Just a year ago, Cincinnati police dogs won the national championship from the U.S. Police Canine Association. But they still can't get a Milk-Bone from the feds.

"A year ago, the Justice Department approved our canine procedure," said Cincinnati Police Lt. Col. Richard Janke. The feds approved the training; the canine unit is well below the 20 percent bite threshold for total searches; every deployment and bite gets a complete report; and a court-appointed monitor found that all canine incidents from the past year have been reasonable and appropriate, Janke said.

But that's not good enough for the Department of Justice lawyers who came to town three years ago after the riots, to investigate claims that the Cincinnati police were violating civil rights.

"They're still nitpicking our canine unit," Janke said. "Now they say they still see things in training that could lead to a bad bite."

He thinks the DOJ believes nobody should ever get bitten by a police dog. That's impossible. Unless the canine unit is toothless.

"We strongly believe they are trying to force a find-and-bark dog on us, versus find-and-hold," Janke said.

It's an important point that illustrates why the police and the mayor are fed up with federal meddling and micromanagement.

Find-and-bark dogs are trained to find a suspect and just bark, unless the suspect runs. CPD dogs are trained to grab a suspect, Janke said. But they don't bite unless ordered, and they don't puncture the skin unless a suspect resists, he said.

Most police departments think barking is not enough, Janke said, because it could allow an armed felon to ambush a cop.

Janke is also frustrated by the feds' demand to tape interviews every time a cop uses a Taser, although Tasers reduce injuries.

"That would be incredibly time-consuming," he said. "We don't have the staff. Instead of chasing bad guys, the cops will be sitting in the office taping interviews."

Mayor Charlie Luken said he invited the feds in 2001 because they were coming anyway. But he thinks their demands to tape interviews on every "hard hands" incident are tiresome. "They keep coming to me like a broken record.

"Look, the monitor (Saul Green) told me in my office that we are in full compliance," Luken said. "Now he is saying publicly something very different."

Green did not return my call. He and civil-rights lawyers opposed Luken's letter asking the DOJ to leave town. Green said, "It's a contract, one side cannot unilaterally decide they are done." ACLU lawyer Scott Greenwood called Luken's letter "delusional."

But Luken wonders if they have a conflict of interest. "The civil rights lawyers have got to find something to justify their existence," he said. "These lawyers in part make a living by suing the city. They will never acknowledge that the police are in compliance."

Even if the feds and the civil rights lawyers still had a good reason to dog the cops, more than three years of chewing on the city's ankles is enough.

Neighborhoods are begging City Hall for more cops, and council members say they can't afford it - while the feds divert police time and resources to worry that a police dog might bite some fleeing felon.

Luken and Janke are right. It's time to call off the federal dogs.

E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.