What the Dog Knows

by Cat Warren

  It felt wonderful to put Solo back in the car and return to watch dogs find hidden handlers, fake suspects, perched in the warehouse’s massive rafters. The dogs’ deep warning barks rang out along with their handlers’ standard warnings. “Suspect in the building. This is Durham K9. Come out with your hands up. This is your final warning. Come out with your hands up, or I will send the dog.”

  The professional term for sending the dog after someone is “suspect apprehension.” The informal term is “bite work.” Released, the patrol dogs tracked the suspects, found the suspects, and barked harshly. Sometimes the suspect would throw the dog a toy reward, a Kong or tennis ball, and that was the end of the exercise. Other times the suspect would descend from the rafters in a jute bite sleeve, threatening. The dog would launch, mouth gaping, all four feet in the air, slamming into the hard sleeve. The dog would be encouraged to hang on while the suspect struggled, sweat mixing with dust and dog saliva.

  “Praise him up,” Mike counseled a handler, who ran his hand approvingly over the muzzle of his biting dog, calming him down, getting him to hold hard and securely until he was told to let go, or until the decoy could safely shed the sleeve like a slipped skin, giving the dog the final reward for his work: a big chew toy.

  I was fascinated, not horrified, to see so many teeth. It took guts, steady nerves, and perfect timing on the part of all three players: the dog, the handler, the decoy. I stayed well out of the way, high from adrenaline and from inhaling old tobacco dust rich with nicotine.

  “Figured you’d have some nerves and that would rattle Solo a bit,” Nancy Hook said in her later e-mail to me. “It sounds like you did pretty darn good, though, and did well enough to let Mike know Solo is reliable. I know you can learn a lot from those guys.”

  Mike was judicious in his critique. Break it down, he said in an e-mail. Worry about one building block at a time. Don’t try to control everything. Let Solo initiate the game.

  Of course I tried to control everything. I was a border collie in my prior life. Now I had two sources saying the same thing: Let go. I read and reread Mike’s and Nancy’s e-mails. Instead of having one mentor—Nancy—I had two. I had an entirely different set of dogs to watch. I had a big handful of experienced police K9 handlers and some not-so-experienced K9 handlers to observe. Even with the attendant anxiety, the ambivalence, and my obvious outlier status, it was a deep pleasure to begin again. I could spend part of my time hanging back, studying. I was a student once more, known in the working-dog world as a “green” handler. It would be easy being green. Except when I had to work Solo in front of Mike. Or the other handlers. With their arms folded across their chests. Watching.

  While I was at a huge disadvantage, I realized Solo had an advantage here that he didn’t have at the local kennel club. Law enforcement handlers don’t expect their dogs to get along. Most of their dogs have an edge. Every dog was on lead coming and going; each dog worked separately. The warehouse rang with another warning I would become accustomed to: “Dog in!” or “Dog out!”

  For me, that warning was a comfort. A standardization of practice that would benefit me greatly. Working Solo, I wouldn’t have to keep my eyes peeled for a shorthaired pointer to come bounding over off lead. Soon enough, Solo realized the same thing: With cops and Crown Vics around, he started to ignore sharp barks and growls and dog-permeated air. I didn’t have to apologize for his personality. To the police K9 handlers, Solo wasn’t a sociopath. He didn’t even qualify as a jackass.

  Most important of all, Mike’s training philosophy fit Solo’s king-of-everything attitude to a T. “Remember,” Mike wrote in his e-mail, “we are just anchors holding on to their leash.”

  • • •

  I’ve interviewed hundreds of suspects that have been confronted with a police service dog and they simply say the same thing over and over again: that is, “Hey, I was willing to fight the police, but I didn’t want to fight that dog.”

  —Terry Fleck, canine legal expert, 2012

  I had been invited to watch the last three nights of the twelfth week of training three green dogs and three green handlers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After that, the men and dogs would hit the streets. Ready or not. Steve Sprouse, the trainer for Broward County Sheriff’s K9 patrol division, preferred them ready.

  Steve said a version of the same thing, with a hint of melancholy, at the end of each exercise: “Remember, guys, it’ll be different.” Training and actual deployment are separate worlds. He said it to the intense, eager handler who had the equivalent of a furry Mack truck on the end of a leash, to the handler with a dog who needed to develop more spine, and to the handler who seemingly had it all, a balanced dog and a balanced approach to handling.

  Sandy and spare, with a slightly drooping mustache, Steve is simultaneously relaxed and wary, ardent and careful. In his late fifties, he’s been handling dogs and training handlers for decades. He knew the dry admonitions he sent into the mild late-November night air were falling not on deaf but certainly on naive ears.

  Steve and the three green handlers were preparing for the equivalent of a dog-and-pony show: In two days, the teams needed to demonstrate their newly acquired skills before a bunch of superior officers. Steve and the three handlers had discussed how to divvy up the performances. Each dog had his strengths.

  One of the three German shepherds had a beautiful obedience routine. Broward Sheriff Deputy Pete Sepot’s new dog, Diesel, was great at bark-box work. Pete faced the huge dog toward six human-sized boxes scattered on the training range, and Diesel flowed like sable mercury from one plywood box to the next until he smelled the hidden decoy. The flow stopped, and Diesel balled up at one of the boxes, giving fulsome warning barks, both front feet coming off the ground with the force of certainty. He’s here. He’s here. He’s here. Diesel was just beyond adolescence but already a single muscle from head to tail; his bark sounded like that of a much older dog. It’s an important warning: the prelude to more extreme action. The kind of bark that would make many suspects come out with their hands up. That’s why patrol dogs are trained to be noisy when they’ve found a suspect; the bark alert can prevent worse things from happening: Their bite is worse than their bark.

  Lughar, another sable shepherd, and his handler, Dave Lopez, had been tagged to show what smooth apprehension work looked like—and as important—how a handler can call his dog off before the dog takes a bite. It’s a standard training exercise: If the suspect gives up, or if the handler realizes the dog is headed full tilt toward the wrong person, the handler wants the dog to come back. If it’s too late and the dog has already launched at the suspect, at the least, the handler wants to be able to tell the dog “Los!” (“Let go” in Dutch) and have the dog obey him. A dog with real drive has a hard time obeying either of those commands when he’s flying toward a suspect; he’s fighting his own instincts.

  Lughar, though, made everything look easy. He had excelled at turning around and coming back to Dave, then, when he was released once again, going back toward the decoy, getting a solid bite, and coming off the bite on command. He had plenty of drive but was capable of listening. Dave, like Lughar, had everything he needed to succeed—except experience. He was a thoughtful, serious handler.

  The problem tonight was that Dave’s kids had the flu. They’d been up all night with high fevers. Everyone had been sick. Except the dog. But it always takes two—dog and handler—to make it work. Dave’s exhaustion and nerves were running down the leash. “What happened to my perfect Lughar?” Sprouse said mournfully, watching his prize pupil fly down the field, backlit with sodium vapor lights, and dive into the shadows where Pete, playing the role of decoy, stood. It would have been beautiful if Dave hadn’t been yelling harshly, in vain, for Lughar to return to his side and ignore Pete. Instead, Lughar ignored Dave: Pete’s bite suit was too enticing. Lughar leaped, full-mouthed, at Pete’s raised arm. Steve could envision the graduation demonstration, high-ranking officers watching as an open-jawed Lug
har kept charging, Dave yelling futilely behind him.

  • • •

  No police K9 function is more misunderstood and more terrifying than the patrol-dog bite. Police K9 units have put a good distance between the civil rights–era protests when Birmingham Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene “Bull” Connor turned fire hoses and snarling German shepherds on peaceful protesters. Warm and fuzzy now prevails when the comfortably middle class thinks about police canines. The media portrayals of police canines these days are “four-footed community police officers,” said Charlie Mesloh at Florida Gulf Coast University. A former police K9 handler, Charlie is now a criminology professor who researches the use of force, including the use of patrol dogs.

  Although many dog lovers view police K9s as anthropomorphized heroes, catching bad guys, saving their human partners from armed and dangerous suspects, we don’t like to think too much about exactly how dogs do that. They don’t have opposable thumbs. They have speed. And teeth. Like other uses of force, dog bites can do serious damage. If a handler, or an entire unit, is overzealous, departments can be liable. That’s true of any use of force, but a visceral fear arises from the misuse of dogs. Yet the “find and bite” or “bite and hold” patrol dog is the most common patrol dog in the country.

  The dog’s first job is to intimidate so that a suspect surrenders before a dog or any other weapon is deployed. Terry Fleck, a legal specialist in the use of police K9, is clear: He considers them a “use of force elimination tool.”

  If the suspect doesn’t surrender, the dog’s job is to go in, find the person, and bite him. Or, infrequently, her. Unlike guns or even Tasers, police K9s in the United States so rarely kill a suspect that there’s only one example in major case law. Just as a comparison, pet dogs and strays do much more damage: They killed thirty-one people in 2011. Tasers caused about five hundred deaths in the last decade. As Charlie Mesloh noted, whenever a particular use-of-force method becomes popular, the incidents of its misuse rise as well.

  The occasional misuse of patrol dogs creates enormous bad press, though, which in turn can spur lawsuits and overwrought and under-researched recommendations and edicts that spill over and affect the responsible units. The bad cases have multiple consequences. In 2001, following the media exposure of two K9 units, one on either side of the country, with out-of-control K9 officers, the U.S. Department of Justice decided that it would be better to shift paradigms and recommend that K9 units use a system called “bark and hold” rather than “bite and hold.” In other words, the patrol dogs were supposed to simply circle the suspect, or to stand and bark at the suspect until that person tried to use force against the dog or the officer. At that point, the dog was allowed to bite. The DOJ didn’t have much evidence on bark-and-hold effectiveness before recommending the change. And thousands of K9 units across the country already trained bite and hold.

  Charlie Mesloh decided to look at the issue. After all, the DOJ was recommending a huge change with little research, and three quarters of Florida units used bite and hold.

  The concept of bark and hold sounds great. No teeth. The dog scares the suspect and holds him without harm until the officer claps on handcuffs and leads the chagrined suspect away. It’s the best of all worlds. The only problem? Charlie Mesloh found, when he did a careful study in Florida, that bark and hold was “a good marketing tool”—and little else. The dogs trained in bark and hold actually bit suspects more often than dogs trained in bite and hold. The method inevitably gives the suspect more time to use a weapon on either the handler or the dog. There’s no national tracking system for patrol dogs injured or killed by suspects, but the numbers are substantial.

  There are lots of good reasons to use dogs for criminal apprehension. If the dog is well trained, the handler can control him in ways he can’t control any other weapon. An officer can’t recall a bullet once it’s left the gun chamber. Once an officer has pushed the trigger on a Taser, he can’t change his mind. A dog is different—in principle, at least. That’s because good patrol dogs don’t arrive with on and off switches already installed. Training a dog to the point where he looks like a well-oiled machine is a beautiful thing, but being able to stop an enthusiastic and driven dog from taking a bite takes skilled training and handling. Lughar’s selective deafness wasn’t ideal; however, it was understandable and fixable.

  • • •

  As Steve Sprouse and I drove to the next training area, the aging patrol car’s big engine shaking the floorboards, we talked. Not about why law enforcement uses dogs in this manner. In this country, that decision was made decades ago. Ideally, patrol dogs are used to stop dangerous suspects, and Steve wants them to do a good job of it. The dog should give one solid, full-mouthed bite with no hesitation, no coming off the suspect, or giving the suspect a chance to use a gun or weapon on the dog or officer or bystanders. No more and no less, although that, too, depends on what’s happening in a chaotic environment. A dog with a good bite can do less damage than a dog chittering up and down someone’s arm, biting and rebiting like a psychotic typewriter. Or nipping, or not biting at all, both of which create more problems. Any patrol dog who hesitates before going in on a decoy during training needs work.

  Steve was a green handler himself back in 1989. He had a green dog, a handsome, bold German shepherd named Rick. Rick was a Schutzhund champion. The sport of Schutzhund, like advanced obedience in a show ring, is an elaborate and difficult performance that includes bite work.

  The call came in one night around eight P.M.: Someone had robbed a convenience store at gunpoint in a strip mall. Steve responded, and soon he and Rick were pounding after the suspect.

  Rick went in on the suspect and bit him but didn’t hold on. He simply wasn’t used to street conditions. Rick had been in Schutzhund competitions where everything was the same: a regulation field, a regulation target, and a regulation bite. This situation was the opposite of regulation. Rick was used to a guy wearing a bite sleeve. The suspect wasn’t moving like a Schutzhund decoy, arm pitched at a perfect angle, with a bite sleeve. Rick wasn’t stupid; there was nothing to bite. The armed suspect, higher than a kite on drugs, easily got away from Rick’s uncertain mouth. Rick figured he’d done enough biting for the night. Steve had to stop the suspect, since Rick wouldn’t. By the time backup arrived—and it wasn’t long—the officer could see the guy was swinging a gun toward Steve. The backup officer shot the suspect six times before he dropped. In the chaos of struggle, the officer shot Steve as well. The nine-millimeter slug shattered Steve’s humerus, severed his radial nerve, destroyed his outer tricep. Steve’s arm was hanging by a thread of tissue.

  That was when Rick decided it was okay to come back in and “reengage.”

  “I could see the dog had the guy by the upper leg. That was good,” said Steve in his measured way. “We got success. It was painful success, but we got it.”

  The suspect lived and Steve lived. But as Steve was lying in his hospital bed, arm sewed back on, he stewed. The backup officer had done what he had to. If Rick had done his job properly, Steve—and possibly the suspect—might not have been shot in the first place.

  It would be a year and a half before Steve could go back on patrol. Rick wasn’t kicked out of the police K9 business. It wasn’t his fault. Instead, Steve, his arm in a cast, retrained Rick. He set up scenarios that mimicked real life, not the Schutzhund ring. He weaned Rick off equipment, so the dog didn’t think a bite sleeve needed to be there for him to bite. It’s not just Schutzhund-trained dogs who do this; police K9s can all too easily become sleeve-dependent. As one K9 trainer noted of bite sleeves, they should come with a warning label: “Use sparingly for best results.”

  Steve’s cast had a bone-growth stimulator that gave his reconstructed arm regular electromagnetic shocks, a kind of human e-collar reminding Steve of his primary job: Train the dog, train the dog.

  Man and dog went back to work in 1990. The first night back on patrol, Steve got a call: a suspect attacking an o
fficer. Steve responded and sent in Rick. Rick bit the suspect. Rick held the suspect. He did his job. And he kept doing his job for a good number of years, until he retired.

  Thanks to Rick’s initial failure, Steve Sprouse is now a bite specialist, considered among the top aggression trainers in the Southeast and perhaps the country. More important than all the national awards he’s garnered, Steve has used his patrol dogs in hundreds of apprehensions without getting shot and without having to use a bone-growth stimulator again.

  Steve passes on his hard-earned dog knowledge. He trains his fellow Broward County officers and nearby police units. He also travels across the United States and the world, teaching patrol-dog scenario work, tracking, bite work, and the critical importance of obedience work.

  • • •

  As Steve Sprouse and I arrived at our final training spot for the night, the automated cyclone fence gate squeaked and whirred. We were at the deserted water treatment plant in Oakland Park, Florida, with its huge stucco buildings and massive wastewater treatment basins. A street light cast bluish light on a strangler fig that embraced one of the fat water treatment basins, inserting hundreds of loopy roots in every crevice. It looked like a vegetative squid, the same species of ficus that pulled apart the stone temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

  Instead of Buddhist ruins, we were standing in the shadows of a 1940s-era wastewater treatment plant. Feral cats and raccoons slipped through the shadows. Ferns spilled out of the open ends of cast-iron pipes that once sent treated water back into circulation in Fort Lauderdale. On the tops of the treatment ponds, where paddles once stirred the city’s sludge, dirt had settled, creating Jolly Green Giant–sized planters. Forty feet up, it was a jungle. “It’s very cool up there,” Steve said. In front of us was a huge building, open doors gaping, old equipment everywhere. To our side were a couple of acres of landfill equipment: bulldozers and concrete blocks and massive garbage cans—and more shadows.