Police Dog Doing It's Job or Going Too Far?

I think I have made my feelings about working dogs very known, I stand in awe of them most of the time.  These brave and selfless souls do everything from guide the blind to protect and serve as police officers.  No matter what the "work" is, it requires a certain temperament and personality from the dog and that is the key reason I respect them so much.  Not every dog could do these tasks.  This is even more the reason I am bringing this clip I saw on the news the other day to you.

I believe that dogs that work in the police field or military, because of the strict training and aggressiveness they must have in that work (same as people), they can take it too far or the training starts to fade a bit and the dog starts to make more of the decisions rather than waiting for the handlers cue.  This is what I felt when I saw this story.

The clip of the news is below, but I watched a local broadcast here and they actually said that the dog would not let go until they cut the shorts off the suspect.  To me that is a little extreme, these dogs are suppose to have release cues.  I believe you can see the handler giving the release cue and the dog is not backing off.  Now, it is completely possible that because the suspect was being aggressive toward the dog or still moving around, he did not let go.  The officer that explains what happened seemed to think it went perfectly well.  Please watch so you can form your own opinion.



Don't get me wrong, I am still a big fan of the work these guys do.  It is a very serious job and one mistake could mean their life or the life of another officer, so I do understand they can't be soft with these situations.  My concern is, is this a dog that needs a break, a training refresher course or is he simply doing his job exactly as they want him to.  I am certainly no expert on this subject, so I am turning to you.  Let me know what you think.