FORT KNOX, KY -- Ashton Aubuchon stood in a full-body suit, ready to face Devin, a dog who could turn her aggressive side on like a light switch.
Army Spc. Aubuchon, a police officer at Fort Knox, stepped left, then right and then twisted her upper body. Devin jumped and bit into the suit near Aubuchon's shoulder. The two sparred for a little bit until trainer Franco Angelini called it off.
Aubuchon is with the military working dog detachment on post. Last week, she and dog handlers from Fort Knox, other military posts and local law enforcement gathered at the K-9 kennels on post for a four-day class on dog training. Angelini, a North Carolina-based K-9 trainer, led the class. The goal was to eliminate bad habits and better equip the dog handlers.
Aubuchon said Angelini's lessons about the dog's psychology and behavior clicked after only 18 hours.
"I understand it now," she said. "I understand how a dog thinks and operates."
A key part of K-9 training is building the dog's confidence, she said.
"You have to teach them that they can win," she said.
Sergeant 1st Class Marcus Bates said the annual training delves deeper into the science of the dogs and the bite. The Military Working Dog Center at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, doesn't have time to go as in-depth, said Bates. They stick to going over the basics of handling and training.
"It advances our techniques so we can advance the dogs," he said.
Because the four-day class costs more than $7,000, according to Bates, they opened it up to other local law enforcement and military dog detachments.
Angelini worked with the participants on decoy training Sept. 13. Each one took a turn in the bite suit as a decoy as well as working with the dogs. Angelini said the decoy work was similar to sparring in boxing.
The strategy included grip development, animal behavior, and the mechanics and confidence building of the decoys and the dogs. Overall, he said his hope was to break bad habits the handlers and dogs have picked up.
Bates said the goal of each training session is a full-mouthed deep bite. They worked with the dogs to drive into a person rather than tugging at them.
"Rather than pull, pull, pull, we're teaching them to drive, drive, drive," Bates said.
The participants brought their own dogs, which Bates said helps with the training because dogs can only perform a few runs before exhaustion kicks in.
"This type of training is high-intensity," he said. "We don't want to smoke them out."
Aubuchon said a decoy is the one training that can make or break the animal. "It's extremely important to know what you are doing."
Louisville Metro Police officer Adam Sears came to the training with Hondo.
Sears said the training helped teach him the right way to perform decoy work.
"It's important to do the thing right," he said.
Sears has been with the K-9 unit for about six years and wanted Angelini's feedback and constructive criticism.
"Everyone needs to be humbled," he said.
Additionally, he said training will help him better develop new dogs with the department. Louisville Metro has 15 dogs.
Everyone in the class was improving, according to Angelini, but the key will be the work they continue afterward.
"These new techniques have to be maintained or they'll go back," he said. "It's a perishable skill."
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