Quote:

Originally posted by Howard Scott:
Nancy, your posts clearly portray your lack of knowledge of this type of work. Have you ever seen this work?

Howard, I can do without the personal critique -- I have read some of your old posts :rolleyes: so let's stay away from the lack of knowledge thing and stick to the points.

Oh, and yes, I have read the Armin Winkler article and do NOT have an issue with it. He describes a controllable dog that *can* live in the right family situation. The dog I hear being described as desirable in some of the posts sounds more like a junkyard dog than a GSD.

I am fully aware of the fact that many sport dogs are not "serious' enough and would never get beyond schutzhund. I think I have stated that before.

So here is a question -- within a litter can you have degrees of social aggression? I know Fidelco certainly spun off dogs from the same litters, some who were seeing eye dogs, some would wind up in SAR homes, and others as Patrol dogs. I only have personal experience with some of the Fidelco dogs who wound up in SAR, so I do not know how good the ones in patrol work are -- other than the Connecticut Police still take them on.

Mr Knauf
I agree with you at the part of training.I believe
that training is the most importan thing for a work dog,especialy for police dogs,protection dogs
SAR dogs.
I believe that the character of the dog is importan to selected for the job that you want but as far as there.
After that,the training that we give to the dog is the most important.
I have see "strong dogs" to faile to real situations becuse of a bad training.
As far as the social aggression i believe that maybe is part in the genetick code of the dog but i strogly believe that the most important factor is the owner that raise the dog from pupy.A social aggresive dog maybe have some elements that make them siutabul as working dogs but with out the propert training and propert handle that means nothing at all.

Sorry about my bad English i'll try to write better at the futer.

Howard,

Sorry about the delay in responding, but just got back from a trial.

You had mentioned the dam before and the other night, Carl was talking about the studs he had used with her. Figured out due to the age...:-).

Husband has been doing some helper work on both Carl and Dave's dogs.

since i am not an expert, have never claimed to be one, and was so graciously reminded of my lowly position, i will not offer any more of my own opinions or experiences on this topic, rather i will offer up the words of someone i do consider to be an expert:
in his videos and lectures, bernhard flinks does make mention of personal protection dogs. he says dogs with weak or thin nerves make better p.p dogs than schutzhund dogs and also dogs that are higher in defense rather than prey drive. he does not say that social aggression is a prerequisite for p.p. dogs. infact, in the two seminars i've been to and the three videos i have, i haven't heard him say social aggression is a prerequisite for any training discipline.

Patricia,
In the six Flinks seminars that I've attended, plus having Bernhard stay at my house for over two weeks, I've never heard the term "social aggression" come out of his mouth.
I don't believe that he's ever been asked about it before, and I'm fairly certain that he's never discussed it or given us his defination of it. ( if I'm wrong here, someone feel free to fill me in on his defination )
And remember, Bernhard uses the terms "weak" and "thin" as *very* different terms regarding nerves!

Nancy,
Yep, there can be a wide variation of degrees of social aggression in a litter - the "bell shaped curve" description fits well here.

Originally posted by Nancy Jocoy:
Howard, I can do without the personal critique -- I have read some of your old posts :rolleyes: so let's stay away from the lack of knowledge thing and stick to the points.
Thanks for the advice Nancy, Your really on top of things.

By the way Will, that is pretty intesting to hear about the bell curve in litters.

Back on track here: What are some dogs that people know of that throw this type of Social aggression? What lines? I (heard) that Titus PS has some progegy that are really nice and have a bit of an edge to them. I have never had experience with a czech dog but have seen a couple and have seen some serious dogs come from there, but also a lot a crap. Seen some dogs that are just screwed up in there head, maybe from bad training. But I saw a Verwin grandson that came through a czech bitch who loved the bite work more that any dog I have ever seen in my life. But I usually stay away from the czech lines. I havent found one I would own yet.

Patricia, you are running into a problem with the definition. Not many people even use social aggression as a definition for behavioral traits, but I sure bet that they like to see the same traits in dogs (for the purpose of PP work). . .they just have different definitions for them.


Yet another reason I don't like the term social aggression. It is confusing, it covers such a wide range of aggressive behaviors, it carries with it the connotations of handler aggression and rank/dominance behaviors that are NOT good working traits, etc, etc, etc, etc.. .


Using drive terminology just seems to make more sense, and it is always easier to break down a behavior into the base force that is motivating it. Then for more complicated groups of behaviors and for specific animals, it is always better to just describe the behavior. . .


Social aggression sucks. . .as a working dog definintion IMO. And seeing all the different posts, different ideas about what it is, and different thoughts on what it should be. . .proves my point.


Lets move on Howard.


I couldn't even begin to tell you what lines produce social aggression because it would take another six days worth of pathetic threads to just pin down exactly what it is we're talking about.


Czech dogs rock, BTW!!!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Yep,
VanCamp and I owe a brother and sister from the same Czech litter - to say that they like bite work would be a wee bit understated! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />
And I'd say they're fairly serious dogs.....

I'll be owning and breeding Czech line dogs for myself, because they meet my expectations for the breed.

Howard,
If you cant find a czech dog that you would own, you arent looking in the right place...or maybe you dont know what you're looking at. I have two, and work with about a dozen others...and they all "Rock!" The only thing I see more serious is a Mal from Holland.