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Archive for the ‘K.N.P.V.’ Category
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
 Koninklijke Nederlandse Politiehond Vereniging (KNPV) is a popular dog-sport based out of the Netherlands. The name literally means “Royal Dutch Police Dog Association”, and it was founded in the early 1900’s as a way of testing the ability of dogs for their suitability for breeding and work as a police dog. As with any sport, the rules and exercises are clearly defined to ensure fairness among competitors. After over a century, the rules and titles involved in KNPV have changed and grown considerably, but the basic concepts remain.
In KNPV, a team consisting of a dog and its handler compete to obtain varying levels of certification. Points are awarded or deducted based on performance in various exercises, and certificates are awarded to dogs who are able to obtain a high enough score. The most basic title in KNPV is known as Politiehond 1 (PH1). Competing dogs must first obtain this title before attempting any of the more challenging titles, and in Holland, a dog must have this title before it can work as a police dog. Obtaining this title involves completing exercises in obedience, scent work, water work, and protection. A score between 302 and 347 out of 440 possible points is enough for the dog be awarded Certificaat A, which lasts for one year. A score above 348 awards the dog a full PH1 certificate, and a score above 402 awards the dog a Certificaat Met Lof (certificate with honors).
After completing PH1, it is up to the handler to decide whether or not to continue training for a more advanced title. Possible titles are Politiehond 2 (PH2), Object Bewakinghond (ObjBW), Speurhond (SpH), and Reddingshond (RH). PH2 includes the same exercises as PH1, but at a more advanced level. ObjBW is considered a specialised Guard Dog title. It includes many of the same exercises as PH1, but does not include water work, and has a stronger focus on guarding. SpH is a very specialised title that focuses on complex tracking and scent work exercises. The exercises are judged harshly, and only about 20% of dogs attempting this title are able to obtain it each year. Finally, RH is a specialised title that focuses on search and rescue operations with exercises that simulate the rescuing of a drowning person, or a person trapped under rubble.
KNPV is both incredibly important in maintaining the quality of working breeds such as the German Shepherd or Belgian Malinois, as well as promoting standards for the training of police dogs, protection dogs, and guard dogs. However, as honorable as the sport is, one should always remember that KNPV is just a sport. A true protection dog should be trained for real world scenarios, and not for sport.
Tags: Guard Dog, K.N.P.V., PH1, Police Dog, Politiehond, Protection Dog
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Thursday, July 15th, 2010
 KNPV is a lot closer to real protection work than many other dog sports because it comes the closest to mimicking real scenarios. One scenario seen in KNPV that isn’t seen in other sports is the presence of water in the environment. In the real world, a police protection dog must not only be able to swim, but must be able to do so with speed and efficiency in order to engage a target across a body of water, or to rescue a drowning person from a river with strong current.
KNPV uses two exercises to test a dog’s swimming ability. In the first exercise, the dog is instructed to swim across a canal with a minimum distance of 15 meters, wait at the other side, and then return to the handler when instructed. Unfortunately, while it is admirable that KNPV would include water exercises, this exercise does not come close enough to a real scenario to be effective as training for a true protection dog. In the real world, the dog will be sent across a body of water in order to perform a task, such as engaging a target. To have the dog sit and wait for a second command to be given on the other side of a river is absurd, and wastes valuable time. The dog should be trained to swim the distance and engage the target with one command.
In the second exercise, the dog is instructed by the handler to retrieve a large object in the water, approximately 7 meters out, and bring it back to shore. Again, it is admirable that KNPV would include this exercise, but it is still not close enough to the real scenario. The most important thing a dog could be bringing back to shore in this instance would be a human life. To depend on a dog that has only been trained to haul an inanimate object in calm waters to save a living human being is simply unacceptable.
The bottom line is that KNPV is just a sport. Whether you’re training a Belgian Malinois, a Dutch Shepherd or a German Shepherd as a police protection dog, it must be trained for the real world, using real world scenarios and real danger. There is simply no substitute for true protection dog training.
Tags: Belgian Malinois, Dog Sport, German Shepherd, K.N.P.V., Water
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Tuesday, July 13th, 2010
K NPV is a term that comes up often when speaking of working dogs, and with good cause; KNPV is one of the most challenging and well-respected dog sports in the world. Between 800 and 1000 dogs get their KNPV PH1 title each year. Of these, only about 5 will be German Shepherds. KNPV titles can only achieved in Holland, where the sport originates, and the vast majority of competing dogs will be Holland’s favoured breed: the Belgian Malinois. For a German Shepherd to achieve a KNPV title is an extremely difficult task that requires a hard dog with strong nerves. KNPV also requires a dog that is intelligent, loyal and sociable as well.
Training a dog for the KNPV PH1 title takes dedication and commitment. Training normally takes been 2-3 years to complete. To train a dog for this long, with the level of intensity required for KNPV takes a true love for dog sport and dog training. Training German Shepherd puppies or Belgian Malinois puppies must begin at a very young age.
While KNPV is the closest dog sport to real protection work, one should never forget that it is just a sport. However, KNPV forms the basis of breeding standards in Holland. Only the best dogs make it through to achieve a KNPV title, and the litters bred from KNPV titled dogs are ensured to have the strength and nerves required of true protection dogs. Very few KNPV dogs are female, as the best females are always held back for breeding.
Tags: Belgian Malinois, Dog Sport, German Shepherd, Guard Dog, K.N.P.V., Protection Dog
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Thursday, May 27th, 2010
 The Koninklijke Nederlandse Politiehond Vereniging (KNPV) is a dog sport originating in Holland that uses a number of exercises in an attempt to mimic situations encountered by police k9 units. One such exercise is centered around guarding an object.
For dogs with a natural protective instinct, training to guard an article should not be a difficult task. The same guard drive that a canine would have experienced in the wild to protect food, a den or young puppies, can be applied to any object. For the K.N.P.V. exercise, the dog’s are trained to ignore distractions such as a people walking past the article, and to attack the decoy who will attempt to take the article. The article can be any object, but medium-sized objects such as a bag, or coat are often used. After the dog has taken a bite on the decoy, the decoy will release the object and step back, at which point the dog will return the article without any outside command.
As with many K.N.P.V. exercises, the idea behind it is well-intentioned, but the execution of the exercise as a sport is inevitably unsuitable for a real world scenario. The scenario that this exercise depicts is one in which someone has carelessly left something of value in a wide-open, public space. Imagine that you have something of great importance that you need protected, but instead of locking it inside of a building, within a contained, fenced-off area, you have left it out in the middle of a park. This is, essentially, the K.N.P.V. scenario. In a real scenario, guard dogs are most often used to prevent intruders from entering a specific area rather than guarding a specific object. This is due to the simple fact that if you have an object valuable enough to hire highly skilled guard dogs to protect it, you are better off preventing intruders from even coming near the object rather than waiting until they have fully grasped it.
Although we have great respect for the K.N.P.V. dog sport, one should always remember that it is only a sport. Guard dogs and protection dogs should be trained for real world scenarios, not for sport.
Tags: Belgian Malinois, German Shepherd, Guard Dog, K.N.P.V.
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Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
 The Koninklijke Nederlandse Politiehond Vereniging (KNPV), roughly translated as “Royal Dutch Police Dog Sport”, is an intense dog sport that developed in the Netherlands as a way to test the breeding potential of working dogs to ensure their bloodlines remained strong and capable. While a variety of breeds are permitted to participate in KNPV, the sport is largely dominated by the Belgian Malinois. Although the breed does enjoy a fair bit of popularity in the area, its widespread use as a sporting dog for KNPV is a result of the Belgian Malinois’ ability to prove itself in KNPV trials time and time again.
Breeders put an incredible amount of time and effort into keeping their bloodlines strong and training their dogs to perform their absolute best. Whether they are training working dogs for police work, or sporting dogs for KNPV, it is important that training begins while the dogs are still puppies. A breeder must also determine the capabilities of his puppies very early on. While KNPV sporting dogs often produce very strong litters whose pups go on to be full-fledged police dogs or protection dogs, it is important to realise that the type of training they receive must be centered around the work they will be doing from the very beginning. Training a Belgian Malinois as a sporting dog will make it unsuitable for work as a true protection dog, even if it were to be cross-trained. It takes a huge amount of skill and expertise on the part of the breeder to ensure that their Belgian Malinois puppies are living up to their full potential and continuing to improve their bloodline.
Tags: Belgian Malinois, Guard Dog, K.N.P.V., Police Dog, Protection Dog, Puppies, Sporting Dog
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Tuesday, May 4th, 2010
 The Koninklijke Nederlandse Politiehond Vereniging (KNPV) is a dog sport originating in Holland that uses a number of exercises in an attempt to mimic situations encountered by police k9 units. One such exercise is centered around a search for small articles.
The KNPV small articles search takes place in a square section of grassy field. Three small objects, such as a key, a ring, a bullet casing, or a coin, are placed on the field. The dog then has 10 minutes to search the field and retrieve the objects. The handler is permitted to give basic commands instructing the dog to search, stay or release the retrieved object. A retrieval time of under 3 minutes is required to obtain a perfect score, while the dog is also graded on general obedience, the manner in which it searches the field, and how it handles the objects during the retrieval stage.
The intent of this exercise is to train the dog to act in a manner that mimics a police search for evidence. Unfortunately, the way this exercise is performed by the KNPV presents a number of problems when compared against what would be required of a search conducted by actual police forces. One of the biggest problems is that the dog is trained to mouth the object, pick it up and bring it back to the handler. In a real police search, investigators wear latex gloves to avoid disturbing the evidence any more than absolutely necessary. To have the dog mouth a piece of evidence might completely ruin it. The correct action for the dog to take would be to indicate passively by sitting next to the found article. Secondly, because KNPV is a sport, the exercises are performed with specific regulations concerning the search area. During a search, an officer can almost never rely on evidence being simply dropped in a perfectly square patch of grassy field.
The most important thing to remember is that KNPV, like all other dog sports, is just a sport. Police dogs, protection dogs and guard dogs alike need to be trained to handle real situations from the very beginning. Training for sport just isn’t good enough for work in the real world.
Tags: Belgian Malinois, K.N.P.V., Police Dog, Search, Small Article, Sporting Dog
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Thursday, March 25th, 2010
 Schutzhund and The KNPV are the two most popular dog sports in Europe today. Schutzhund was developed in the early 1900’s by German Shepherd breeder Max von Stephanitz as a way to determine the character of a dog and its suitability for breeding. KNPV, an abbreviation of Koninklijke Nederlandse Politiehond Vereniging, roughly translated as Royal Dutch Police Dog Association, was developed in the Netherlands during the early 1900’s as a way to determine which dogs were suitable for police work. While the two sports are similar in that they were developed at around the same time, for similar purposes, the number of differences in the exercises performed make them remarkably different sports.
One of the most visibly obvious differences between the two sports is the way in which bite work exercises are performed. In KNPV bite work, the decoy will be wearing a full, loose-fitting suit. This suit restricts mobility of the decoy to a small extent, but allows the dog to bite anywhere on the suit. In Schutzhund, the decoy only wears padding on one arm, and holds a stick in the other. The dog is trained only to bite the padded arm while the decoy uses the stick in an attempt to discourage the dog. Unfortunately, the Schutzhund method is fundamentally flawed in that the dogs are trained not to bite the weapon-arm of an attacking opponent. In a real confrontation, failing to target the weapon-arm of an attacker could quickly end in injury or even death of the dog and those it is attempting to protect.
The other key difference between the two sports is in tracking exercises. Schutzhund tracking exercises are more-so a test of obedience and control than actual tracking ability. The dogs are trained to track along a path in a slow, methodical manner, with their noses to the ground at all times. Points are deducted if the dog strays from the path by more than a couple feet, or misses a corner along the path by more than its own body length. In KNPV, there are no tracking exercises. Instead, the dogs are trained to do area searches to find articles or a person in the woods. The dog lifts its head to pick up scents from the air rather than the ground. Unfortunately, neither method accurately reproduces the type of tracking required by police in a real life scenario. KNPV especially makes the mistake of allowing or even encouraging the dog to mouth the object at the end of a search. In a real-life scenario, that object could be a weapon, explosives, or even narcotics.
While there are a number of other differences between the sports, tracking and bite work are two of the most fundamental. However, it is important to realise the differences between either sport versus a real life scenario. While they both make good attempts to mimic reality, both sports fail to do so. Many people have heard the phrase “practise makes perfect”, but in the case of dog sports, “practise makes permanent” may be more accurate. Consistently failing to target the weapon-arm in Schutzhund, or mouthing an article at the end of a search in KNPV both present glaring faults in training that is ingrained within the dog. A true protection dog should be trained for true, real-life protection from the very beginning.
Tags: Belgian Malinois, German Shepherd, Guard Dog, K.N.P.V., Protection Dog, Schutzhund
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Monday, September 21st, 2009
 The Koninklijke Nederlandse Politiehond Vereniging, abbreviated as K.N.P.V. literally means “Royal Dutch Police Dog Organization”. The dog sport K.N.P.V. is among one of the most prestigious dog sports in Europe. In fact, the only place one can get their dog title is in Holland, and there are only, 800 to 1000 dogs that receive the K.N.P.V. PH1 title each year. Out of that 1000, only 1% are German Shepherds. The majority of K.N.P.V. dogs are of the Belgian Malinois breed.
This sport originated in Holland as a way to train and test dogs for police service work. However, while K.N.P.V title dogs are certainly impressive, they are hardly fit for police or protection service today. While the exercises closely resemble those required for true protection work, they can hardly compare to real world experience.
K.N.P.V. is only a sport. A sporting dog will not protect you and your family, whether it is French ring title, Schutzund title, or K.N.P.V. title, even if one were to cross train to true protection.
Tags: Dog Sport, K.N.P.V., Protection Dogs, Sporting Dogs, Title Dogs
Posted in Belgian Malinois, CCK9 Policy, Dutch Shepherd, K.N.P.V., Sporting Dogs | Comments Off
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
 French Ring Sport is a protection dog sport, not unlike Schutzhund or KNPV exercises, but unique in it’s own right. The sport involves a number of trials intended to test both the dog and it’s handler. Exercises include jumps, palisades, retrieval and tests of obedience, as well as bite-work using a decoy outfitted in a special French Ring bite suit. The decoy is considered an active adversary to the dog and will do his best to confuse, enrage or otherwise undermine the training and character of the dog. The German Shepherd, Belgian Malinois, Doberman Pinscher and Rottweiler are the most common breeds used in French Ring Sport. However, a list of other mid-sized to large breeds are permitted to participate, provided they’re up to the challenge. After earning the title of Brevet, which deems a dog fit to participate in the sport, the titles Ring I, Ring II and Ring III may be awarded to dogs who perform admirably. Each title provides increasingly challenging exercises with Ring III being the most difficult to obtain. Dogs who have obtained the title of Ring III must work hard to score consistently high to avoid being demoted back to Ring II.
The history of French Ring Sport shares close ties to Belgian Ring Sport. Both originated in the late 1800’s as a way to determine a dog’s suitability for breeding. Edmond Moecheron, a Belgian Shepherd dog breeder, is credited by some as being the father of ring sport. His demonstrations throughout Belgium, France and Holland undoubtedly helped inspire French and Belgian Ring Sport as well as K.N.P.V. exercises. In 1907, the first ring sport was conducted in Mechelen, Belgium. The establishment of separate rules for French and Belgian Ring Sport would grow from here. The Bouvier des Flandres is the breed most noted for it’s shepherding, and later, protection work in France. The Bouvier des Flandres and Belgian Malinois breeds have shared intense competition in Ring Sport competitions. However, many people now regard the Belgian Malinois as being the breed best suited for Ring Sport.
In 1986, French Ring Sport was introduced to North America, and the North American Ringsport Association (N.A.R.A.) was formed under guidance from the Societe Centrale Canine (S.C.C.) in France. In 1987, Mondioring Sport was formed in Tournai, Belgium. Mondioring Sport combines what it considers to be the best elements of Belgian Ring Sport, French Ring Sport, K.N.P.V. and Schutzhund. Changes in rules and exercises over the years, as well as similarities between various Ring Sports have lead to the use of the term International Ring Sport in recent history.
Whether you call it French Ring Sport or International Ring Sport, French and Belgian traditions have maintained one of the toughest and most exciting dog sports in the world.
Although I have respect for the dog sport French Ring, French Ring Sport is only a sport. A sporting dog, whether it be Schutzhund, K.N.P.V. or French Ring will not protect you and your family, even if one were to cross train.
We at Command Control K9 only sell true, fully trained protection dogs. We don’t sell sporting dogs.
Tags: Belgian Malinois, Bouvier des Flandres, Dog Sport, French Ring, International Ring Sport, Mondioring
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Sunday, August 9th, 2009
It’s always a pleasure to hear from one of our clients, so I was delighted when I received this e-mail;
 Perry,
Just sending you a quick note so you can see how nicely Aslan has grown up. He was out of a litter born 11/8/07 of KNPV II parents. He is an incredible dog. I know he wasn’t in the top 3 pick of that litter, but I must say, he is a great dog!!! Has true pack mentality (he is a leader amongst other dogs), very fast learner, very willing and loves to work, very protective of his territory/pack, yet kind and gentle.
Thank you again for sending him to us – he is perfect in our home.
Kate F.
Feedback like this is part of what makes my job so enjoyable. I encourage all of our clients to keep in touch, and let us know how our pups have grown, or how one of our protection dogs have changed their lives.
Tags: Belgian Malinois, Customer Feedback, Puppy
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