POLICE AIDE BITTEN BY DOG TRAINING FEVER.

Byline: Janine Defao Scripps-McClatchy Western Service

They call him the catcher.

But from the looks of things, Mark Wilhite might better be described as the "catchee."

For his job, quite simply, is to be bitten by police dogs. Six nights a week. For a whopping $7 an hour.

Dressed alternately in a bulky "bite suit," which makes a fashion statement like that of the Michelin Man, or in less protective, arm-length burlap and leather sleeve covers, Wilhite regularly finds himself staring down the jaws of the city's 12 police dogs.

His role is to jeer and flail until the dog hears the handler's "Get him!" command and springs at Wilhite. Or he hides in a darkened warehouse and plays the bad guy in a suspect search. Either way he gets bitten.

And frankly, teaching the dogs to bite is the easy part. Getting them to let go is harder.

"It's a rush. The first time I tried it, I thought I was going to have a heart attack," said Wilhite, a 22-year-old Sacramento State junior.

He began his job several years ago when a friend's father was the Sacramento Police Department's dog trainer.

The catcher, also known as the decoy, agitator or helper, is an integral part of the training of police dogs, an intense months-long process that begins long before a department acquires a dog.

Sacramento police currently are training three new dogs purchased in December for $3,200 to $3,800 each. All are male German shepherds about 2 to 3 years old. All were found through dog importers in California.

Devo was imported from the Czech Republic. Pele is from Germany. Both countries are known for their police dogs. Myke is the department's first dog from China.

For each opening, as many as 50 dogs are screened through a battery of exams that test everything from courage to health.

The testing of courage may include running on slick floors, walking on swaying bridges or descending two-story, grated stairways. The health testing checks out hips and other joints, crucial for dogs that typically spend five or more years leaping fences and chasing bad guys.

While thorough, the screening isn't foolproof, as the department recently learned. One dog turned out to be claustrophobic and had to be sold near the end of its training.

"We had never seen it before," Officer Rick Osborn said about claustrophobia in a dog, but Talon was afraid to search small spaces in buildings.

Dogs move in with their handlers for a short bonding period before training begins.

Osborn and Officers Joe Leach and Charles Husted, both new to the canine unit, began training their dogs in January.

The program starts with obedience training, not unlike that received by pet dogs. Many of the dogs have been given some training before they are bought.

"You have to gain control of the dog first," said Leach.

Once the dogs begin to obey, they move on to obstacle training - where they jump through simulated windows, crawl through culvert pipes and bound over 6-foot fences - and then to tracking and searching.

They learn to search for drugs by sniffing gauze pads soaked in solutions similar to small amounts of different narcotics. The swatches are moved farther and farther away from the dog and eventually hidden.

They track by following dead skin cells, called "rafts," in the air, said Dan Schiele, one of the unit's two training officers. The dogs also can tell the difference between a fleeing suspect pumping sweat and adrenalin and an officer or average citizen on the street, though the exact reason is unknown, said Lt. Scott LaCosse.

The reward for all these tasks is not a dog biscuit but simply the toss of a tennis ball.

"If they like the ball, they'll do almost anything for the ball," said Osborn.

Devo, Myke and Pele are being training five hours a night, four days a week. Their handlers hope the dogs will be on the streets by April 1 at the latest.

Once there, they will join nine other experienced dogs on jobs from park patrols to pursuits to suspect and narcotics searches. The unit averages 50 felony arrests and 800 radio calls a month, according to department statistics.

Last year, the unit had 159 finds - both suspects and drugs - and 68 bites, officers said.

The dogs are trained to bite - not just to hold - a suspect, a technique used in some cities.

As a catcher, Wilhite has been bitten countless times and has the welts and

scars to show for it despite his protective clothing. Still, the dogs' talents, from strength to speed to discipline, have earned his respect.

"I really enjoy the animals. It's amazing what they can do," said Wilhite, who would like to become a canine officer.

But officers stress that it is the people, not the dogs, who make the calls.

Even if a handler is knocked to the ground, the dog is trained not to go after a suspect unless it is commanded to do so - a task that has proved difficult for the new dogs in training.

Under department policy, dogs are used only on felony suspects and are used against juvenile suspects only for such major crimes as robbery or murder.

The level of force is considered equal to the use of a baton or chemical Mace, said Officer Barry Baker, the only officer in the unit with a Belgian Malinois, a smaller, faster breed than a shepherd.

But while the dogs are considered a weapon, they also are considered partners and even family members by the officers with whom they live.

"A dog is one of the best partners you can have. . . . When he comes to work, there are no bad days for the dog," said Leach, who had wanted to be a canine officer for 14 years before getting into the unit last month.

"And they don't talk back," quipped Husted, a self-described "dog person" who admits that his own pet dogs have never been well trained.

But while canine officers are quick to praise the fact that their dogs will give their lives without question, the possibility is tough to consider.

Osborn had a close call when his previous dog, Koda, now retired, got locked in a room with a suspect.

"I thought my kid was getting killed in there - that's what it felt like," said Osborn, who later learned it was the suspect, not his dog, being thrashed.

"I can't imagine what it would be like to lose him," Leach said of Myke, "after having him for a couple of months or five or six years."