In watching the training and handleing of some of the dogs I have been seening I get two impressions. First, the handlers prefer the dogs to be this way. They don't want the dog to be social at all. There seems to be a belief that the dog can't be social and safe, and still perform. Second that they invest a lot of time in making the dog overly suspicious of even neutral strangers. It seems that there is a belief that this is the only way the dog can compete.

Too much testosterone here......., a 9 dog isn't necessarily a nasty unsocial creature! But, he certainly can be one.
I have noticed a trend in the u.S. It goes like this. the last dog a handler had was weak, a little control squished the sunbstandard drive even more and the performances sucked. The handler goes out and hunts down a super tough dog....usually one that is discarded due to poor rearing, training, or handling. They are afraid that they will make the same mistakes that they did on their earlier dog.........so the strong dog walks all over them. Now the dog walks all over them, and maybe it had its previous handler/s. Now the dog is out in muzzle, cannot be otuched etc. It is garbage.
The top end dog can be social, but they also tend not to have to be social. They exude presence and don't care to add everyone to their little circle and don't need to to be comfortable in any environment. This does not mean anti-social nasty critters. These result, for the most part, from poor rearing and handling.
I like a 9 dog for police work. I'm on my third 9 dog as street dogs go. Most of the dogs I work with are 8's and some 7's. For new inexperienced handlers these dogs are better much of the time. They can be controlled and manipulated allowing the handler to have confidence in the work they are doing. The limiting factor is that the dogs must be 9's in their hunting drives!! They also must not have environmental insecurities. If they are 7 dogs who don't like to hunt and have concerns in new /strange environments they will poor working dogs.

Todd:
You say most trainers who can handle a 9 don't do Schutzhund. What do they dop with these dogs then? PSD's? Certainly not regular pets? .....

It´s a sad fact that there are some really good servicedogs that never get the chance to be used in breedings just because people don´t know about them, because they haven´t competed in SCH or another dogsport. When peoples obsseions with high scores are more important than producing good servicedogs, the numbers of dogs suited for real work will be hard to find in the future. I think the breedingprogramm in NRW is a good rolemodell for breeding workingdogs, they care only for health and ability, not points. This kind of programms could produce the numbers of dogs needed in all kind of servicework. In Sweden we had a breeding and trainingprogramm for servicedogs that have been ruled by the state since the late 30s. Here all kinds of servicedogs was trained. In the 70s this "dog-school" was overtaken by private owners, because of economic problems they had to stop breeding their own dogs, instead they used dogs from other breeders, the pups was in fosterhomes till they was mature enough to be tested, to see what kind of job they could do,policedogs,blinddogs and all kinds of scentdogs was then trained and sold to organisations and people who needed such dogs. Many of Swedens PSDs was trained here, but now they concentrate most on different scentdogs, and are regarded as one of the best dogschools in the world for this kind of work. Recently this dogschool was in serious economic trouble, because this kinds of programms cost quite alot of money, especially when dogs they bought from private breeders don´t passed the selectiontest, the fosterparents only pays for the dogfood when the dog stay with them, all other costs are payed by the school. In fact they almost had to stop this school because of moneyproblems, but recently the "president" of Sweden has promise to save this school, because the important work they do. I guess many countries have problems with finding enough dogs suited for servicework, not all could do like they do in NRW, where the police have their own breedingprogramm. Many countries still has enough breeders of workingdogs that should be able to produce enough dogs for servicework. What breeders need to do is to cooperate more, work for the same goal with a good breedingprogramm used to produce healthy dogs with the character to do servicework. If this happens the problems with lack of good servicedogs shouldn´t be a problem. Then dogs like cj and Itor, and a lots of other good dogs will be used in the breedingprogramms, regardless if they have 300p in SCH or not.

I've got to disagree with Kevin on his comment that most serious Schutzhund trainers couldn't handle a "9". (BTW, a "9" in what??? Energy? Aggression?? Dominance??) No matter, IMO he hit the nail on the head when he said (or someone said) the 9 dogs seldom earn the top points. I think the top trainers could train these dogs, but their goals are different. They're chasing points, placings, world teams, etc. so they seek the dog that can take the podium, and that's a different type of dog these days. But I also differentiate between the real trainers vs. the handlers who are often wealthy folks who buy fabulously trained dogs and then compete them successfully.

Oops, sorry Kevin, that was Todd who said people who can handle a 9 aren't top sch people. My mistake!

For the most part people who can handle a 9 aren't big Schutzhund people(again IMO). Here is my quote.

Todd who said people who can handle a 9 aren't top sch people. I think there is a difference in the quotes! I am not saying the top competitors can't handle the 9 dog.

When I talk about a dog for me.

Hardness 9
Prey 9
Handler agression 1

Fortunately I have one like that.

How do you rate your dog like on this scale? Say I wanted to rate my dog. how would I go about doing this... I am going to assume this rating is only good for adult dogs..

experience... experience... and some more experience.

Work your dog, enjoy your dog, and don't worry about the numbers just yet.

Just because one dog is a 9 doesn't mean everydog that is a 9 is the same in all respects as Todd has illustrated in his dog. If you NEED to have your dog rated on this scale for some sort of closure take him to Bernards Seminar and ask when he can be observed by pros.

Will you love him any less if he turns out to be a 6?

Yes <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

You guys are hardcore.. I'm just a softie wet behind the ears still.. I will still love him, I will just have to tie bows in his hair. :rolleyes: