Vacaville PD: K9 Ground & Pound

dravnx

Well-known member
Very typical. A trained, experienced professional gives their opinion and all the keyboards warriors express their outrage over the incident.
 
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Eldritch

is insensitive
I don't like the idea of punching animals either. But lots of folks here are calling this assault on an officer.

If I were an officer and my partner was physically abusing a suspect and unresponsive to verbal commands, I'd assault an officer too.

What does this have to do with anything? It was a training exercise. No perps were involved.

Attacking a Police Dog is assault on an Officer, if the training is inappropriate, than that may make sense as a charge, although I doubt any D.A. would press.

:dunno


Very typical. A trained, experienced professional gives there opinion and all the keyboards warriors express their outrage over the incident.

I am not a dog trainer and therefore am unable to form an opinion without further research.
 

budman

General Menace
Staff member
Of course a cop would say that,that’s a shitty excuse for beating a dog ,he should be fired ,he’s proabbly a wife beater as well,

He said what his experience in dog training and why safety protocols are needed?? He was not defending the dude. What the hell are you reading??


I don't like the idea of punching animals either. But lots of folks here are calling this assault on an officer.

A lot... as in one??... and I think he was saying what the officer was doing was assaulting the Dog officer.. not sure, but I had to scan up and down the thread to find a lot. I failed. :laughing


Very typical. A trained, experienced professional gives their opinion and all the keyboards warriors express their outrage over the incident.

Bojangle responds to a request and he gets shit. :facepalm
Some folks just want to give the police shit at any opportunity even if they are a fellow rider / barfer.
 
What the human did to that canine is just wrong.
That's not training. It's a beating.

If a civilian was seen doing that to a dog, by an officer of the law, they would probably be charged with animal abuse.

AND, in todays news update of OP link...
12/30 Update: The K9 that was punched by a Vacaville police officer during training has been placed in the care of a third-party handler, officials confirm.

On Wednesday, the Vacaville Police Department said the dog and the officer have been separated.

Officials said the dog was examined by a veterinarian and did not show any signs of distress or injury. The department plans to consult a third-party trainer as they investigate the incident.
 
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afm199

Well-known member
What the human did to that canine is just wrong.
That's not training. It's a beating.

If a civilian was seen doing that to a dog, by an officer of the law, they would probably be charged with animal abuse.

AND, in todays news update of OP link...

Some good news. I'd be even more upset if the dog stayed with that asshole, whose reputation is now totally shot, no matter what happens.

I expect, in a few weeks, as usual, after the Department has defended this asshole, he will end up either being went to patrol the mall or get a stinging letter of reprimand. Or just get fired. Some people shouldn't be cops.
 
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budman

General Menace
Staff member
Agreed John. However the video does not really indicate a beating in my eyes, that would be a constant flury of blows, but still shitty. His actions do not appear to be worthy of being a trainer.

Dogs are amazing creatures and it is a shame to see that. I would expect that he will lose his position as a trainer.
 

CABilly

Splitter
Agreed John. However the video does not really indicate a beating in my eyes, that would be a constant flury of blows, but still shitty. His actions do not appear to be worthy of being a trainer.

Dogs are amazing creatures and it is a shame to see that. I would expect that he will lose his position as a trainer.

The guy filming says he saw what you describe (and describes it the same way) before he started recording.

I’m surprised a dog would even get that far in its training if it had a propensity for biting its handler. I guess I always thought when they talk about how expensive and extensive their training was they were basically finished dogs by the time they get to their handler. In the bird dog world professional trainers will wash out lower performing dogs to the pet and weekend warrior client base and only the very best go on to top tier clients.
 

TylerW

Agitator
What does this have to do with anything? It was a training exercise. No perps were involved.

Attacking a Police Dog is assault on an Officer, if the training is inappropriate, than that may make sense as a charge, although I doubt any D.A. would press.

It was a logical conclusion to tzrider's post and bojangle's post that followed immediately after - that in general you want to train dogs using positive reinforcement, but in life or death training exercises sometimes negative reinforcement is required.

Couple that with bojangle's interpretation of the training exercise, where the dog was attacking and would not stop the attack when commanded to - that can easily result in a life or death scenario.

Pile on everyone saying "this is an assault on an officer" and my extrapolation of an officer using excessive force and not stopping when commanded to, bingo: punched officer.

Anyhow I don't really like advocating for punching dogs but I think bogangle and tzrider made excellent points about it while not tacitly endorsing it. Meanwhile I'm fully down for assaulting officers when an officer is about to kill someone.
 
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afm199

Well-known member
It was a logical conclusion to tzrider's post and bojangle's post that followed immediately after - that in general you want to train dogs using positive reinforcement, but in life or death training exercises sometimes negative reinforcement is required.

Couple that with bojangle's interpretation of the training exercise, where the dog was attacking and would not stop the attack when commanded to - that can easily result in a life or death scenario.

Pile on everyone saying "this is an assault on an officer" and my extrapolation of an officer using excessive force and not stopping when commanded to, bingo: punched officer.

Anyhow I don't really like advocating for punching dogs but I think bogangle and tzrider made excellent points about it while not tacitly endorsing it. Meanwhile I'm fully down for assaulting officers when an officer is about to kill someone.

I might punch a dog if it was attacking a human, but it is a worthless process. That's not how you stop an attack, nor how you train a dog. A negative physical enforcement might be a tap or slap on the nose. That's it. Period. What that asshole did was animal cruelty, stupid, and pointless. ANY continued punishment is pointless with dogs. They don't reason. One slap while they are breaking the rules works.

Hitting them after the incident is so fucking stupid that it's epic. Dogs don't reason. That poor fucking dog had NO idea what the beating was about. None.

That poor fucking cop is giant asshole and should not be in the PD, sadly it appears that there are more than one or two cops around like that.
 

KooLaid

Hippocritapotamus
I don't thinkg it can be "assault on an officer" if the dog was still in training. It would be like calling someone taking POST training at the community college a cop.
 

tzrider

Write Only User
Staff member
Tyler, I should also be clear that aversive techniques are paired as a direct, immediate consequence of a wrong action. As an example, a bomb detection dog may set off a flash-bang or something similarly scary. Rattlesnake avoidance training has often used shock collars to associate snakes and their odor with pain. This has more recently been replaced in some locations with positive reinforcement based techniques because there can be unintended, undesirable fallout from the aversive techniques.

At best, what we see in the video is the handler trying to assert some sort of dominance over the dog. As Ernie says, the dog has no idea why he’s being hit.

Dominance and “pack theory” have a lot of things wrong with them and this handlers behavior looks like a sorry relic of this kind of thinking.
 

bojangle

FN # 40
Staff member
Nobody is arguing that the dog was acting properly. Not one person. It was poorly trained, obviously.

Beating a dog around the head is not proper training. And I have fifty bucks that says you never did it.

No, I never did. I also didn't specifically endorse what the officer did, either.

The guy filming says he saw what you describe (and describes it the same way) before he started recording.

I’m surprised a dog would even get that far in its training if it had a propensity for biting its handler. I guess I always thought when they talk about how expensive and extensive their training was they were basically finished dogs by the time they get to their handler. In the bird dog world professional trainers will wash out lower performing dogs to the pet and weekend warrior client base and only the very best go on to top tier clients.

The Belgian malanois I had was already trained before I got him. I just had to train with him as a handler. We had to get used to, and trust each other. But many K9s are selected by trainers and then get paired with a handler from the beginning. The handler works with the dog to do all of the initial training, at the direction of a trainer.

You really need to use both positive and negative reinforcement to train a police dog. They need the right drive. They need to be ball driven. It's mostly reward/positive reinforcement based. But negative reinforcement has it's place. That what shock collars and dog whips are all about. Sometimes it takes negative reinforcement to correct bad behavior, and it's an ongoing process. Mals are spastic. They will constantly push the limits on obedience. They work for the reward, which was a tug o war with a toy. But they need to give that up on command. And when an issue like that arises, it takes negative reinforcement to correct.

In certification training for apprehension/protection work, the handler needs to be able to make the dog search on command, bite on command, and release a bite on command. That last one is harder because it requires the dog to break his drive. If the dog won't release a bite, the handler has to be able to go in and make the dog release and pull it off the person.
 
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afm199

Well-known member
No, I never did. I also didn't specifically endorse what the officer did, either.


.

That's about as mealy mouthed as it gets! :laughing Look, I appreciate your position, but when you post "understanding" comments about bad cops, it's not a good thing. Not at all.
 
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