Eight canines became Cincinnati police dogs Friday, graduating from training to become the department's first batch of new dogs in years.

Demonstrating his arrest procedure, Maximus latches onto a “bad guy's” arm. Officer Dave Dougherty plays the role at Spinney Field. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

        The German shepherds showed off what they learned in their 14 weeks of training, chasing officers who posed as bad guys and stopping short when their handlers shouted commands in German.

        The dogs start work just as the unit is undergoing changes prompted by the U.S. Department of Justice's investigation into the police department's patterns and practices.

        The dogs and how they operate became, somewhat surprisingly to police officials, a significant piece of the federal inquiry. The Justice experts suggested the dogs be trained to bark at suspects, but not bite.

        Cincinnati police disagree with that recommendation, but are adopting much of the canine policy used by the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., a policy the Justice department agreed to when it investigated that force.

        Among the changes:

        • Emphasizing tighter control of the dogs by the handlers. For example, no searches of buildings where the dog is let loose alone inside. Now, the handler will follow more closely so he can call the dog off in cases where somebody is inside but not resisting.

        • Deployment only for felonies, offenses of violence, and in times when the suspect is reasonably believed to be armed. This supplants the current “serious misdemeanors,” language the federal officials found too vague.

        • Training more field supervisors in when to deploy the dogs.

        The dogs will start work Sunday, meaning the department will now have 10 — enough for more than one to be working at the same time, said Sgt. Dan Hils, supervisor of the unit. Now, the two veteran dogs and their handlers have to be called in when an incident warrants.Chief Tom Streicher highlighted veteran handler Robert Boyce's work — he and Aegor caught a Westwood bank robber last week without biting him.
       

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