muzzle training for police patrol canines

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Muzzle Training for Police Patrol Canines

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A real street bite is the one thing that as police dog trainers, we cannot actually set up and practice as it would happen on the street. Because of this,

we have numerous techniques that we use to simulate a real street bite. One is the muzzle attack.

Numerous brands and types of protection muzzles are available. Be sure you have an actual agitation muzzle and not just an everyday-wear muzzle. Most agitation muzzles have a reinforced steel bar framing the leading edge of the muzzle to keep the leather from collapsing on the dog’s mouth when he makes contact. The typical agitation muzzle you see is a “Dondi” style three-strap muzzle, which buckles behind the ears (this is the part that secures the muzzle), and one strap that goes over the head, between the ears, and secures to the head strap. There are also “Belgian Ring” style muzzles

of similar design, but these often come with bite-bars covered with leather and affixed to the inside of the muzzle for the dog to grip during a muzzle fight. Some muzzles have only the two straps that fasten behind the head, and not the overhead strap. These muzzles are safe to use if properly secured. The overhead strap is not the key part of the muzzle’s safe operation.

Make sure you choose a muzzle that fits comfortably. The dog should be able to breathe and pant normally and even bark and clack his jaws inside the muzzle. Manufacturers make many sizes. You should try a few different ones and choose one that secures nicely and is comfortable for the dog. An experienced trainer can help you select the right size. If it is too big, the dog may be able to work it off with his front paws. Too small, and it will not be comfortable and will restrict his breathing and panting (the dog’s cooling mechanism), and it can injure the dog when he makes contact with the subject.

Article by Jerry Bradshaw

SIMULATE A REAL STREET BITE BY USING MUZZLE ATTACK

Muzzle Training for Police

Patrol Canines

January/February 2017 | 37

Once the muzzle is secure, perform a safety check. The handler should grab the muzzle underneath and gently but firmly lift the dog straight up by it. The muzzle should stay securely fastened. Next, to ensure that a determined dog cannot take the muzzle off, grasp the muzzle top and bottom in both hands and try to “roll” the muzzle down off the dog’s snout to mimic the pawing action the dog can make. Do this gently but firmly, and don’t wrench the dog’s neck. Some people allow the decoy doing the actual muzzle attack to make a secondary safety check (since it is his ass on the line with no equipment on). I don’t like doing this because it ruins the realism of the encounter to some degree. I do like having a second person (most preferably the training instructor presiding) do a safety check as long as the dog is social enough. If not, at least have a third party observe the handler’s safety check. I also encourage some backup by having a decoy with a sleeve hidden in close proximity just in case the muzzle comes off.

Photos by Dawn Rabinowitzcaninesonduty.com


Of course, before doing any muzzle fighting, the dog should be conditioned to be calm and accepting of the muzzle. This part of the training should not be rushed, but unfortunately, it usually is. Most police agencies use the muzzle when going to the veterinarian, so the dog may already have a poor association with a muzzle. Put food in the bottom of the muzzle a number of times a day, and allow the dog to dip his nose down into the muzzle and pull out the food. As he gets accepting of the confinement, strap him up for a few seconds, letting him eat the food like he has on a feedbag, and then reward him after you take it off. Strap him in the muzzle and do short, fast-paced obedience exercises, ending with removing the muzzle and rewarding the dog. Even better than taking the muzzle off to reward is to buy a cheap leather muzzle, or wire basket muzzle, and cut a hole in the front of it, to reward with food while the muzzle is on the dog. If the dog tries to get the muzzle off by pawing at it, try to redirect his behavior into some heeling or a recall, or provide more frequent food rewards into the front of the muzzle. Do something active, rather than correcting him for pawing the muzzle. Punishment will serve only to create a negative association with the muzzle at this point.

You can also muzzle him and let him watch some decoy work on another dog, and when he is barking in the muzzle, give lots of praise and then pull it off for a while and let the barking continue. Don’t remove it and give a bite. I will address why in a later paragraph. Take your time with this desensitization part, and make it a positive experience. If you watch a Belgian Ring dog or PH1 KNPV dog do muzzle work, you will see the dogs generally enjoy the muzzle and willingly stick their heads into it for you to strap them up, because they are taught to expect some fun when the muzzle comes off. From when they are pups, they are

taught to eat out of the muzzle and wear it for fun activities. Take your time so you will not have a career of fighting your dog over the muzzle. Further, if the dog never learns to accept the muzzle, he will never put his all into the muzzle work, but rather be preoccupied with always trying to get the encumbrance off.

Another trick is to put the muzzle on and give the dog a soccer ball or jolly ball to play with. He will push it and roll it around, and his prey drive will become associated with being in the muzzle. If the dog excessively paws at the muzzle after you have made a good effort at desensitization, put an Elizabethan collar (cone) on the dog before placing the muzzle on him. Then let him watch some bite work and feed him through the front of the muzzle while in a sit stay. The cone will make it impossible to paw at the muzzle successfully and help extinguish the behavior.

Many times, I have witnessed muzzle training where the dogs are sent off leash, and the dog slams into the decoy, and decoy rolls around on the ground with the dog migrating around the decoy—to the groin, head, and neck areas. I do not allow any dogs to be sent completely off leash for muzzle work simply because it is too dangerous not to have a way to control the dog positively if the muzzle comes off. At least three or four videos are going around on Facebook in which a dog in muzzle is sent, and the dog makes contact with the face, head, or neck area of the decoy, or the muzzle comes off, and the dog is off leash and unable to be brought under control quickly before the decoy is hurt. The dog will return to areas where the muzzle punch gets the biggest reaction from the decoy, and that is normally in vital areas if the dog is allowed to go


anywhere. Positive control allows you to make sure the dog in muzzle contacts proper target areas. Targeting police dogs to bite, rather than letting them bite anywhere they can get, is becoming a less controversial subject, because eventually the “bite anywhere” philosophy is going to be used against us to deem police dogs deadly force. Whether when actually biting hidden equipment or in muzzle, they should be allowed to contact only non-vital areas. By doing this and documenting it, you cover your own liability as a handler making use-of-force decisions by having conscientiously trained your dog to bite or contact only non-vital areas. That way, if your dog does bite someone in a vital area, it is explainable as an accident or an isolated situation resulting from the manner in which the subject fought the dog.

I recommend sending the dog on a long line (on slick floors at first, so the dog slowly makes the entry, and the handler can control the targeting better), so the handler can work the line. If there is no line, and if the dog breaks off the attack because he is unsatisfied or he is pawing at the muzzle, there is no way for the handler to control the session. The handler may end up chasing his dog as he moves away upon approach. Intensity can go from 60 to zero quickly. In such a case, if the dog leaves the engagement, there is nothing to do but have the decoy attempt to attract the dog back into the fight with more agitation. If the dog is on a line and starts to lose interest, the handler can pull the dog back, and the decoy flees out a door, and the dog loses his prey. Then diagnose the problem: lack of muzzle neutrality, lack of well-developed civil aggression, equipment fixation, or just too much reliance on agitation.

The problem with using agitation to keep bringing the dog’s interest back to the decoy and off the frustration of the equipment is that we want the dog to bring the energy to the fight, not vice versa. In fact, as with all our work, we want the dog to bring enough energy to the fight that we can do a passive muzzle attack and expect the dog to remain engaged until the handler removes the dog. Too many decoys, even in non-muzzle work, start the session with agitation to attract the dog, rather than making the dog alert and load first to make the decoy move or load enough to send the dog on a passive bite. If your dog needs agitation to start his bite session, you need to retrain that before doing any muzzle work. Muzzle work is proofing work for civil aggression and passive biting. For these reasons, we must use skilled decoys, keep the dog on line during this training, and work with dogs that have had proper foundation in their aggression training.


One of the big problems with muzzle fighting is that it requires excellent decoy work to make it worthwhile to the dog. In most instances when I watch muzzle work, the dog will engage briefly, is usually unsatisfied with simply punching the decoy (the dog knows he is restricted by the muzzle because normally he would bite), and breaks off the attack to return to the handler or try to paw the muzzle off. This is especially

true if the decoy is unskilled in doing a muzzle attack. The worst thing a decoy can do, given that the dog is restricted by the muzzle, is not to react to the dog’s aggression. The decoy must act realistically and both submit to the dog’s aggression and use opposition reflex to keep the dog engaged for short bursts of fighting. But most decoys are at a loss as to exactly what to do during the engagement, so they roll away from the dog and curl up in a ball, and many dogs just lose interest.

One lesson I teach at my decoy seminars is to have the decoy use the dog’s natural opposition reflex to keep the dog engaged. Often during a muzzle fight, the decoy gets hit on initial contact and falls to the ground, and then the dog will come in on him again on the

ground. When the dog comes in to tag the decoy, the decoy must both give ground when punched with the muzzle and also push the dog away and then let the dog come in with another punch. The “fight” then involves a flow of energy from the dog to the decoy, and then back at the dog in a pushing motion. In this, the decoy opposes the dog to make the dog drive in, and then the decoy pushes the dog away in a constant, flowing, but not sharp, motion. This act of pushing the dog results in keeping constant tension in the forward press of the dog, and it acts like a tight back line in bite work training and causes the dog to want to continue forward in the fight. This is the nature of opposition reflex. Pushing the dog away makes him want to come forward. All the while, the decoy is moving in response to the dog’s attack, staying vocal, and keeping tension on the dog’s chest and lower neck (the area that is to be pushed).

The decoy can also manipulate (pinch) the dog’s skin as he pushes against the dog to create some discomfort to peak the dog’s aggression. These engagements should take place for a matter of five to at most 15 seconds at a time, and then the handler should pull the dog back by the line and collar when the dog is aggressively pressing forward. The handler keeps a loose line during the fight and snatches the dog out only when he is most aggressive or if the dog migrates from a trained target area to a vital area. This should be done on a variable interval (length of encounter) basis to increase the dog’s focus. Just as variable rewards in detection or obedience make the dog’s focus on obtaining the

reward stronger, the same applies in muzzle work.

A good decoy can use this technique to keep the dog engaged. The handler can snatch the dog out of the fight when he is at his peak of aggression to further frustrate the dog, and then let the decoy escape for a short distance or reattack defensively. The handler will then have the dog chase the decoy for a short stretch (holding him back a little to make the dog dig hard against the back pressure) and release into another attack. The training should be rapid and intense sequences of ground fighting and then frustration that can then be lengthened into longer, more intense sessions of engagement. The handler must position himself to manipulate the line to keep the dog engaged in proper target areas. Using this technique will help you develop a more focused and intense muzzle attack. I cannot overemphasize that the handler should keep the dog from floating to the face of the decoy during each encounter by handling the line properly. This is one more reason good, solid targeting work needs to be taught on the suit and hidden sleeve. Don’t allow your dog to learn something you don’t want him to learn.

At the end of the muzzle session, the decoy should escape as the handler holds the dog back. Too many times I see muzzle sessions end when the dog gets frustrated and aggression is low. Our goal is to keep the aggression short and intense and in a systematic manner successively approximate longer and longer encounters. Once the dog is pulled from the encounter by the line, the decoy can escape


behind a door. The dog loses the decoy, leaving him in a high state of frustration. Do not take the muzzle off and give a bite. While for most this is standard procedure, it teaches the dog to “endure” the muzzle because the real fun comes at the end. We want the dog to inherently enjoy the civil fight of the muzzle encounter in itself. It also leads to dogs wanting to get the muzzle off

to get to the part of the fight they will be satisfied by, the grip.

Mixing this technique with pure civil aggression sessions with no equipment and no muzzle as well as doing passive bites on hidden equipment (hidden sleeves, hidden leg sleeves, and hidden suits), which then result in satisfying fights, will go a long way to getting your dog street ready. Targeting training in itself

will make your dog much more street ready, as the dog will have the habit of going to a few, clear target areas where he no longer has to think about it or get choice paralysis of where to grip as he encounters the suspect on a real deployment or in training. Good muzzle work as described here, along with all these techniques, will make your dog a street-ready biter.

Jerry Bradshaw is the Canine Training Director of Tarheel Canine Training, Inc. in Sanford, NC. Tarheel Canine’s School for Dog Trainers holds police K-9 instructor courses for police K-9 trainers as well as civilians. Tarheel Canine trains dogs for police departments worldwide. Email: [email protected]

muzzle training for police patrol canines

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