I have been watching this thread intently. Since I have reared dogs for both sport and police work both successfully and unsuccessfully I thought I would throw in some observations.
First, I see us in the US rearing dogs in a fashion that simply is not in the police service dog's best interest. We never take into account the social pressures we place on the young dogs and we don't account for the range of social behavior that is so important in a police dog.
Take this usual picture of "socializing" a young pup. Pup visits new place and new people. It has to use its limited social skills in this introduction. It has only one choice and that is to include it in its pack. Often being submissive (don't think that play solicitations aren't submissive). We continue this pattern until it is THE behavior. Yet, when this dog grows up we are going to ask this dog to do another behavior and that is to fight with a new person. We are going to also ask this dog to ignore new people a lot of the time.
So, why are we suprised when we start bite work that the dog will only react through the prey and play solicitations offered it?
Yes, it is true that many dogs, as they gain some maturity, get an edge, often through some adult dominance traits and we can approach bitework through this. Some are VERY high in fight drive and just seem to wake up one day. Yet, many of adaquate fight drive, and good prey drive, always seem to be lacking and often seem to need some trigger to get them started.
There is also a tendency to protect the young pup from stress and fearful experiences. Yet, it is during this same time period that dogs learn to recover from duress. They have to learn to do this THEMSELVES we cannot help. In fact coddling the youngster is soo detrimental at this point that it can mean the difference between success and failure. How often do I see new handlers jump to the rescue of a young pup as soon as they have a "bad" expereince. Here the dog must recover himself. Now, I don't mean subjecting the dog to injurious situations here, or allowing some huge catastrophy to occur, but even the handler's reaction of concern and fear for the dog's well being in small stressful situatuion simply enhances the "feeling" the dog has in that situation.
I have become very cavalier in the way I socialize and rear my pups. With steadily increasing success for the most part (I suppose partly due my increasing ability to select a pup also). I don't coddle them, I let them wreck, and I don't encourage them to socialize with people. Now don't read this last sentence wrong. I'm not sequestering my pup away to become a fearful social misfit. But, I will tell people not to play with my dog, and to ignore him. I HATE to see a dog come out and be fawned over by everyone in the club! i often do much of socialization with my coworkers since they aren't dog fanatics who feel the unwarranted and irritating need to touch and handle and mess with my dog. I want the pup to learn that I am the pack memeber and he is part of that but not all the other incidental humans and dogs that will always be present.
This leaves the possibility open to the dog that they are NOT accepted and the dog can then respond early with the natural pack protectiveness, defensive behaviors, and fight behaviors that it may have.
This prevents the need for a decoy to illicit this response.
Now maybe the poster who started this thread can see that there is nothing wrong with the dog responding with what it has to offer, but there could be something wrong with a decoy forcing the issue as it conflicts with what it may have been taught, and what it may never, unlearn.
Your decoy may not have a choice but you need to be sure that your decoy is skilled as hell and that you have decided that this dog indeed must be a police service dog and is capable of doing it based on genetics and rearing.
This ought to heat up this thread! Just remember, don't touch my pup, don't play with my pup, I'll do that. You're nothin' more than a piece of the environment for him to tolerate and learn how to deal with. That way i can avoid having a non-reactive dog and have to flank the poor bastard I didn't prepare correctly.

Kevin, I appreciate your position. I hope that this does spice things up a bit. As you know many of us who procure dogs for our police departments get adult dogs from vendors. It has been along time since I purchased a pup for any reason. Your description of club members fawning over the pups in the club is all too familiar.

Your idea or theory regarding socialization could be very significant to those of us who buy or evaluate sport dogs for police service. Clearly the "sport" evironment can greatly impact the "edge" that we are looking for. Unless you have done it I don't know if many folks know what it takes to make a dog "real".

Kevin : well said ,i think you have some very good points on police dogs and the time that it takes to build the dogs up in becoming the partner that any K9 officer need . Peter

Hmmm, very interesting Kevin.Do you feel that only PSD's should be raised in this fashion, or would you say that PP dogs should be as well?

I never coddled my dog, but I did demand that she be social with people inside and outside of my home.So, am I right to say that you feel that this can cause conflict in the dog later in life when the time comes to train for serious bite work?

I don't know if you remember meeting Bella last year in Connecticut...but anyway, I haven't seen any hesitation in her , or instability, since starting PP with her. She is very stable and loves her bitework! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Do you think if she was less dominant and not as hard as a rock, that the way she was raised could have prevented her from being capable of this?

It's late and I'm probably not quite getting this straight,sorry!LOL <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Oh, and Howard, I don't know if you can make a dog "real".IMO, a dog has to be born with what it takes, you can't train it into a dog or put it there by any means other than genetic. If a dog has what it takes, then it takes good handling to nuture that and develop it. This is what I have come to believe anyway.... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thanks everyone for all the great opinions. We went back to training today and went back to the basics. We focused on making all the bite work prey oriented which made it real fun for the boy. I noted one interesting item during the bite work... on a few occasions the boy would realy hit the end of the line hard and give a quick look back to see if that was me correcting him....will tone down the obedience work greatly to address this issue. Thank you all again for the opinions....I can see that I was expecting too much too soon from the boy. Keep your heads down!!
-Matt-