Back in February, Malaysia brought in two Labrador dogs Paddy and Manny from Ireland to sniff out DVDs hidden in parcels. Unfortunately, it has now suffered a significant setback after Manny died unexpectedly of an unknown cause. So far no suspect foul play has been found after an investigation by the authorities. Both dogs were trained in Ireland to sniff for a chemical used in DVDs and were brought over to Malaysia back in February.
Last year, Malaysia had a significant success in fighting piracy after two dogs, Lucky and Flo, helped discover 1.6 million pirated DVDs in the 6 months it had a lend of these dogs from the MPAA. In fact, they were so successful that pirates even offered a bounty to have them killed. While the dogs cannot tell the difference between which discs are pirated or legitimate, they help the authorities sort out which packages or items have discs hidden within them.
As there is still one DVD sniffer dog present, this does not mean the pirates now get the ability to send out mass volumes of pirated DVDs with less chance of getting caught again. As Malaysia has not yet decided whether to replace Manny, this may be a good indication that one dog is enough, at least as a deterrent.
