What About All That Gear We Put On Police Working Dog?

I am going to omit the legality and will just talk about the dog and his training and the equipment situation. In my opinion, less is better. The more equipment you hang on the dog and the more equipment is between you and the dog, the more psychologically and physically, and physiologically you reduce the dog's effectiveness, and maybe in a fight, you even put the dog in an unfavorable position or outright danger. The dog is a genetically perfect "machine" that, for millions of years and generations, developed by natural genetic selection (survival of the fittest) into something on which we can not improve much by additional equipment in terms of the dog's ability to work during the attack and its self-defense.

From the point of view of dog protection, the greatest danger to the dog comes from shooting, stabbing, strangulation, hitting with a stick or a stone, and drowning. At least that's my experience and knowledge. None of these aids protects the dog from these things, and even though it does, it does so only in a very limited capacity. In addition, for example, a vest or various collars allow the enemy to control the dog physically - he can grab the dog and manipulate him in combat. So what I'm saying is that the less the dog is wearing, the better he can naturally defend himself and even attack and his natural senses and other capabilities are thus not limited, so the dog can use them without restrictions.

But I mainly see a problem, in fact, that today's training does not teach the dog to "fight" so that he avoids hits and bites and re-grips on the arm with a weapon, or to dodge the punch, etc., which is based on genetic memory of instincts. Instead, they teach a working dog to do what a sports dog does, which is to bite into the forearm, chest, or biceps and keep the bite there through hell or high water until the perpetrator gives up or the dog is harmed and often killed.

Then we feel guilty, and we try to substitute for our training errors with protective equipment such as a ballistic vest, etc. I teach a dog to bite into a more convenient and safer place on the body of the person the dog fights. And with the right training, the dog quickly learns what these places are and how to get to them for his advantage. They are between the shoulder blades, in the armpit from behind, into the head from behind, but in no case into the biceps, where the enemy can easily stab him, and only a small safety vest can stab him. Many trainers waste time teaching dogs how to bite, which I think, is a TOTAL waste of time because every dog has a genetic memory to bite for millions of years. It is up to the trainer, in my opinion, to teach the dog how to use what he already knows and use it by teaching him to fight (and not bite). That then limits the necessity to use protective gear. ( There are some exceptions like using goggles when higIn h altitude in snow reflecting the sunlight and so on.)