“The Dog You Deserve”Ambivalence in the K-9 Officer/Patrol Dog Relationship

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2006 35: 148Journal of Contemporary EthnographyClinton R. Sanders

''The Dog You Deserve'' : Ambivalence in the K-9 Officer/Patrol Dog Relationship

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10.1177/0891241605283456Journal of Contemporary EthnographySanders / K-9 Officer/Patrol Dog Relationship

“The Dog You Deserve”Ambivalence in the K-9Officer/Patrol Dog Relationship

Clinton R. SandersUniversity of Connecticut

Primarily based on ethnographic fieldwork in a police K-9 training program,this article first presents the optimal attributes of patrol dogs and their handlers.It then moves to a discussion of the training process and emphasizes the appar-ent disjunction between defining the dog as a law enforcement tool, on onehand, and a unique and sentient individual, on the other. Following a descrip-tion of key elements of the day-to-day work of the K-9 unit, the article dis-cusses the uneasiness that handlers (and police administrators) feel due to thepotential conflict between treating the patrol dog as an effective weapon/deter-rent and treating it as a reliable companion/partner and docile family member.The article concludes with a brief examination of ambivalence as a general fea-ture of social life and a unique characteristic of the occupation life of the K-9police officer.

Keywords: K-9 officers; patrol dogs; human-animal interaction; ambivalence

Ambivalence is a central element in the daily flow of culturally con-structed emotions we experience in daily life. Ambivalence arises from

ambiguity—the conflict or confusion of meanings, ideas, and situational def-initions (Weigert 1991, 16-32). Ambiguous perceptions and ambivalentemotions are central to the relationships between humans and nonhuman ani-mals. This confusion and these mixed emotions are grounded in what Herzog(1993, 349) refers to as the “constant paradox”—the definition and treatmentof animals as functional objects, on one hand, and sentient individuals, on theother (see Arluke and Sanders 1996, 167-86; Jordon 1975).

Contradictory and conflicting definitions leading to inconsistent treat-ment are especially apparent in human interactions with and use of service

148

Journal of ContemporaryEthnography

Volume 35 Number 2April 2006 148-172

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Author’s Note: The author thanks Scott Hunt and three anonymous reviewers for their supportand suggestions. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2004 meetings of the Inter-national Society for Anthrozoology in Glasgow and the Society for the Study of Symbolic Inter-action’s 2004 Couch-Stone Symposium in Boulder.



animals. Dogs and other service animals are regarded both as “objects” thatserve, protect, and assist and as individual companions with whom one inter-acts and develops a shared emotional bond (see Lasher 1998; Sanders 2000).

In turn, this dichotomous definition has clear implications for perspec-tives on and approaches to training. As objects, dogs are subjected tobehavioristically modeled training processes intended to mold their behaviorso that they will behave in acceptable and predictable ways. As sentient indi-viduals, on the other hand, dogs are primarily taught in the context of a devel-oping relationship in which the animals learn expectations and roles so thatthey act in ways that produce “collective action” (the merger of situationaldefinitions, goals, and plans of action) in concert with their human coactors(Irvine 2004, 58-61).

The following discussion focuses on the training and use of patrol dogs or,as some law enforcement figures prefer it (Rosenthal 1997, 174), “police ser-vice dogs.” Although dogs have been used for social control purposes forcenturies (Lilly and Puckett 1997), the modern history of police patrol dogsdates from the late 19th century when the police chief in Ghent, Belgium,faced with a shortage of officers, constituted thirty K-9 teams. In the firstdecade of the 20th century, dogs were introduced into police work in theUnited States in urban areas of the east coast.1 After a period of declining use,K-9 units were reestablished in the United States in the late 1950s and gainedpopularity in the 1960s as urban police forces were confronted with risingrates of burglary, vandalism, and assault (Boling 1998, 33-34; Chapman1964a, 412; Lilly and Puckett 1997, 132-34).

Despite the increased interest in human-animal interaction in general, andservice animals in particular, the “serious” literature (i.e., produced by aca-demic social and behavioral scientists) on police dogs is rather limited.2 Theliterature that is available is of three types. First, there are a variety of practi-cal guides for the training of dog-officer teams and administration of K-9units (e.g., Chapman 1964b; Eden 1993; Rapp 1979). In the same practicalline, there are materials related to legal issues surrounding the use of dogs(e.g., Del Carmen and Saucier 1985; Taslitz 1992). The third body of litera-ture consists of popular narratives describing the heroic feats of K-9 officersand their dog partners (e.g., Bidner 2002; Rosenthal 1997; Russell 2001;Weisbord and Kachanoff 2000).3

This article is based on data collected in the course of ethnographic field-work with a K-9 training program. Following a discussion of the research, Ifocus on the criteria participants used to define ideal patrol dogs and the mostable police handlers. This is followed by descriptions of the training processitself and central elements of the K-9 team’s work life. The article moves to adiscussion of the issues of ambiguity and ambivalence introduced above.

Sanders / K-9 Officer/Patrol Dog Relationship 149



One of the major foci of interest that emerged from the research was a corecontradiction between the construction of the dog as an object-weapon andas a friendly and reliable partner, a family companion, and a public relationsasset. Here I emphasize that this discontinuity is exacerbated by the trainingprocess and the factors that shape the choice of animals that are predicted tobe the most effective patrol dogs. The article concludes with an examinationof the importance of structurally based (“sociological”) ambivalence as afeature of daily life and the subjective (“psychological”) ambivalence the K-9 officer experiences due to the conflicting definitions of his or her caninepartner and the unpredictability of the dog’s behavior.

Method

The data upon which this discussion is based are drawn from ethno-graphic fieldwork carried out during 2000 and 2001 in a patrol dog trainingprogram conducted by a law enforcement agency in an east coast state. Iobserved the training process for novice handlers and their dogs in two fif-teen-week cycles consisting of both field training and classroom work. I alsoobserved one five-week training class with experienced handlers obtainingnew dogs and a five-week training program in which Labrador retrievers andtheir handlers were trained to detect accelerants in cases of suspected arson.Both five-week classes were held in conjunction with the longer trainingprograms for novice officers.

In addition, I collected field notes during a day-long training demonstra-tion conducted by a nationally known K-9 trainer, two all-day “K-9 Olym-pics” in which handlers and their dogs competed, and three graduation cere-monies for handlers and dogs who had successfully completed the fifteen-week training classes. I also conducted semistructured interviews with fiveexperienced officers and two K-9 trainers. These interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed and lasted between forty-five minutes and twohours.

Valuable qualitative data were also collected as I had frequent interviewconversations with an experienced breeder and trainer who had established aprivate program called K-9 Enforcers that supplied dogs to officers in localpolice departments. Ongoing interaction with the head of K-9 Enforcersallowed me to check out developing hunches as they were inductively gener-ated during the fieldwork, and I eventually became a member of theprogram’s advisory board.

Research access to law enforcement settings typically is problematic, andmy own experience reflected the access difficulties commonly noted in the

150 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography



specialized research literature (see Fox and Lundman 1974; McCall 1978,85-88; Fitzgerald and Cox 1987, 120-22; Van Maanen 1973, 1982). Throughpersonal contacts, I eventually gained an introduction to the police officer incharge of K-9 training. It became clear during telephone conversations thatthe head of training was less than enthusiastic about my proposed research,and he deflected my requests for access by advising me to contact and speakwith a local K-9 officer. Because he was well positioned in the K-9 commu-nity, the head of K-9 Enforcers provided introductions to another officer anda retired trainer who had been active in the program to which I was interestedin gaining access. Armed with these contacts, I once again telephoned thehead of training, who requested that I write him a letter detailing my researchinterests. A few weeks after providing the letter, I recontacted the head, whoagreed to meet with me and invited me to attend the graduation ceremoniesfor the most recent class. Following the ceremony, I introduced myself to thehead, who informed me about the starting date for the next training cycle and,with some apparent reluctance, agreed to meet with me at the training site.

On the second day of training for the next class, I drove to the training site,reintroduced myself to the head of the training program, and presented himwith a copy of my most recent book (Sanders 1999). He escorted me into theoffice shared by the training staff, introduced me to the officer in charge ofthe actual training, and—somewhat brusquely—suggested that the three ofus go into his office to talk. During this meeting, I attempted to explain myresearch interests as generally as possible and ease apparent suspicions that Iwas intent on exposing “inhumane” training methods or organizational prob-lems. I assured the officers that whatever writing I would do based on theresearch would protect individual and programmatic anonymity. The mainproblem they expressed was that they would not have the time or resources to“take care” of me. I assured them that I was highly experienced with dogs andtraining settings, that I was more than able to look out for myself, and that Iwould be careful to stay out of the way.

Despite having received (somewhat grudging) permission to observetraining, at times I found ongoing access to be a bit difficult. As the trainingcycle proceeded, classes would often work in forested areas and other loca-tions a significant distance from the training center. Frequently, decisionsabout the exact site were not made until a day or two before the remote train-ing occurred, and because of the apparent vagaries of scheduling (sites werenot available or decisions about training activities that needed special focuswere made at the last minute), I would sometimes show up at the specifiedlocale only to find that I had not been informed about altered plans.

As the research proceeded and I developed friendly relationships with thehandlers and trainers (who routinely called me “Doc” or “Professor”), I was




somewhat puzzled by this passive resistance to my participation. A few inci-dents in the field did make me suspect that concern for my safety (and poten-tial liability issues) may have played a role in my occasional failure to gainaccess to some training sessions. K-9 training does have potentially danger-ous elements. Class members, for example, kept a “stitch count” to mark dogbite injuries to handlers during the training cycle. Although I typically stayedaway from potentially dangerous situations (I declined donning the “bitesuit” and acting as “the bad guy”4 on various occasions), I did have a fewinteresting experiences. Here is a description of one such encounter drawnfrom field notes.

I drive over to [the day’s training site] and see some trainers and handlers stand-ing at the edge of the woods. [Trainer] sees me standing a bit away and motionsme forward to stand with him and the other trainers. The dogs are being runthrough “scout,” where a man in bite suit hides in the woods [while] the handlergives the usual “This is a police officer with a dog. Come out or I will releasethe dog.” The dog’s lead is wrapped around his chest, and after a short time he isreleased and excitedly runs out into the woods to get a “bite.” This is done threetimes with each dog—when the target makes noise, is silent, and moves fartheraway. I am standing with the trainers with my hands in my back pockets. Anofficer is preparing his dog for the exercise. When he releases the dog, insteadof running into the woods, the dog makes a sharp U-turn and lunges at me. Istand straight and don’t move. The dog grabs my shirt with his teeth and hangson. The handler screams “NO,” rushes over to us, grabs the dog’s collar, andswings him around off ground. With some obvious concern, the trainers ask meif I am hurt. I reply, “No, he just got my shirt. No harm done.” [Trainer] says,“That was good. Most people would put their arm up (demonstrates) and thedog would go for it. You did the right thing.” [Another trainer] says (jokingly),“It’s that hair.” In the same vein I say, “Yeah, dogs always hate long hair.” I saythat I have seen things like this before and it just seemed like the right thingto do.

Incidents like this were infrequent, however, and I eventually realized thatfear for my personal safety did not play much of a role in the access problemsI sometimes encountered in the course of the fieldwork. Instead, I think theexplanation is much simpler. Rather than participants’seeing me as some sortof muckraker or liability, in the daily press of their routine training activities,the participants simply forgot about my interest in seeing them at work.When I was able to talk directly with gatekeepers and remind them of mydesire to observe their activities, they were quite willing to have me around;but as a somewhat peripheral participant, I did not play a significant role intheir central, practical concerns. Despite these problems, during the course of




the fieldwork I was able to observe all the key stages of the training process,collected a rich body of field notes and field interviews, and was privy tonumerous backstage exchanges in which information typically kept fromoutsiders was revealed (Goffman 1959).

The Dogs

All of the dogs in training were German shepherds ranging from one tothree years in age. German shepherds were not only the dogs traditionallyused in patrol work, they were seen as having the most physical ability, asbeing adaptable to a variety of situations, and as being the most easily trainedfor the required tasks (Hess 2001, 7). Handlers in the training programacquired their dogs from four sources: two or three commercial breeders andtrainers supplied a few, and a local source was active in importing dogs fromCzechoslovakia and other European countries. Whereas the local breederssupplied high-quality dogs, for the most part, the imported “vendor dogs”were seen as the least desirable. They typically had already had “bite train-ing” but were seen as, at best, minimally socialized. One trainer described theproblem when asked about how dogs were acquired:

The “vendor” dogs we get from the broker, who gets them from Czechoslova-kia, are a problem. Apparently, they are just kept in a kennel, taken out to dosome bite work, and put back in the kennel. They aren’t real healthy. I hear theyget fed bread and potatoes. They don’t have the kind of food we have here.They don’t have much contact with people or a lot of experience. One that wehave now isn’t good on slick floors. I guess they don’t have much experiencewith them. The first time we put him on a floor, his feet just went out fromunder him.

Dogs with the optimal characteristics were acquired as donations fromfamilies who had discovered that their puppy was too aggressive or otherwisemore problematic than expected. Dogs were also donated by east coast guidedog programs. For the most part, dogs that were unsuitable for assisting peo-ple with visual disabilities had the characteristics that made them ideal candi-dates for K-9 work. As one trainer explained:

The dogs from [a local guide dog training program] are usually reliablebecause they have been well socialized. The problem is that they are some-times not aggressive enough. We are getting fewer from them because they arebreeding the aggressiveness out of them. We do get good dogs from [anotherprogram]. [The guide dog programs] are on the lookout for us. They keep us in




mind when they have a dog that isn’t working out. Usually, the dog they send usisn’t good for them because he is too aggressive.

The best novice dogs, then, displayed looked-for physical characteristics(of the appropriate size, agile, and healthy), were intelligent and self-confi-dent, and appeared able to handle the stress of patrol work (Eden 1993, 36;Rapp 1979, 27-33). Of particular importance was the candidate’s display of“prey” (alternatively, “play” or “ball”) drive. One experienced handlerstressed confidence and the dog-handler relationship when he described theideal dog:

Basically, what you look for is prey drive. The big thing about German shep-herds that people don’t realize [when they get a dog for the family pet] is howenergetic they are and how much room they need. They take them in and theyare just too much dog to handle. Especially with people with small yards whodon’t have the space to let the dog run. So there are a lot of German shepherdsout there that people are trying to give away. People come to the Canine Olym-pics and see what the dogs are doing there and say that the dog they have wouldbe better suited for something like that than it would be just as a house pet. . . .

You look for a dog that is self confident, has a lot of play drive—wants torun and wants to play, a lot of drive to work. . . . Everything he does, he does toget the tennis ball or whatever you use with him. . . . So there’s aggressivenessand there’s confidence. You need a dog that is not intimidated by new situationsor large groups of people. The dogs that don’t make it for us is usually becauseof a confidence problem. . . . A lot of it is basic confidence, and a lot of it is con-fidence in the handler—the bond between the dog and the handler. If the dogdoesn’t feel safe with the handler around, he is not going to do what you wanthim to do. Even if it is something he has never done, if the handler is encourag-ing him to do it and the dog feels confident in the handler, he is going to do it.

In contrast, unsuitable dogs, or dogs that eventually “washed out” of train-ing, were either too “soft” (shy and insecure) or too “hard” (overly aggressiveand headstrong) (Sanders 1999, 100-102). When I asked a trainer which ofthe dogs we were watching he thought might wash out, he noted the twoextremes:

We still aren’t sure about [that officer’s dog]. We will have to see after the agita-tion this afternoon. Some dogs really take to it. We got him from a family. It’sclear he wasn’t well socialized as a puppy and I think he was probably abused.He might not make it, but that would be OK. He would make a great pet and Ialready have a family who would like him. . . . We have been pretty lucky so far.Not too many dogs have washed out. The one [Officer X] had before washed




out. We thought he was a great dog, and then I go over to him and he is doingfine, and all of a sudden he goes for me. He gets me on the chest and then hegoes and bites the officer’s leg. You can’t have that. Especially when they areliving in the home with kids and all.

In sum, the ideal patrol dog trainee was intelligent, readily trainable, andphysically fit. He was expected to be able to handle the stress of training andeventual police work. The dog had to display a significant degree of playdrive because, as we will see, play was the major reward offered for expectedbehavior. Optimally, he fell in the middle of the aggressiveness continuum—he was neither overly shy nor so aggressive that he might eventually prove tobe dangerous to his handler, the handler’s family, or innocent members of thepublic.

The Handlers

The vast majority of the officers-in-training had had prior experience withdogs; they had grown up in households that included at least one dog, andmost had a companion dog in their current homes. All of the handlers alsohad law enforcement experience prior to their entering the K-9 training pro-gram.5

Typically, the officers had initiated their movement into K-9 work byrequesting the assignment from their superiors or by responding to a call forcandidates. Many aspired to the assignment because they knew and admiredother K-9 officers and/or envied the control they had seen officer-dog teamsexercise in problematic situations. One corrections officer described apply-ing for the assignment after seeing his role model at work:

I saw the notice [of an opening] and applied. Everyone in corrections wants towork dogs. There were around two hundred that applied. The first thing theyhave you do is test you for agility. Eventually, there were only ten left and theyaccepted four of us. I had seen [Corrections Officer X] walking around the[prison] facility with his dog. All the inmates would move back against the wallwhen they saw him coming. They never gave him any trouble. I knew then itwas something I wanted to do. It’s the best job you can have in corrections.

Once they were evaluated to determine whether they had the necessaryphysical abilities, police experience, and commitment, officers acquired adog. Essentially, all of the officers observed had a hand in choosing theircanine partners.6 One officer described a common dog selection scenario:




I went down [to the kennel] and picked [my dog] out myself. There were threedogs at the kennel, and he just came running up to me. It was clear that he reallyliked to play. [My commanding officer] wasn’t so sure—[my dog] was so smalland skinny. But he has really worked out. I wouldn’t want to have the otherdogs there. After he ran up to me, he just looked at me and growled.

The instructional literature on establishing a K-9 unit describes the idealofficer as being patient, physically fit, dependable, and not having a record orreputation of being overly aggressive in prior contact with the public.7 Inaddition, suitable candidates should be in a living situation amenable to keep-ing a dog. They should have sufficient room to accommodate the necessarykennel facilities and have a family who is supportive of the K-9 assignment(Eden 1993, 5-6; Hess 2001, 6-7; Rapp 1979, 25-26).

In addition to these general qualities, the officers and trainers stressed twoimportant characteristics they saw as distinguishing “good” K-9 handlers.First, they had to display an ability to understand how their dogs thought andresponded to various situations. They had to be “dog friendly” and be able to“read” the dog (see Hearne 1987, 85-87). A trainer described this ability:

The main thing [a good handler] must have is “dog sense.” Some have it andsome don’t. The handler has to know exactly when to give a command or cor-rection or praise. It’s a split-second thing. . . . Every dog is different, and the bigthing about being a handler is being able to read your dog. You have to under-stand his body language. You have to know what your dog is doing.8

The second major characteristic of good handlers that frequently arosewhen I discussed the issue with trainers and officers was a relatively flexibleorientation to neatness and cleanliness. Being in close daily association witha dog can be a fairly dirty business, and dog caretakers must either accept acertain level of dirt and disorder, and live and cope with unwanted problems,or abandon the human-dog relationship (see Guttmann 1981; Sanders 1994;Sanders 1999, ix, 67-68). Because studies of police perspectives and culture(e.g., Bayley and Bittner 1984) demonstrate that officers generally tend to berather fastidious about soiling their uniforms and vehicles, participants com-monly stressed hygienic flexibility as a necessary attribute of K-9 officersand a factor that set them apart from other police. One officer described the“unique” quality of his daily work life:

It is a unique type of police work. A lot of guys look at it and say, “I wouldn’twant to do that much work.” A lot of guys aren’t that dog friendly; they don’tlike dogs. You have to really like dogs to do it. You are driving around in yourcar with someone barking in your ear and hair flying around in the car. Your




uniform is always covered with hair. You are constantly cleaning everything;everything is always covered with slobber. So it is a lot of extra work and guyslook at that and say, “No, I couldn’t do that.” They are the kind that like to beclean and neat with shined shoes and polished brass.

The ideal K-9 officer, then, has adequate physical abilities, possesses thedesire and necessary patience to pursue and excel in the work, is situated in anappropriate living setting, has a supportive and understanding family, and iswilling to put up with the disorder and extra work that accompany the uniqueassignment. Most important, the ideal handler has “dog sense.” He is able tounderstand his dog’s perspective and respond appropriately. Having thislevel of rapport with his dog is key to effectively training the animal, therebybuilding and maintaining a viable working partnership.

The Training Process

Each training cycle involved approximately six hundred hours of activity.For the handlers, part of the time was spent in a classroom where they wereinstructed on record keeping, report writing, legal aspects of K-9 work (e.g.,relevant case law, giving testimony in court), dog behavior and physiology,and scent theory. The bulk of the training involved the dogs and their han-dlers working together on learning basic obedience (“sit,” “down,” “stay,”“heel,” “come”) and how to work together in the primary activities the dog-handler teams would encounter on the job.

The training process and the instructions given by the experienced train-ers revealed a dichotomous perspective on the dogs’ mental capacities andthe training approaches that would be most effective. On one hand, the dogswere defined as basic, rather machinelike organisms whose behaviors couldbest be shaped through the use of the standard behaviorist application ofreward and punishment. Accordingly, training was modeled after the operantconditioning principles developed by William Koehler (1962). The primarygoal was to create a “push-button dog” (Rosenthal 1997, 213) that wouldalways, and unhesitatingly, obey the handler’s commands.9 The training pro-cess involved the handler’s giving commands in a deep “command voice”and using physical punishments (harsh leash jerking combined with loudshouts of “NO” and “snouting,” which involved sharply hitting the dog in themuzzle). Required behavior was immediately rewarded with praise offeredin a high-pitched tone of voice (“Good boy!”).10 Following a period of groupobedience training, handlers were instructed to “take out your trainingaids,” whereupon the dogs were taken to separate areas in the training field,




unleashed, and allowed to chase tennis balls or hard rubber play toys. Bothdogs and handlers took obvious pleasure in this release-reward activity.

After a few days of observing this obedience training procedure (which,because of the paramilitary structure of the process and the operant condi-tioning approach employed, I came to think of as “militaristic behaviorism”),I remarked to a trainer that the approach employed would meet with consid-erable disapproval within contemporary dog-training circles. He stressed theimportant distinction between patrol dogs and house dogs:

I know, but [other trainers] aren’t training dogs to do what these dogs areexpected to do. People’s lives depend on these dogs. It’s not like you are train-ing “Fluffy” to be a house pet. . . . [Sanders—“In many ways you are trying totrain these dogs to do things that pet owners want their dogs not to do.”] That isespecially the case with the donated dogs that are raised in someone’s home.We get them and we want them to bark and bite and jump up. They really getconfused at first. You know they have been kneed when they jump up, and nowthey are asked to jump on someone. It’s better when you just get to train themfresh.

Despite this dominant focus on traditional techniques of behavioral shap-ing to mold an appropriately aggressive and reliably obedient police dog,training officers also at times cast the dog as a thoughtful individual (“everydog is different”) whose adequate performance on the job was dependent onthe closeness of the bond established between the dog and the handler. Notethe humanlike depiction of the dog offered in a standard police dog trainingmanual:

In many ways a dog is like a child, and if there is never any discipline and thedog is allowed to dictate to the human what he wants and when he wants it, hewill become selfish and his desire will be to please himself rather than hishuman master. . . . A police dog must have not only a strong desire to please, butalso a strong sense of duty, loyalty, dependability, and service (Rapp 1979, 50,emphasis added).

I frequently noted this dog-as-child orientation in the training program.11

For example, when teaching about commands, a trainer observed, “Your dogthinks about as fast as a two-year-old. You have one and a half seconds tosanction and re-command.” Training officers also frequently employedparental terms when talking about the handler-dog relationship. “See the wayhe’s looking at you? He’s wondering what Dad wants him to do.”

In addition to standard obedience training and obstacle course exercisesthat increased the dogs’ agility and confidence, instruction focused on pre-




paring handlers and dogs to deal with the most common situations theywould encounter on the job. Because tracking was, as one trainer put it, “sev-enty percent of what we do,” tracking exercises in wooded areas were empha-sized. Here is a description from my fieldnotes:

I drive around the lake and come on the [trainers’] vans and officers’ patrolcars. [Trainer] tells me that some of the handlers are back on a trail doing track-ing and I can join them. He guides me back into the woods and introduces me to[a police officer]. He is with a small black shepherd and they are about to go outtracking since the trackee/handler has now been out for the assigned 20 min-utes. [The officer] asks what department I’m from and I tell him I am a univer-sity professor interested in the relationship between handlers and dogs. [Thedog] is put on a long lead and heads off following the command “find him.” Werun a few hundred yards behind the dog not saying much—sloshing throughmuddy bogs and forcing our way through thickets. Eventually, we see the otherofficer up a tree. The dog receives loud and enthusiastic praise when he jumpsup on the tree trying to get to the officer. Both officers are pleased with how thedog performed. [The handler] proudly tells me that he is one of the best track-ing dogs in the current class. . . . As we walk back [to the cars at the startingpoint], the officers talk about the dog’s performance. [The handler] says he wasworried when the dog went off the trail at one point (the path had been markedwith orange tape by the officer being tracked). [The handler] observed that [thedog’s] head was up and he was probably “air scenting” rather than followingthe scent on the ground.

The aggressive element of training centered on “bite work.” Dogs weretrained to search for and apprehend suspects in buildings: to “find and bark”to alert the handler or to “find and hold” should the suspect appear to be athreat to the human partner (see Hess 2001, 8-9). Again, I quote from fieldnotes:

They are working on building searches in a hallway in a dilapidated building onthe grounds. An officer with a bite sleeve hides behind one door off the hallwhile [a trainer] stays and instructs the handler. He tells the officer to give thestandard command at normal speaking voice (“This is a police officer with adog. Come out or I will release the dog.”). The dog has to be “acclimated” to thebuilding area before it searches. (Throughout this exercise, I notice that theofficers look at their watches while “acclimating” their dogs. I ask [the trainer]what this acclimation stuff is about. He explains, “For them it’s like when youor I would go into a chocolate factory. There are these wonderful smells all overthe place. That’s like it is for the dog. Or maybe the temperature is different inthere than it is outside and he needs to get used to that. The dog will tell youwhen he is ready.” [Sanders—“How can you tell when the dog is ready?”]




“Nothing specific. You just know. Maybe he will relax and even roll over on hisside. You can just tell when the dog is ready because you know your dog.”)After telling the officer that “the dog will tell you when he is ready,” [thetrainer] says, “OK set him up.” The officer unhooks the leather lead from thedog’s collar and doubles it around the dog’s chest. The dog is obviouslyexcited—panting, straining at the lead. The officer yells the standard warning(“This is a police officer with a dog. Come out or I will release the dog.”). Aftera few seconds, he lets dog go with the command “Search him out. Get him.”The dog goes from door to door sniffing at each. As I have noticed in observingtracking, the dog is clearly oriented to the handler since he looks at the handlerfrequently and comes back toward the handler when confused. Eventually, thedog finds the [right] door. He jumps on the door barking furiously. The guy inthe sleeve opens the door and the dog attacks. After tugging on the sleeve for awhile, the “bad guy” slips it off and the dog gets to run off with it as a reward. . . .Later, [the trainer] cautions the officer not to talk to his dog while he is search-ing. “He will think, ‘Dad is calling me.’ You will distract him.”

Another apprehension exercise (referred to as “scout”) was conducted inwooded areas. As in building searches, a target offender was sent to hide, thestandard warning was issued, and the dog was released. A variant entailed thehandler commanding the dog to stay, moving a few yards into the woods,calling the dog to his side, and ordering him to lie down. The suspect wouldfire a handgun (filled with blanks). The handler would return fire, move for-ward, and call his dog once again. The exercise would end with the officercarrying his dog back to the starting area (having the strength to carry one’sdog was a physical requirement for officers).

Another common function of patrol dogs is to protect their handlers andact as deterrents in crowd situations. Crowd control training involved all ofthe handlers (without their dogs) and the training officers acting together asan angry mob while they are confronted by a handler and his dog.

I watch the crowd control exercise, keeping well away from the action. Thehandler holds his dog on lead while the others mill around like a crowd makingthreatening noises, trying to pet the dog, and such. The handler holds the dogback while he barks furiously and lunges at those who approach. [A trainingofficer] in a bite sleeve runs toward the handler with a red rubber knife. The dogattacks and latches on to the “offender’s” sleeve. The handler gives the com-mands “Release” and “Down.” The “bad guy” (this is the way target/offendersare always referred to by handlers and trainers) backs up and is searched. Whilebeing searched, the bad guy loudly gives officer considerable “shit” (verbalabuse)—”Hey whasup?” “Get that fuckin’dog away from me, I didn’t do any-thing,” etc. The scene is reset for the crowd milling, but this time the bad guyruns out of the crowd, fires a gun at the handler, and runs away. With the com-




mand “Get him,” the dog gives chase and attacks. The bad guy drops the gun,and the handler goes through the same release and down procedure. The dogsinvolved in this exercise are very excited. At one point, a dog who is in thedown position moves to bite his handler, who angrily cautions the dog (“Youbetter not bite me”). [Training officer] who has been the bad guy for a whilecomes over to me. “You ever wear a bite sleeve? Want to give it a try?” Idecline. “No, it looks like a lot of work.” (He is panting and sweating. Being thebad guy involves lots of physical exertion—running, getting attacked, and thenswinging the dog who is holding onto the sleeve and struggling).

Patrol dogs are also trained to protect handlers during motor vehicle stops.The procedure here involved the officer driving his own patrol car with sirenblaring and lights flashing chasing a car driven by a trainer in a bite sleeve.After the target car stopped, the “bad guy” ran from the car. Upon the com-mand “Get him!” the dog leapt out of the driver’s side window and gavechase. The capture sequence was similar to that described above with the badguy “talking trash” and the dog instructed to “watch him” while the suspectwas searched.

The goal of K-9 training is to create a dog that combines the (presumably)mutually exclusive characteristics of aggression and obedience. The ground-work for reliable obedience is established through conventional behavioristtraining techniques and is reinforced in training exercises such as crowd con-trol and suspect apprehension, in which aggression (“getting a bite”) is estab-lished as a reward for correct behavior. At the same time, trainers and han-dlers recognize that training based on principles of what Wieder (1980) refersto as “behavioristic operationalism” is not sufficient in itself. Because theyrecognize that dogs have unique personalities, potentials, and weaknesses,the training process stresses the central importance of the handler’s learningto “read” the dog (Eden 1993,6, 33-34) and, through continued close inter-action, develop a working partnership based on mutual understanding andaffection (Hess 2001, 5; Meehan 1994; cf., Lawrence 1985, 127, 162-3). Anexperienced trainer (Eden 1993, 49) depicts this partnership as premised onmutual respect rather than fear:

The dog should enjoy his work and do things for his handler because of hisstrong desire to please and not because of fear of retaliation for an error. If youare forced to submit to a superior, you find it degrading and will build up a dis-like for the person. Why, then, should it be any different for your canine part-ner? Let your dog be an equal worker, sharing with you your on-duty and off-duty activities. Make him your friend and not your slave. Just as it is much eas-ier for you to work with somebody than it is for somebody, it is better for thedog to understand that you are the leader and the boss, but you are fair in your




punishment and do not forget to reward for a job well done. [emphasis inoriginal]

Or, more succinctly, as the training officers frequently reminded handlers,“You get the dog you deserve.”

The Job

During the time I was collecting data, slightly more than one hundred K-9teams were operating in the state in which I conducted research. Together,these teams answered thirty-five hundred to four thousand calls per year. Allpolice work is characterized by routine, such as the standard patrol, adminis-trative duties, and paperwork that occupy officers’time (Van Maanen 1973,Drummond 1976). Typically having been drawn to the job by the expectationof excitement and a measure of danger, police officers commonly experienceconsiderable dissatisfaction when confronted with the routine elements oftheir daily work life. K-9 officers are no exception. Their training preparesthem for such action-packed activities as building searches, crowd control,and suspect apprehension. However, as they are told by training personnel,the vast majority of the cases to which they and their dogs will be calledinvolve tracking suspects or children, aged individuals, and other citizenswho have been reported as lost (Eden 1993, 79-107; Hart et al. 2000; Hess2001, 15-16). Commonly, tracking activity does not result in a successfulconclusion. As one experienced officer told handlers during a classroomsession:

Seventy percent of what we do is tracking. In here you have 100% success withtracking. Out there it will be only 15 to 20% success. There are a lot of variablesout there. The main trouble you will have is with your own guys. When youcome up on the scene, let the dog out, walk around, and let him piss. Watch thedog. He is all keyed up and will want to go right to work. People are going to saythat “he went that way” and your dog is going to want to go the other way. Youare going to want to pull your dog [to make him go the way the witnesses say].But trust your dog. Just do exactly what you did in training. . . . The first threetracks I went out on, I wanted to kick my dog in the head. Don’t ever take it outon your dog. If you blow a track, it is your fault. You didn’t read your dog right.Tracking is just a crap shoot.

Despite this, K-9 officers see their job as involving considerable risk (Hart etal. 2000, 198; Rapp 1979, 24), and accounts of “hot calls” offered by trainersand fellow officers reinforce this perception.




I’ll tell you a story. I had one [case] that was a dog handler’s dream. I was high. Iwanted to go home and jerk my dog off. We were behind this [restaurant] andsee these two guys come out with ski masks and guns. They see us and run and Isend the dog. I grab one guy and we are fighting and I feel something hit myfoot. I had sent the dog out on scout [for the other guy] but he sees me fightingand comes running back and mauls the guy. I was high for a month. That is whatyou live for. . . . As a regular cop, you have about a one in a hundred chance ofbeing in a gunfight. You have a one in ten chance as a handler.

Perceptions of the unique risk of K-9 work and seeing themselves as hav-ing special skills and knowledge generates a feeling of “brotherhood” amongK-9 officers. One interviewee described this special bond:

I enjoy it a lot. I think it is the best job in law enforcement. A lot of fun, a lot ofwork, and you do something that not everyone can do or will do. . . . It’s likewith cops all over the country. You meet another cop and there is a connection,a brotherhood, a fraternity type thing. “I’m a cop here or I’m a cop there.”“You’re a good guy in my book since you’re a cop.” But K-9 handlers are a stepbeyond that. You meet another K-9 handler and you can sit down and talk withhim about your dogs for two hours. Your wives are sitting there rolling theireyes and you are talking about your dogs. There aren’t that many of you and itis a unique job.

While dog handlers revel in their unique skills, recount stories of hot calls,and feel a special connection to fellow K-9 officers, the presence of a K-9 unitin the department potentially can generate problems for administrators. K-9officers require additional funds to pay for the upkeep of their dogs and theovertime spent caring for them. They also are drawn away from work timedue to their need to be involved in the regular training required to maintaintheir dogs’ readiness.12

Apart from the extra compensatory time and pay required by K-9 units,both handlers and police administrators acknowledge that having dogs work-ing in departments generates a primary problem—the constant threat of legalliability. Although some experts (e.g., Chapman 1964b) maintain that thisfear of legal problems is “overblown,” it was an issue frequently discussed inthe training program I observed (trainees were given a handout detailing“canine case law”) and it is a topic commonly dealt with in the literature onK-9 work (see Eden 1993, 161-64; Hess 2001, 11-12). One experienced offi-cer acknowledged the potential for liability problems when he said:

A lot of times [whether a department does or does not have a K-9 unit], it is justa financial decision. A lot of police administrators don’t know that much about




dogs. They don’t know what the dog can or can’t do. They don’t understandmuch about the dog other than it bites and I get sued. Some administratorsdon’t like us because they have had a few bad experiences and they think it’s aliability. Whenever the dog bites somebody, you are almost guaranteed a law-suit or, at least, the start of one. I know this one officer who is incredibly suc-cessful and he always has a lot of suits. He has even been investigated by theFBI a couple of times because of civil rights violations or whatever is comingdown the pike. That is just a hazard of this job. The more active you are, themore likely you are to get sued. The more contact you have with people, themore likely you are to get a complaint.

Cognizant of the potential of legal problems, handlers were routinelycoached on the necessity of their keeping up-to-date and detailed logs of theirtraining activities and incidents in which their dogs were employed. When Iasked about the purpose of the logs I had been hearing about, a trainerreplied:

[Handlers] all have to keep a log of what they have done during the day, arecord of bites and such. It is really a liability issue. There are a thousand legalcases that there needs to be a record of how well trained the dog is, whetherappropriate force was used, things like that. . . . [Here in training] logs are fordocumenting the dog’s training in case it is ever brought up in a legal case.

The current body of case law holds that the police dog is not “an instru-ment of lethal force” (see Hess 2001, 2-4, 7-12 for an overview of the relevantcase law). The U.S. Supreme Court case Graham v. Connor (1989) is of keyimportance because it established criteria (the “Graham Test”) whereby theuse of a dog could be judged legitimate. According to these guidelines, de-ployment of the dog is appropriate when the suspect is “suspected of havingbeen involved in a serious crime,” “poses an immediate threat to the safety ofthe officers or others,” or “is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evadearrest” (Hess 2001, 10).

Danger and Devotion

Cultural constructions of nonhuman animals and associated perceptionsof how people should relate to/with them are fraught with ambiguity, con-flict, and ambivalence (Arluke and Sanders 1996, 167-86; Sanders 1999,108-12). The definitional continuum ranges from dominance to affection(Tuan 1984)—seeing animals as objects to be controlled versus sentientbeings who are appropriate partners in interaction, or regarding them as ele-




ments of the natural world versus beings constrained by civilized control.This dichotomized construction is captured by Lawrence (1985, 169) in herdiscussion of the mounted police officer’s horse.

[The horse] is like us in being a live entity referred to by name, or as a pal, side-kick, son, or partner, yet he has become almost, though significantly not quite,like a machine in carrying out daily functions which expedite the social pro-cesses of industrialized society. The horse, unlike the machine, has a volition ofits own, and though the animal is virtually always subservient to man, thoseexceptional occasions when he is not are of quintessential importance.Through its dual image, the horse/man unit brings into being a contrastbetween civilization and nature, between order and chaos, which is balanced ina special way. . . . There is fear of the disorderly element, the instinctual naturewhich lies deep within the animal, but respect for the way in which this lifeforce is held in check, commanded, and controlled.

Similarly, the patrol dog is, on one hand, an animate law enforcement toolthat, like the gun or nightstick, symbolizes police authority, is employed tothreaten or do violence to unruly civilians, and offers protection in the face ofdanger (Lilly and Puckett 1997, 20-21). On the other hand, the dog is the K-9officer’s partner in the daily task of maintaining order. As such, the dog-human partnership is founded on a bond of mutual loyalty, friendship, andtrust (Boling 1998, 34).13 A trainer made reference to this dog-as-object ver-sus dog-as-person dichotomy when he observed:

In [some states] the dog is classified as a police officer. . . . I always have to tell[handler trainees] that the dog is a tool. You cannot use lethal force if someoneis threatening the dog. But, in the excitement of the moment when the adrena-line is up, it is hard to think about that. To a handler, harming his dog is likeharming a person. But the dog is just a tool.

As seen above, the ideal patrol dog is typified by a balance between dan-gerous aggression and petlike obedience. Consequently, despite trainers’fre-quently voiced advice to handlers to “trust your dog,” both trainers and K-9handlers were consistently aware of the uneasy balance between the dog’spotential dangerousness and his obedient predictability. This perception ofthe dog’s liminal character was particularly important because the dog livedwith the handler’s family and, in addition to his law enforcement duties, wasfrequently called upon to demonstrate his learned competence in variouscommunity settings to enhance departmental public relations (see Eden1993, 35; Rapp 1979, 243-44; cf. Lawrence 1985, 125).14




Although handlers frequently described the petlike behavior of their dogsin the family setting, the potential for danger was a matter of some concern.One handler told of the first night he took his new K-9 partner home:

Everything went fine. I took him home and played with him out in the yard. Myother dogs did OK. I kept them in their kennel and they just barked. Then wewent in and sat on the couch and watched some TV. I told my daughter to becareful with him because he wasn’t like the other dogs. . . . You have to be care-ful. You have to keep in mind that, no matter how well trained the dog is, it isstill a wolf. It’s always a little unpredictable.15

The understanding of the dog as having the potential to enhance (ordecrease) favorable impressions of the police held by members of the publicwas consistently noted during the training. Officers were advised to dem-onstrate object searches or other nonaggressive activities when visitingschools or when participating in public events. Demonstrating “bite work”was strongly discouraged because it potentially gave the “wrong impression”and “some kid doesn’t need to be shredded by a German shepherd.” In aninterview, an experienced handler acknowledged that care must be takenwhen interacting with the relatively unknowledgeable public.

I have to remember to be careful with corrections in public. To people whodon’t know what is going on, it looks cruel—all that jerking on the dog andshouting. I have to be more lenient when I take my dog to schools because thekids wouldn’t understand. He knows he can get away with a little more whenkids are around. One of the things I get asked a lot [in schools] is if the dog istrained to kill. That’s just stupid. He’s a deterrent.

When I asked about this uneasy balance between the dogs’ aggressivenature and training and their petlike docility, trainers and handlers typicallymade reference to the central importance of an officer’s relationship with andworking knowledge of his dog. “Trusting” one’s dog entailed knowing howthe dog responded in specific situations, knowing how to “read” the animal,and sharing a bond of mutual confidence.

Every dog is different, and the big thing about being a dog handler is being ableto read your dog—to be able to understand his body language and what yourdog is doing. . . . A lot of it is basic confidence, confidence in the handler. If thedog doesn’t feel safe with the handler around, he is not going to do what youwant him to do. . . . If the dog is confident, it is all a game to the dog.




Further, the balance between danger and control was maintained by thedog’s ability to read the handler’s mood and definition of the immediate situ-ation. As one handler observed,

It’s really a two-way street. When you see the officer and the dog work togetherfor a while, there is just something there. It’s like the dog can read the handler’smind. . . . When you do traffic stops, it is a great feeling to know the dog is backthere. That dog will save your ass more than you ever know. He will be betterthan another cop. The dog will feed off you. He will read how you react. . . .Dogs are pack animals, and if they are going to get along and survive they haveto be pretty good at reading what is going on with the others around them.

The ideal patrol dog selected for and produced by the training process is,then, an uneasy combination of three divergent elements in (ideally) someform of acceptable equilibrium. The key initial requirement is that the dogdemonstrate the aggressiveness and prey drive of its wild canid ancestors.The dog is then subjected to a routinized and consistent training processbased on behaviorist principles intended to instill a predictable and machine-like obedience to command. Finally, through the building of a close “inter-personal” bond with the handler, the dog acquires the attributes of loyalty andpredictable trustworthiness. Nonetheless, the potential for basic animalnature to break through the boundaries imposed by training and trust is anever-present concern. One interviewee described this uneasy balance mostvividly when he said:

A lot of it is confidence in the handler—in the bond between the dog and thehandler. . . . Like people, every dog is different. Some need a heavy-handedhandler who says, “These are the rules.” And some dogs don’t need that at all. Ifyou treated them that way, they would just shut down and wouldn’t work foryou. So you have to match up the right dog with the right guy. . . . There are dogsout there that you have to watch constantly. You can’t let them get away withanything because they will try more the next day. There are dogs out there thatchallenge their handler on a regular basis—who is going to be “alpha.” If youhave that kind of dog, you have to keep on it all the time. I always tell people it islike bringing a three-year-old to work with you every day—a three-year-oldthat weighs a hundred pounds and carries a chain saw.

Conclusion

Ambiguity is a central element of social life, a focal issue in the literatureon human-animal relationships, and central to understanding the K-9 offi-cer’s experience with his or her canine partner. As a key feature of social life,




what Merton (1976; Merton and Barber 1963) refers to as “sociologicalambivalence” derives from the complexity of contemporary culture and thecontradictory demands built into the structure of social statuses, roles, andsituational definitions (Merton and Barber 1963, 93). The ambivalence dis-cussed within the human-animal studies literature derives from the basic cul-tural dichotomy that casts nonhuman animals as either objects one owns anduses or individuals with whom one develops a social relationship (Jordon1975; Sanders 2003; Wilkie 2005).

To a certain degree, the “psychological ambivalence” experienced by K-9officers—their “conflicting emotions, contradictory attitudes, conflictingdefinitions of self or other, and contradictory relationships” (Weigert 1991,43)—are founded on both the object/being cultural dichotomy and the moreimmediate constraints of their job and the occupational culture that organizesit and lends it meaning. Because culture both generates and helps resolveambiguity (Weigert 1991, xiv), the conventional views and expectations ofthe local departmental culture and the larger culture of K-9 officers provideways by which officers can understand themselves, their roles vis-à-vis thepublic and fellow officers, the requirements of the situations into which theyare thrust by their occupational responsibilities, and what they can expectfrom their animal partners. However, as seen above, reliably predicting thebehavior of patrol dogs is somewhat problematic. This ambiguity shapes theofficer’s definition of situations and leads to uncertainty about the predictedoutcomes of interactions within those situations (Weigert 1991, 18-19). Inshort, the officer is often uncertain as to whether or not the patrol dog willbehave appropriately in the given situation.

The public misbehavior of patrol dogs has more drastic consequencesthan does that of everyday canine companions. Violations by pet dogs affectthe identities of their human associates and typically lead to the use of“excusing tactics” by which people, as the most responsible members of thehuman-animal “with,” define the situation and reestablish their positivesocial identities (Sanders 1990). In contrast, because of the danger and con-flict inherent in the law enforcement, public relations, and order maintenancesituations in which the officer and dog are involved, the routine excusing tac-tics employed by everyday dog caretakers when their animals misbehave inpublic are often not available to K-9 police. Lawsuits, official reprimand, anddamaged public and domestic relations as possible consequences of thecanine partner’s unpredictable behavior clearly compound the K-9 officer’sambivalence as he or she both uses and relates to the object/being aroundwhich his or her occupational life revolves.




Notes

1. There is some disagreement as to where the first K-9 teams were employed in the UnitedStates. Some writers (e.g., Chapman 1964a; Hess 2001) locate the initial police use of dogs inNew York City around 1907, whereas others (e.g., Lilly and Puckett 1997) refer to programsestablished in other urban centers a bit later.

2. The major exceptions are a survey of 255 K-9 officers conducted by Hart and her associ-ates (2000) and a general discussion of the use of dogs as instruments of social control by Lillyand Puckett (1997). See also Lawrence’s (1985, 116-73) related discussion of mounted policeofficers.

3. In addition, there are a few less-favorable discussions of patrol dogs in the human-animalliterature (e.g., Derr 1997, 149-53; Hearne 1987, 207-13) and in popular periodicals (e.g.,Cockburn 2000; Pick 1987).

4. As mentioned later in this discussion, the designation “bad guy” is commonplace in lawenforcement terminology. See also Van Maanen 1978.

5. Guides for the construction of K-9 programs typically emphasize the importance of offi-cers’ having fairly extensive experience as working police. The guidelines provided by the U.S.Police Canine Association (Hess 2001) recommend that officers have at least three years “on thejob” prior to their selection as participants in K-9 work (see also Eden 1993, 5; Rapp 1979, 25).

6. The survey of canine officers conducted by Hart and her associates (2000) found that 94%of the officers questioned had been involved in selecting their dogs.

7. In his highly critical discussion of police canine officers, Derr (1997, 149-51) offers thequestionable general description of officers as being “macho,” “cliquish,” and prone to the “useof their dogs as instruments of aggression.”

8. Irvine (2004, 65-68) refers to this ability to read individual dogs (and other animals) andbeing knowledgeable of their characteristics and requirements as the possession of “animalcapital.”

9. See Irvine 2004 (pp. 58-61) and Hearne 1987 (pp. 226-27) for critiques of this orientation.In an interview, a dog trainer not involved with police activities expressed her distaste forKoehleresque operant conditioning:

This was the first method I learned for training dogs. In my opinion, it was quite abusive. Most of thetrainers who used it seemed to subscribe to the idea that correction was the only thing that would getthrough a dog’s head. In fact, many more dogs are ruined using that method than are ever trained by it.And, if you question the instructor, they’ll simply tell you that your dog is stupid or stubborn when, infact, that is rarely the case. . . . It took me many years of looking and lots of experimentation before Ifound out what really did work in communication with dogs.

10. See Rapp 1979 (p. 52). One officer told of his young son’s response to the tone of voice heused when training his dog:

My five-year-old said, “Daddy, you talk to him like a girl.” I told him that you really have to make yourvoice different. It has to be really high like that [demonstrates high pitched “Good boy!”] for praiseand long and slow [“dooowwn”] for commands.

11. Lawrence (1985, 123) observes that mounted police often use familial and childlike termswhen referring to their horses. See also Greenebaum (2004).

12. Eden (1993, 3) notes that “35 to 40 percent of a K-9 team’s in-service time must be spentin training, in order for them to maintain a minimum standard of proficiency.” Derr (1997, 150)asserts that the necessity of providing compensatory time for training and dog maintenance




causes other officers to feel envious of K-9 officers, which results in handlers’forming cliques intheir departments (see also Lawrence 1985, 164-65, and Rapp 1979, 20).

13. The centrality of the close affectional bond seen as characteristic of the officer-patrol dogteam is illustrated by a recent case in North Carolina. In a federal sexual discrimination case,Winston-Salem K-9 officer Ann Spain claimed that she was subjected to an internal inquirybecause her superiors believed she did not “love” her dog (Hartford Courant, December 4, 2000,p. E9).

14. Essentially all of the officers surveyed by Hart et al. (2000, 199) agreed that “the presenceof the dog increased the public’s perception of [the officer’s] competence and enhanced publicopinion and respect for officers.”

15. See Hess 2001 (pp. 6-7, 16-17) and Chapman 1964b (p. 417) for similar words of cautiondrawn from the K-9 training literature.

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Clinton R. Sanders is a professor in the department of sociology at the University of Connecti-cut. He is the author of Understanding Dogs: Living and Working with Canine Companions andcoauthor (with Arnold Arluke) of Regarding Animals, both of which were given the Charles Hor-ton Cooley Award by the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. Sanders is coeditor of the“Animals, Culture, and Society” series published by Temple University Press. He has served asthe vice president (1994-1995) and president (2002-2003) of the Society for the Study of Sym-bolic Interaction. Sanders is interested in and investigates cultural production processes, deviantbehavior, and human interactions with nonhuman animals.




“The Dog You Deserve”Ambivalence in the K-9 Officer/Patrol Dog Relationship

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