SCPD Citizens' Academy: Police Dogs Take a Bite on Crime

There were plenty of times officers Jose Garcia and Saul Rodriguez pulled guns on suspects running away and the suspects kept running.

But, when they wanted to stop someone dead in their tracks, they pulled out the most effective weapon – Garcia's Belgian Malinois dog Layko and Rodriguez's German Shepherd Lobo.

The Santa Cruz Police Department hasn't always had police dogs, but now it has two available to do work that dogs can do better at all times of the day or night.

They can find a gun or a bomb, a person, drugs and they can stop a person from running away. They can also play with tennis balls. That last part isn't just a joke. Layko and Lobo are trained to think of police work as a game and their reward for doing a good job is a chance to catch a yellow tennis ball and play with it.

The play is a big part of the job also because the dogs, which cost about $20,000 each and have to be imported from Europe, are under tremendous stress during the work day, according to trainer Marv Gangloff, of Mar-Ken International Police K-9 Training Center.

From the minute they get in the car at the start of a shift, they are alert and ready to work. Gangloff gets dogs with high motivation and sometimes, like their human peers, they can burn out from the constant tension.

"They want to be doing something all the time," says Gangloff. "These aren't dogs that want to sit on the couch and watch TV."

The former cop has spent 40 years training dogs, something he started in the military in Germany. He says that U.S. dog shows, which reward dogs based on looks only, have bred the alertness and motivation out of canines and made them unable to muster the discipline required for police work.

Marv gave a demonstration of how effectively and relentlessly dogs can track and stop a criminal for the Citizens' Police Academy class. The dogs found drugs instantly (you can be sure no one was running out of the room with them), and then arrested, in his own doggy way, one of the trainers wearing a protective suit.

There are strict rules governing the dogs and their police partners. Officers live with the dogs, which are required to be in locked kennels, locked garages or a gated yard when they are not with the officers. The officers commit to the job for the working life of the dog, and then afterwards, they pay $1 to keep the dog and provide a good retirement for it.

The police department keeps a strict log of every time a dog bites someone in the process of making an arrest and must show a low ratio of bites to arrests to prove that they aren't being used as a tool of cruelty. These things can come up in court when a suspect is bitten and the officers need to be able to make the case that the dog was a necessity and in fact was far less injurious and more judicious than using a gun.

A canine officer trains for 10 weeks with the dog before they can work together.

"I help my dog and it helps me," says Officer Garcia. "It's like working with a partner."

PART OF AN ONGOING SERIES LOOKING INSIDE THE POLICE CITIZENS' ACADEMY