It very much depends on what agency the dog is/was working for. TSA or border customs agents would be conducting their inspections inside secured locations; they’re very unlikely to need an attack dog, but they do need a very highly trained dog to detect all manner of illicit shit.
the k-9 unit in your local home town police? they’re trained as generalists, with much lower training in any specific task. As such, they won’t have as broad of a detection capability as say a dedicated drug sniffing dog, or as skilled at tracking as, say, a cadaver dog, or be as useful in pursuits as, say, a patrol dog. But they’ll be capable in all of the roles and come with a significant advantage in that they’re fast to deploy because most will have dogs on duty around the clock, and virtually every agency has one in house.
They don’t train drug sniffing dogs as attack dogs, so no, they don’t attack on command.
It very much depends on what agency the dog is/was working for. TSA or border customs agents would be conducting their inspections inside secured locations; they’re very unlikely to need an attack dog, but they do need a very highly trained dog to detect all manner of illicit shit.
the k-9 unit in your local home town police? they’re trained as generalists, with much lower training in any specific task. As such, they won’t have as broad of a detection capability as say a dedicated drug sniffing dog, or as skilled at tracking as, say, a cadaver dog, or be as useful in pursuits as, say, a patrol dog. But they’ll be capable in all of the roles and come with a significant advantage in that they’re fast to deploy because most will have dogs on duty around the clock, and virtually every agency has one in house.