Deputy Todd Henry and "Sammy"

This column will be a continuously updated report on the training of the K9 Details newest member, Sammy. Sammy was purchased by the Sheriff’s Department on May 18th, of 2005. He is a 15-month-old Belgian Malinois that was born in Holland. Sammy was selected from a litter when he was only six weeks old, by a professional dog trainer named Tony. Sammy drove around Holland for four weeks, because he could not fly until he was ten weeks old. Sammy was then raised by Tony as his personal dog, until he was sold to the Sheriff’s Department. Several different law enforcement agencies showed a lot of interest in buying Sammy. But in the end he came to Sacramento.

When a dog is young and inexperienced it is always important to make training fun. The most important role a K9 has is their ability to search. This is one of the first behaviors that we begin to teach the new dogs. Dogs have a natural “prey” drive, or desire to chase things. Anyone who has a dog at home knows that if you go out in the back yard and throw a ball they will chase it. Some dogs will chase or search for the ball harder and longer than others. That desire to find the ball is in a nutshell “prey” drive or “search” drive. The dogs we select have an extremely intense search drive. They will run through a brick wall to get to their ball.

It is this drive, which we harnesses to help teach them to search for a bad guy. We get the dog very excited, by having a decoy display all kinds of crazy noises and movements similar to a dog’s prey. Then the decoy runs around a corner. We leave the dog on a lead and let him take off after the decoy. The dog only looses sight of the decoy for a second, and when he rounds the corner there is the decoy again. When the dog finds the decoy he is encouraged to bark at him. The decoy then will reward the dog by throwing a ball and the handler praises him like he was the greatest dog ever.

I’m sure you’re thinking that this does not seem like a very difficult search. Well it is not and that is plan. But the dog learned a lot during this short exercise. He learned to bark at the decoy when he finds him and he will remember the smell of the decoy. If we did it right the dog had a lot of fun and is excited to do it again. This is the first step in search work.

We take that basic exercise and repeat it hundreds of times. Each time the dog gets stronger at it. From that we expand on the exercise by adding distance, terrain, decoys, and locations. Eventually we train a dog that can search for a bad guy for hours on end.

Sammy is in the early stages of this training now. However, he has shown some amazing progress and continually impresses us with his ability to learn. Not only has Sammy begun to learn search work, but at home he has learned to let himself in the house. The other day I was home working on the computer while Sammy was playing in the backyard. While I went about my business I suddenly looked over and saw Sammy crawling into the office. He had learned how to slide our screen door open by watching us do it. Guess I will have to lock it from now on. Sammy’s other pastime at home is swimming. Everyday that I let him out to play he will jump into the pool and just swim around. When I say he jumps in, I mean he really jumps in. He loves the water and he loves jumping. Malinois are extremely agile. Sammy will jump on or over anything in his path.

Sammy has quickly become a member of our family. He is extremely loving and likes more than anything to be in the company of people. Well he may like searching a little more. He eagerly waits for the day that he earns the #K95 Badge.