A contest that the competitors could sink their teeth into.

A husky German shepherd with a mean look in his eyes chased Mike Adye down the football field at Redondo Union High School Saturday. In the bleachers, the crowd cheered with glee.

As part of a statewide K-9 competition held at the high school, police dogs also searched for marijuana and cocaine hidden under boxes, balanced on a plank suspended five feet in the air and jumped on top of barrels and over walls.

Of all the events, the mock attacks most stirred up onlookers. Children cheered. Their parents grimaced.

Down on the field, Adye hoped the muzzles stayed on all of the more than 50 canines that charged at him.

“In the dog’s mind, this is not a game,” the Redondo Beach police officer said. “It’s real. They want to do damage. If the muzzle comes off, heaven forbid, I’ll be going to the hospital.”

Adye, a SWAT team member, actually volunteered to be one of the competition’s “agitators,” a job he admits is not envied by some members of the department.

Adye’s duty was to stand 30 feet away from a police dog, yell, “Hey, you, get that dog out of here” and then take off up the field.

The muzzled dog is supposed to bound after him and attack.

“You don’t have any idea what’s going to happen,” he said. “The anticipation of what they might do is scary.”

Mike Clifton, a colleague of Adye’s, also had a volunteer job that many might not admire.

Dogs with names such as Brutus and Buck and Zorro came at him without muzzles.

His exercise was to test whether the dogs’ handlers could successfully call their dogs off of a chase after a pursuit had begun.

Success meant the dog immediately halted without laying a paw on Clifton. Fifty points went down the drain if jaws bit into Clifton’s padded clothing.

Sgt. John Bell of the Inglewood police said the mock attacks are the most popular exercises for the public but not necessarily the most important. From the top of the bleachers, he analyzed the dogs throughout the day for subtle qualities such as courage, agility and tracking.

“A Chihuahua can bite,” said Bell, whose now-retired dog won the competition two years ago. “Any dog can bite.”

But not every dog can pass the five phases of the K-9 trials: obedience, obstacle course, drug detection, box search and attack control work.

Among Saturday’s competitors were Gudo, a German shepherd with the U.S. Border Patrol; Brutus, one of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rottweilers, and other dogs from law enforcement agencies in Bakersfield, Chino, Upland and as far away as Yuma, Ariz.

Before they showed the judges and spectators just how disciplined they were, the dogs received pep talks from their handlers, many in the comfort of air-conditioned squad cars.

Bell said the key to winning is confidence and long hours of training.

Paul Hellinga, master handler for the Redondo Beach police, said, “Every handler out there, whether he does well or not, believes he has the best dog.” That’s true, he said, even if the dog, in the heat of competition, cannot find which box hides the cocaine or misses a few steps while descending the staircase.

Ken Greenleaf, who competed with 6-year-old Boris, agreed.

“If you go up to a handler and say, ‘Your wife is ugly,’ he’d probably say, ‘You’re right.’ But if you say, ‘Your dog is ugly,’ he’ll hit you in the face.”

You’re a cute German shepherd, Boris.