The Primality Effect™: Why K9s Change Human Behavior Before Force

Large-sample patrol K9 data proves the compliance effect.

While no published study directly compares armed security, unarmed security, and K9s head-to-head, what evidence we do have points strongly toward K9s achieving non-violent compliance more often. For example, one study of private security patrols found only a ~16% reduction in crime, and research on armed school officers shows mixed results in improving daily safety.

By contrast, the K9 record is decisive. Montgomery County, MD (1993–1998) logged over 15,000 K9 deployments producing 1,179 apprehensions with only 166 bites. ~86% of those apprehensions resolved without a bite, and bites occurred in just ~1% of total deployments. Most deployments were deterrence or area clears, so these numbers reflect only those cases where a suspect was located and custody achieved.

The takeaway is clear: dogs don’t need to go “teeth on” to close the deal. When a K9 enters the frame, compliance is usually secured long before force is required. Why? Because more than just a chunk of metal on a belt, the dog taps into something deeper than logic: the Human Animal.  

Firearms: Failsafe, Not Frontline

I’ll say this upfront: I’m not anti-gun. I carried them in the military, trained with them at every level from pistols to anti-armor platforms, and taught close-quarters combat as a Marine Corps Martial Arts Instructor. I’ve seen firsthand what firearms can do, and I’ll always respect their place. Firearms are essential when violence is unavoidable.

But the evidence and field reality make two things clear: Violence is rarely the answer, and firearms are rarely decisive.

That distinction matters. Firearms are decisive only in a sliver of encounters. National surveys and public-health research show defensive gun use is rare, and when it does occur, the outcomes are often mixed. In one study of 418 defensive-use incidents, 25% of self-defenders were wounded and 6% were killed, showing that pulling a gun often fails to guarantee safety or control.

Even among trained officers, accuracy collapses once real pressure begins. NYPD data shows that even when suspects did not return fire, officers managed a hit rate of about 30%. But the moment rounds were coming back, that number fell to just ~18%. That’s a nearly 40% drop in effectiveness simply from being under direct fire. Dallas data tells a similar story: while officers managed to hit a suspect at least once in ~54% of incidents, bullet-by-bullet accuracy was only ~35%.

For executives and venues facing the risk of complex, targeted attacks, this gap is decisive: Carrying a firearm is not the same as controlling the fight. Under stress and return fire, even highly trained professionals miss more often than they hit.

Some analyses of real protective work place decisive firearm utility in the low single digits: less than 4% of incidents where a weapon is drawn end in a clear, decisive stop. That’s a sobering contrast: a tool with a 96% non-decisive rate if relied upon as the primary solution.

This data paints an ugly picture, one many refuse to face. Using a gun as your first plan is gambling, and the stakes aren’t just your own life. If prevention fails and you roll the dice, you’re playing Russian roulette with the people you protect and everyone caught in the crossfire.

Protection? Or Russian roulette with not just your life, but the lives of innocents, and everyone you protect?

In stark contrast, K9 deployments demonstrate the opposite profile: proactive, not reactive. Montgomery County data shows ~86% of K9 apprehensions resolved without a bite, and bites occurred in only ~1% of total deployments. In practice, the dog secures compliance the vast majority of the time without force, and still leaves a controlled, non-lethal option when force is unavoidable.

That’s why firearms in modern protection are the failsafe, what you reach for when prevention and all other methods have failed, not the mechanism that keeps violence from starting. Prevention is the real mission: advance work, posture, deception, Behavioral Interdiction™, and, most of all, K9s. Dogs shift behavior before the fight begins, and the data proves it.

The Primality Effect™ and the Limbic Brain

Most people have either been bitten by a dog or know someone who has. The CDC estimates 4.5 million dog bites annually in the U.S. That memory is common, nearly a universal experience. By contrast, very few people have ever been shot, so the threat of a firearm often feels abstract, cinematic, or remote. “That's something that happens in movies, Not to me.”

The Primality Effect™ is what happens when a trained patrol dog collapses that gap. The moment the K9 appears, the atmosphere changes. Its posture, eyes, and controlled aggression flip a switch in a potential aggressor’s limbic system: the ancient survival brain that doesn’t analyze odds, it just reacts. These reactions aren’t conscious or deliberate; they’re near-instantaneous and involuntary.

When that involuntary switch flips, the would-be aggressor’s brain makes one simple observation: “Threat.” They recognize a predator, and in that instant the primal prey response fires: don’t run, don’t fight, comply. Those reactions follow a short, hard script: freeze, flight, or fight.

• Freeze: The suspect goes rigid, eyes widening, micro-expressions leaking fear before words are spoken. Sometimes that’s fear; sometimes it’s simply the body locking in uncertainty.
• Flight: Body blading, feet shifting toward exits, hands twitching with the urge to escape, the predator presence has already dictated movement before a conscious decision is made.
• Fight: Shoulders square, fists clench, but hesitation lingers. The predator in front of them triggers doubt and involuntary falter, buying the handler space to act.

A K9 doesn’t just change behavior, it forces the aggressor's survival brain to betray itself. Micro-expressions, dilated pupils, tightened lips, darting eyes and more: all involuntary signals the handler can read and use.

This isn’t theory, it’s what the numbers already show. Nearly nine out of ten K9-assisted apprehensions end without a bite. The mere presence of the dog changes neurochemistry: the consequences for aggressive actions or violence are no longer hypotheticals. The dog itself becomes the consequence, immediate, believable, visceral.

Even “Floppy-Eared” Dogs Trigger It

What’s most surprising is that the Primality Effect™ isn’t limited to patrol breeds with sharp ears and a hard edge. Even floppy-eared, non-intimidating dogs like Labradors and German Shorthaired Pointers show the same results.

• At Hartford HealthCare, program lead Craig Plante reported that “80% of our success is just people changing their behavior in the presence of the dog.” His working partner? A Labrador named Remi.
• At Providence Portland, the addition of GSPs corresponded with ~30% fewer violent incidents.
• At Intermountain’s St. Mary’s, staff reported calmer patients the moment the K9 entered, alongside a 30% reduction in workplace-violence events and a 50% decrease in injuries post-deployment.

The point is simple: the Primality Effect™ doesn’t demand a snarling shepherd. Presence, handler control, and psychology are what move the needle.

Why Handlers Matter

As any veteran security professional will tell you, often, presence alone isn’t enough. A handler who doesn’t understand psychology, who can’t manage distance, tone, or escalation, will effectively "neuter" that leverage. Too many companies treat handlers as disposable bodies in uniforms: plug-and-play labor holding a leash. And as the saying goes in the security industry, you often get what you pay for.

That’s not us.

At Parallax, our teams are trained to read human behavior, control the tempo of a scene, and apply the dog as a tool of influence first, force last. That’s how we deliver the Primality Effect™ with precision: turning even a floppy-eared Lab into a compliance engine. When agencies settle for “any-warm-body” outfits, they get noise and liability. With us, they get doctrine, handler discipline, and results.

Why It Matters

The Primality Effect™ delivers more than compliance:

• Fewer hands-on fights → reduced officer injury and suspect harm.
• Cleaner liability profiles → force as the rare exception, not the norm.
• Proven ROI → measurable drops in violence and injuries, even in hospitals.

In plain terms: the K9 becomes the embodied consequence, a living deterrent that makes force credible without having to use it. And in the right hands, it’s one of the most powerful compliance tools available today