hi i work part time with police dogs and worked full time training police dogs for 5 years so hopefully i can put your minds at rest as too what will happen to this dog! when a police dog bite a member of the public in a uncontrolled attack which this sound like ,the dog will immediatley be took off active patrol ie the handler will not be able to take the dog on duty with him,the dog and handler will then have to repeat a 12 week retraining course,all police dogs and handlers have to pass a strict course and test to gain a licience to go out on patrol if the dog fails this then its suitability for the service will be assessed,most fully trained police dogs are rehomed to their handlers or to game keepers,or experience dog handlers like myself,untrained police dogs are rehomed to members of the public

Thanks for that Murphydog,

I will do my best to find out what happened to this guy, but he doesn't know me, I just see him walking and he knows my friend so I will try and find things out without being too OTT! 'Excuse me, Nick told me you got bit by a police dog, what happened?' probably wouldn't go down too well! lol

Sad events But at the end of the day, any dog can turn, police or not. Could have been a whole host of reasons.

I dont think any dog is 100% all of the time. I have a friend whose brother is in the police force and is a dog handler. He and another officer took their dogs over Richmond Park, Surrey to exercise them, when one of the dogs (maybe both, I'm not sure) started chasing the deer, was hit by a car and died.

yes i agree no dog can be 100% all the time ,last year we had an incedent with one of our police dogs he was chasing a car thief he disappeared around a corner the handler found him 10mins later in a burger bar!!!!

OT (a bit...kind of)
Just an observation, there seems to be an increase in out of control police dogs in UK over the last few years from what Ive been reading, not so much in here just other things on the net. And at the same time I keep hearing about police dog training is now done a lot differently than it was years ago, only positive methods used, not much in the way of physical corrections etc (to be honest whenever someone says 'positive only methods' Ive discovered that this means a variety of things and in some cases it includes corrections with choke chains, sometimes not......) but is it possible that this 'newer' training method is part of the reason why the dogs are not in full control? Also.....theyre only in training for 13 weeks ???? I had an uncle that trained police dogs back in the 60's and 70's, a good friend who had his own security training company in Ireland back in the 70's.....the training lasted around 2 years and the dogs were 100% before they were sold on or ready to work.
Finally a note on Malanois, just on my own experience, a lot of the police dogs used in California are Malanois, theyre bought from Holland or Belgium generally having being trained there first, Ive worked with quite a few of them in animal hospitals and I have to say that they werent sketchy, they were well trained, solid temperament, more high strung than the GSD's but still fully controllable, one cop there told me that the problem dogs they have are usually with those trained in US and not the European imports.

Like I said, just an observation.

When I Came Out Of The Police In 1979 The Police Would Have The Dog Pts As It Is No Good To Police If It Attacks On Its Own Accord .

i think one of the big problems with the standard of police dogs at the mo is that a lot of forces are using 12-24mth olds that are given by members of the public, the force i work for used to have an excellant stud dog which we used with a local gsd breeder the pups we used to get were of excellant temperment and because they were with their handlers from 8 weeks they were better trained and hadnt already had harsh or incorrect training!!! most of the dogs we get offered are aggressive which is why the owners want rid of them we are getting some pups this summer from the same breeder but from her breedlines as our studdog has died also some forces do have a destruction policy as do the army

i hope the man was ok!! ive been bit by a gsd and it is very painful and you become nervous about dogs after that and i own a gsd! if the police cant control their dogd what hope have we got! i hope that man complained about the dog as it shouldnt be in public!

I've heard of one police dog being put to sleep after biting someone but I can't even remember if that was in the uK. I've not heard of any others to be honest, not that i read the papers all the time.

After the fiasco of dogs being treated badly a few years ago when police dog Acer was killed by his handler being ordered by his superior to kick him (dog died of liver damage ) there was a complete review. It made me feel ill at the way this dog was treated as he simply growled at his handler, but it was because of the way the dog was being trained in the first place (ie check chain, harsh methods). I followed the case as it was interesting but very sad a dog lost its life for no reason.

Some forces do use positive methods, however not sure what is meant by that - my view of positive, and the correct view, is that operant conditioning is used to best advantage and it is understood how to give consequences without being harsh, however it could just mean toys are used or no check chains . I understand Devon and Cornwall police use reward based methods and no harsh methods. I believe a few other forces do. As far as I know these forces have had no problems whatsoever with their dogs.

Some still use older methods but don't admit to it. I know a police officer who has a Mal and is trying to use more humane training methods. He saw my Terv doing a search square (trained with reward based methods) and said he had never seen a dog so motivated

I do think and have always thought the short training is a problem. Apart from anything else, we now know that dogs learn latently (ie they learn well if given a break) so I am sure the training period isn't to the best advantage of dog or handler unfortunately.

I do hope this man is OK.

Do try and find out