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Canine anti-piracy unit loses one of its own

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Malaysia’s quest to create a piracy-fighting unit staffed by dogs suffered a setback after one of the two Labradors trained to sniff out pirated DVDs died of unknown causes, the Associated Press reports.

Manny, a one-year-old male pictured on the left, died May 31. He was trained in Ireland with another Labrador, Paddy, right, to sniff out a chemical used in manufacturing DVDs. They arrived in Malaysia in February and had been training with police officers and getting used to Malaysia’s climate.

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Malaysia sought to form the world’s first permanent canine anti-piracy unit after borrowing two dogs — Lucky and Flo — from the U.S. Motion Picture Assn. They helped Malaysian authorities discover 1.6 million pirated DVDs during a six-month stint last year.

Lucky and Flo’s success reportedly caused movie pirates to place a bounty on their heads. The dogs cannot distinguish between real and pirated DVDs, but they point officers to hidden caches of discs.

Mohamad Roslan said Malaysia has not yet decided whether to get a new dog to replace Manny.

Manny and Paddy were donated to Malaysia by the Motion Picture Assn.

-- Tony Barboza

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