Bilingual Dogs Invade Britain

The sad thing is that the dogs will probably become fluent in two languages, much better than humans

clipped from news.yahoo.com LONDON (AFP) - British police dog handlers are learning to give orders to their animals in German after bosses decided to import Alsatians because of a shortage of suitable animals here, media reports said Friday. A trial of the German dogs by Derbyshire Police in east central England has been deemed a success, prompting 16 other forces to recruit the canines at 2,000 pounds (2,600 euros, 3,900 dollars) each. Handlers have had to learn a series of orders in German, including "sitz" (sit), "platz" (down), "aus" (let go), "holen" (fetch) and "bissen" (bite). A Derbyshire Police spokeswoman told the Press Association news agency said they were attempting to get the dogs to respond to English. "We are repeating the German commands in English so they are becoming bilingual," she added.

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