Trainer Stefan Van Menseel teaching the dog to target below the waist (calf).
A TOP-NOTCH human decoy in protection dog training is an expert in canine communication.
He understands what the dog is ‘saying’ at all times and what actions are appropriate to fit the trainer’s overall plan for the dog.
The decoy must learn to read the dog’s behaviour well, speak back to it and make split-second responses accordingly, using the body language and behaviour the dog understands — preferably with canine communication skills of a consummate dog whisperer.
The perception used to be that no previous training or instruction was needed to decoy for a police dog and choosing a person not afraid of dogs was enough. This is no longer considered adequate if dogs are to be efficiently trained, especially for patrol work.
Nowadays, the decoy’s job is more than just suiting up a guy, telling him to run and letting the dog loose. Crucially, he needs to be skilled in bringing out the necessary drives in the dog for a specific type of job, be it competition, personal protection or police work.
This is important because an inexperienced decoy can ‘misread’ the dog and his inability to respond quickly enough and can damage the dog’s training, unnecessarily adding more months of training to break the bad habits created.
Handlers are important but a good handler will not be able to take his dog any higher than the decoy’s skill level. A good decoy knows the correct methods of agitation and timing, and will have acquired actions and reactions through numerous training opportunities.
Family and home protection is a natural instinct all dogs have. Canine training experts say it is most important to use this instinct to properly train the dog to behave well even while protecting the home or the family.
Ideally, the decoy should be a Cesar Millan clone.
Gan (right) decoying for a dog, trained to bite on the bicep.
Instructor and specialist
Robin Gan, from Real K-9 Training in Miri, is a certified Police K-9 instructor and specialist in Behaviour Modifications and Obedience Training from Tarheel Canine Training, North Carolina.
According to him, at some point in protection dog training, someone has to lure the dog into thinking he is behaving so badly that he deserves to be bitten. For example, in police K-9 training, personal-home protection dog training or even protection sports training, the decoy acts as “a mechanism for a reward to the dog”.
In the case of protection dog training, be it for law enforcement, personal protection or sports protection, the decoy plays a vital role, requiring considerable practice with technique and understanding of the basic canine drives that make a dog tick.
In the past, the decoy went by a few names. In the late 1970’s, he was also known as an Agitator, usually the guy who jumped around a lot and generally got the dog all excited.
Some referred to him as a Catcher since his ultimate goal was to catch the dog on a protective sleeve. In protection sports, he was known as a Helper who horned the skills of the dog for such activities.
Recently, Real K-9 Training conducted a three-day seminar on The Art & Science of Decoying in Sungai Buloh, Selangor. The dog trainer for the seminar was Stefan Van Manseel, a world-class competition professional decoy from Belgium with 20 years’ experience under his belt.
Van Manseel also trains for law enforcement as well as police agencies and decoys for many world-class sports competition such as the recent FMBB World Championship 2017, Modio Ring, Belgium Ring, NVBK (Nationaal Verbond van Belgische Kynologen, the main organisation of dog handling clubs in Belgium), and some French Ring sports. All are protection dog sports, including both obedience and protection.
At the seminar, participants learned the proper techniques — or the art and the science — behind what the decoy is doing with the dogs.
Other topics included the right way to catch dogs, get a good bite quality, teach targeting to dogs, puppy selections, usage of bite equipment and first-hand knowledge on how a selection of a decoy is made.
Van Menseel and Gan (standing fifth and sixth left) with the seminar participants.
Few become good decoys
Gan said almost anyone could put on a sleeve or a bite suit, dance in front of the dog and take a bite but few could become good decoys.
“You can see from time to time videos posted in Facebook or YouTube, the so-called ‘over the fence decoy’ who sees other decoys working their dogs and copies their actions without proper understanding of decoy work or the techniques behind the training.
“It’s easy to just copy a decoy’s actions but when it comes to the real situation, only a dog’s performance can tell.”
He stressed that to train a dog properly, it was important to understand some basics about canine learning.
“Too few trainers have a command of the theory behind canine learning and many trainers are intuitive, meaning they learned through experience what affects canine learning in practice but cannot explain the theory behind what they do.”
He said there are two basic types of canine learning — operant conditioning and classic conditioning.
“Operant conditioning gets its name from the process of learning it represents whereby the dog learns his behaviour has consequences provided by its environment (including the trainer), and the dog learns to operate in the environment to get what it wants.
“In classical conditioning, the dog learns life is made up of associations and sometimes this leads to the dog behaving inappropriately (anticipation) because of context.”
He pointed out that training is never a competition between dog and trainer.
“We have to keep in mind our job is to always make the dog a top protection dog or a top ring sports dog.
“A decoy’s job is not to test the dog but to make a poor dog a mediocre dog, a mediocre dog a good dog or a good dog an excellent dog.”
A fully trained protection dog will cost between RM30,000 and RM60,000, depending on where the dogs are purchased.
The seminar was open to anyone interested in learning more about canine training and not necessarily for handlers of protection dogs only.
The participants included the Kuching SOS (Save Our Strays), Genting K-9 Police Auxiliary and canine welfare groups from Miri, Brunei, Penang and Singapore.
Gan (right) during a training session.