From my writings over at
http://www.protectiondogforums.com/forums/
Personal Protection Dog Kennel and Trainer Selection
What titles do the trainers hold?
There are a few untitled trainers that do a good job, but these are *rare*. For trainers to be doing something as serious as training personal protection dogs and to not to have a lot of titles in different venues ( titles just in *one* venue is a warning sign ) is a big warning sign.
Do they have a ready made list ( and please, take the time to call former clients) of people that have gotten dogs from them. Evaluate closely those dogs - are they still functioning as PPD’s, or did they end up pets because the clients weren’t serious and no longer trained them ?
And along those lines, what does the PPD train offer for follow up sessions ( hint: free life-time follow should be the norm ), or if the client lives too far to come for follow up, does the trainer help arrange contact between the client and say, their local Schutzhund club?
Does the trainer proudly point to some “Master Trainer” certificate hanging on their wall? ( Valuable hint here ) - if the certificate is from anywhere else but The Tom Rose School For Dogs or Triple Crown Academy…………walk away, they’re bogus.
Does the PPD trainer have pictures of all the celebrities that they’ve sold dogs to plastered all over their office wall or website? Hint - Celebrities are usually the worse PPD clients, their staff ends up taking care of the dog and it’s a total waste of a good dog. So Celebrity endorsements are a strong sign of a bogus set-up and a reason to shop elsewhere.
Now to more important matters - does the PPD trainer actually know what happens during a criminal attack? This should elementary, but most PPD trainers have never actually been a crime victim and/or even more rarely, have ever deployed a dog to deter an attack.
And if you’ve never done something in real life, you’re working on assumptions that you’ve learned from others, no matter how hard you train.
This gives trainers that were K9 officers a real advantage in the PPD world, even though the deployment of a canine by an LEO has a very different rule set then what a civilian using his PPD will encounter.
I also give a nod to ex-Military folks that have seen actual combat, it gives them a mind set that is valuable in the training of PPD’s ( and not just Military dog handlers, the basic combat grunt has gained the lessons of staying alive against hostile forces to a degree that civilians can never obtain ).
Selecting the Right Personal Protection Dog
Ok, you’ve followed the advice from the thread “Selecting a Trainer/Vendor” and after doing your extensive homework, you’ve gotten in contact with a good vendor. You have been in close communication with this vendor via e-mail and phone and he thinks that he’s got a dog that you can work with.
What now?
There are a few steps that I suggest you take to make the most out of your visit to see the dog.
Come a little bit early to the site and ask to be shown around *before* you see the dog. Look at the kennel set up - it everything clean, is it a place that you’d be fine with boarding a dog at?
Take a look at the training equipment, is it well cared for and organized?
Look at the training site, do they have mock ups of building/windows, cars,etc. where they can train realistic protection scenarios? Is the area fenced for safety?
Take the time to look at the dog’s paperwork. Check it’s registration ( if any, there are plenty of excellent un-papered dogs ) and look closely through it’s health records. Take a look at it’s hip x-ray rating. If the dog was owned by someone else previously, find out *why* the dog was sold, and be demanding in a clear answer for this ( these are all points that should have been discussed over the phone before you made your trip there, by the way - you’re reviewing the paperwork to double-check and verify facts now ).
Let the trainer introduce the dog to you. Observe the dog, is it confident and sure in it’s surrounding? Does it look you over but also look to the handler to see if they accept your presence? Is the dog the correct weight, is it’s coat in good shape? Does the dog look well-exercised and not like it’s been in a crate for 23 hours a day?
Once the dog has become familiar with you, it’s time for your decoy to do their job.
Yes…..*your* decoy - to do this the right way, you’ll need to bring an experienced decoy that you can trust and that the dog has never seen.
Now look, this dog probably has received some meaningful training, but the odds are that it’s been all on a single decoy ( not many vendors have multiple skilled decoys on their payroll, a good decoy is hard to come by ). What we want to see is how the dog reacts from a threat by a decoy that it doesn’t know.
So you’ll stay far out of the way and the handler will have the dog on a strong leash. You call your decoy via cell-phone to come in and the decoy will start to to loudly knock on the door to the office - watch the dog, he’d better bark here. The decoy escalates the door pounding and the prospective PPD had better be letting your decoy know to go elsewhere.
Finally the decoy forcefully swings the door open and talks in a loud and threatening manner - prospective PPD should be displaying outright aggression and dragging the handler towards the decoy ( all of these reactions by the dog are without commands ) who then leaves.
The handler now calms the dog to the point where you can pet it, etc. The decoy has changed into his bite suit out of sight and is now outside around the corner of the building or behind a van ( whatever you and the decoy and the vendor have decided on previously ). You and the handler and the dog walk outside and stroll calmly to the spot where the decoy is hiding - the decoy jumps out and attacks the handler and you watch for the reaction of the dog ( a slight startle is ok, but the dog has to recover immediately and bite the decoy. Ideally this happens so fast that the dog doesn’t even zero in on the fact that there’s a bite suit present, so speed is of the essence here ).
I highly suggest that you, the handler/vendor and the decoy walk through the exact steps of the scenario at least twice so everyone knows their part.
A dog that passes this test is the dog that you write the big check for.
Is this trainer OK??
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Re: Is this trainer OK??
Re: Is this trainer OK??
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