I have read Ed's articles on PP and I am currently studying Bernard comments (wow, interesting tons of info) in "Preparing your dog for the helper". If I understand both trainers correctly a good prey drive(not food drive), good genes and strong nerves are three of the requirements the dog should meet in order to be trained in PP. I have read in one post also that some dogs are meant to be "social butterflies, not PDDs".
Maybe the following Q's sound a little weird/strange (like myself :crazy but I would not want to ruin my dog nor waste valuable time,
1. Is there a test where a professional trainer can tell one's dog can be trained in PP?
2. If this is not the case, can the trainer do additional tests to evaluate if the dog can be trained in other areas?
3. One trainer once told me (via email)that he/she would not know unless the defense drive was awakened in my dog, do you agree with this?

P.S. Rest assure, I haven taken all the warnings of all trainers here very seriously and will not even consider training my dog in PP without an experienced helper/decoy.

I would say MOST working breed dogs can do PP, in some aspect. They can be brought out in defense or prey, and then balanced. With some dogs it takes a lot of patience and time, but they can do it. I know many dogs who went to one person and they said "the dog is no good, it's a crappy dog, the dog has no drive, etc" but then they found the right trainer who took the time, and their dog is doing street protection just fine, or club level sport.

Thanks for the info, Jennifer. I now wonder if f.e. the rott (working breed also)of someone I know which has been tied up all his life on a chain (I hate it when owners do this BTW), who does not display prey drive when I throw a ball in front of him could be trained in PP.

Are you talking about training a dog so that will actually protect you, or a dog that will do a warning bark and put on a good show?

Dogs that will really protect their owners against a determined attacker are *rare*.

Right, you have to put in a lot of work to get a dog that would actually be reliable on the street, and some dogs will still flee or not protect you. That is true of many titled sport dogs, too, such as SchH 3 dogs or FR 3 dogs. But it's not too hard to get any working breed dog to bite the "bad guy" wearing the sleeve who has been agitating him and building it up for a while.

Sure, but I don't consider a dog biting a sleeve or suit to be "protection trained" ( for lack of a better term ). And if a "protection trainer" is using this as the only method to train your dog as a "ppd"....run the other direction!

You just need to test the dog properly *up front*, and only train the ones that show that they can handle the training....and it's not that hard for an experienced decoy to do ( and I've written several times about the correct manner of testing both on this forum and at http://www.protectiondogforums.com/forums/index.php ).

A dog that will do a warning bark and put on a good show is good enough for me. The chance of an actual attack here is very small(low crime rate) but the warning bark would be enough to scare most people here. The rest will be up to me (escape/counter-attack).
Great link, thx.

 Quote: Rosalinda van den Ham

A dog that will do a warning bark and put on a good show is good enough for me. The chance of an actual attack here is very small

My question is then why talk about PP, and finding a good trainer, and not ruining the dog, etc?

From your answer it seems to me then that you don't want or need a PPD. Don't worry about it then because just about any dog can be taught to bark...

If I understand Will's comment correctly it seems that dogs need to be trained also to put on a good show. I could be mistaken however.

Maybe you are right, maybe I do not need a PPD but training PP fascinates me because of the complicity.
The dog comes from a working line from the Netherlands, in my humble opinion it would be a waste to keep such a high energy dog lying around , don't you agree, he would bore himself to death.
If a prof.trainer tells me he cannot be trained in PP, I will train him in another area. No problema...
Either way, a little brainstorming does not hurt, does it?

Train him in Schutzhund or Ring.
He'll probably never take a real bite (inless the Michelan man breaks in to your house), but he'll put on an impressive show long enough for you to get to a gun.