Becoming with a police dog: Training technologies for bonding

Abstract

To develop and illustrate the potential for visual methodologies in conducting multispecies ethnography, we present a case study of general‐purpose police dog training in the UK. Our argument is two‐fold: first, we draw on STS approaches and insights for looking at training activities as material and socio‐cultural devices that, we argue, constitute a training technology. Here we have been influenced by the work of Cussins and adopted her concept of “ontological choreographies” for addressing the development of the police dog–police officer bond and ability to communicate for working together. Second, we argue that visual data capture presents valuable opportunities for “less human‐centred” and more symmetrical methods to approach non‐human/more than human research subjects. We illustrate how photo diaries and video clips enabled us to remain attentive to the material and embodied practices of dog training, bringing to the fore the dogs’ actions, tools, and devices and thus enlivening the material–cultural choreographies of the training activities. In conclusion, we elucidate how this onto‐epistemological approach enabled us to investigate the material and corporeal construction of the general purpose (GP) police dog.