Hello again from us here at deltacanine.net.
Something has been brewing in my mind the last couple of days thanks to the comments on one of Dyask9 Instagram posts. Basically Dyask9 said dogs can differentiate between friend and fo or threat and non threat after someone brought up the story about the police k9 that jumped into a SUV and attacked the toddler in there. They said that practical real world training will prevent the bite happy dogs most police departments have. This exchange brought back memories of the first time I donned a bite suit at Baden k9. Evidently I wasn’t very threatening because when the handler gave the deploy command to the dog, the dog looked at me, then back at the handler like, you want me to go after him? Why? He’s no threat. I was kinda shocked at the time, thinking, ” I can’t believe that dog didn’t obey the command she was given. Come on warbeast!”
But after the exchange on Instagram made me reflect on the encounter, I am convinced that dogs can naturally identify threats and act accordingly. I wasn’t exhibiting threatening behavior, in fact, I was pretty nervous I was about to have a dog deployed on me. I also saw another exercise in which a dog was supposed to identify a threat while ignoring other distractions. There was a narrow walkway across a pond and handlers were standing on it with their legs wide enough a dog could pass through. At the end path was the aggressor. I bet those handlers were nervous but dog after dog ignored them and targeted the threat at the end. Talk about smart weapons huh? Dogs can think. Let them. A lot of trainers create dogs that bite anything that moves. In that instance, dogs will be a hindrance instead of another layer of protection.
Until next time, treat every day as a training day and build that bond with your dog.