Trooper Fired Over Abusing Dog

A NC Trooper has been fired after video was taken of him kicking his dog. While the video below shows disturbing footage of abuse that should not be tolerated, there are a few other points that deserve some discussion here.

First, the story indicates that the Trooper was trying to get his dog to release a toy that was provided as a reward during scent detection training. I would question why rewards beyond verbal praise by a handler are being used. This common practice with a lot of Police K9s is entirely unnecessary. A well trained dog that respects its owner/handler will be more than satisfied to work hard for only verbal praise. If that's not the case, then the dog doesn't have the greatest respect for the owner/handler IMO.

That lack of respect can cause a lot of problems when training any dog, but especially working dogs. If this dog wouldn't release a toy, how reliably will it release a suspect that it has taken down? Any Police training that focuses on heightening a dog's drive to attack without concurrently establishing strong control and releases is asking for trouble.

Certainly this Trooper's conduct appears "over the top", but the story also notes this dog was due for retirement (and actually retired) after this incident. So here we have a dog that's been on the street for any number of years and won't release a toy when the handler tells it to release. Perhaps the NC State Police should reconsider their training practices, as well as acceptable levels of performance and reliability from dogs they have working in the field.