Jason Dill: Most of these dogs are very strong.
They will rip flesh, and some have strong enough mouths
that they could break bones.
Trainer: Hey!
Narrator: This military working dog in training
is practicing controlled aggression.
In a matter of months, they'll be ready to be deployed
to one of the many US military bases across the globe.
But before they were powerful enough
to bring down a full-grown human,
they started out like every other dog does.
Stewart Hilliard: It's kind of remarkable to say that
there's any aspect of public security
or national defense that relies on animals,
but it's the truth.
Narrator: There are about 1,600 military working dogs
currently serving across every branch
of the United States military.
Narrator: And they all started here,
at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
Insider spent two days with the 341st Training Squadron
observing both dogs and handlers
at various stages of training.
Eric Mouyal: However many we produce, it seems like
we can never get military working dogs out fast enough
to meet the demands of the Department of Defense,
because they're just such a vital asset
to everything we do.
Narrator: Several hundred dogs are in training
at any given time,
which takes about 120 days to complete
and is split into two blocks,
detection training and patrol training.
Mouyal: Patrol training is teaching a dog
how to essentially chase after a suspect
that we're trying to apprehend who is uncooperative,
and controlling that dog and their aggression.
So it's a nonlethal or less-than-lethal option
for military members that defend installations
or secure installations to use and apprehend suspects.
Narrator: But before they learn to chase down a suspect,
the dogs have to perfect their obedience training.
Valerie Vigil: We want to have a good foundation
in obedience, because those commanded positions,
the sits and the downs,
they need to have those proficient
before we can start asking
for this in a higher level of stimulus.
Trainer: So if I were to just tell her,
sit!
She's not there yet.
Sit!
And I give her that,
she's able to do it.
Yes.
So the way that we teach them
is that they all do it in anticipation of a reward.
We use marker training,
where we end up saying "yes"
when we can mark whatever behavior we want
at the precise times.
So, this is Greta, and she's a sweetheart.
She looks like an old lady. She's not old, I promise you.
I've been working with her maybe for about two weeks now.
So far, right now, I've been working stability with her,
where she's able to maintain position
whenever I walk out to end of leash.
Down.
Good girl.
And then the part that I've been working recently,
sit!
Good.
Is getting her to sit from the down.
Yes.
Narrator: The dogs are also taught
how to conquer the obstacle course,
or confidence course.
Spencer Bass: The general purpose is just getting them
comfortable with going over certain obstacles.
So to simulate stuff when these guys
go and work for police departments.
Like, we have one of the obstacles that simulates a window,
narrow areas, going up stairs,
or over some sort of barrier
to go and chase down a suspect.
Narrator: Once the dogs have a solid foundation
in obedience training, they're ready to move on
to the controlled-aggression phase of patrol training.
Bernadine Green: Teaching a dog to show aggression,
especially when it's on demand,
it starts with this dog's breeding.
This dog's background, coming from parents
for generations that were bred to be this type of dog.
Narrator: The Department of Defense uses breeds
like Belgian Malinois, Dutch shepherds,
and German shepherds that are between 1 and 3 years old.
Green: We're looking for a well-balanced,
environmentally sound dog that does not have
issues for fearfulness or timidity.
We're looking for a strong, confident dog
that also likes to use its nose for hunting.
We're looking for a confident, bold dog
that's willing to bite
and defend its handler if need be.
Narrator: Roughly 400 dogs are purchased
for the program every year,
mainly from Europe.
The rest come from the Department's
breeding program at Lackland.
Hilliard: We started the program in 1998.
It's basically a contingency plan.
The idea is that since we obtain the vast majority
of our dogs overseas, something might happen
to interrupt our supply of military working dogs.
So in 1998,
we began this rather small-scale breeding program
to establish an organic ability on our own
to breed and develop military working dogs.
Narrator: The program rears the puppies
until they're 6 weeks old,
at which point they're fostered out to homes
in the local community until they're 7 months old.
Hilliard: 7 months is the first age
at which I can apply a test to the puppies
and determine whether or not
they are good material as military working dogs,
that their behavior expressed at that time
predicts how they're going to behave as adults.
Narrator: Puppies that meet the program's standards
are brought back to Lackland
to prepare for the military working dog course.
Dill: This is what we would call the beginning stages
of controlled aggression,
where our dogs are taught how to apprehend people.
A lot of it's instinctual.
It's based mainly on prey drive.
A dog's natural instinct is to chase him and grab stuff.
So we play off of their drives.
[dog barking]
Narrator: The puppies are tested one final time
when they reach 1 year old,
and 30 to 50 ultimately enter
the military working dog course every year,
where they'll continue to build on skills
like controlled aggression.
Vigil: What we're training for is the situation
where a military working dog handler in the field
would have to apprehend a suspect
using a military working dog.
What we train, we call it the six phases.
And initially we do the field interview,
which is when someone approaches the dog,
and it shows that the dog can be stable, maintain position,
and not attack just any random person
that comes up to talk to you.
Vigil: And then we move into the running bite,
or the pursuit and attack.
So, this is a bite sleeve.
Basically, it's just a tool that we use to teach the dogs
how to bite a target area, i.e., the arm.
This sleeve has a little bit of leather
and some foam on the inside,
and then on the outside, the burlap's to cover it.
So these ones provide a lot of protection.
This one you really don't feel much.
They're biting more of the material than your actually arm.
If you feel anything, it's more just a slight pressure.
Dill: Most of these dogs are very strong.
They will rip flesh,
and some have strong enough mouths
that they can break bones.
Mouyal: Obviously, if you're running and the dog is
chasing after you full speed and jumps up,
grabs ahold of the arm, takes you to the ground,
there is a whole lot of other injuries
that may come along with that.
But any of those options, I would argue,
are still better than lethal force
or even some other less-than-lethal options
that we have to offer.
Narrator: The dogs are also trained to stand down
from an attack if they're called off by their handler.
Vigil: The capping of that drive is the hardest part,
'cause you're putting their favorite thing in the world,
and you're saying, "Don't touch this."
Narrator: Finally, the dogs are trained
to maintain position
while their handler pats down the suspect,
and be ready to attack if the suspect
makes any sudden or aggressive movements.
Vigil: When the dog is coming at me,
I definitely feel an adrenaline rush.
I've done a lot of extreme sports,
and I would definitely say catching dogs
is when my adrenaline is at an all-time high.
Narrator: Patrol training also includes
scouting exercises,
where dogs are taught to search for a suspect
both in a building and in the woods.
Bass: The way that odor works is
if he's the source right there,
the way the scent will come out
is kind of like a giant cone.
So you'll start to see the dog's bracket
get big, to smaller, to smaller, to smaller, to smaller.
Then she gets, boom, source.
And from there, it's on us to say, "Hey, you found him,"
give that challenge, and also give the suspect
a last chance to give up, per se.
If not, we send the dog in.
You in the field!
Come out, or I'm going to send my dog!
Get him.
Narrator: The dog's ability to search for
and locate a scent out in the field
is honed during the first block of their training.
Trainer: Yes.
Narrator: Which is focused on detection.
Using training aids filled with trace elements
of explosive materials or narcotics,
the dogs are trained to detect an array of odors.
Trainers utilize classical conditioning
to hone each dog's natural detection capabilities.
The dogs we observed were between 1 and 2 years old.
Green: It's all about pairing an odor with a reward system.
So the dog relates this reward with that odor.
And, of course, to do that,
the dog has to have value for the reward.
So no matter what, if it thinks I'm hiding that ball,
it's going to search and search and search
until it finds that ball.
And it's just pairing of the odor on top of that.
Narrator: Through repetition, the dogs learn
that finding a source of odor
means they'll get rewarded with their toy.
Once a dog forms that association between the odor
and their toy, they're ready to move on
to the next step in their training.
This room is filled with boxes
containing either nothing, a novelty odor,
or the odor the dogs are trained to find.
Matthew Hollingsworth: At its basic form, odor dissipates.
So the dog is picking it up at its weakest area,
and it's following it to its strongest point.
And then they're going to bracket it
back and forth and follow where odor is
until they finally get to the source.
Narrator: When the dog finds the source of the odor,
they're trained to give a final response,
going into a sit or down position.
Hollingsworth: Eventually, they're going to have to work
as a team with their handler.
And then the handler is going to have to see
that change of behavior.
So if the dog were to move,
it's going to be harder for the handler
to make that determination that odor is actually there.
Narrator: Once the dogs are proficient
in searching for odors in the box room,
they move on to larger environments,
including vehicle parking lots and warehouses.
Our voices are one of the most important things
that we can utilize in order to persuade,
ask, or tell the dog what it is
that we need them to do.
When we first make a presentation on odor,
we're trying to kind of ask the dog to come there.
So, "Hey, check here, check here. Look here."
Kind of that pitch of, it's fun, it's exciting.
Come to me. It's going to be more fun.
And then after that, if they're still not coming towards us,
then we start kind of using more of that command voice,
that, "Hey, check. Check right here, up here, look here."
Corsetti: That's mainly those voices.
And it's just something that, with experience,
it gets more and more fine-tuned
to be that much more meaningful to the dog.
Narrator: Handlers are trained to look out
for any behavioral changes in their dog
that could indicate they've picked up on a scent.
Madison Johnson: Aggressive response.
His change of behavior,
he'll do kind of a head snap.
Whenever he picks up odor, he'll snap his head.
And he's very sporadic, typically running around very hyper,
but he gets a little more focused when he gets on odor.
Stay.
Hollingsworth: Each dog learns differently.
Just as each person has their own personality,
each dog has their own personality.
Just as if you were trying to teach
school-age children or high school
or even at the college level,
each person's going to have something
that they need different to understand the task.
Mouyal: I think maybe the most common misconception
is that a lot of these dogs do it
because they're excited about doing it.
It's, to them, they get excited about work.
A lot of people think that these dogs
are very aggressive, and while that does happen,
we do get some aggressive dogs,
a lot of them are very friendly,
and they do want to play with their handlers,
and they're just normal dogs at the end of the day,
who want attention and care
and all the things that a dog
would normally want from a human being.
They just understand that they've been
taught certain behaviors that are play to them.
Narrator: Once the dogs complete their training,
they're evaluated in their detection
and patrol capabilities.
Roughly 90% of the dogs that enter the program
will graduate and be deployed
to one of the many US military bases around the world.
Vigil: There's a huge sense of
mission accomplishment and pride
when these dogs get out.
I mean, we're out here very early in the morning
and sometimes super late in the afternoon,
and when you finally get to see these dogs qualify
and you know that they're going to go out to
a handler in the field and go on to a bigger mission,
there's a huge sense of pride there.