I still haven't heard a workable alternative. If the bad guy has a weapon if the dog bites, he is still close enough to to be injured by the bad guy. If the dog is away from the bad guy some things would be easier to use. The best alternative would be to out the dog or not send them in some situations. Unfortunately, part of the reason behind the use of a dog is to redirect aggression from the handler. Would you prefer to lose the officer or the dog?

One of the incidents described was a bark and hold, no bite. The argument is more a deployment tactic. If the bad guy raises a weapon at the dog, shoot him. If he has a weapon you may not want to send the dog, same thing if he appears high. The dog is a tool, just like a gun or any other tool. It just thinks and uses judgement.

The other problem is that a dog making multiple bites will be percieved as out of control. Correct or not, it is a case of "perception is reality". If the court feels the dog was out of control and making multiple bites when one would suffice you lose. It is like continuing to beat on a guy that has given up.

The dog will always be vulnerable, so would a human. The dog is to protect the human, if you don't want to lose your dog in a violent encounter, don't send him. Or don't train him. Everybody is at risk in a violent encounter, the dog is a buffer between the handler and the bad guy.

Part of what I feel goes along with the natural bite is to allow the dog to retarget. Hanging on is a sporting technique people cross over into law enforcement. A dog in a fight will bite, let go, and retarget whatever is vulnerable, and will not subject itself to being hit.

Think of a boxer in a ring, dodging blows, inflicting them when possible.

Perception of the bites may be bad. But in the event my dog defends me, I can and would show in court that my dog is stable. As the saying goes, "I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6."

Stability in any dog that may be used for law enforcement or protection is key. Will my dog bite you if you accidentally bump into me? No. Will you be bit if you hit me with a bat? Yes. A stable dog can think, and will be able to determine when a bite is necessary.

In some of protection work I have done, at the end of the exercise, other people, including the agitator, will step over the dogs, casually walk over them. A stable dog understands the work is over, there is no need to bite. I can walk up to the agitator with my dog at my side and shake his hand. My dog merely watches, alert, but in no way showing aggression. When in the role of the agitator I have had no problem approaching the dog that just got done trying to rip my arm off. I knew the dog was stable.

Being a total newbie to the protection world, I've been looking at many different methods trainers use. A common theme is the dog will control or subdue an attacker with one bite and hold. I myself don't like that approach. While a large dog running at someone is no doubt scary and intimidating, one should NEVER underestimate the power of self-preservation. I want my dog not only to fight to protect me, but also itself. A dog that's hanging on while allowing itself to be hit is not really a thinking animal or rather I should say - it hasn't been allowed to think.

There are quite a few opinions on this thread. The main one that I disagree with is that a dog should be biting releasing and biting again as a matter of course.

Bill wrote: In nature, dogs hunt...they sink their canines in, tear a hole. Release and allow the blood to flow, the wound to open. Retarget if necessary, inflict another wound, until their prey is dead. Can cause a person to go into shock. The rear teeth are meant to crush bone as they eat their prey.

***** In nature dogs hunt in packs, they hunt animals that are much larger than they are and they hunt for food which they must kill. They retarget and rebite because they must harass an animal that is much larger than they are to kill it. If a wolf bit an animal as small as a small deer, it might be seriously injured before that animal died. That probably means death for the wolf.

***** Turn on and watch the Discovery Channel as they show a pack of wild canids bringing down a prey animal. They’re biting and releasing UNTIL one of them can bring the animal off it's feet and then one of them will make a killing bite on the animals throat. Just as often they devour their prey while it’s still alive.

***** But in the world we live in our protection dogs or police dogs don’t hunt in packs that are capable of tearing open lots of holes in a prey animal, in this case the crook, until one of them can get a killing bite. In this world we’re concerned with basically two circumstances. In one the private citizen is set upon by some crook and his main goal is to survive, to get away. In the other a police officer is trying to make an arrest. In neither case is death the primary “hoped for result.

***** In one case, it’s escape and the other apprehension.

***** In either case the bite that best controls the crook is the best bite. That’s a full mouth bite that crunches bone, blood vessels and nerves but confines that damage to one relatively small area. If a suspect is in what I call the “fatal four” that is if he’s drunk, drugged, determined or angry he might not respond to the pain of a bite but it allows the private citizen to escape or the officer to make the arrest.

***** And later when the crook shows up in court, he’s not covered with bites from head to toe, that brings a “not guilty” verdict from a sympathetic jury who thinks he’s suffered enough.

***** Training a dog to bite, release and bite again is sure to cause more injury than a single bite. And that’s sure to bring a lawsuit. I’ve found that, with very few exceptions, those who say they’d rather b tried by twelve, never have been.

***** My PSD bit around quite a few people during his time on the street. During crowd control he did as you mentioned, bit and immediately released. None of those people were arrested. They ran into the crowd as soon as the bite was released and were never caught. Those he bit once and held onto were ALL arrested. None of them escaped. The ONLY purpose for a PSD to bite someone is to control that person or as a diversion. If he releases that bite, he’s not controlling them.

***** That’s not to say that a dog shouldn’t be taught to retarget if he’s getting hurt too badly.

***** Bill I’m curious as to your background in biting dogs, your experience and where you come by your theories. PLEASE NOTE this is NOT a challenge of your credentials. It’s just that we hold such opposite opinions I wonder where you got yours. Mine came from over 20 years of training police and personal protection dogs.

RDC wrote: Oh how I have always liked this argument. I used to hear "I am not afraid of any dog, just wait until they bite and give it a karate chop to the neck." I used to call them bait.

***** LOL. I’ve never tried the karate chop method but I’ve been bitten by quite a few PSD’s during training. Since I kept my head I was able to defeat every one of them. And no, I’m not willing to accept any challenges.

***** I think that being bitten, particularly by a dog that’s been trained to bite has a primitive effect on most people. It’s very hard to learn that way, that you’re NOT the top of the food chain. And so most people go into survival mode. I’ve watched as armed suspects put down their guns and knives and used just their hands to fight the dog. They revert to cavemen, who didn’t use such tools. Of course, this is not to say that it happens all the time. I know personally of several dogs that have been shot or stabbed during bites.

Mr. Kurz,

I found your comparison of dogs releaseing and rebitng to the human sport of boxing interesting.
Boxing is a sport, just like Schutzhund. It's not supposed to be the real thing. If you want to see real human fighting, watch UFC, or something like that. Note the techniques. The contestants do not jump around the ring, jabbing punches at one another. All of the fights go to the mat, and are won or lost at very close distances.
Dogs should bite and fight the same way, getting a good hold, and shaking it out to punish the opponent, and only releasing it to get a better one.
I wouldn't want to see my dog spit out a good bite on the inside of the leg to grab a forearm!
Everyone has their own view on this,
that is mine
Who would want to see their

A lot of you on the list post you are newbies
yet you write like you know everything. You
have probably read a bunch of articles and are regurgitating what you hear. Being a newbie and learning is great but acting like an expert makes me want to vomit. Having an opinion or not liking a certain sport is fine but DON'T criticize someone else because they do.

Just don't vomit on your keyboard. They're tough to clean....

Its certainly not my intention to act like an expert, I'm trying to learn and understand and can't help but form opinions along the way. I'm open to having my mind changed - thats what this is all about.

The way we learn is seek knowledge from others who have been down that path, and working and asking questions. So many people accept what they're told without question. I can't and don't and probably never will. I've found many trainers and handlers I've spoken to merely regurgitate what they themselves have been told or have read. So very many. Just because a mother has 10 children doesn't automatically mean she knows more about kids or is a better mother than one that has one. Maybe not a great analogy but its all I can think of (and its not meant to imply I'm a good handler).

I find also that some (certainly not all) trainers get very defensive when their methods are questioned. We just look for answers. Unfortunately, this is not the most effective medium of communication.

Thank you Lou! I have been working protection dogs for 20 yrs. The primary reason for having one is intimidation. The best fight you ever get in is one where no one is hurt. The only way that will happen is if the fight doesn't occur. In 20yrs my dogs have very rarely bitten anybody. In one incident the dog was seriously injured, but still bit and held. The crook will never use his right arm again. ONE BITE. The reason that dog could do that is because of his training, he knew the way to end a confrontation is to bite and hold and control the bad guy. Yes he could have been killed, his jaw was broken in 2 places, he still won the fight. The bad guy went to jail and the dog went to the vet, and then lived to 15 yrs old.

In most encounters, when the bad guy figures out that the dog is serious they will cut and run like hell. No one, including the dog, is hurt. The psychological implications are tremendous. Dogs effect people on a pure caveman emotional level, as Lou pointed out. There are funny things that happen if you deal with dogs long enough. At one point we had 2 dogs, 135# GSD and a 75# Belgian Sheep dog. We had people familiar with training dogs come to the door and confronted with both dogs were more afraid of the the black dog (the Sheep dog). These people knew the GSD was bigger and better trained, but that black dog is what they were afraid of.

The goals of training are multiple. One is control. Another is to expose the dog to serious threats and teach them to handle it. Experience is a wonderful teacher, the dog needs to know how to win. Most dogs are smart enough to know that they can out run anybody. They always have a way out of confrontation. Untrained most will run, even dogs with sound genetics, it is in their best survival intrests. A third reason is to build trust between the handler and the dog. The dog has to trust that you will make good decisions, that trust is gained through experience. It is also why the dog will defend it's handler. If that trust wasn't important P.D. could assign any dog to any handler and have a working team, it doesn't work that way.

>I'm open to having my mind changed - thats >what this is all about.

Really? It seems in posts about the E collar you said you would NEVER use one. That doesn't seem very open minded to me.

Thats right. I probably never will. Never heard a compelling argument on how they really promote a better handler-dog team.