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Meet the Reading Police K9 Unit: |
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Graduated from the Reading Police Academy in 1987 and became a K-9 handler in 1992. Trained and Handled 2 Police Service Dogs. Trained my first K-9 "Bear" under RPD Training Officer Randal Habecker in 1992. He trained a second K-9 partner "Zor" in 1998/99. Trained 8 Patrol and scent detection teams for the Department. Directly involved with the training for 16 K-9 Teams within the Department and indirectly involved with several Berks County Law Enforcement K-9 teams over the years. As the Training Director, responsible for the training and inservice training for the K-9 Unit as well as immediate supervisor for the 6 K-9 teams and all K-9 related issues. My responsibilities also extend to current legal concerns, laws governing K-9 usage, and keeping abreast of local, state and federal case law as it pertains to K-9 utilization and related issues. Currently, I conduct approximately 800 hours of training and inservice training per year for the department. In the past year, I have attended over 400 hours of seminars on advanced Police K-9 training, tactical use and deployment, and legal updates The Reading Police Departments K-9 Unit is an "in-house" training program which utilizes some purchased dogs from working bloodlines but primarily dogs which are donated (privately and from rescues) that meet the qualifications required to be trained as Police service dogs. Training for the Police service K-9's and their handlers involves obedience, agility, article search, building search, area search, tracking (aggressive and non-aggressive), criminal apprehension, drive building, scent theory, olfactory and sense capabilities and understanding of how weather, temperature and wind play a role in area searches and tracking, etc. The training program, consists of basic skills to meet department certification standards, field training, advanced and tactical training, scent detection, and training each handler to become proficient decoys/helpers using various level bite sleeves, bite-suits, hidden sleeves (including wraps) and muzzles as well as teaching the basic concepts of recognizing and building drives and the skills needed as a decoy for drive building. The primary goal of the in-house training program is to teach each handler how to train his K-9 from the ground up, which allows each handler to "problem solve" in the field as well as the knowledge and understanding of how to train his/her next (and future) K-9 teams. Recently attended hundreds of hours of training sessions and trials with Melanie Becker in Schutzhund and PSA (protection sport). These training sessions have given me considerable insight into different concepts in drive building and foundation training that are adaptable for Police K-9 training. |
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