The best command is one your dog understands. This may sound obvious but you will be surprised how many times I’ve seen handlers suddenly yell the ‘Attack’ command and the dog just reacts to the tone of the handlers voice, gives a few excited steps forward and then doubles back looking at the owner as if to say, “That sounded serious, what’s going on”?

The ‘Attack ‘ command is very overrated. It is nothing without other cues for your dog to understand the situation at hand or the action it is being asked to take. What you really want to be doing is what I call ‘Switching On’ your dog. To switch on your dog you give a command that effectively warns or announces that the attack command is going to be given. When you switch on your dog he should know exactly what’s going to happen next and his body language should demonstrate pure drive and his hunting instincts should kick in. Your dog should look around and be ready for you to point out the bad guy. The ‘Attack’ command effectively releases your dog onto the offender.

In Summary – The word is really irrelevant. The most important thing to do is to ‘Switch’ your dog on before you give the attack command.