the dog above is a malinois, a super high drive dog that can do just about anything. they excel at nosework, any kind of work task you can train them, and protection work (running, biting and detaining). They're not naturally mean or aggressive, but really really high drive with an amped prey drive, so it's all about what you train them to do. nosework dogs can be trained to sniff for bombs, drugs, corpses, and now even diseases like covid or cancer for instance. You could take a bomb dog and retrain them to smell for drugs, because they understand the basic mecanism, but obviously, the dog will perform better on the task if it has a lot of experience. you can use a large variety of dogs for nosework, so you'll see TSA bomb dogs that are like cute cuddly labs and hounds, but if you want to use the dog for law enforcement or military functions, you need something like a malinois, dutch shepherd, german shepherd that have high prey drives and lowered fear reaction. I have a dutchie, and she's an amazing dog, but is nothing like my parent's standard poodles for instance--she requires a lot of training and management. We do not use her for protection (other than barking at anything that makes a noise on our porch I guess). Anyway, they're perfectly loving and friendly dogs, but they require you to build a relationship with them, they do not approach situations with strangers with an open heart like a nice golden retriever does.