OCSD's Canine Rhino Takes a Bite Out of Crime

In writing this article, I’m admitting my bias up-front: I’ve always been an animal lover and admirer. But after meeting Sheriff Canine Rhino and his handler, Deputy Ivins, what’s most impressive is the unique bond these two share as a crime-fighting duo extraordinaire.

Rhino is a 4-year old Dutch Shepherd imported from the Netherlands and trained specifically in Royal Dutch Police Dog Association techniques (abbreviated KNPV in Dutch). Rhino is trained to respond to commands in Dutch, something I picked up right away when Deputy Ivins ordered him to heel using the word, “platz.”  

Dutch shepherds have a working dog lineage that goes back more than 100 years, though they are small in total numbers with about 4,000 registered in The Netherlands. Other breeds trained in KNPV are the Belgian Malinois and German Shepherd, but most KNPV certified dogs are not pedigrees. Skills are tested by elite dogs in competitions and reinforced as part of working-dog training.

The OC Sheriff has 8 canine units that roam the county as necessary to assist other officers in the field. Canine handlers form a network of support that is always just a phone call away. They respond to the top priority calls, so they aren’t typically used for dispatched calls. 

Back to the human half of the team, Deputy Ivins is an experienced Sheriff Dept. officer with fourteen years in uniform. He is a veteran of the Directed Enforcement Team, which targets career criminals and violent offenders, conducts high risk arrest warrants, conducts surveillances, search warrant service, and intelligence collection and analysis.

But ever since he worked with Sheriff Canine Handler, Officer Knutson, in San Juan Capistrano, Deputy Ivins wanted to become a canine officer. In fact, he delayed his own promotion so he could work with Rhino for the duration of the dog’s tour of duty.

Work experience wasn’t the only requirement Deputy Ivins had to satisfy to become a Sheriff Canine Handler. He told us that typically, before Sheriff deputies are allowed to become a handler, officers must spend lots of time (above and beyond their normal duty schedule) as a volunteer assisting in canine training for the department. As we would soon see, that’s not an easy job.

Volunteer officers are often sent to be dog bait, hiding in large buildings from dogs who are commanded to hunt and seek. Though the bait volunteer wears a protective suit, getting roughed up by a powerful canine is not like playing with your own dog at home.

Despite wearing the bite suit and arm protector, Deputy Ivins said, the force of the dogs’ jaws is enough to bruise the human through the protective gear. Not only that, but the thrashing, shark-like action the dogs employ feels like your shoulder is being ripped out of its socket, Deputy Bull added. To be sure, canine officers pay their dues bite by bite.

Deputy Ivins explained that loyalty, drive, and desire are key traits needed in a police dog. While that’s not breed-restrictive, those attributes are more common in some breeds. The dogs need a strong willingness to defend their handler, excel in fighting, be extremely agile, and love to focus on their prey (the suspect) and his odors, no matter where the targeted person is hiding. Dogs must locate and apprehend criminal suspects in water, buildings, and vehicles while performing like world-class athletes on a daily basis.

Those desirable canine attributes also require the dog’s handler to make decisions to protect the dog from being his own worst enemy. Police dogs are often so focused on their task of hunting and tracking that they have no sense of self-preservation or awareness of vehicle traffic. As a result, they cannot be unleashed near a roadway because they will follow a scent or a suspect into the road, risking a collision with a car.

So, under what conditions are police canines deployed? The short answer is when the situation justifies physical enforcement, hitting of a suspect, contraband detection, or handler protection. Usually, that means dogs are used where suspects are actively fleeing or resisting, where circumstances are dangerously unpredictable, or where drugs/contraband might be involved.

According to Deputy Ivins, the key variable in those situations is “reactionary gap time.” Essentially, that refers to the dogs’ keen sense of hearing and smell that provides an overwhelming advantage to law enforcement. Importantly, the dogs save about 6 hours of officer time hunting for an item discarded by a perpetrator.

In ambush situations and because of their superior sensory abilities, the dogs are often sent ahead of officers to locate hiding suspects. The dogs also decrease vulnerability of officers so humans don’t have to engage suspects directly or initiate contact until the subject is under control. However, the canines are never engaged in a no-win situation.

A key part of the canines’ training is extracting a suspect from a vehicle. Since law enforcement has the ability to break glass remotely, the officer can remain shielded while his/her dog leaps through the car window to apprehend the target.

Those inherently risky situations underscore the necessity of creating a strong bond between dog and handler. Officer and canine get themselves acquainted through a 6-week course that cements the partnership upon which their lives depend. The officer lives with his dog, so the two are nearly constant companions. (Deputy Ivins said that Rhino is such a hearty animal that he prefers to stay outside his dog house when kenneled at home, regardless of the weather. Likely, that’s the result of his Dutch upbringing).

Regular patrol deputies are encouraged to directly call the canine team for support and consultation. Deputy Ivins said he doesn’t get many dispatched calls, since most of his responses are top priority requests for immediate need from field officers. As a result, Sheriff canines are usually attached to SWAT teams.

The success rate and efficiency in apprehending suspects with canines is huge, Deputy Ivins said. At least 80% of suspects surrender merely upon seeing a police canine. But not all perpetrators are that smart.

We were shown a helicopter video of a young car thief escaping into the canyon off Stonehill during the black of night. The dude was warned by pursuing officers that he had been spotted by helicopter and unless he came out of the bushes and surrendered, they would release the canine. Not being a Nobel Prize winner, the guy didn’t surrender and we watched in high resolution infrared as the canine found him in about 2 seconds, bit him in the ass, dragged him out of the bushes, and pinned him down until his handler and other officers could cuff him. The funny thing was, the dog was such an old canine that he didn’t have any teeth left, but was able to subdue the perpetrator using jaw strength alone and without bite punctures.    

Police canines are trained for a specific job. That means the dogs used to apprehend suspects are often not the same dogs used to sniff for explosives or drugs. The Sheriff Dept. has several bomb-sniffing dogs on staff and has deployed two new dogs to the jail system for narcotics detection.

The drug sniffing dogs are generally more calm than the pursuit dogs and they have a tremendous capacity to detect micro-amounts of select substances. Drug-sniffing canines can detect if an object has come in contact with drugs, such as when a person who has handled narcotics has also handled money. The dogs are trained using both uncirculated money and drug-contaminated money, so they’ll differentiate the baseline odor from the contraband ones.

Before he returned to the evening's field duty, Deputy Ivins offered some sage advice for people in the presence of police canines.

First, ALWAYS remain calm, stand still, and notify the handler of your presence.

Second, remember this:

• DON’T touch or approach a dog w/o the handler’s permission;
• DON’T enter the handler’s patrol car;
• DON’T yell;
• DON’T box or horseplay with a handler in the presence of the dog;
• DON’T bend down or make dog-level eye contact. That behavior is interpreted as confrontational by a police dog.

I asked the deputy if I could pet Rhino, so I was able to interact with him a bit. Interestingly, he never wagged his tail while I patted his crown and constantly kept his eyes on Deputy Ivins. I asked about that unusual behavior and the deputy said that Rhino is so attached to his handler’s needs, that he’s constantly seeking and interpreting visual cues.  

That intuitive connection between Deputy Ivins and Rhino was impressive, in a synergistic sense. The dog’s loyalty to his handler was reinforced by the handler’s devotion to his dog. In my opinion, that’s a rare partnership of any kind. We should all be so lucky.  

So, thanks Deputy Ivins, for sharing Rhino with the Citizen Academy.

Be sure to watch some of the uploaded competition and training videos for KNPV skills. These dogs’ abilities are nothing less than amazing.  

Next post: Class 4, Emergency Operations. 

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