"Well.... The Felony charge was dropped by The State and Officer Cockfield was aquitted of the lesser charge by a jury of someone's peers"
Charges are dropped because they are not supported by the evidence. A jury acquits the person yet that's not good enough? It is our system and this officer utilized it. Funny how folks become upset when a police man exercises his rights. We didn't give them up when they gave us this badge.
At any rate, I don't know if he did it or not. Evidences seems to not support it and a jury didn't believe. I've seen a lot of trials and while I don't always think they get them right, it's still the system. I doubt OJ"s arguing too much.
I do find a few other comments interesting as well. Such as: "Most of this training is done on the police officer's own time." If that is the case, more power to them. However it's not necessary. Fair Labor and Standards Act (FLSA which is federal law) requires training be a compensated activity. FLSA also requires compensation if the dog is kenneled at the handler's residence.
"I think that this would work very well if the dogs were purchased already trained. "
Some Departments do buy trained dogs, others buy untrained and train them. I think it has more to do with the experience level in a department and the time available. The larger departments I"m familiar with buy untrained and train them themselve. That keeps a lot of sport nonsense out of PSD and produces a better dog for that department.
"But with dogs purchased untrained, I think there is a lot of pressure on the handlers, the trainer and probably not the level of experience required to actually get all the dogs through all the training to the level of passing the state tests."
there is a lot of pressure on handlers whether the dogs are trained or untrained. I would point out though, there are only two states in teh country that have mandatory "tests" for a dog. Most departments rely on outside certification agencies such as USPCA, NAPWDA etc. They establish standards that have been accepted in court. In addition, the "industry standard" recommends 16 hours per month in service training on a certified, working dog. Of course all training is heavily documented.
"The two things I remember about what he said about training was that one of the first things they do is go out and urinate on a tree -- not sure what female k9 officers do for this. They then do not allow the dog to pee over it. This supposedly shows the dog who is dominant."
I have to admit, 45 years in the business and this is a first. I've heard the stories of how we get drug dogs addicted to drugs, feed them gunpowder, beat them till they are mean, etc etc, etc. This is a first. Peeing aside, female handlers do quite well.
There are many misconceptions in some previous posts, but I'm not going to change anyones mind. I will on occasion however attempt to provide a different perspective. Canine is, in my opinion, the best thing happening in the police business. In my experience the vast majority of handlers are hard working dedicated employess. The dog becomes their partner. They'll spend more time with it than most of their friends and some of their family. I've seen battle hardened veterens cry when their partner was lost whether in conflict or just because his time ran out. Police aren't perfect. We hire from the same labor pool as everyone else. We certainly do make the news on every little thing though, ha ha, but I've come to expect that.
DFrost