Originally posted by Howard Scott:

Will is right Nancy, the type of dog you described sounds like something out of a fairy tale. People, especially people new to the sport, expect too much out of their dog. SCH is not real protection work! It is a dog sport that anybody can do and it is mostly family oriented. It is something that dog and handler can do to enjoy one's company. The dog is trained(usually on the same field everyday) with routine training. It is not graduate school for protection dogs. It is Elementary school for PP dogs. Once a dog has completed SCH3 he is ready to begin real protection work. If he has it in him of course. You cannot choose a PP dog just because of titles, you have to look at the individual dog. A lot of dogs cannot handle this type of work.

I am fully aware of schutzhund is a sport and know that a lot of sport dogs are that and nothing more. But I am not convinced these dogs are fantasy and do realize they would have to have a certain amount of natural aggression and suspicion (else they may as well be labs), but not to the extent I sense that you would want. That is all.

In reference to Jeanette's post: "I think that if a dog is TRAINED to be a PP dog, and has been in mock scenarios that mimic life like situations, then the dog would be prepared to understand how to react in such a situation as I described."


What you describe about a PP dog and training is what anyone who has a PP dog is hoping for, BUT what this thread was intended to be about is social agression and the dogs that display it. A PP dog SHOULD be able to be "turned on" and "turned off" but a dog that is socially agressive is esentially ALWAYS ON. That is the difference. It is an edge. It comes with extra benefits and some drawbacks. Dogs of this nature are not for everyone, but in the right hands and managed properly are very good dogs. Life is all about compromise. If you like being able to take your dog on a boat with several other dogs and people goofing off this type of dog wouldn't be best.(I am not saying it can't be done- it comes to handling) If you like to go to dog parks, again you won't be happy with this type of dog... but if you have a security issue and would like an extra set of eyes and ears, the socially agressive dog may be worth the risk.

Jenn,
A dog can under go years of training for PP and do plenty of mock scenario's, but if the dog doesn't have the genetics for fight drive and aggression, when an determined attacker puts the heat on the dog for real, that dog is oooutta there!

I've seen that happen *many* times - feel free to disagree with me, but let me ask you this: exactly how many real *pressure* attacks have you seen put against protection trained dogs? And how exactly do you rate the pressure that was used against the dogs? I'm interested in your reply as it will let me know the base of your disageement with my views ( which I'm basing on my real life observations )
I'm assuming that you've observed differently to base your opinion on - let us know.


At the last Flinks seminar, there was a PP dog owned by someone that believed that they had a real world need for a PPD. The dog was trained by a well known PSA judge, and the women thought highly of both the dog and the training that it had recieved.
But the dogs genetics were poor. It would retreat in a heartbeat, and offered no real defense. But it had plenty of training.......
See the point?


Nancy,
Some SchH dogs are the real thing, but we're talking only 5% - 15% of them, at the very most. And I can almost promise you that the more real the dog is in true defense/ fight drive, the less likely that he fits into the category of "nice house dog"

Nancy, your posts clearly portray your lack of knowledge of this type of work. Have you ever seen this work? PP work can get pretty serious, only tough, tough, dogs can handle this kind of pressure. The dog is tought that it is not a game anymore and if he does not attack the threat he will get his @$$ handed to him on a platter. I know that I do not fully understand either which is why I started this topic, but to say that a dog has some sense of judgement to the point that he can "pick out a harmfull attacker and accept others" is crazy. I would love to have this type of dog. We'll call him SUPER DOG, yes that's it!

Will is right once again. You can mock different scenarios for a dog because that is what you do in this training, but you cannot mock them all. You cannot put a dog through every scenario you think you might encounter.

Deanna is also right in saying that these types of dogs are always turned on. It is in their nature to attack any kind of threat, not just the ones that were trained for. I would personally rather have this dog at my side when threatened. You take a dog that is already extreme(so to say) and shape the training around that. You dont take a dog that would tuck tail and run and then try to pressure the dog and put it through endless scenarios and hope to have a dog that would bite in that one critical time when you really depend on him. A good handler can control a dog like this with good training. The foundation is already in the dog, you just work from there. I might be wrong, but I doubt it!

I of course put Jenn's name there when I was replying to Jean.

Yes, I *am* an idiot...... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Will,
I agree with you on the genetics and fight drive issue. These things should come to light long before the dog ever sees a real bad guy. Lifelike training will reveal the weak nerved and poor genetics in an animal. The real test is when you know you have a tough dog, have trained your arse off, and really pressured him in training...then send him on a real bad guy. I have heard, but never seen, a tough dog fight a tougher human in their first street encounter and get whipped. This will sometimes shut a dog down for good. One can only hope the working dog meets a few wannabe tough guys before the real Mcoy comes along. I think socially aggressive dogs have somewhat of an edge, therefore a higher percentage will succeed in protection work in the real world. My last PSD had some minor resistance situations before the real bad guy came along. He fared extremely well. My current partner was not as lucky. He was stabbed with a knife by the first bad guy he ever was sent on for real. I wasnt even within sight when it occurred so he had no support at all from me. This is a worse case scenario. He bit the crap out of the guy and after some time off he was re-tested wherein he appeared to be mentally unharmed by the whole thing. Although neither were socially aggressive (thank god) Both were a product of good breeding and training. I am sure somewhere in their lineage there were a few socially aggressive ancestors.

I'm surprised so many people believed social aggression is a very important, or even a must-be, element in a protection dog while I found Ed, according to his articles and comments, clearly stated “The issue of "dominance" and being "protective" are two unrelated parts of a dog's temperament.” To be honest, I have this question hovering in my mind for a long time. Although Ed described so, I had a doubt for it a very long time until a training happened a few weeks ago. I have a 1.5 yr old male who is a big dog, very gentle, soft, easy-going. Anybody can just come over pet him. Due to some weird reason, I had him since he was 4 weeks old, so he never really grew up with other puppies. I tried neither letting any dog dominate him nor letting him jump on others when he was a pup. But I’m not sure what’s the exact contributory reason, he turned out to be a very calm peaceful dog. Overly laid-back in my opinion. Never seen him freak on anything. Almost no aggression at all towards anything, including dogs. When other dogs challenged him, growled at him, he was doing nothing but standing there. In most cases, after a while, the dominant dog will just see him as no threat and then calm down. Otherwise, I would just separate them, but I was saying to myself “how can he face up a challenge in protection training?” So I never really trained him. A few months ago, his 1st trip to a club confirmed my doubt. No matter what the helper does, he doesn’t bark. Even when the helper flicked whip on him, he wouldn’t show any aggression. so we just quit. A few weeks ago, I told a friend about this. He said he wanted to try. I never planned to train with this guy coz I knew he was brutally unorthodox. But I let him try anyway. My friend frontally charged on my dog, physically grabbed the dog, but very quick. Surprisingly, that really pissed the pup off, he all of sudden started barking and turned into a angry face I’ve never seen b4. The pup tried to bite the guy, but the guy’s hand is very quick, dodged the bite. And then, my friend escalated the threat. He kept hitting and whipping the dog. The pup didn’t back off at all during the whole thing; he just got angrier. For a few times, he almost bite that guy’s ribs (there is no equipment during this whole process). Later on, he put on a sleeve. I let the dog go, he hit him hard and latched on his arm. The pup was hit countless times while holding on it. The hit was way harder than those on schH trials. After that, we tried on a few other dogs, who were all way more dominant than my pup. Some of them are relentless dog fighters. But to my surprise, none of them take the threat as nearly as good as my pup. All of them tried to hide when they were charged right on the face. Here I know it’s anecdotal by nature, and I haven’t really trained him enough to a point to say he has fight drive. But what happened in this incident really put me into thinking. Maybe, dominant is not really related to fight drive? I still don’t have a firm answer for it, I haven’t seen enough. But it’s enough to put me on doubt that no household nice dog could be real protection dog, and could have fight drive. I guess I have to start serious training to see what’s the real truth. I’m wondering how other’s socially non-aggressive dog does in their training when facing some hardcore challenges.

Shon you are talking about fight drive, but your dog acted in defense reacting to direct attack.

Shon Mao, social aggression isn't exactly dominance. . .and most of Ed's articles that I read are speaking on dominance and handler aggression, or rank behaviors. . .not "social aggression" as it has been defined thus far in these threads.

Dominance directed at the handler, or rank behaviors directed at the handler, are not the traits of "social aggression" that are desireable. Nor are they always present in the dog who has social aggression, especially if said dog is handled properly and isn't put into stupid situations.


Different subject here people, what we're talking about is social aggression directed at humans, and directed at humans not a part of the dog's immediate family. I liked the definition of competitive aggression. The positive side to social aggression is an aggressive response to strangers, not the handler.

Now, there are plenty of dogs who are on the extreme side of the spectrum and who are handler aggressive, but there are dogs who are not handler aggressive and still show some signs of social aggression. . .directed at interloping persons outside of the dog's normal social structure.

Did anyone bother to read Armin Winkler's thoughts on social aggression? And I think that is really the topic of discussion.


Hello?? Suspician and ggression directed at human strangers/threats is a VERY good thing, and something that is demanded as part of the breed's temperament AS WRITTEN IN THE BREED STANDARDS!!!!!!!


Sure you can have too much, but that also is GOOD because the dog's that have too much can still be workable with an experienced handler and these dogs are valuable breeding stock that will ensure the breed maintains some level of "social aggression". . . . which is necessary for a man dog. (Not to mention that they are usually VERY bad critters for a bad guy to come across.)

Frankly, we need to see more of it in the breed right now.