I know this has been discussed before on the board but I am still a bit confused. In Ed's description of a sharp dog he states that a sharp dog is usually is a weak nerved dog. Then while I was reading articles on personal protection, he stated that "a degree of sharpness is one of the things that is missing from most service dogs". He did say that sharpness should be balanced by a ton of prey drive. How does prey drive play into it?? I assume as a motivational factor?? What type of sharpness is ok?? Just trying to understand all this <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I think that a sharp dog, being referred to as, or assuming it, weak nerved, would have a conflicting motivation of fear while doing protection work/training. A high degree of prey drive would "override" that fear and cause the dog to respond postitively out of prey drive rather than reacting from fear. In the war of what the dog wants to do most (run away from being sharp or catch the prey), prey drive needs to be higher.
So, with service dogs, I would rather have one that is more sharp to alert me of danger, rather than one who sees a squirrel accross the street and can hardly contain itself while on the job. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
Specificly by disipline, I would not know the specific behaviors needed or not wanted- pertaining to sharpness.
I think it depends on what you expect from the dog, what you do with it and the other drives balancing it out.

Sharpness is an often misused term or at least misunderstood.
It is the propensity for a dog to act. The threshold for a certain behavior. Often the dog that is sharp-shy is refered to but this is not the sharpness that is refered to when speaking of desireable sharpness.
But, unfortunatly people in discussing dogs want to refer to their own emotions as a baseline for the dogs behaviors.
Suspicion in a dog is not necessarily born of fear. Nor is sharpness.
The flip side of prey is not fearful behavior in all dogs and it is not a desireable one in working dogs.
Sharpness in a desireable format is the dog being suspicious and prepared to do combat if that is what it rises to.
This is different than being afraid and respodning to a unique situation due to self preservation concerns by the animal. This dog will enter into fight or flight behaviors. This is poor working dog behavior.
The limited vocabulary of prey vs. self defense when discussing working dogs is a disservice to the great animals that are what we truly want to propagate. It reduces all dog behavior in the protection sports and service arena to prey being positive and defense being negative and this is like watching black and white TV, your just not getting the full effect of what the dogs are all about.

I read your post, and I thought it was a very good one. Some people might understand sharpness more easily if illustrated:

eg: 1) I'm sitting on a chair with my dog, a stranger approaches to within 3 feet, says nothing to me, and I don't say anything to him...and facing the dog, gives my dog hard eye contact. My dog waits aprox 2 secs and then launches into the person. That would be sharp.

2) Same scenario, but the dog waits, then growls, then launches. Less sharp.

3) Same scenario, the dog waits and only growls. The stranger raises a hand at the dog, the dog growls louder and then launches. A bit less sharp.

...and so on.

It's fair to say that these aggressive responses occur when the particular dog's bite threshold has been crossed, and the responses may well have originated in defensive fight/flight choices. How fast the dog chose to go either way would be how sharp that dog is...and it does not only apply to biting or fleeing.

But, regarding biting, the quickness of attack to eye challenge , or other "challenge" stimuli, can also have become a dog's expression of dominance...or shaped by training, as in "more controlled and restrained" or "don't look at me, or I will chew you up."

Finally, I wish to publicly acknowledge that I find your posts, in general, informative and valuable.

That's a good description. I have learned the difference through watching my own dog develop, but as a newcomer to these dogs, it's something I've never been able to put into words. To me the two kinds of sharpness are really opposite - one rises from fear, and the other seems to rise from confidence. That and an acute awareness (seriousness?) of everything that's going on around. These dogs really do amaze me.

Kevin's response covers all the bases, as usual.
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And before the topic gets spammed with additional posts that don't add anything...
Topic closed