05/12/2019
Are you still in the dark about what Belgian Malinois can do that not many other breeds are capable?
Any dog can bite, not all can be taught how to bite effectively, but all dogs have the ability. Also many dogs have great scent capabilities to find things unavailable to the naked eye. So why are there not more breeds used for scent work? Well the community is starting to diversify in the breeds, in fact they are even adopting mutts.
The problem is not limited by the the dogās ability but the dogs drive to do the job. To illustrate have you ever thrown a ball and the dog looks at you like, āare you going to get that?ā On the flip side there are dogs that go crazy to play fetch but canāt process anything else around them except the ball.
Though many more breeds are being adopted into the professional world of detection there are only a few dogs that can additionally apprehend a dangerous suspect.
What makes dual purpose Malinois so unique to bite work is their capability for defensive drive. Understand all dogs can bite, like all people can throw a punch, some people more effective than others. The design of the bite like the person behind the punch is the athleticism, power, and the ability to execute with maximum force and minimum wasted energy.
Let me share an analogy. I taught martial arts for years and I see a lot of similarities with working dogs as I saw in my tournament days. Some of the martial artist I trained were on an international competitive level. I found only a few with natural talent, but even less with the heart to dig deep to win. Often I would find what we called dojang tigers; talented in the confines of the school but week in the tournaments. Another thing I often saw was the martial artist with little real world experience that looked amazing sparing their classmates with head kicks and stamina, but once they were in a tournament their highest kick was below the knee and they had zero stamina because they mentality shut down from over stimulation. Are you starting to seeing the correlation with dogs?
Not all Malinois are the same or equal in their genetics or their training. Iāve spoken about this before and probably mention it again, itās important to understand. A Mal can be a great dog hanging at the house playing tug jumping over your six foot fence like it was in an obstacle course. Itās true these dogs are awesome. What makes one Malinois capable of doing more than another is the combo of genetics and training.
What separates one Mal from the other is nerves and a level head. A dog with week nerves has a difficult time processing stress. The reaction can be biting people they know, becoming reactive to new environments, other dogs, sounds, even smells. In a worse case scenario the dog shuts down. Understand a good trainer would never let it get to that point.
That āpersonal protection dogā that trainer sold you can bite, but can also be broken. āNot my El Diablo he is ferocious.ā Thatās what a lot of police K9 handlers said until their dog got kicked in the head. And why many police K9 handlers selection process is refined as is their K9 training.
During that special training, which by the way is a process over a period of time, a dog is taken from hey, letās play tug with a person in a bite suit to, hey mother fracker letās fight until one of us gives up, meaning you give up, or the other dies, the other being the dog. They call this defensive drive, fight drive, or some other made up terminology, but the results speak volumes for the Belgian Malinois to choose to stand and fight until itās last breath.
The biggest difference between prey drive and defensive drive is a dog in prey drive does not know what to do if the decoy is not running or standing there without an arm hanging out, well not until someone trains him to do otherwise. Itās a process to develop.
You probably saw videos with the decoy smacking the dog with plastic bottles, lifting the dog up, bumping the dog into the wall, even giving it a couple leg kicks all the while the dog holds on. Even then the dog may or may not be in defensive drive. The better police dog trainers use scenario training where they take all the above plus they set up situations like put the dog in a dark closet where the pressure is so high the dog will either sit in the dark doing nothing or fight like its just another day on a open field. Translation; the dog that chooses to fight has strong nerves and good genetics a trainer looks for.
The next level Mal with superior genetics in defensive drive is there to hurt you. For the dog trained for combat, not a cop dog, that means if you kick them and it actually hurts them they let go of your arm and bites your leg so hard your too scared to kick them again. Then the dog goes back to the arm to make sure you canāt pull a weapon and to keep you off balance. Even in a bite suit it can be terrifying experience.
I was watching several videos on K9 apprehensions and almost in all of them the K9s were biting ankles with their front teeth. These dogs in the videos reminded me of those dojang tigers where they forgot everything they were taught when presented a situation in the real world. Note this is not all police K9s only a sample I saw in the videos.
There are a number of reasons why the dogs bit the bad guys so poorly in the videos. The obvious reasons were stated by the martial arts examples stated above. The less obvious maybe training since I donāt know the handler or their department policies. Just throwing it out there that I would enjoy it if police K9 handlers, if just for their benefit posted solid apprehensions Videos.
If your not familiar with most police K9 training they usually teach the dogs to bite the upper arm with a driving force and full mouth bite, meaning the back of the teeth are holding the suspect, not the fangs like in the videos. They also try and keep the dog calm and level headed so they donāt thrash around and cause unnecessary damage, in addition to conserving energy.
A Belgian Malinois with good genetics and training under any pressure will excel at the job it was trained. The Mal will target the man and stay with the fight during more than most situations. In the same beat the dog can be calmed after apprehension and redirected to detection work with efficiency. A Mal capable of being level headed, taking direction while in defensive drive, makes the Mal unique even when compared to other Belgian Malinois.
