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

During this video, you can see officers from the Volusia County Sheriff’s Department attempting to contain a vehicle whose driver had multiple felony warrants for his arrest. I say “attempt” to contain because you cannot achieve proper containment unless you’re metal-to-metal with the suspect vehicle. Any available space can be used to gain enough traction to create separation and escape containment.

A vehicle pursuit is initiated after the suspect fled from the stop. The air unit was overhead calling out the pursuit, while patrol backed off. After some time, the vehicle came to a stop after colliding with another motorist and began to flee on foot. The handler gives K9 warnings, then deploys his dog off-lead to apprehend the suspect. You can see the dog’s initial attempt to apprehend the suspect. He targets the suspect’s arm but misses.

The dog then seemed to be unsure what to do and attempted to bite the suspect on the arm again, but missed and bit the suspect on the hip. This is a classic example of equipment fixation. Some agencies overuse bite sleeves, and over time, the dog is trained just to target the arm. When the arm is unavailable, they become confused and don’t fully engage the suspect. This is a training issue that can be resolved through muzzle training and bite work targeting other areas of the body, rather than just the arm. All I can say, is that it’s not the first time I’ve seen this behavior and it won’t be the last. Stay safe.