James Allen''s World Class Canine 
About the World Class Canine Police Dog Training Program by our national director James Allen
One of the main problems is that law enforcement officers are generally not dog trainers prior to their appointment into their K9 unit. Even once they have trained and certified their K9 partner, they have really only trained one police dog. Another obstacle facing most agencies today is the lack of fight drive taught, due to traditional bite sleeve training. For years, many agencies have relied on only minimum state certification training and prey drive fueled bite work (fleeing suspects wearing a bite sleeve). While apprehension training is necessary, many working K9's can be easily shut down, or won't engage a subject that is unafraid, attacking, or evoking defensive drive in the police dog. Traditional sport derived training methods are largely to blame for the law enforcement community's low point of reference and inferior techniques in bite-work.
The number one training variable left out in typical police dog training, is the conditioning of decoy and environmental pressures in bite-work. Elite personal protection dogs are conditioned to real pressure from day one, taught that the man is the real object of prey/fight drives and conditioned to stand their ground overcoming pressure no matter what, Police dogs, however, are led though bite-work by the manipulation of their prey drive, by using visible equipment on a fleeing decoy. A properly trained dog can apprehend, as well as fight to the death under real pressure, whereas the typical police dog will shut down under a real fight. The choice is yours, do you want to prepare for World War 3, so that real life will seem like a day at Disney Land, or just take your chances with sport dog oriented training? Remember it's your life and unlike your favorite video game, there are no do-overs.
Most officers with police dogs subject to defeat don't even know it. This is a dangerous business and we cannot let our ego's get in the way of our safety. I have personally exposed endless working K9's, with high pressure decoying and an intense presence. With proper training you can condition your K-9 to handle anything imaginable, but if you don't train to succeed, you plan to fail. Don't let a problem arise in real life that could have been corrected in training.
Being a K9 police officer is dangerous, don't let it be deadly. Imagine for a moment, you encounter a fleeing felony suspect after a long track thru the woods, at which point he jumps out striking your dog, causing him to run. As you watch in disbelief, you see your dog unwilling to engage. While you are focused on your K9 partner, the suspect shoots you in the head with a .45 caliber handgun.
The last thing we need is another brother laid to rest. It is imperative that your K9 will engage under any circumstances and will work on the suspect alone. This allows you to focus on the threat at hand and not worry about what your K9 partner will do. If we don't train to succeed we are destined to fail.