I guess it´s quite naturall that you have a higher sucess rate for servicework, if you breed for a specific goal and also have the option to place puppies in special programms designed to prepare the dogs for future service.

Lack of good servicedogs seems to be a problem worldwide, I wonder if it´s the breedings or failures in preparing and selecting the rigth candidates that are responsible for this?

Anyway, large scale nationall breeding-programms for servicework isn´t the easiest way to run and manage. Costs a lot of money and take some time before you will see the results of the breedingefforts on character and health.
A good puppy-prepping programm is also a major factor of how the dog will turn out as grown.

In Sweden most servicedogs for police/military was breed by the state, starting in the mid 30s and closed down at the beginning of the 90s. But now the military has started their own breedingprogramm again with GSDs, and I recently read
an investigation performed by the government which stated that a new breedingprogramm for police/military-dogs are the way to go, if the need and quality for good servicedogs should be fullfilled.

I guess Andres is correct that many breed for show or sport mainly, but there are also a few large breeders which main goal is to produce servicedogs for police or security and does it well, the problem is that they can´t fullfill the demands by themselves, so maybe a governmental breeding-programm is the way to go, but of course easier done in a small country like my own, compared to such a large country like USA.

i don't think anyone is saying that you can't have a successful breeding program breeding PSD's to PSD's. what is hard to believe is that many countries have been breeding top sport dogs to top sport dogs for many generations and get a 30-40% success rate and reiner says they get 80-90%. don't more dogs wash out in testing for PSD, than sport? if so, how can a PSD breeding program DOUBLE the success rate of a sport dog breeding program?

When one uses numbers...specially percentages...it's crucial to chew on them and break them down. I don't know where the figure comes from, but let's say that the statement "Top Sport dog bred to top sport bitch equals 30% of the products apt for sport", is true. The question that MUST be asked is "Sport at what level?". The answer is...30% of the products can be COMPETITIVE sport dogs. ALL OF THEM...100%... CAN BE TITLED. Remember that show dogs get titled too. One can teach a dog to do "protection" using escape training, for crying out loud. Dogs do not even need to have an ounce of prey drive to be taught to bite a sleeve. Caveat...I don't condone the practice.

In response to

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breeding top sport dogs to top sport dogs for many generations and get a 30-40% success rate and reiner says they get 80-90%

another very important thing to remember is that REINER DID NOT SAY THAT. Reiner said that there is a 80 / 90% positive result after a few careful generations of breeding proven PSDs IF PUPPY PREPPING IS INCLUDED. Remember to ask yourself again, "80 / 90% PSD at what level?". Probable answer...working level. Not all of them the super heroes of the dog world, not all of them bad. The precise point...again...is that puppy prepping the products of healthy dogs that PERFORM PSD duty yields much better results than picking PSD candidates from sport litters.

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The precise point...again...is that puppy prepping the products of healthy dogs that PERFORM PSD at a mediocre level yields much better results than picking PSD candidates from sport litters.

fixed it for ya <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

of course that is being sarcastic, but there are many here, ed frawley in particular, that believe that genetics play the biggest role in whether or not a dog can be a PSD. you might be able to fudge the numbers a bit and bring along a dog in a puppy program that otherwise wouldn't make it, but again, you're getting an inferior dog. either a dog has it genetically or they don't, as a rule. that is why the 80-90% figure is so hard to believe (again, i'm not saying it's impossible, just that i've never seen or heard of it)...

Yes, good genetics is very important, but the right development and training from early on are also an important factor for a servicedog. Grown dogs tested by the police that have spend their life with a novice owner could have a lot of bad manners that aren´t so easy to fix, compared to a dog that has been raised/trained by a more experienced person.

A succesfull large scale breedingprogramm for servicework must have so many dogs, and also the veterinary/genetic-expertise and character-evaluation needed to follow upp the breedingresults for generations, so progress is made possible. A process that is estimated to take about 8-10 years before the breedingprogramm for militarydogs restarted here could supply the number of dogs needed from their own breedings.

No single private breeder have enough dogs and resources to take on such a task. And how many breeders in germany or whatever are focused on servicework foremost? The majority breeds for show/pet-dogs, some for sport, but very few
that breeds on a large scale for servicework as the main goal.

I agree that 80-90% sounds quite high, was it narcdogs?
Yet I think a good breedingprogramm for servicework in time could produce numbers above the 30-40% mentioned here as realistic. In fact, the largest breeder of servicedogs here in the nordic countries produced in their last litter 11 servicedogs out of 12 puppies, 8 dogs are policedogs and 3 works as securitydogs. I also saw a mal-breeder that produced 4 policedogs out of 5 in a litter.
Maybe luck, but a few such litters and the more normal 30-40% success rate, and at least you have numbers around 50-60% in generall
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Stig,
I'd definately agree that a 50-60% per litter would eventually be doable with a good program ( but it'd take a lot of resources, as you said )