I need a breed suitable for both S&R and standing up to a bear/lion.

Some background -

1) I normally work with German Shepherds and Malinois for search and rescue but sold my dogs before relocating to this new state.
2) S&R works very closely with the police department here.
3) The police department here prefers the Malinois over the GSD for health reasons (hip dysplasia in GSD's), so they want me to get the Malinois of course.
4) The person in charge of search and rescue is highly respected as a vet but he works only with labs and resents anyone bringing a breed other than labs for S&R. However, when he was doing S&R training on my new property, his dog came back running with a bear on its tail.
5) I explained my situation to both the S&R leader and the police and they agreed to let me choose a dog of ANY breed of my choice.

Characteristics of the breed I am looking for -

1) The normal characteristics in a S&R dog like high ball drive, etc., which naturally points to breeds like GSD, Malinois, etc.

2) I have quite a bit of acreage on my property, which borders several canyons and there is no human habitation for several miles around. Bears are rather common here and I have experienced one (bluff) charge already from a bear right on my property. There are many mountain lions in the canyons where I will be practicing S&R, including one that probably lives right on my property although I have never seen a single lion. I see bear tracks and lion tracks on my property all the time when there is snow.

So I need a breed that is capable on holding on its own if we encounter it during S&R training.

Both GSD's and Malinois are great dogs but I am told by local hunters that both GSD's and Malinois are unsuitable because they lack genuine courage to stand up to a bear or a mountain lion. I tested the breeds that the local hunters use (plotts, blue ticks, red ticks, walkers, black and tan) and found these breeds to be poor candidates for S&R work, at least the approximately one-year old specimens I tested.

I need a breed with genuine courage to stand up to a bear or lion when we encounter it during S&R training or during actual search and rescue work for lost hunters. (For instance, see these videos of dogs with genuine courage

ED REMOVED THE LINKS ON THE POST - THEY WERE UNSUITABLE FOR THIS WEB BOARD - POST LINKS LIKE THIS AGAIN AND IT WILL BE YOUR LAST POST ON THIS BOARD. I dont have time for the BS !!! ED


But I also need this dog to be one who will excel in S&R work.

Now that you have the background information, I leave this topic to you experts for your recommendations. Thank you.





ED's COMMENTS EDITED IN:

Joseph Xavier s a complete NUT CASE - I mean a mental case. He lives at 471 WASHINTON AVE
COLORADO CITY AZ 86021

Phone 206-978-4385

He claimed to live in Canada and is in fact living in a strict mormon community that practises poligamy. On a scale of 1 to 10 he is in the 10 range for crazy people who have contacted us over the years

---

This guy is completly nute - he is a mental case

Have you looked into a Karelian Bear Dog? (sp)
We have one on our team and he is a great little trailing dog.

http://www.jackshuler.com/

This guy is GREAT with hounds, maybe he can give you some insight on the breeds you were looking at??
I helped start a little Redbone Coonhound and she is an awesome dog also.
I think they are better run in packs as far as animals such as bear and cats though.

Also, here is some info on the Bear Dog...
http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/karelianbeardog.htm

Carole, I have seriously considered the Karelian Bear Dog - which is the dog you see in my third video above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1brtIZkPUt8

I considered Karelian dogs from two sources - the Wind River Bear Institute and the Karelian Bear Shepherding Institute of Canada. As far as I know, these two are the best sources for Karelians in North America.

While they are very picky about who they sell their dog to, I found to my surprise that their dogs are not very courageous. I am told I need to go to Finland to get good Karelians as the ones available for sale in North America are quite pathetic, even the ones from the Wind River Bear Institute and the Karelian Bear Shepherding Institute of Canada. Both sources get great dogs from Finland or Russia but the ones they end up breeding here in North America are lacking in courage.

Secondly, they sell pups while I don't like to assess temperaments until a dog is about a year old. Thirdly, Karelians always seem to get into trouble with other dogs, even other Karelians they may have been raised with. Fourthly, they have a tendency to wander/escape/go hunting and the farmers here shoot any dog seen on their property. Finally, (and this is not very important but if at all possible) I like to put schutzhund titles on my dogs as a hobby and Karelians seem quite unsuitable for this task.




ED's COMMENTS EDITED IN:

Joseph Xavier s a complete NUT CASE - I mean a mental case. He lives at 471 WASHINTON AVE
COLORADO CITY AZ 86021

Phone 206-978-4385

He claimed to live in Canada and is in fact living in a strict mormon community that practises poligamy. On a scale of 1 to 10 he is in the 10 range for crazy people who have contacted us over the years

Check out Don Turnipseeds' crazy a$$ airedales! This guy trains his dogs in schutzhund, bear hunting, boar hunting etc. He is the real deal when it comes to his breed (as far as I can tell). Here is the link to his bear hunting dogs:
http://huntingairedales.com/bear.htm
Here is the link to his dogs started in schutzhund:
http://huntingairedales.com/new_page_3.htm
Take a stroll around his website just for fun. It's a real trip!

The gal that has one on our team, imported from Finland.
I am not too familiar with them, just what I have learned from her. She has been training sled dogs for years and has always wanted a "good" KBD.

Gee, I can't help but to think that:
1 Very Courageous GSD/Mal who is willing to fight a large carnivore + 1 bear/lion = 1 dead SAR dog

Personally, I'd want my SAR dog to either ignore the threat or return to me versus attempting to fight off a bear or mountain lion.

jospeh ithink you are on the wrong way here...

agood search dog should treat animals in one of two ways : ignore -which mean it pot him in deangarue and you have to garentey its saftey on the search...

or avoid- which mean that you should run away any wild animal that threat him while hes on the search and mostly before the search.
the main goal of agood search dog is allways keep on the search and not been distruct by any animal.

the best tip ican give you is what iusally do: keep your dog use to gun fire noise (recomanded anyway) and carry agun with real bullits or blanks or even strong fire cracks and when such an animal is appear or may appear make afew shoots.
the animal will probably back away and the dog will keep on searching.

about malinois and gsds and wild animals - we have very big and agresives wild boars here and ihade more than once to relese one of my puppys mals when they grab one that threat tham while training.
iconsider thos meetings bad training acidents - like i said im teaching my dogs (especlly by using "DR volt" ) to avoid or ignore all kind of animals.

when iwas alad my gsd "shed" even killed one of thos wild boar feamale that protected her youngs...
-ihade to trail the blood trail which end up with adead boar, and awounded gsd with ayoung wounded boar in hes mouth.

amal of afreind of my even got to afight with aleopard while tracking.

you see with agood real working dogs the big problem is teaching tham to avoid thos fights not getting tham in to one and that is the tactics you should consider to my openion.

sefi.s
israel

 Quote:

Check out Don Turnipseeds' crazy a$$ airedales! Take a stroll around his website just for fun. It's a real trip!

A trip, indeed. And could he have a more perfect name?

One thing I found surprising: Don's got raw food all over the place yet he advocates feeding commercial food? Go figure.

 Quote: sarah_morris

 Quote:

Check out Don Turnipseeds' crazy a$$ airedales! Take a stroll around his website just for fun. It's a real trip!

A trip, indeed. And could he have a more perfect name?

One thing I found surprising: Don's got raw food all over the place yet he advocates feeding commercial food? Go figure.

And MILK as a "Balanced Supplement" ????