Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume 52 Article 10 Issue 3 September-October Fall 1961 The -9K Corps: The seU of Dogs in Police Work William F. Handy Marilyn Harrington David J. Pittman Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons Recommended Citation William F. Handy, Marilyn Harrington, David J. Pittman, The -9K Corps: The sU e of Dogs in Police Work, 52 J. Crim. L. Criminology & Police Sci. 328 (1961) This Criminology is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology by an authorized editor of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. POLICE SCIENCE THE K-9 CORPS: THE USE OF DOGS IN POLICE WORK* WILLIAM F. HANDY, MARILYN HARRINGTON AND DAVID J. PITTMAN William F. Handy is a junior Research Assistant at the Social Science Institute, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. Marilyn Harrington is Editorial Consultant for the research projects of the Social Science Insti- tute, Washington University, and is a graduate of Grinnell College. David J. Pittman, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Sociology, Washington University, and Sociological Consultant to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Dr. Pittman has written extensively on criminological studies and in the field of alcohol problems and has served as a lec- turer and consultant in the latter field.-EDITOR. For centuries legends and exploits of the dog, Dogs were next used in Paris in 1895, when local the most successfully domesticated animal known agents began using a canine corps to control gangs to man, have captured the imagination of writers that were creating a police problem.? The success and poets. Credit has been given to many famous of the dogs in curbing these gangs led to their use dogs for the most amazing and unusual accom- by the Germans in 1896, and it was in Germany plishments, but accounts of the most interesting that the first scientific and planned development and beneficial ways in which dogs have served man in this field took place, with experiments in breed- are to be found in factual recordings of history. ing, training, and utilization. Through their experi- Stories of protection, the greatest way a dog can ences with dogs in police work, the Germans serve its master, need no embellishment to make selected the German Shepherd, or Alsatian, as heroes of thousands of dogs. the breed best suited for the assigned duties, and As long ago as a thousand years before Christ, the Doberman Pinscher as second choice. 4 In 1920 dogs were being used by the armies of Egypt to a school was established at Greenheide, Germany- carry messages and to guard army encampments, the first of its kind-for the training of the canine and in hieroglyphics many stories are told of the policemen. 5 Here the dogs were instructed in part dogs played in battles. For centuries after, basic obedience, tracking, and searching. From only glimpses of the ways in which dogs afforded this school came the plans and criteria for those protection are recorded, and not until we enter to come, and much of the training system used the era of modem history are any complete records today in modem canine corps operations has been to be found. Then, sometime early in the fourteenth taken without change from Greenheide. century, the French began using them to guard DIFFUSION TO THE UNITED STATES the naval installations and docks at St. Malo-the Prior to the establishment of the Greenheide first known instance of dogs being used for police school and the scientific organization of canine work.' Their work must have been satisfactory, corps, the city of Ghent, Belgium, was recognized for the dogs continued to perform this task until as the world leader in the use of police dogs, and the year 1770 when their use was discontinued it was from that city that the use of the dogs after one of them accidently killed a young naval spread to America.6 The corps in Ghent was started officer out after the curfew.2 3CHARLES F. SLOANE, "Dogs in War, Police Work, * Prepared under the auspices of the Social Science and on Patrol," THE JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW, Institute, Washington University, and the St. Louis CRIMINOLOGY, AND POLICE SCIENCE, 46:385-395, 1955. Metropolitan Police Department. 4 Ibid., p. 392. I "Use of Police Dogs a Fad?" THE POLICE CHIEF, 'Ibid. 26:12, 1959. KELLOGG DURLAND, "New York Police Dogs," 2 Ibid., p. 12. BOSTON EVENING TRA~NSCRIPr, October 4, 1911, p. 21. 19611 USE OF DOGS IN POLICE WORK in 1899 with Belgian Sheep Dogs and Wolfhounds, loaded with blanks and began firing at the dog. and was the first to train the handler and dog as a When the dog tried to attack the detective and team. was restrained by its handler, another plain- In 1907, General Bringham, Police Commis- clothes man, seeing what appeared to be a culprit sioner of New York City, sent George Wakefield trying to kill a police dog and unaware of the to Ghent to study the canine operations and to demonstration or that the demonstrator was a return to New York with six trained Belgian Sheep fellow police officer, shot and killed the detective. Dogs for operational and breeding purposes.7 Thus, This incident, coupled with the never-ending com- the first canine corps in the New World was estab- plaints, resulted in the immediate disbanding of lished, and it met with half success. By 1911, America's first canine corps. New York had 16 dogs that were used for patrolling New York was not the only city in the United in the Long Island residential district in the same States to have a canine corps during this period. manner that dogs were used in Ghent. From 11 In 1910 the city of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, pur- P.M. until 7 A.M. the dogs ran loose in the neigh- chased two of the Belgian-trained dogs from New borhood assigned to their handlers (officers on the York, housed them in a small shed behind the police force), and, upon encountering anyone other police station, and assigned them to various office s than a man in uniform, would knock the stranger for foot patrols.$ The dogs were effective in check- to the ground, stand on him, and bark until the ing unoccupied houses and in maintaining order handler arrived. during several strikes. Their use was discontinued These dogs were trained as puppies to regard in 1917 or 1918, however, with the advent of the a person in a policeman's uniform as friendly and patrol car and the usual complaints of disruntled in any other garb as hostile. When the puppies were late-evening strollers. The city of Westport, first kenneled at the police station, only uniformed Connecticut, also had a corps simila in origin officers were allowed near them for feeding and and operation, but about which no information exercising purposes. During the second week at the is available. kennel, a man attired in street clothes would enter Dogs were used in both world wars for policing the room where the-dogs were and tease them in military installations and for carrying meages in various ways. This treatment would continue daily the front lines, and today are used by the United until the dogs showed signs of aggressiveness States and other nations to guard missile and air toward anyone not wearing a uniform. After-this bases. The United States Air Force alone has 5,000 conditioning, the dogs were taught to throw a man dogs in use today in all parts of the world.1O to the ground by wrapping their front paws around his legs and dragging him down, and then to stand MODRN CANINE COMM on the prostrate victim and bark until the officer In the middle 1930's, London borrowed the with whom they were working arrived. Then the techniques that were used at Grcelheide and begn dogs learned to search old houses, to track, and to training dogs for police work. Years before, con- chase and capture a fleeing suspect.' This training stables in London suburbs had taken dogs with program as well as operational procedures were them on their rounds, more for companionship adopted without change from Ghent. than protection, and this anticipated the program The practice of grounding every person who adopted by Scotland Yard in 1938." The use of ventured on the streets after 11 in the evening was dogs had not advanced to any extent by the begin- far from satisfactory, and many innocent citizens ning of World War II, when all trained dogs were were injured. Continual compaints from irate transferred to the war effort. During the war the residents often placed the dogs in disfavor with the London police did have some dogs which were used constantly changing police administration, but to search the debris for victims of the blitz." despite this, the corps grew. Airedales were tried The war helped prove the value of the dogs, and but rejected in favor of the Sheep Dogs and Wolf- in 1946 the London Metropolitan Police began hounds. Then, in the early 1920's, a detective was demonstrating to a group of people at a parade 9Henry G. Lieberknecht, Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Police Department, letter of April 5, 1960. how the dogs would attack a man even under "0"Dogs as Policemen-New Answer to Crime," gunfire, and to prove his point he drew a revolver U.