# Single vs Dual Purpose



## Guest (Dec 1, 2008)

What is stronger a single purpose or Dual purpose job in its work? Why do you think that and would you rather have two SP dogs at your disposable or one DP dog for each call out? Why?


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## will fernandez (May 17, 2006)

DP's are great but I would love to have three SP's to work. Patrol, Track, Narc just what I would want in the perfect world.


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## Jim Nash (Mar 30, 2006)

If you could have 1 handler training 1 dog a single discipline IMO that would be the best . Most agencies don't have the money , personel or resources to do that . I don't see the advantage of 1 handler training multiple dogs in different disciplines when you consider all the extra work outside of training even , when it comes to maintaining multiple dogs . 

Both of my K9s were Patrol/Narc trained and I would put them up against any single purpose K9 in either field . Same goes for the dual purpose K9s I helped to train .


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## Jim Duncan (Jan 19, 2009)

My dog is a dual purpose Patrol / Narcotics dog. All of our Patrol dogs are cross trained either Narcotics or Explosives. Mine does both roles very well, he is high drive, clear headed and focused. His tracking is very good and his Narcotics work is excellent. Patrol is our primary function and that takes precedence over Narcotics calls. We usually have new dogs on the street for about a year and must be proven and settled in their patrol work before any cross training begins. We start detection work while we are working our normal shifts. We do not send our handlers to a detection school. We train as a unit weekly and get up with other handlers during our shift when we can to train. This takes longer to train the detection work but we usually can't afford to take a patrol off the street for weeks or months to go through a detection school. 

I can say that my dog would be an exceptional tracking dog if I put more time into it. But having a cross trained dog takes time to sufficiently maintain all of the disciplines. I remember how much down time I had when he was strictly a partol dog. My call volume was a third of what it is now. My dog is a very popular narcotics dog with the street officers and I am backed up on calls some nights. Most shifts I don't even stop to eat lately. A single purpose dog would be a lot easier, but I wouldn't change anything. Working a dope dog is way too much fun. 

Jim


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## Harry Keely (Aug 26, 2009)

Single I believe is stronger being that you can devote 100% training time to the objective of that dogs job then having to split it, because lets face most handlers or dept's or whatever else is not going to add a day of training. most dept's from what I have seen and talked if ya lucky devote one day a week to training, there defently not devoting two full shifts to it. That are truly devoted training days with know interuptions for the handlers with the few that are on duty that swap in and out on a rotation on those training days handling the call outs by the street officers.

In todays world very few are using single purpose do to cost of on duty time and OT for care of hte dog on off duty time when they can cut numbers and have one dog do both jobs hence avoiding paying two handlers. A good DP dog will do just fine with the jobs at hand and be proficient as long as that handler gives that dog the tools and training it needs to do the job, JMO.


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## Howard Knauf (May 10, 2008)

I've been hearing alot about this topic lately. My personal experience is that a DP dog can be just as effective than a SP dog. In the end, it's all about how much work you put into the dog. They are capable of doing both at a high level.

My DP patrol/narc dog beat out many a SP dog. My patrol/exp dog was the same way. An EDD takes SO much more work and while I thought it was cool at first, the work load was triple over a drug dog. By about the 3rd year with my EDD I was over all the training! Fortunately by that time the foundation was well laid and it took less extra work to keep him up to speed.

The first 3 years of my dogs careers found us training every day that we worked. If it wasn't regular in service training it was training while on the street. Not just scent work either...I trained extra in every discipline. With the bomb dog I'd have near 100 documented training sniffs each month. If you don't put the work in it doesn't matter if the dog is SP or not.

None of the patrol disciplines suffered with my dogs and both had great reputations as tracking dogs etc. so IMO it's a waste to have a SP dog unless that's all an agency really needs. In restrospect, if the handler is so busy as in Will's case, the training can suffer and the dog may not be so great if there isn't enough time to train extra while on duty. In that case it may make sense to have a SP scent dog with lots of training as opposed to a DP dog with mediocre training. Bigger agencies are probably better candidates for splitting the disciplines as they have more money and resources.


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## Jim Nash (Mar 30, 2006)

Howard that's my feeling also . I trained quite a few detector dogs a judged even more at certifications and I didn't see much difference at all in the perfomance between single purpose and dual purpose dogs . I'm wondering what others here have experianced between to two .


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## Howard Knauf (May 10, 2008)

Jim Nash said:


> Howard that's my feeling also . I trained quite a few detector dogs a judged even more at certifications and I didn't see much difference at all in the perfomance between single purpose and dual purpose dogs . I'm wondering what others here have experianced between to two .


 Maybe I'm just biased but my Roscoe was tops around here. I went on numerous bomb sniffs with other agencies after 911 and I was appalled at the low standards some of the EDD handlers accepted from their dogs!

After 911 we held monthly training sessions in different parts of Central Florida. As many as 40-50 teams would show up for these trainnig dates and they were held in different venues around the central part of the state. While I did see some great bomb dogs work, I wasn't duly impressed by the SP dogs. One well known trainer who watched me do a bomb sweep made the statement that my dog was very very good but I was the weak link in the team on that night and that one slight correction on my part would have placed us at the top of the heap on that evening. Needless to say I took his advice and made corrections. Hard work pays off and a capable dog can do it all.


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