Raising two dogs of my own, I’ve come to appreciate a well obedient dog when I come across one. The typical "sit, stay, come" commands are appropriate for the normal housedog. If you have a hunting dog, its retrieving skills may require more intense training. But they’re nothing compared to a working dog. When I come across a Seeing Eye dog or a police K-9 dog, I’m always amazed by how obedient and smart they are. Which made me wonder, how are these big active dogs trained?
From my research, I’ve found that a working dog can’t just be any dog; there are specific breeds that the police and other agencies use. Police K-9s are usually German shepherd dogs, Belgian Malinois, Rottweilers, Pit Bulls, or Doberman Pinschers. Seeing Eye dogs are usually German shepherds, Labrador Retrievers, and Golden Retrievers. Occasionally, they provide Boxers to students who are allergic to long-haired dogs. Generally, the dogs are bred at their own facilities as well.
After the puppies have reached eight weeks and can be taken away from their mothers, they are placed in the home of a voluntary puppy-raiser, where they're taught basic obedience and socialization and given lots of love. Police dogs are trained in obedience just like other working dogs during this period, but are not given as much socialization and love as the seeing-eye dogs, for obvious reasons. When they're about eighteen months old, the dogs return to either the Seeing Eye or Police Academy and begin a four-month course of training with a (sighted) instructor.
During this phase the K-9s choose a specialty and the Seeing Eye dogs learn about their surroundings and are trained in extreme obedience. The working police dogs are introduced to their specialties early and focused that way for the duration of their training: missing-person trackers, bomb dogs, drug dogs, etc. Using a muzzle is a very common and efficient way of training K-9s. Since various specialties require them to attack, muzzles are helpful because they allow the dog jaw and neck motion as in a real attack.
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