I’ve never trained a female for police work, but that’s not to say that I wouldn’t. I’ve seen a few in police work that I’d like to have. In fact the very first dog that was on the street in Los Angeles, trained and handled by Donn Yarnall, Topaz, was a female. She hurt me many times during her training. (When it comes to females, I prefer to do the hurting, but that’s a completely different topic). She bit harder than many males I’ve decoyed. And she was more determined in her search work than many males.

Good females are out there but hard to find. For the most part they’re smaller and that flies in the face of what many people want. All other things being equal, a good big dog will win the fight faster than a good little dog. But that belies the advantages of speed and agility that will usually be found in a smaller dog.

Josh (I think) mentions that most females tend to be a little more handler sensitive than most males. (Let’s realize that this entire discussion is based on generalities). That means they will tend to range a bit closer and often that’s a disadvantage for police work. It’s easier to wind in a dog that wants to range miles away than it is to get a close ranging dog to work further out.

But my bottom line is quite simple. If a dog can pass my stake out test, which can be found at
http://www.uwsp.edu/acad/psych/dog/StakeOut.htm

then he OR she Is eligible to be a police service dog, in my book. Notice that the test doesn’t specify differences for males and females. It says “he” rather than “she” only because I’ve never come across a female candidate. That’s certainly not to say that they don’t exist. I agree with many who have said that if a female would make a good candidate they should be used for breeding. But if there is some reason that she can’t be bred, I wouldn’t hesitate to put her on the street.

It seems that this topic will never end! I agree that there are KNPV females that look pretty damn good, but it is all prey drive. It seems that the only people that can comprehend this are the peope that have had to face a man that wanted to hurt you or make you a victim. The only one's who argue this ar ehte people that have not. The fact stil remains that the vast majority of bitches are not as strong as the males. Period. Even Ed had addmitted that his bitches work the streets and shouldn't be there. But what can you say opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.

I am going to close this topic. It has been discussed enough. Kevin Sheldahl and I have been collecting footage of selection testing police service dogs for year. A lot of it was filmed in Holland and Belgium - this will be edited into a video ttield Selection Testing Dogs for Police Service Dogs"

I have to finished editing the tapes wiht Bernard Flinks first - after I am done with those tapes I will do this video. I will post it on the table of contents of the web site when its done.

Just a point of mention - no females passed the tests. :-) No surprise on this point. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />