Validations & Red Team Assessments

How do the end users of a K-9 team guarantee they are getting the most out of their investment? Dogs for Defense offers a unique solution to ensure the K-9 Teams, working on your behalf, are fulfilling the promise to provide capable and well-trained K-9 teams.

This Dogs for Defense service can be as simple as a one-time consultation to review current K-9 operations, or it can be a broad program involving training, periodic testing and refining the overall performance plan.

Dogs for Defense will come to you, observing the teams at their place of performance to ensure the K-9 teams are suitable for the environment they are asked to work. Some K-9 teams excel at searching vehicles at a loading dock, some K-9 teams work well in large crowds and other K-9 teams perform best conducting large open-air searches. Dogs for Defense can be the facilitator between end user and the service provider to ensure optimal performance.

Validations

Validations are typically a short exercise to see if a dog and handler are performing as a cohesive team and are applying the training they have undergone.  K-9 Team validations are normally less formal than a certification event and may only be conducted in a single area or environment the detection dog works. This independent validation can be utilized to ensure performance, identify training deficiencies, or to complete a contract requirement.

Dogs for Defense can perform weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual validations on canine teams.

Validations can be conducted wherever the canine team regularly performs their work. A validation is often set up to replicate a common, or standard, search for the K-9 Team.

To set up a validation contact us

 Red Team Assessments

Dogs for Defense has seen the need to offer “Red Team” solutions to those utilizing K-9 services.  The “Red Team” assessment is an unannounced test conducted by a Dogs for Defense subject matter expert on the K-9 team to see if the dog and handler respond appropriately. The need for this type of test, or assessment, has grown as the K-9 industry has grown. There are now more and more inexperienced K-9 teams being asked to work in more and more challenging environments.

Tests can include actual training aids built to replicate known trends to test the entire K-9 team. A test can be designed to focus on the canine’s reliability or can be situational, such as where the test is designed to test the response of the handler and not the detection capabilities of the dog. 

The assessments are performed under the guidance of certifying officials, all with extensive experience as canine handlers and trainers. The assessment will be followed up with a detailed report and can identify techniques and solutions to optimize a K-9 team’s performance.

Dogs for Defense can conduct the tests during a K-9 team’s normal course of business, eliminating the cost and time away from duty station.

Dogs for Defense holds an explosive permit from the ATF and is registered with the DEA, this enables testing to be done utilizing actual target odors.

In the event fraud is uncovered, Dogs for Defense certifying officials come from a law enforcement backgrounds and have experience providing court testimony.

To set up a “Red Team” Assessment  contact us