Controlled Aggression

In this episode, Jerry Bradshaw discusses:
Bringing more civil aggression into your sport or police dogs. 

Utilizing prey guarding to start training young dogs for proactive defense.

The difference between uncontrolled aggression and expressive aggression. 

What to look for in a patrol dog regarding civil aggression. 

The three ways dogs manifest a reaction to a threat. 

 
Key Takeaways:
In our training for our police dogs, we're concentrating on these civil aggression essentials and thinking about how that decoy can bring about some of that aggression, and then we can start to minimize the cues that bring out that aggression, and then it becomes much more contextual.

Don't let people make you believe that just because a dog shows expressiveness and aggression in an expressive way, the dog will become uncontrollable and incapable.

Defense is not a dirty word. There's nothing to be scared of. Defense is not a weakness. 

When promoting aggression and tapping into the defensive side of the dog, and building confidence in those reactions is ignored, oftentimes the dog cannot figure out how to bring a prey response out of a decoy, which can lead to displacement behaviors. 

 
"It's easier to cap a dog when he understands how to be expressive than to never allow him to be expressive in the beginning." —  Jerry Bradshaw
 
Get Jerry's book Controlled Aggression on Amazon.com
 
Contact Jerry:
Website: controlledaggressionpodcast.com
Email: JBradshaw@TarheelCanine.com
Tarheel Canine Training:  www.tarheelcanine.com
YouTube:  tarheelcanine
Twitter: @tarheelcanine
Instagram: @tarheelk9
Facebook: TarheelCanineTraining
Protection Sports Website: psak9-as.org
Patreon:   patreon.com/controlledaggression
Slideshare: Tarheel Canine
Calendly: https://calendly.com/tarheelcanine 
Tarheel Canine Seminars: https://streetreadyk9.com/ 
Tarheel Canine Student Portal: https://tcstudentportal.com/ 
 
Sponsors: 
ALM K9 Equipment: almk9equipment.com
PSA & American Schutzhund: psak9-as.org
Tarheel Canine: tarheelcanine.com
The Drive Company: thedriveco.com 
The Drive Company Instagram: instagram.com/thedrive.co 
Dog Armour: dogarmour.com 
Dog Armour Instagram: instagram.com/dogarmourpro 
Rogue Arsenal: roguearsenal.com 
Rogue Arsenal Instagram: instagram.com/rogue_arsenal_official 
 
Find out more about Hold The Line Conference 2026 at https://htlk9.com/ 
 
Train hard, train smart, be safe.
 
 
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
 
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

In today's podcast short, Jerry Bradshaw discusses issues with muzzle attacks in the PSA Level 2, noting that many dogs and handlers struggle with this exercise. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the fundamentals of a good muzzle fight and suggests starting with unsuited muzzle work to build civil aggression. Jerry advises limiting strikes in training sessions to manage your dog's frustrations and to gradually introduce other equipment, such as bite suits and hidden sleeves. He stresses the need for decoys to provide accurate feedback and to avoid distractions in early training sessions, especially when starting out on muzzle work. 
 
"We want the dog biting through the muzzle. The muzzle is just something that's keeping him from biting that decoy." —  Jerry Bradshaw
 
Get Jerry's book Controlled Aggression on Amazon.com
 
Contact Jerry:
Website: controlledaggressionpodcast.com
Email: JBradshaw@TarheelCanine.com
Tarheel Canine Training:  www.tarheelcanine.com
YouTube:  tarheelcanine
Twitter: @tarheelcanine
Instagram: @tarheelk9
Facebook: TarheelCanineTraining
Protection Sports Website: psak9-as.org
Patreon:   patreon.com/controlledaggression
Slideshare: Tarheel Canine
Calendly: https://calendly.com/tarheelcanine 
Tarheel Canine Seminars: https://streetreadyk9.com/ 
Tarheel Canine Student Portal: https://tcstudentportal.com/ 
 
Sponsors: 
ALM K9 Equipment: almk9equipment.com
PSA & American Schutzhund: psak9-as.org
Tarheel Canine: tarheelcanine.com
The Drive Company: thedriveco.com 
The Drive Company Instagram: instagram.com/thedrive.co 
Dog Armour: dogarmour.com 
Dog Armour Instagram: instagram.com/dogarmourpro 
Rogue Arsenal: roguearsenal.com 
Rogue Arsenal Instagram: instagram.com/rogue_arsenal_official 
 
Find out more about Hold The Line Conference 2026 at https://htlk9.com/ 
 
Train hard, train smart, be safe.
 
 
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
 
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

In this episode, Jerry Bradshaw discusses:
Keeping in mind the olfactory and visual cues of a bite suit that we don't often consider. 

Reducing equipment fixation, creating habits of engagement, and training the behaviors you want into your dog. 

Why your dog needs to believe the bite suit is irrelevant. 

Focusing training on the most likely scenarios your dog will encounter.

 
Key Takeaways:
Too much suit work creates a false sense of security for your dog. 

Active aggression is a trained response, usually to an invasion of territory or other behaviors soliciting that reaction. Through classical conditioning, we can train dogs to show that behavior in training and, in turn, active scenarios in deployment.

Create a habit of engagement. During the development of your younger dogs, you want to develop that habit so they know where they're going to bite, so they don't get into a state of choice paralysis. 

Train leg bites - it is typically the easiest and most likely place the dog will be able to get a bite on in most engagements.

You're increasing the probability of real engagements every time you deemphasize the cues of odor and visuals from suits.

 
"We want to camouflage these suits with different visual patterns, randomize the visual cue of that suit, and so that means different colors, textures, covering those suits with, jeans, jackets, raincoats, sheets, layers of blankets, right, all of these things to make the picture look a lot less like a guy in a bite suit, and a lot more like what a suspect might look like on the street." —  Jerry Bradshaw
 
Get Jerry's book Controlled Aggression on Amazon.com
 
Contact Jerry:
Website: controlledaggressionpodcast.com
Email: JBradshaw@TarheelCanine.com
Tarheel Canine Training:  www.tarheelcanine.com
YouTube:  tarheelcanine
Twitter: @tarheelcanine
Instagram: @tarheelk9
Facebook: TarheelCanineTraining
Protection Sports Website: psak9-as.org
Patreon:   patreon.com/controlledaggression
Slideshare: Tarheel Canine
Calendly: https://calendly.com/tarheelcanine 
Tarheel Canine Seminars: https://streetreadyk9.com/ 
Tarheel Canine Student Portal: https://tcstudentportal.com/ 
 
Sponsors: 
ALM K9 Equipment: almk9equipment.com
PSA & American Schutzhund: psak9-as.org
Tarheel Canine: tarheelcanine.com
The Drive Company: thedriveco.com 
The Drive Company Instagram: instagram.com/thedrive.co 
Dog Armour: dogarmour.com 
Dog Armour Instagram: instagram.com/dogarmourpro 
Rogue Arsenal: roguearsenal.com 
Rogue Arsenal Instagram: instagram.com/rogue_arsenal_official 
 
Find out more about Hold The Line Conference 2026 at https://htlk9.com/ 
 
Train hard, train smart, be safe.
 
 
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
 
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

Today, Jerry outlines the 2026 Police Canine Services offered by Tarheel Canine Training. They offer instructor courses multiple times per year, unit canine training, and sell green dual and single canines. The selection process is low-stress, with dogs undergoing four months of training before handler courses. They also provide handler course-ready dogs and SWAT integrated canines. You can also look to Tarheel Canine for seminars that cover tracking, detection, street readiness, and high-risk deployments. If you're looking to get individualized training for your dogs and departments, reach out to Tarheel Canine. 
 
For more information, email Jerry at JBradshaw@TarheelCanine.com or call the office at 919-774-4152.
 
Get Jerry's book Controlled Aggression on Amazon.com
 
Contact Jerry:
Website: controlledaggressionpodcast.com
Email: JBradshaw@TarheelCanine.com
Tarheel Canine Training:  www.tarheelcanine.com
YouTube:  tarheelcanine
Twitter: @tarheelcanine
Instagram: @tarheelk9
Facebook: TarheelCanineTraining
Protection Sports Website: psak9-as.org
Patreon:   patreon.com/controlledaggression
Slideshare: Tarheel Canine
Calendly: https://calendly.com/tarheelcanine 
Tarheel Canine Seminars: https://streetreadyk9.com/ 
Tarheel Canine Student Portal: https://tcstudentportal.com/ 
 
Sponsors: 
ALM K9 Equipment: almk9equipment.com
PSA & American Schutzhund: psak9-as.org
Tarheel Canine: tarheelcanine.com
The Drive Company: thedriveco.com 
The Drive Company Instagram: instagram.com/thedrive.co 
Dog Armour: dogarmour.com 
Dog Armour Instagram: instagram.com/dogarmourpro 
Rogue Arsenal: roguearsenal.com 
Rogue Arsenal Instagram: instagram.com/rogue_arsenal_official 
Train hard, train smart, be safe.
 
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
 
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

In this episode, Jerry Bradshaw discusses:
Getting your dog off the bite as quickly as you can when the threat has diminished to a reasonable level.

The importance of being proficient in more than one option for your dog when you're in an engagement.

The importance of your dog being willing to accept lower value rewards in the presence of a potential bite. 

Mastering verbal, mechanical, and manual release protocols.

Transitioning from negative reinforcement to positive punishment - from escape to avoidance.

 
Key Takeaways:
Practice your call-offs in stressful situations during training. You're practicing for real-life situations, and real life is not going to be stress-free. 

Trying to pull your dog off will create more opposition and make it more difficult to release the dog. Pushing into the bite will often make it easier to release your dog via the gag reflex.

You don't want to use your handcuffs as a standard breakstick stand-in, so that you are not creating anticipation and an association with handcuffs and releasing.

Not every release protocol or piece of equipment is going to work best for every dog. You will have to try different things to see what works best for your dog.

It comes down to handlers needing to, in training, work at being proficient in the proper application of all the correct methods to get the dog to release. We have to be able to start getting them to realize, based on a training setup, what's going to be the more appropriate approach to getting a dog to release in that situation.

Rewards make behaviors repeatable. Failure to reward releases and training makes biting something to fight for, and we don't want that dog constantly coming out thinking this is the last time he's ever going to get it, and he has to fight with all of his life to get it back.

 
"If our training never matches what an operational situation is going to look like, then the out procedure, whether it's a physical one or a verbal one, is going to be far different than anything that we've trained in the past, and it's going to look very different to the dog." —  Jerry Bradshaw
 
Get Jerry's book Controlled Aggression on Amazon.com
 
Contact Jerry:
Website: controlledaggressionpodcast.com
Email: JBradshaw@TarheelCanine.com
Tarheel Canine Training:  www.tarheelcanine.com
YouTube:  tarheelcanine
Twitter: @tarheelcanine
Instagram: @tarheelk9
Facebook: TarheelCanineTraining
Protection Sports Website: psak9-as.org
Patreon:   patreon.com/controlledaggression
Slideshare: Tarheel Canine
Calendly: https://calendly.com/tarheelcanine 
Tarheel Canine Seminars: https://streetreadyk9.com/ 
Tarheel Canine Student Portal: https://tcstudentportal.com/ 
 
Sponsors: 
ALM K9 Equipment: almk9equipment.com
PSA & American Schutzhund: psak9-as.org
Tarheel Canine: tarheelcanine.com
The Drive Company: thedriveco.com 
The Drive Company Instagram: instagram.com/thedrive.co 
Dog Armour: dogarmour.com 
Dog Armour Instagram: instagram.com/dogarmourpro 
Rogue Arsenal: roguearsenal.com 
Rogue Arsenal Instagram: instagram.com/rogue_arsenal_official 
 
Train hard, train smart, be safe.
 
 
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
 
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.