Of course, that probably also depends on where he is planting his face <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Great shot Chris! That pretty much explains why, at 60, I stick to FST and airscenting. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

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True enough. But:

A) What a SAR team doesn't know about my dog won't hurt them, and

B) I can always be an independant handler

Well please be open with any team you join or people you deploy for. I don't think that a PROPERLY trained schutzhund dog is a problem but a lot of folks do.

Our biggest expense is our liability insurance and I am certain our team would be furious if prior schutzhund training info was witheld from the leadership, particularly if something DID happen.

One accident with a bite trained dog could destroy years of coalition and credibility buidling if the press got ahold of it, even though that dog might well have been safer to work than a dog with no bite training.

I have to disagree, Nancy. In all of the years I've been involved in Schutzhund, Police K-9 and K-9 SAR, I have met very few K-9 SAR groups or individuals that are open to having bite trained dogs on their team. I'm sure they are out there, but the ones I have encountered have been few and far between. Most SAR handlers/teams that I have met are touchy-feeley types that think a fuzzy Golden Retriever is the perfect SAR dog.

And while they are certainly entitled to their opinion, they are, in my opinion, closed minded individuals that can't see past their own snobeyness. And frankly, I don't want to be around those type of people no matter how well they say their dog can search.

To choose not to have a bite-trained dog for yourself is one thing. To have absolute, utter and AKC-like disdain for those that do shows a complete lack of understanding of working dogs, in my opinion.

So for me, I'll either find a team that accepts bite-trained dogs without hesitation or I'll continue to be an independant handler.

Best regards.

My point was to being open and honest with a potential team, and not to debate the use of a schutzhund trained dog.

I don't think all the folks concerned are simply touchy feely closed minded. I think there are legitimate concerns of insurance and PR.

You know, it would seem they need to re-think the use of non-biting dogs. Here in Colorado, it doesn't seem like they can find their butt with both hands. We have a lot of people dying out there that they can't find. So I would probably change the plan up a bit, and stop accepting touchy feely people, as well as their dogs. We need people and dogs that can find people, not pass some test that, at least here, doesn't cut it.

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...I don't think all the folks concerned are simply touchy feely closed minded. I think there are legitimate concerns of insurance and PR...

Perhaps. But then again, if that's all they were concerned about, then the reaction wouldn't almost always be "...oh my god! Why would you ever train a dog to bite someone..." or "...only police dogs should be trained to bite..." or "...schutzhund trains dogs to be killer attack dogs..." (okay, that was only SLIGHTLY exagerated, but you get the point) or just about any other excuse that AKC-types generally use (not sure if the SAR people in question are actually AKC folks or not.)

The point is that in my experience, PR and liability are almost never mentioned as to why "they" don't want bite trained dogs on "their" team. "They" don't want Schutzhund trained dogs on the team because of the stigma Schutzhund has and their total lack of understanding about the sport, its purpose and why bitework is an intergral part of it.

While I'm sure that some knowledgable teams do have PR and liability concerns (albeit unfounded, IMO) most that I have come into contact with simply don't like schutzhund trained dogs.

And that, in most cases, is from a COMPLETE lack of understanding about what a schutzhund trained dog is.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

I am sure mileage does vary depending on exposure.

I see SAR taken seriously in my area (NC & SC) with NC being very developed and SC in infant stages. Folks with fluffy the pet pop up but don't get taken seriously for long. There are too many requirements that are not dog related in the least to interest most people and the cost of volunteering is prohibitive and training intense enough to put off most.

I don't have an issue with legitimate shutzhund but I have seen two things in MY neck of the woods (1) people who think that because they do schutzhund they are endowed with supernatural abilities above and beyond everyone else(2) People who don't understand the sport and see ONLY the bitwork and really don't know how to control their dogs.

I know a person who ran an NC team who was open to schutzhund dogs (this was in the 90s) and had his stomach ripped open by one such dog that went berserk and could not be controlled by the owner. That was his one and only experience with a dog trained in bitework and he banned them from his team after that. Poor handlers, poor dogs, they are out there too and make the legitimate schutzhund people look bad.

One LE in my area does not want dogs with bite training on searches. He is a former K9 handler and now in LE management in his town.

I have had other sport people tell me their dog just might have a problem if an old guy swung a stick at their dog or someone went running and screaming from the dog. They could out the dog but what if that dog was working out of sight and they did not know? Is that ignorance on my part - this is what some folks doing this competitively have said to me, not my conjecture.....

Maybe you can say it is ignorance but there are people NOT doing sport that have capable working - line dogs be they GSDs, Field Labs, Border Collies, mutts, etc. that are not pets by any stretch.

MOST people cannot affort to do schutzhund AND SAR because both activities are expensive and take a lot of time.

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...I don't have an issue with legitimate shutzhund but I have seen two things in MY neck of the woods (1) people who think that because they do schutzhund they are endowed with supernatural abilities above and beyond everyone else(2) People who don't understand the sport and see ONLY the bitwork and really don't know how to control their dogs...

This is true. But these types of people exist in every type of dog training venue, be it schutzhund, police K-9, SAR, AKC obedience, etc. It is not schutzhund-specific.

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...I know a person who ran an NC team who was open to schutzhund dogs (this was in the 90s) and had his stomach ripped open by one such dog that went berserk and could not be controlled by the owner. That was his one and only experience with a dog trained in bitework and he banned them from his team after that. Poor handlers, poor dogs, they are out there too and make the legitimate schutzhund people look bad ... I have had other sport people tell me their dog just might have a problem if an old guy swung a stick at their dog or someone went running and screaming from the dog. They could out the dog but what if that dog was working out of sight and they did not know? Is that ignorance on my part - this is what some folks doing this competitively have said to me, not my conjecture...

I don't think it's ignorance on your part. Perhaps ignorance on the "sport" people's part, for assuming such negative things about their dogs potential behavior.

The bottom line is that there are plenty of dog/handler teams working in SAR that souldn't be, either because of a poor handler, a poor dog or both. Regardless of a dogs background and training, EVERY SINGLE DOG (and handler for that matter) should be evaluated INDIVIDUALLY for the proper character, temperment, nerves health and working ability to do SAR work. There are plenty of bite-trained dogs that work in SAR with zero problems. There are (I'm sure) plenty of NON bite-trained dogs working in SAR that are an inch away from biting someone.

It all depends on the individual dog and NOT what type of training it has had (for the most part).

A perfect example is the number of police work dogs that are also used in SAR applications. The handler may have to adjust his search tactics due to the dogs other training (ie, no off-lead area searches, etc), but those teams are still used successfully to search for lost children, seniors, etc. And rarely does a bite occur.

Fact is, most teams that don't allow bite trained dogs do so because of their personal views on having such a dog. It seldom has anything to do with PR or liability, in most cases. Any dog can bite any person, regardless of its training. The liability doesn't change. PR rarely matters because SAR folks rarely go around advertising that their dogs are also trained to "...bite people."

It's almost always due to personal bias and prejudice (of course, there are always exceptions.)

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...Maybe you can say it is ignorance but there are people NOT doing sport that have capable working - line dogs be they GSDs, Field Labs, Border Collies, mutts, etc. that are not pets by any stretch...

I am fully aware of this and I applaud those folks for keeping the working spirit alive in these dogs. I never have said that ALL dogs should be bite-trained (be it schutzhund, ring or whatever.) But just because of dog DOES have that type of training shouldn't automatically negate its use as a perfectly good SAR dog (assuming it has the right character, temperment, nerves, etc.)

Best regards.

Scott & Nancy,

I can appreciate where both of you are coming from. I was involved in SchH before SAR, and upon joining a K9 SAR team, was not impressed by the drive, work ethic and selection criteria of many SAR K9s I saw. Our dogs were working line GSDs and Malinois. Initially, the majority of our SAR team was affraid of them, not because they were SchH trained (at the time ours dogs were less than a year old), but because of the drive intensity and their speed.

Here in Virginia, the quality of the average SAR K9 I think has increased over the past 5-6 years. There had always been a small number of solid SAR K9 people who selected a working dog for the work, but SAR has always attracted 'touchy/feely' people and their dogs. In the past couple of years I've begun to see more people getting dogs specifically for the work, as opposed to them trying to make their pet do the work.

My last SAR candidate I pulled from SAR training (wilderness air-scent). He wasn’t social enough and frustrated easily (the frustration led to biting). He never failed any of our team’s checklists, but I pulled him before attempting certification b/c it became apparent that he may bite a combative or disoriented subject. My feeling is that there are a lot of other things to worry about on a SAR mission, so why add that to the mix. This was my personal choice at that particular time with that particular dog for that particular discipline.

I agree with Scott in that the dogs are not often evaluated enough to reveal weaknesses. In many SAR organizations, as long as the dog doesn’t show aggression under normal circumstances, then everything is fine. The problem is that few SAR missions end up being normal. Many times searches are at night, subjects can be combative, have psychological disorders or be afraid of dogs. Some SAR teams are comprised of people that have a hard time being critically honest with eachother, which is why third party evaluation is critical IMO. This is a training issue that encompasses more than just aggression evaluation. I think you also have more latitude (for bite training) when it comes to Human Remains Detection and Tracking/Trailing dogs in SAR.

My 2 cents.