My police K9 will not take the bite on the street. In training he never hesitates. What can I do to fix this?

Hello,

I have a male GSD that has just turned 3 years old last month. He has been worked by me as a Police Dog for the last 1.5 years and has proved himself in all areas of Police work other than actually biting anyone. He has had a number of opportunities to bite both on and off the lead but on each occasion has not taken the bite. He has jumped up and investigated the arm of a feeing criminal and has barked aggressively at an approaching criminal but failed to move forward and bite. I have had a roll around on the floor with 2 criminals while he was on the lead with me and he did not bite either of them.

In training you could not ask for a better dog. He achieves everything that is asked of him which includes 'practical' scenarios. His tracking/searching/control is excellent.

I have trained with both overt and covert sleeves and he does not hesitate to bite. If he is attacked he will bite.

The advice I receive from my training department is to keep exposing him to these live situations and one day he should 'mature' and bite. I don't have much confidence in this method.

Any advice would be great.

Many thanks in advance,
Trevor