

Before I proceed, I would like to commend the dog for its high drive, and it’s clear that the handler has a great deal of control over the dog. However, the handler seems to be content to watch his dog struggle so that he can verbally out the dog. I don’t mind letting the dog work the bite, but at some point, you have to join your dog in the fight. Also, verbally outing your dog on a subject who is combative makes no sense to me. You have cover officers with you. This is a great time to let them go hands-on while you gain positive control of your dog and release them from the bite.

The handler’s choice to show off his control bit him in the ass as the suspect decided to flee again on foot after the dog came off the bite after being verbally released. I also want to mention that the handler asked for less lethal after his dog was outed. If you have to ask for less lethal after a verbal out, maybe you should have gone hands-on.

They locate the suspect in another yard, and the handler cuts his dog off-lead to search for the suspect. As they round the corner, you can see that the dog is being held at bay by the suspect, who is using a chair to avoid being bitten. The one thing I didn’t like was that the dog didn't seem driven to push through the chair and get to the suspect. That can be a result of insufficient exposure training or excessive control, causing the dog to anticipate another verbal out.

The key takeaway from this deployment is that a verbal out looks cool, but most of the time it isn’t practical in real-world deployments. Stay safe.