Skip to main content

Information About KNPV Dog Training and Testing

Koninklijke Nederlandse
Politiehond Vereniging

Royal Dutch Police Dog Association

KNPV is a term associated with the titles of Dutch working dogs. In our opinion it is the undisputed king of dog training for real world scenarios. Our dogs come from Holland. In addition all of the dogs sold by Wolfsbane K9 are Belgian Malinois. KNPV Certification is the hardest and most rigorous test of a dog. Dogs who pass the testing are certified based on a passing number of points. When a dog competes and gets his IPO I or Schutzhund I title he will later return and try for the level II title. In that trial he is doing exactly the same thing as before but things become a little harder. The same holds true for level III.

In the KNPV PH1 certification you have one level (PH1) and the skills to master and perform are in 3 groups. If you look at the list of what the PH1 dog must do compared to the sporting trial dogs there is no comparison. The KNPV certified dog is like a Formula 1 race car and the others are like mopeds.

Some who try to sell you a sporting dog like the Schutzhund trained dog will tell you a KNPV dog is dangerous because they are trained for police work but that is simply not true. Be aware of the fact that a KNPV dog is not ready to begin police work and would require 6 more weeks of training to get certified for police work. When we get a KNPV PH1 dog from Holland the dog will come to us and go through our own protection dog course to be customized to the client’s needs. We’ll use what he knows and build on that to produce the best dog for you based on your needs.

5dd002 9f4148745e0d44478539d1e28af19c471

The PH-1 has between 800 and 1,000 competitors annually. Each level requires a specific score. These are: PH-1 Certificate A, this means that the dog achieved a minimal score of 305. This certificate is good for a two-year period. The next certificate level is titled PH-1 Certificate and is good for the life of the dog. This requires 348 out of 440 possible. The closer to the high score the better the dog should be. Our goal is to always have dogs that scored higher than 380. Most of our dogs score over 400.

The final level is Certificate “Met Lof”, which is good for life and means that the dog was exceptional, achieving a score of 392 points or more out of 440. The majority of dogs (who earn a PH1 at all ) usually earn the standard PH-1 Certificate. Fewer obtain the higher Met Lof score and fewer still obtain the lower score of Certificate A.

There is a level of KNPV known as the PH2. This is more of a division into 5 areas of specialization such as advanced tracking or object guarding. We do not see any reason to specifically seek out PH2 level dogs since the training they have is of little use to our clients.