Re: Wikipedia: Sniffer dogs

On Thu, 5 Jan 2006 21:00:10 +0200 Opinicus <gezgin@xxxxxxxxxxx> whittled these words:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniffer_dog

> "In the United States, police dogs (which are almost always German
> Shepherds) are usually trained in Germany and so usually understand commands
> in German. This might also be an asset in that the criminal being chased
> doesn't know what the dog is going to do (German isn't frequently understood
> in the U.S.)."

> Is this for real? Police dogs are almost always German Shepherds? They're
> usually trained in Germany? They usually (only) understand commands in
> German?

> (I'll allow that German isn't frequently understood in the US--but then it's
> not frequently understood in a lot of other places too.)

It was true maybe 20 years ago. It isn't true any more. First it depends
on the definition of "police dog". There are many different breeds used
by a variety of law enforcement agencies. Larger dogs are used when the
takss involved "man work" the ability to stop or control a human. In that
line the Malinios is probably more popular than the GSD. Smaller dogs are
sometimes used for various kinds of scent work from which can include
contraband detection (including illegal fruits, vegetables and meats
etc), accelerant detection for arson investigation, narcotics detection,
and explosives detection. Tracking dogs are of various breeds. Of the
breeds used for man work many are imported, but from a vareity of
countries. They may be trained in Czech, Russian, German or *gasp*
English. Since 911 there has been substantial change in both the sourcing
and training of dogs largely to meet the time and volume needs.

--
Diane Blackman
There is no moral victory in proclaiming to abhor violence
while preaching with violent words.
http://dog-play.com/ http://dogplayshops.com/
.

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