No matter who in the K9 sector you're with, should the conversation arise about rewarding your K9 you're sure to find some deep routed passion.

In the U.S. it has become standard practice to reward a K9 with food or toy, referred to as food or toy driven.  Look at your local law enforcement agency and most likely you will see just that.  This, however, is not a global practice.  One should note that most of the U.S. is far behind in our training standards for K9 teams as it compares globally.  In training your K9 the question should be why is this a big deal and if I'm already rewarding my K9 in certain ways, can it be changed?

Our team, like most others in the U.S., trained to reward our K9s with toys and sometimes food.  This is the standard training method in the U.S. across all levels, be it local, federal, or even military.  We answered the call and trained for years using this method of reward.  On September 12, 2001, though everything changed for that was our first day working on the pile of remnants that was once the World Trade Centers.  Here one quickly realized that the normal toy reward method would not work and regardless the search had to continue.  Working high up on the piles or deep below in the voids our K9 continued the work regardless of no immediate rewards.  Working more than 14 hours a day K9 and Handlers were too beat by the end of the shift to even worry about any toy with thoughts of only sleep on our minds, the horrors that we continued to carry with us, and the knowledge we would return but a few hours later for our next shift.  After our mission was complete and we returned home from Ground Zero we continued not rewarding with toys and our primary K9, Morgan, never really noticed because she was now rewarded with praise.  Our secondary K9’s, Molly, Handler decided to return to toy reward because it was the "standard."  After researching more about rewarding working K9 we learned that most international teams do not reward their K9 as we do in the U.S.  There are many reasons for this like safety on scenes, secondary threats that need to be noted, etc.  Morgan became more intense and involved in the work always taking note of everything and disregarding any thought of playing on a scene now.  We began contacting teams that did not reward with food or toys but only used praise, again most all of them are international.  Some of these teams are the best in the world facing threats we hope never to see here in the U.S.  Our search now focused on finding a K9 school close enough to our location that we could easily reach them for regular training. We were faced with having to fly overseas for this training as we could not locate any K9 school in the U.S. that did not use toys or food. The search went on for months and finally, we located Baden K9 in Ontario, Canada where they actually train some of the great international teams we had been in contact with. Our training there was fantastic but that is another story.

So the answer to the question is yes, you and your K9 can be trained to work without rewards of toys or food. If you watch those that do use toys and food they still praise their K9 for a great job, why not just end it there. For thousands of years, our K9 partners have worked alongside their human counterparts. Look at the history of sheepherding, a very historic position for working dogs and you will find they don’t reward their K9 with toys or food but praise for a job well done. Where did we go astray from these historic lessons? The K9 does not need toys, that is something pet owners give them in this backward world of dressing up their dogs. A toy is something the pet is given because you, the owner, don’t spend enough time with the K9 and they need to have something to apply their attention to. A K9 is happiest when they are with you and know you are happy with their performance. Make the “job” something they enjoy completing because they get to spend time with you. You can stop with the toys and increase the praise for their great performance; they will never notice the toys missing if they have YOU more often in their lives.

Sure, there are K9 in this great country of ours that are wonderful at the tasks they perform and are food or toy driven. The question is though are they the best and how well do they really perform? Well, thank goodness that we’re not put to the test like many other countries where secondary devices are the norm. You need a K9 that is always working with you even after the primary device or suspect is located. You don’t need a K9 who after the first find is now only interested in you throwing a toy and not worried about sensing that secondary device or suspect that poses an immediate threat upon you both and others. The lives of many depend on you and your K9 partner performing to high standards. Some time watch your local bomb squad address a suspicious package. The K9 and Handler immediately walk up to the suspected package that has been isolated and the K9 gives a trained signal of what was or not detected. The K9 then immediately desires the reward and the toy is thrown with the K9 bouncing around. When bystanders see this they expect the search is complete and that the area is now safe, why else would you both be playing? Continuing to watch you’ll see the general public begin moving back into the sector after the toy is thrown. Since the K9 is preoccupied the team never took note of the secondary device because the Handler lead by lead the K9 to the package to be checked and now the K9 has a toy to be occupied with. These kinds of lackadaisical responses will get you and others killed overseas and thank goodness here in the U.S. we have yet to experience those types of threats for most K9 teams are not ready. We do face daily calls where a second suspect could be in a position to harm us and the toy could be the death of us both. There’s also the chance the toy may drop out of the lovely pouch on our utility belt drawing the K9’s attention away from matters at hand. This kind of botched response has been noted with some teams. How about a drug finds on an interstate, the K9 detects narcs in the vehicle. A reward of a toy is provided which takes an unexpected bounce onto the interstate where the chasing K9 is struck and killed. Does it happen? Yes! So why do we continue to train our K9 teams to be toy or food driven? Hmmm, that would be another discussion for a future article but it all has to deal with us and our wants for a reward.

I’ve written enough, you have read enough…time to get out there with your K9 partner and begin training as a team. Have someone remove the toys from the house if you have them and begin a life of praise. If your K9 partner grabs something else thinking it’s a toy just let them know it's not. We never experienced that problem. I think you will find your searches are more intense and both of you keener on what is taking place during the mission other than playing with toys or getting fatter with food.