This article came from the Helena Daily World and was dated September
21, 1961. I thought that it would be interesting to see how PSDs were
trained 40 years ago.

Foe Of Criminals In Helena Forced To Practice Hate

Even a dog has to be taught to hate because hate is an acquired
characteristic.
That's the opinion of Steve Bassett, member of the Helena Police
Department who is in charge of the care and training of Duke, the
department's German Shepherd police dog.
Duke, who has been with the department about a year, was trained
to strike out at criminals and "any intruder", officer Bassett said.
But, the officer said, this instilled hate has to be kept
ingrained. So, officer Bassett keeps Duke on a regular training
program. Sometimes this consists of holding the dog in on a leash and
then giving him the command to "charge" on someone.
The results of this almost daily training in tactical maneuvers is
pointed out by Mr. Bassett's fellow officer, David Miller.
Officer Miller said, "Duke used to be real friendly with me, and
would come and wrestle with me affectionately, until Steve began
training him to charge at me. Now, he'll just about tear me to pieces
if I don't defend myself."
"Most police departments are finding that their Police Dog is one
of the most effective crime deterrents they have," Officer Bassett
said. "It's a lot of trouble having them around," he said, "but they
pay off in the long run."

40 years ago the police dogs for the most part were trained in the sentry dog fashion after the work done in the military. These dogs were trained to feel threatened by everyone and that the solution was to respond in kind. Since a big part of the military function of the time was, as the word discribes, sentry work, guarding instalations the attitude of aggression towards everyone but the handler was promoted. This was done through survival behaviors (fight or flight).
These dogs do not have a purpose in civilian law enforcement as we know K-9 work today. Even the military abandoned that approach.

You know what? That has done more to convince me than anything else. It's so easy, with so much information available on the net, for inexperienced dog handlers to get really confused by all the conflicting info. This is a great site, and you all have done much to educate me, but this article right here speaks volumes about protection training and how NOT to do it! I think I'll just stick to my tracking, thank you very much, and leave this serious work to people who know what they are doing! Thank you for being here!