Recently I read the article entitled: The Use of Breaker Bars in Dog Fights by Ed Frawley.
I was intrigued Ed's comment:

"I like pit bulls as a breed. I have seen some great pits and if they did not have such a terrible reputation they would make excellent service dogs"

Are there really breeders out there that produce such high quality APBT that have the qualities required to be PSD? If so, who are these breeeders?

APBT as K9

Unfortunately this is just a couple pictures, no article-but maybe if you dig around the site it'll have more info.

I know of several SAR and drug-sniffing pit bulls, but again, there's the problem of public perception.

In Sweden pitbulls have the oppurtunity to be tested in the same mentaltest that the police use here to see the drives and stability of nerves. This test are not often done on dogs belonging to civilians, but because the "panic" about pitbulls,this is available for pits, to see that they have really stable minds. Pitbulls have often done very well in these test, often showing good nerves. It´s to bad that this breed has such a bad reputation, also are being breed for the sensless sport of dogfighting where dogaggressivnes are often wanted in the dogs, a trait that has no use for a workingdog. Traits that makes a good fightingdog doesn´t mean it will be a good protectiondog,that some people belief. Instead of breeding this dogs for fighting, why don´t more people breed them for traits which make them good workingdogs. What I´ve heard about pitbulls is that they often have great preydrive, but not the hardness and real aggression wanted in a servicedog, because this is not something nedded in dogfihgting, therefore not breeded for, the people breeding pits for fighting doesn´t have a clue what is needed in protectionwork, and they don´t care because that´s not their buisness. The pitbull and the boxer are basically of the same origin, but the boxer exist almost only as a showdog today, it would be great if the pitbull could represent the bullbreeds in servicework today,like the german boxer once did in germany.

Not only are they not bred for hardness or aggression, fighting pitbulls actually were/are (I doubt that the people who breed them for fighting today breed for much more than meanness) bred to be submissive to humans, because they would be handled in the pit by many different handlers and if they turned on the handler, they would be culled. That is why they are so easy to steal. Most human aggressive pitbulls have probably been made that way by being mistreated, or else are really poorly bred. The human aggressive pitbulls I have met through rescue were unstable, extremely fearful dogs - not aggressive at all in the way an unstable or poorly trained protection-breed dog might be.

The PSD pitbulls I have seen profiled (only a few) were just rescues. I don't know if anyone is breeding pitbulls specifically for service work. I don't remember where to find the profiles I have seen. One was on TV - it was a dog who had been owned by drug dealer and was confiscated by the cops and turned into a drug sniffing dog. Cute.

Hello everyone,
I own a pitbull and I have a few friends who have them. My pup is only 8 months old and he started bite work on tug toys when he was 5 weeks. At the moment he can handle quite a bit of pressure with the stick and whip, and he bites like an alligator on the leg and the sleeve.
Pitbulls are like any other working breeds. There are some awesome ones and there are some bad ones. As a general, they are pretty happy go lucky and they are a bit too trusting to strangers if not protection trained. They have a very high threshold to threat. That's why untrained pitbulls get stolen all the time. You have to socialise them with other animals a lot when they are young and introduce defense work earlier than other breeds because of their extreme high prey drive and high threshold to threat.
If you have ever seen a real pit fight you would notice that they act very differently than other breeds during the fight (I am not into dog fighting myself, however). There is no barking or growling, no threatening gestures or hair raising up on the back, no snarling or showing teeth. Two pitbulls just charge at each other like they are some long lost buddies. During the fight, if you look at them closely, it would remind you of a dog biting a decoy on prey drive. The dogs are very excited and tail wagging. I believe this is prey drive, from their bull baiting history.
Some people say that dog aggression doesn't help in police work. I completely agree with that. The thing is, some peole get the word aggression mixed up with the word gameness. Aggression is just the desire to attack another dog, it doesn't mean that the dog is game. I believe most of you have seen a Chihuahua growling at another dog or a Jack Russel going nuts when he sees your Shepherd. It has nothing to do with hardness at all. Gameness is another thing completely. It is the will to win, above all odds and cost. The will to keep fighting even in pain, exhaustion and stress, even death, never quit or give up. This means that a game dog must be hard and have strong nerves, able to cope with tonnes of pressure. This gameness is what makes pitbulls good police service dogs.

We do not talk about, discuss, explain, describe, insinuate, or detail Pitt fights on this board. Not for any reason other than to explain that those that fight dogs or those that watch dog fights are red neck ass hole mother F-------ers. It disgusts me !!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />