Hello everyone,
I own a pitbull and I have a few friends who have them. My pup is only 8 months old and he started bite work on tug toys when he was 5 weeks. At the moment he can handle quite a bit of pressure with the stick and whip, and he bites like an alligator on the leg and the sleeve.
Pitbulls are like any other working breeds. There are some awesome ones and there are some bad ones. As a general, they are pretty happy go lucky and they are a bit too trusting to strangers if not protection trained. They have a very high threshold to threat, definitely not sharp dogs. That's why untrained pitbulls get stolen all the time. You have to socialise them with other animals a lot when they are young and introduce defense work earlier than other breeds because of their extreme high prey drive and high threshold to threat.
If you have ever seen a real pit fight you would notice that they act very differently than other breeds during the fight (I am not into dog fighting myself, however). There is no barking or growling, no threatening gestures or hair raising up on the back, no snarling or showing teeth. Two pitbulls just charge at each other like they are some long lost buddies. During the fight, if you look at them closely, it would remind you of a dog biting a decoy on prey drive. The dogs are very excited and tail wagging. I believe this is prey drive, from their bull baiting history.
Some people say that dog aggression doesn't help in police work. I completely agree with that. The thing is, some peole get the word aggression mixed up with the word gameness. Aggression is just the desire to attack another dog, it doesn't mean that the dog is game or tough. I believe most of you have seen a Chihuahua growling at another dog or a Jack Russel going nuts when he sees your Shepherd. It has nothing to do with hardness at all. Gameness is another thing completely. It is the will to win, above all odds and cost. The will to keep fighting even in pain, exhaustion and stress, even death, never quit or give up. This means that a game dog must be hard and have strong nerves, able to cope with tonnes of pressure. Responsible breeders do not breed non-game dogs (curs). This gameness is what makes pitbulls good police service dogs, and it is what makes pitbull a pitbull.

Felix

Felix,

This was discussed at length a few months ago. You may want to go read that thread.

The Readers Digest version is this:

Based on the reputaion of the breed (deserved or not) it will never happen. Departments can't afford the bad publicity that such a dog would create.

Felix, those are all good points as to why you like your chosen breed however, you made no points as to how those points would carry over to police work. I don't understand why people try to fix something when it isn't broken. The pit MIGHT be able to do the work but, why would you struggle with the dog when there are so many other good dog's out there better suited. By the way, your dog biting people goes against everything it has been bred for for hundreds of years. Only recently have people been trying to use pits and other bull breeds for personal protection. JMO

I have never heard of a Pitt Bull being used as a Patrol Dog in America (although there may be one or two somewhere). This is not going to happen - local administrators are not going to accept this breed with it's tarnished reputation no matter how much breeders and sport enthusists would like to see it happen. Defense attornies would have a field day with their street bites.

In addition their gameness would eliminate them from tracking in areas where there are other dogs. Our local sheriff's department canned a very good GSD because it stopped tracking when it saw another dog.

I am closing this thread. If ytou have an interest in the topic - go read what has already been written.