Can a dual purpose police service dog stay in the house at night, live as a house dog, play with the family and then go to work and function efficiently?

The answer to this question is pure and simple: "NO!!!!" Assuming that a dog is properly selection tested and properly trained as a police service dog, this is absolutely a bad idea and here is why:

- Police dogs are not pets, they are tools for law enforcement. Their job is to perform at the highest level of proficiency when on duty. The life of their handler may require this. Any dog that is a family pet is going to enjoy being a pet far more than working as a police dog. When this happens, the police work suffers. So when a police service dog is off duty, he should be resting in his kennel so he is 100% ready for his next shift.

- There is nothing wrong with a police dog knowing the family and being around the family when it is under the supervision of the handler. From that standpoint the dog can come under the fold of the family pack setting. But under no circumstances should a police service dog be put in a position where it is expected to take orders from the officer's children or spouse.

- Police Officers would never allow their family members to take control of their service weapon, the same holds true for their police dog. If this happens the officer is courting disaster. There is too much of a risk of the dog biting a family member or guest when unsupervised by the handler.

- New handlers are always better police officers than dog trainers. This is a simple fact of life and not meant as a critical statement. Many handlers have never owned a working dog, many have never owned any dog before. These men and women are then given a high drive adult dog and sent through 6 or 8 weeks of basic training. As such, they often do not have the experience to deal with new police dogs interacting with their family and friends. They incorrectly assume that because their dog tolerates and minds them, they will also get along with their family, friends and neighbors, not so!

- I even believe that every police department should have a policy that their service dogs should be put in a professional boarding kennel when the officer is on vacation. To allow family friends to feed and clean up after the police dog is too high of a risk for any department to take.

It's important that everyone who is shaking their head at this advice understand that there are literally hundreds if not thousands of police dogs working the street in this country that have no business being there. These are dog's that lack hunt and fight drive. These dogs would never stand ground and protect their handlers. I recently answered a question in an email from police handler who has been assigned a WHITE GERMAN SHEPHERD. I will guarantee you that there is no white german shepherd anywhere that has the drives to be a patrol dog. This also goes for departments that are mistakenly using American bloodline German Shepherds as patrol dogs.

Departments that continue to use poorly selected dogs which are unqualified for this work can let their dogs be house dogs, they may as well be pets, they are no good for anything else.