Libsyn Directory

Training for the Operational Release

Release Date: 05/01/2026

Controlled Aggression

In this episode, Jerry Bradshaw discusses: Training proactive, powerful dogs in proactivity. Preventing early queues in training to your canine. Teaching your dog that their actions initiate activity from the target. Morphing reactivity into proactivity. Having a training progression to move away from the handler and decoy help of early foundational training. Key Takeaways: You want your dog to be willing to initiate, even if there’s no reaction or triggers from the decoy. As humans, it is easy for us to identify that a random extremity is part of a...

Attention at a Distance

Controlled Aggression

In this episode, Jerry Bradshaw discusses: The importance of mandatory eye contact and how to generalize for distance work. Moving from negative reinforcement to positive punishment to move from escape to avoidance. Training progressions to train mandatory eye contact with your dog. Transitioning from lure to reward to variable reward. Key Takeaways: To get your dog to pay attention to your face, consider putting a food reward in your mouth - like hot dogs, cheese, or chicken. Build duration before you build distance in your training progression. If they...

Dogs Under Pressure!

Controlled Aggression

In this episode, Jerry Bradshaw discusses: Different ways to deliver pressure reliably to your canine while tracking how the dog is doing while under that pressure. Understanding the baseline bite pressure. Reading your canine’s body language while in a bite. How training under pressure is a progressive thing that never ends. Training emotional regulation in your dog from a young age. Training under the assumption that something is going to go wrong and, at some point, something will bother your dog. Key Takeaways: When we don’t...

Essentials of Civil Aggression

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,...

Podcast Short: PSA2 Muzzle Attack

Controlled Aggression

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...

Ditch Your Bite Suit!

Controlled Aggression

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...

Tarheel Canine Police K9 Services 2026

Controlled Aggression

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...

Training for the Operational Release

Controlled Aggression

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...

Back to the Laboratory in Bite Work

Controlled Aggression

If your dog won’t counter full, won’t push into the fight, or spins away when you approach, this episode is for you. Jerry breaks down exactly why these bite work issues happen and how to rebuild the foundation so your dog bites harder, fuller, and with real confidence. In this episode, Jerry Bradshaw discusses: Drive channelling as a confidence builder for your dog. Bite work problems and their solution strategies. Inducing counter bites, getting appropriate pressure when biting, and encouraging pushing into the bite. Reasons to train your out before your bite...

Attention, Direction & Draw

Controlled Aggression

In this episode, Jerry Bradshaw discusses: Thinking about the end game from the beginning of your training. Creating neutrality through all kinds of distractions. Look at me, look at me, look at that, and look at that while giving commands for your dog. Balancing the draw to fight against drift. Key Takeaways: Attention is the dog’s anchor. Give them a point to focus on that allows them to be neutral to everything else around. You have to control a dog’s eyes to control their behavior. You want to lay the foundation for sending on...

More Episodes

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