Prancing Malinois Videos

your post does prompt the question how a dog would know the scent of the person he is after if the police dont know whom is in the building?

The dog does not, so I am afraid I have to disagree with the earlier post about a dog knowing the scent and zeroing in on that individual to the exclusion of all others; this may happen in films it does not in real life!

As someone who competes with a high drive dog in bitework and who trains with police dog handlers and others participating in various sports I think I can speak with some authority.

To begin with in most countries a warning MUST be given "if you do not come out I will send the dog" as it give the person an opportunity to give themselves up without injury.

Secondly there is a difference between sending a dog go "find" a person and one that is sent to "stop" one.

If I tell my dog to go and "find" he will quarter the area and locate the person and detain them by doing what is called a "hold and bark" which means you can follow the dog up, tell it to sit/down/heel whilst you take control of the situation and the dog is in a position to take over should the person make a run for it.

If I tell my dog to "stop him" the dog will chase the person and bite his arm and not let go until commanded to.

NOBODY sends a dog if there is a chance that innocent civilians are about!

I really don't know what else to tell you. Guess you will have to fly over and go with us for a couple nights and see for yourself. I have seen many times when a dog is turned into a building where there were other people but also the perp, and guess who was held at bay.....only the perp...so I guess all I included in the post before you did not understand? I guess I have exhausted my comments on this subject. And please understand that I am in no way meaning any disrespect toward you, you have your feelings and I have mine...you have seen things first hand, and I have seen things first hand. The world still goes on.................

I work and train Mals in the uk I have never used a pinch (prong) or electric collar on any of the dogs, and they will hit and release on command, they have to to be licenced.
You are correct all the problems are created during their early attack training so why train them that way.
We have a dog in our unit who on a regular basis puts people in hospital sometimes with broken bones, he was trained using positve and consistent training methods and as a result responds to his handlers commands without the use of these impliments. I am in total agreement the use of this type of equipment should be stopped

slightly confused, how is your dog trained, is it trained to track a ground scent or free search like british police dogs or is it trained to trail. You mention scent articles being used, if this is the case then the dog would be able to choose between bad guy or innocent bystanders, as long as the bad guy had left a scent article at the scene.

And yes I agree that a dog can pick out some one who is scared or pumped with adrenilin , but that fear has no bearing on a ground scent track which is made up of crushed veg, insects boot polish and a bit of human scent or rafts or any other thing that is crushed under foot. Fear is an emotional state and does not leave a physical presence on the ground for a dog to follow.

I have to disagree, I have a working TFD Tactical Firearms dog, he is a mal and my own force has had up to six trained TFDs at a time.
Most police forces have these dogs, it is not a stand alone skill, but it is an enhancement of a general puropse dogs role.
Which police dog training centre did you work at.

There are loads of Mals working within the police in the uk, they were becoming more popular because of the health issues with the GSD, however the bigger forces the Met ,GMP, are now moving away from Mals, as they are finding that they are not lasting any longer the a GSD. My opinion is we should still be using them alongside the GSD as it gives the police a bigger pool of dogs to choose from.
I have worked both GSD and Mals and would take either breed as my next dog.