K-9 Units Show off their Skills at Rowan

By Jonathan J Taylor

On October 17th, local K-9 unit trainers and handlers held a demonstration at the
Cumberland branch of Rowan College of South Jersey. The demonstration covered the typical
skills a trainer and his dog are expected to have, as well as showed off the kinds of feats that
such well trained animals could achieve.

The demonstration was held to supplement the college’s Alcohol Awareness Week, with
the dog’s focus on sniffing out illegal substances being topical to the focus of the event. The
event was attended by students from both the college’s criminal justice and journalism classes,
as well as the professors of each respective class. The first part of the event included the
audience being introduced to a rather young dog that was still being trained. The dog, named
Grizzly, is a 6-month-old German Shepherd with a black, tan, and rust-colored coat of fluffy fur.
He was very friendly and excitable, wandering over toward the students to smell them and get
petted, before retreating back to his handlers. Despite the typical policy for K-9 units being that
the public should avoid petting or otherwise touching them, those watching were allowed to in
Grizzly’s case.

Later, another dog was introduced that had seen much more thorough training. This dog,
named Ghost, is a four-year-old Belgian Malinois with a brown and black coat and an overall
slimmer and more sleek appearance. Unlike Grizzly, the audience was not allowed to pet Ghost.
The officers made a specific note of the fact that Ghost sees much less action nowadays, as he
was trained to detect marijuana, which has since been legalized in New Jersey. As a result,
employing his abilities for detecting illegal substances could be misleading as there could be
false positives from him pointing out the wrong material.

After introducing the dogs, a few demonstrations of the dogs’ skill were next. For one of
them, four cones were laid out in a row, with one having trace amounts of cocaine hidden
beneath it. In this case, it was Grizzly up to bat. Upon being released, he made a beeline for the
third cone, circling it and sniffing around the base, before shifting it slightly and trying to overturn
it. For another demonstration, an officer slid a large, padded sleeve over his arm, while Ghost
got into position and was restrained by his handler. Then he was released, and launched
himself at the officer’s protected arm, pulling hard and aggressively yanking it back and forth. It
is important to note that the dog was trained to see this form of practice as a kind of playful
experience, and not to see the trainer as an actual hostile. This could be made apparent in the
fact that Ghost’s tail could be seen happily wagging as he pulled on the sleeve.

The trainers also explained the process by which they select and acquire the proper
dogs needed to be K-9 units. Dogs with a particularly strong “prey drive” are said to be ideal.
This means that dogs that are especially excited to chase squirrels, play with toys, or are
otherwise committed to pursuing or tracking a target are best for the program. However, not just
any dog will do. They mentioned that their dogs are often selected from overseas, with Grizzly
hailing straight from Germany, and Ghost from the Netherlands. The best animals can often be
especially expensive as well, with some in the program having cost more than $12,000.

The training required to become a police dog trainer or handler varies but tends to land
somewhere between 13 and 22 weeks. One of the officers did make it clear, however, that they
are still always learning more about the job as they go along. It was also emphasized that the
police force is in need of more trainers, in particular female and bilingual recruits. Trainers are
also paid quite well, with a more experienced officer stating that he himself makes more than
$100,000 annually.