Photo By Rick Emert | FORT CARSON, Colo. — Spc. Rachael Wait and Cigi, a military working dog team with...... read more read more
By Scott Prater
Mountaineer staff
FORT CARSON, Colo. — Fourteen military and law enforcement K-9 teams from four states took part in a unique training event at Fort Carson Feb. 23-25, 2022.
The working dogs and their handlers, many of whom traveled to the Mountain Post from as far away as Montana, Idaho and Texas, endured three days of intense training at various locations on post.
Hosted by the 69th Military Police Detachment, 759th MP Battalion, the event was known as the Street Level One Development Course. Detachment leaders brought in expert instructors from Olive Branch K-9 and Marathon K-9 academies to provide the training, which was designed, to enhance and improve team skills and knowledge.
The three-day course took traditional decoy work to the next level, preparing teams for real-world operational deployment — with an emphasis on the use of unexposed equipment and stress inoculation to build street-ready canines and handlers. Teams hit the classroom on the event’s first day to build a framework for the course, then followed with hands-on field work during days two and three.
Staff Sgt. Brandon Spears, 69th MP Det. plans and training NCO, indicated that this specific training was different than what 69th MP Det. instructors usually teach. The advanced curricula exposed handlers to different types of stress and covered specific decoy techniques and practices.
Typically, decoys are handlers themselves. When not training along with their own canine, they don protective suits and act as perpetrators or suspects during another dog team’s training session.
Decoys are vital in dog-team training, partly because they can simulate real-world activity and provide real-time feedback, so it’s important for decoys to be trained and proficient as a means for avoiding injuries to themselves and dogs.
“We wanted to expose the dog teams to various environmental and stress conditions to help develop their combat effectiveness or law enforcement domestic capacity,” said Antonio Rodriguez, an instructor for the event.
Organizers ended the training with a few scenario-based capstone events that helped teams diagnose problems, identify dogs that had experienced challenges and solve those problems.
“It’s great to train in different places and scenarios because it’s new to you and the dog,” said Spc. Rachael Wait, a three-year veteran handler with the 69th MP Det. “You’re going into a scenario where you don’t know what to expect, and you have to feel that out. It was also great to get some work in with the bite (decoy) suit. It’s fun to learn different techniques that help you perform better. We don’t get to train in the bite suit often. Instructors taught some advanced techniques that involved turning and footwork.”
One indoor scenario challenged dog teams to apprehend up to two decoys inside of a multi-room building. Decoys also used tarps and other make-shift weapons in an effort to distract the dogs and handlers.
“We were looking for some opportunistic training that is outside our normal day-to-day activities,” said Capt. Andrew Blasczyk, commander for the 148th and 69th MP Dets., prior to the training event. “We want our Soldiers to get some extra training in while we also build a network (with local organizations). At the end of the day, we’re making sure our teams are ready to deploy. We don’t want any of our teams heading out the door questioning their confidence and competence. This (training) helps provide them with a breadth of knowledge and an understanding of different scenarios and situations.”
| Date Taken: | 02.25.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 03.04.2022 11:58 |
| Story ID: | 415768 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 21 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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