Police dog attacked handler

This reminded me of my student days in Dublin when we were protesting about apartheid. The Police brought in the dogs to help with control, not that they were needed. We were an orderly lot. One attacked a student, biting said student. It went to court. The defence was the 'police dog had acted without orders' and the judge found for them.

The only time I’ve ever been bitten (had dozens of our own dogs) was by a neighbour’s German Shepherd. The dog was supposedly trained within an inch of its life as a working dog for its prison officer handler. Obviously not so, although it did release my leg when ordered to!

Malinois are very intelligent, trainable dogs but can be aggressive. My neighbour has two, one a lovely calm dog, the other has aggressive tendencies. They’ve spent huge amounts on trainers, work with a retired police dog handler but - the dog is a much loved unsound pet. They manage him but I wouldn’t keep him.

Our neighbour has a rescue. He was only allowed to have it because he had experience of the breed. I keep our dog well away from her if we meet him when out walking. The ladies we know that had two Mallinoise said they are very territorial. They’d sadly just had one of their dogs pts after a sudden illness and, as we spoke their remaining dog lunged at ours. Their territory is wherever they are, not just their home. I would imagine that the dogs used by the police are bred to be more aggressive, just as Rottweilers were. I read a really interesting article from The Spectator today about dog breeds which questioned why, in this country, we seem to ignore the fact that each dog breed has been bred over the years for a specific purpose and no amount of training will take away it’s basic characteristics. The author owned a Podengo that they said they would trust 100% with children but there was no way that they could stop it hunting small furry creatures with no recall whatsoever.

i read that the woman who was attacked had only had the dog for one year, and had been working it when it became too aggressive.
it had to be re-assigned from its previous handler, who is now a convicted sex offender.

Lancashire police don’t breed all their PD’s - they also take dogs who for various reasons have proved to be unsuitable as family pets.
Malinois are popular with the dog units, they’re intelligent , trainable and can be aggressive.

The dog has a history of successfully tracking people. He was involved in tracking an individual when this terrible incident happened. My sympathies are with the handler who was badly injured and her colleagues.

There could be any number of reasons why this happened. It's quite possible that there was a medical reason behind it, for instance.

I agree with what MayBe has read , some dogs are bred for a particular purpose and no amount of sensible ownership or dog training will change that.
I often hear " there is no such thing as a bad dog, there are only bad owners" I agree with that to some extent......
However I am not fully convinced! A dog is a dog and I know that the most ' gentle ' dog can turn nasty! For all the dog lovers out there I do like dogs ! Was brought up with them , we haven't had one as my DH is wary of them due to a childhood encounter with a ' gentle ' dog!

Blondiescot

There could be any number of reasons why this happened. It's quite possible that there was a medical reason behind it, for instance.

This

Handler obviously did not spot warning signs. Dog should be put down or it may attack members of the public.

that is what happened, as quoted in opening post

Grantanow, how can you know the ‘handler obviously didn’t spot warning signs’? The dogs and handlers work together constantly, if this dog had been unsound in an obvious way, that would have been picked up, it had served five years. The dog was shot by police because it wasn’t safe to handle. As Blondiescott said, it’s quite possible a medical reason caused this behaviour.
Whatever the cause, I won’t be pointing the finger of blame at the handler who was seriously injured and saw her dog shot

I agree Iam64 a sad situation.

I also wonder if police dog training and handler training is up to scratch. There were reports yesterday of a young man attacked by a deployed police dog under very dubious circumstances when he was in the street with his mother. It's possible a dog can be unpredictable for medical reasons but in the absence of medical evidence one cannot rule out poor handling (as some on this thread appear to do).