Hello everybody!

Recently I saw a video whit a trainer doing PP-training whit his dogs. The dogs almost immediately stopped their aggression when the suspect stopped fighting, or the handler called them of. The decoy could pet the dogs, and the dogs acted very friendly against the decoy. The trainer said that these dogs have a perfect "on/off-switch", they are 100% trustworthy as soon as the agitation is over. When I talked about this whit a person who certifies PSDs in the PSP-programm, he said, "I want a harder dog than one that is like a push button. You will never see a really hard/full of genetic fight dog, or one that I will have that is on and off like a switch. I want one that is always on, never off. As long as he tolerates people, I don´t care if he is social or not. I want the challange of keping this dog under control and for the dogs that make the best PSP patrol dogs are this way. Some of us want more than just the dog that gets the job done, and these dogs are not for everybody, also hard to find. Most people now want to water down everything, because they can´t handle what real workingdogs produce"
My question is which of these persons are right? Could you have a serious PP-dog which have this on/off switch? Maybe this is more a training issue than a genetic issue <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> ?

Regards

Have you ever seen a PSD at a school with 30 children, without a on-off switch? I personally think the second guy is an idiot, I'm not an expert in PSD or any other kind of dog training, but that sounds stupid to me. All the VPD (Vancouver Police Dept) training I have been too, they train the out just like any other dog.

I can give you 50 reasons why you would want an on/off switch in a PSD. Here is the first one.

1: K-9 unit chasing crook down street, cop trips on garden hose, dog gets loose, continues to chase crook, crook passes 3 little girls coming home from school, grabs one girl and holds her in front of him.. what now? Still want the dog On? Or a sniper?

Well it has been my experience (granted that is not much) that you would want a social dog because if your dog can't be social in public settings then he's not going to be able to protect you unless you are sitting at the house. Also how many times have you taken your PP dog out in public only to have some little kid "sneak up" on you to pet the dog. Now me personally I'd like to be protected from someone who is trying to attack me but I really don't want my PP dogs to turn around and take the little kid's hand off just cuz "he wanted to pet the puppy". Renee
Renee396@aol.com

I'm enjoying this, at least I am learning that I'm not the only person questioning the sanity of having "always on" dogs.

Damn, all I know about dogs, the dogs have taught me. There is so much to be learned - I now understand there is a difference between Personal Protection and Schutzhund (duh, I am slow, I know). Could someon please tell me what PSP means? in context, I take it to mean something like working police patrol partner but I've found all asumptions are to be verified :-)

I REALLY liked the example given about the sudden change to hostage situation. Thank you so much for that point, hope ya dont mind if I borrow it I cause myself a debate.

Me personally, I raise GSD's alongside of a very rowdy 6 year old son. I originally got the first one when he was 3 months old for the specific purpose of PROTECTING MY CHILD. And him being an only child, they are also his playmates. So any dog I produce here, the goal is to have a dog that can do the same job mine do. And there have been a few pups I've specificly refused to sell to homes with small children or visitting grand children unless the buyer is CLEARLY familiar with handling working dogs.

Always
Bobbie

I'm enjoying this, at least I am learning that I'm not the only person questioning the sanity of having "always on" dogs.

Damn, all I know about dogs, the dogs have taught me. There is so much to be learned - I now understand there is a difference between Personal Protection and Schutzhund (duh, I am slow, I know). Could someon please tell me what PSP means? in context, I take it to mean something like working police patrol partner but I've found all asumptions are to be verified :-)

I REALLY liked the example given about the sudden change to hostage situation. Thank you so much for that point, hope ya dont mind if I borrow it I cause myself a debate.

Me personally, I raise GSD's alongside of a very rowdy 6 year old son. I originally got the first one when he was 3 months old for the specific purpose of PROTECTING MY CHILD. And him being an only child, they are also his playmates. So any dog I produce here, the goal is to have a dog that can do the same job mine do. And there have been a few pups I've specificly refused to sell to homes with small children or visitting grand children unless the buyer is CLEARLY familiar with handling working dogs.

Always
Bobbie