The troubled past of Yukon, the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office's recently retired police dog, has a state lawmaker considering the need for state standards governing the training and use of police dogs.
Sen. Jeri Costa, D-Marysville, said she might push for a task force of police, lawmakers and dog trainers to look at how to ensure police dogs are trained and used appropriately.
That could include putting police dog training under the state's police academy, known as the Criminal Justice Training Center, said Costa, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees law enforcement matters.
"We have some state standards for law enforcement," Costa said. "It would seem to make sense to me that the use of dogs as police officers would also be handled through the Criminal Justice Training Center."
It's a step that would have the backing of retired Sgt. Tom Miller, the master dog trainer for the Seattle Police Department's canine unit in the 1980s.
"We have a state academy for training police men, why not have the same thing for training dogs?" asked the south Everett man.
Washington is a state with virtually no standards or laws governing police dog training and use. It only requires that dog handlers undergo a certain number of hours of training.
It is high time for people who love working with the dogs to show the discipline to change that, Miller said.
Miller made his observations after reviewing the paper trail for Yukon, who recently cost local taxpayers $412,500 to settle a lawsuit brought by Mincio Donciev, a burglary suspect whose left foot was seriously mauled during an arrest.
Tom Miller, a retired Seattle Police Department dog trainer, plays with his two Labrador retrievers at his Everett home.
Miller, a 30-year police veteran, spent a decade handling and training police dogs for use on Seattle's streets. His blue eyes sparkle when he recalls the hours he spent tracking suspects beside the loyal canine partners who loved police work as much as he did.
Miller said he believes Yukon, his handler and other deputies acted appropriately the night of Donciev's arrest. But the case also highlights correctable weaknesses statewide in training, dog selection and standards, he said.
To prevent a replay of the situation, the state needs to adopt into law standards for police dogs and establish a system of unflinching excellence before they are put on the street, Miller said.
The retired police dog handler's recommendations are based on his own experience, including three months in 1982 he spent training with German customs officials at their police dog academy.
Police dog standards now are largely overseen by the Washington State Police Canine Association, a volunteer group of police officers who attempt to test and certify dogs and handlers. But many police departments, the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office included, don't seek the group's certification.
Training methods also are inconsistent between departments, and many of the dogs on the street, like Yukon, are chosen for police service after being rejected as pets because they were too big and aggressive for their owners, Miller said.
Contrast that to Germany, where police dogs are the pick of the litter. They are specially matched to their prospective handler, and the pair goes through the academy as a team, Miller said.
German training, like that in the United States, focuses on harnessing the dogs' greatest attributes for police work: the ability to track and detect suspects and to intimidate them psychologically.
Miller said dogs that are graduates of the German academy system are so well trained that they will, without being ordered, break off an attempt to bite or restrain a suspect the moment the quarry freezes.
Gibson's dog, Stryker, attacks the quarry's padded arm during a training session.
The German academy has strict standards, and many dogs and handlers fail to make the grade. They don't work the street, Miller said. The same is true for handlers who are unable to certify their dogs in annual tests.
"What we do here is we try to make up for their deficiencies," Miller said.
Former Los Angeles County sheriff's dog trainer Van Bogardus also is a fan of the German system.
"We don't approach our police dog work in the same way the Germans and the Europeans do," he said. "They regard this as high science."
Some of Yukon's history doesn't impress dog training experts.
Miller said he would never have sold off a dog he'd rejected for his department's dog squad, nor would he have knowingly purchased one washed out by another agency.
Bogardus said that selling a defective dog is "a real irresponsible thing to do," and happens more often than people realize. Some departments have begun purchasing dogs directly from Europe, often for thousands of dollars, but many of those animals have been culled from training programs there, he said.
Miller said there is no training benefit from choking or hanging a dog to unconsciousness, something that records show happened to Yukon while in the hands of Tacoma police.
Pain, including sometimes a jolt from a shock collar, might be necessary to teach some dogs to drop bad habits, but all choking does is cause the dog's world to go black, he said.
"He doesn't' know why," Miller said. "The dog doesn't learn anything by it."
Bogardus said any police department that thinks hanging a dog is acceptable should "take a picture of that and show it to people. They won't want to."
"That's terrible, actually," he said. "A handler and a trainer that would allow that, these people shouldn't be in that kind of business. They are incompetent. That's animal abuse right there."
The practice can be dangerous to the dogs. Police in Essex in the United Kingdom were jailed in 1998 after they were convicted of animal cruelty for hanging and kicking their police dogs. One of the animals died.
But Rep. Al O'Brien, D-Mountlake Terrace, a veteran of the Seattle police force, is leery of having the state get embroiled in regulating police dog training, or running an academy.
"The state gets in it, we might just screw it up" and provide a forum to people opposed to the use of police dogs, said O'Brien, co-chair of the House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee.
While he was disturbed by Yukon's treatment in Tacoma, O'Brien said it would take more than an isolated case to persuade him there was a problem that warranted state intervention.
Sheriff Rick Bart said he supports the creation of state standards to govern police dog operations.
The Snohomish County Sheriff's Office does not engage in hanging dogs or other forms of mistreatment, Sgt. Tony Aston said.
"We never hit these animals. We never strike these animals. We never kick these animals," he said.
Each dog handler for the sheriff's office trains his dog daily and the entire unit gets together weekly to work on tracking sessions and arrest procedures.
The sheriff's office tries to motivate its dogs with praise.
"They are like big kids to us," Aston said.
You can call Herald Writer Scott North at 425-339-3431 or send e-mail to north@heraldnet.com .
You can call Herald Writer Warren Cornwall at 425-339-3463 or send e-mail to cornwall@heraldnet.com .
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper which first published the article online and which is indicated at the top of the article unless otherwise specified.