Police learning German for imported dogs

[WellAdvised]

Police dog handlers are learning to give orders to their animals in German, as 16 forces now import canines because of a shortage in the UK.

Officers are learning basic German commands after a successful trial involving Derbyshire police and a team of alsatians from Berlin.

A quarter of all police dogs in Derbyshire are German, and handlers have learnt commands including "sitz" (sit), "platz" (down), "aus" (let go), "holen" (fetch) and "bissen" (bite).

The German dogs cost £2,000 each but police bosses say they are good value as they are already trained in obedience and biting to apprehend criminals.

One dog-handler from Derbyshire constabulary said: "If you say 'let go' in English, they just look at you like you are crazy."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...1/ndogs111.xml

[greenlead]

We have Dutch Shephards, and the orders are given in Dutch.

[Drummadude]

The orders are given in the language of wherever the dog was trained. And I learned that the dog isn't stupid; it won't listen to a command, even in the correct language, just from some criminal that happens to know it.

[Group9]

Back when I used to be a K-9 handler, earlier in my career, my German Shepard, who was dual attack/protection and drug trained, had his attack and obedience training in Germany, and his drug training in Indiana, so you had to use English and German, depending on what you wanted him to do. :D

[WellAdvised]

The orders are given in the language of wherever the dog was trained. And I learned that the dog isn't stupid; it won't listen to a command, even in the correct language, just from some criminal that happens to know it.

Oh I know that, my uniform trousers paid the price alright! :D

[Drummadude]

Heh. :D

During a K-9 demonstration last week a belgian malinois rubbed against my leg right after biting the sleeve on another K-9 Officer (who is this really short lady...she resisted awesomely)........ anyways that scared the crap out of me. I used to be scared of any dog I saw when I was little... but now that I'm really tall and big, normal dogs really don't scare me... but those police dogs; they don't give a crap, they would probably eat someone's leg off if they didn't have a handler with a choke chain to stop them.

[Knutselsmurf]

We have Dutch Shephards, and the orders are given in Dutch.

Are they also menbers of this forum ? :D
I would like that.

[Titansfanmjfink]

We have a dog on our department that is trained in German commands and one that is trained in part German, part Dutch, and part Czech commands... kinda weird. But he's a mean SOB, I still worry that when we're training its gonna release the sleeve and go for my face, lol.

[Oldbillplod]

Police dog handlers are learning German so they can give orders to imported dogs.

Officers are learning basic German commands after a successful trial involving Derbyshire police and a team of alsatians from Berlin.

A quarter of all police dogs in Derbyshire are German, and handlers have learnt commands including "sitz" (sit), "platz" (down), "aus" (let go), "holen" (fetch) and "bissen" (bite).

The German dogs cost £2,000 each but police bosses say they are good value as they are already trained in obedience and biting to apprehend criminals.

One dog-handler from Derbyshire constabulary said: "If you say 'let go' in English, they just look at you like you are crazy."

[ChesCopPodz]

I know two of our K9s only understand German commands. Our handlers had to learn the german commands in order to certify with the dog

[BP348]

All USBP dogs are either German or Dutch. We pretty much learn the commands in both languages and then use which ever is correct for the K-9 were working with. Here at my station most handlers use Dutch.

I don't know what other departments pay but I've been told that USBP dogs cost around $3,500 with no training :eek:. They then go through 6 weeks learning the different odors and then another 5 weeks with their assigned handler.

We also do not do any "bite" work with our dogs.

[Eurodog]

Green dogs to me in Europe are currently 2600 euros and slightly more or malinois. Now that's a green dog fully guaranteed. As for languages, it dosen't matter what the dog was originally trained in you can retrain to English or Spanish in a couple of days.......counter commands in whatever language is a matter of training................