The situation:

I have a now 10 month old GSD female that comes from Czech/East German working lines. She is fairly dominant and she has tons of prey drive. I am training her for personal protection and am planning to participate in NAPD competition.

As of now she is very sleeve happy. We do train her on the coat as well but by now she wont even look at the coat if there is a sleeve close by. She has a nice full mouth bite if she gets the targeting right. Her personality is almost "golden retriever" like. Meeting strangers is always a happy thing and she rolls over in excitement to have her tummy rubbed. (the roll oever is not submissive IMO but just the excitement getting the best of her). I would say that she has tons of confidence and a lot of courage.

I like her to be friendly at this stage of her life but since I havent observed it or experienced, what are the chances that a dog like her will end up as a good personal protection dog? Considering of course that her future training will address her abilities in a reasonable way and considering that she isnt ruined. Any suggestions from your experience with this type of dog is appreciated. I am not concerned about her future as of now but I am curious.

I would believ that she will probbaly be exellent. I wouldn't worry too much about the "sleeve happy" at this point. She sees it as her primary prey item. As she ages she will learn that it is the person not the sleeve she is to "prey" on. I will give you some "hints" for NAPD we have learned the hard way. As she ages teach her to make a bite on a passive aggitator and to out on a fighting aggitator. Both come up on NAPD scenarios on a regular basis.

Hope to see you on the field at an NAPD trial. We train for that too. One of the dogs from our local clud took third in the on lead compition on Saturday and got the "Bad Guy's" Choice award. They liked it that he bit through the suit, a gauntlet, and still drew blood. Congrats Gregg and Koa. These guys are crazy. At the last Phoenix trial a dog hit one, on what should have been a call off, so hard I think he was out for a few seconds. Good thing it was his last dog of the day. His comment when he got up? "Wow, what a ride!". During the "dog in white" portion one took a bite on a bare hand form the P.D. dog they were using. They bandaged him up and he worked the entire trial with the bandage on. Like I said thes guys are NUTS, gotta LOVE them!!!

Thanks Richard,

by the way, do you happen to have the results from last weekends NAPD trial? I havent seen anyone post them yet and I am curious. A few of our club members and me went to the last trial in Sacramento to watch and it certainly was a blast.

What were some of the scenarios in the protection part?

I haven't seen anything yet or talked to Gregg. I just know how they did, since he talked to our trainer when he got back. I just checked their web site, nothing. I need to sen Gregg an e-mail any way he may know some of the standigs and should still have the protection scenarios.

My advice comes from a similar (I’d write Ed to see if this applies to you) situation with me. Ed suggested that I stop bite work with my dog until maturity so that it could be worked in defense as to not get locked into prey. My TD (who I have tons of respect for) in my club did not agree. My dog ended up getting locked into prey. Ed bought my dog to be his PSD but it took his expertise to correct the problem. I doubt you are lucky enough to have that kind of experience around you so your end result might not turn out as well.