Calling all pedigree experts - Page 5

Great poast, emoryg!

I believe about 20 years ago, a dog out of Crok vom Erlenbusch named Feival von den Wannaer Hohen was put down by his handler because of the severity of his handler aggression. That clearly would be an example of genetics gone wrong.

Although, I’ve heard that von der Wanneer Hohen lines can produce some handler aggression.

Apple, unfortunately it still happens in the LE community.  I seem to get a few notifications every year.   I scratch my head and wonder, why I am being told about this now?  

Years back it really hit home.  An agency I once worked for took one of their police dogs to the vet for euthanasia.  It was a kick in my stomach upon hearing the news.  What was so troubling is the handler and their trainer knew this was right up my alley, and I would have gladly worked with the dog.  

I ran a split kennel in my patrol unit and was set up to work two dogs, and my department gave me sole discretion on helping other k-9 units.  Any time they reached out I was there.  I even trained some of their dogs and handlers, certifying several just the year before.  A simple phone call or contacting me on our frequency was all that was needed.  If they didn’t want to swallow their pride, I could have put them in touch with another trainer who also deals with these dogs and was just an hour away.  

Every time I go pay respect to the animals I worked with, I walk past that dog’s marker.  At least they gave it a burial.  Some fifteen years later it still makes me sick on my stomach. 

It’s said, a little knowledge can go along way.  That is, unless you’re a police dog trainer.  Then a little knowledge can get you or someone else hurt.  In this case, it cost a police dog his life. 

Emoryg ,
I first write that after reading many many of your posts I know that you are outstanding with the dogs, I tip my hat to you ... Most often your posts are wonderful and you have much to contribute. I am of the mindset that you are a superb canine handler. Thank you for your posts.

I want the general reader to know that many many many times I have seen police officers with their K9s and the thruth , the fact of the matter is , a god number have no idea , emphasis , no idea ,what they have for a dog ! I have come across enough K9 officers that truly do not understand canine temperament , how to evaluate it , and they completely ido not comprehend Aggression . Maybe in other people's neck of the woods this is not the case. But in my travels and circles this has been my experience . That is why I pontifcated so much in the previous posts - many peoople do not comprehend the canine when it comes to 'handler aggresion'. If so , they wouldn't own or work these dogs. And to tell you the truth , I don't care if that included Raiser.. ..Personally I do not know the man but if he doesn't acknowledge this , then he should** know better. . Many many many so called experts , professionals , DO NOT know how to evaluate a canine . In simple street talk , a bigger , badder , rough and touch biting machine does not , in itself alone , make for a good police , sport etc ,working dog. And that is the problem . Case in point , if the Police Dept. understood the dogs , they would not be in a position to have to put down a dog because of handler agression ! What I have felt is that not only do many professionals not understand the dogs they have gotten , more so they know only , and I mean only , what the Academy has taught them , no more and no less. To me that is the problem with handler aggressive dogs - over Aggressive dogs that is a big one hard for people to admit to having .

For the record ,Having an ovr aggreessive dog or a dog with the wrong kind of aggression is not the same as having the dog with the Normal , healthy mentality andog for police work . But in short as I wrote a thousand times there are normal acceptable traits and genetics that lend itself to the work and abnormal traits that do not . For the reader : For example , yes we want dogs High in, let's say, Intensity considering Aggression . BUT , and the big but is , there are differences in not just Aggresion Intensity / Quantity but also in the Kinds of Aggression. We want high inensity in the right kind of aggression and that is very very often where police officers fail . They lack this concpept and understanding or if they understand the concept they do not know how to recognize/evaluate the differences. If they did -- thery wouldn't be dealing with these dogs. In other posts I have written : a bite is not just a bite.,,,, and there is to much tow write about a ' bite ' . The same as they throw words around that don';t convey what they mean and the same way they use words to inaccruately describe something. Like the words ' prey biting ' . So if a dog is defending it's house and chasing a burgler away it the dog is you verbiage prey drive or defense drive , after all many deem chasing something , pursing someothing for a bite , a predatory act. Just the way matters are confounded , complex at times , so do they confound a handler aggressive dog in thinking that it is just a tough dog that is super hard to handle andin thinking that others that don't handle these dogs are inexperienced weaker henadlers.

How can I further shed light on this : 25 years ago someone brought a Malinois to me for an evaluation. He said I taught the dog to out . I can throw balls and the dog will out , I can do this and that , the dog will out , but I cannot get the dog off the bite suit or a sleeve for the life of me to out . So I suited up and gave the dog a bite- it would not come off the suit . All that I could possibly have done , all the tactics in my bag of tricks , no way in hell would this dog under any tactic come off the bite. I explained to the fellow that all the other things that he taught the dog and the he did was not the same as dog on a sleeve or bite suit in the dog's head. They were all different contexts , different in the dog's head and hence ,- as a result different expressed behaviors were elicited. So what was the problem .. not the handler's teaching ! The problem was in the dog's head , it's temperament. His genetic makeup . The reason the dog would not out for anything under the sun .. is because the dog's genetics , it's temperament was gentically flawed. Other people in sports clubs that he had gone to for help , did niot convey this to him . So he thought that someine experienced could get his dog to 'out' and to 'out reliably" [ BTW for you experts - the e collar is not the best*** solution for these dogs either ] . This was not appare wearing a sleeve , had different a very very different meaning to the dog and a whole different biochemical / pysiological impression within and upon the dog . The thoughts , feelings , genetic predispostions to the two dissimilar contexts were entirely different . 'Combat' / ' Physical/ Psychological Engagement ' , presented a whole different 'autonomic , nervous system , behavioral response as opposed to it's motivations with a ball . The dog had a very good amount and intensity of aggression but it had the wrong Kind of Aggression . At first glance this dog would have been a pisser of a dog to do certain work but when you get into the dog's head , see the true temperament , this dog would have been a disaster for sport and / or police work !!

Many times people get canines for LE , for Sport and they do not know what they have or what they ae truly getting. So I hope this throws a little light on aggresion and what I am trying to convey in my posts. When I see handler aggression in certain lines , given the breeding practices having been taught to me , something is amiss. What I do feel that the people that do undertstnd , that can evaluate , they sell these dogs , they camn thses dogs , they don't keep these dogs for themselves .. I would speculate ... They let people reading the internet or that are unknowing buy these dogs... --- Not a postive , nor a negative commentary , but simply the ruthful reality .

Cent, thank you for your kind words about my posts and your insights on police dogs. 

Professional etiquette prevents me from openly bragging on myself or the dogs that I worked with.   Not that I think I was a superb handler anyway, but I certainly tried to be a good partner to the four legged animals that I worked with.  Again, thank you for the compliment.  I sure had a good time training police dogs and I loved the thrill of watching these animals bring criminals to justice.

Would I like to have caught more?  Sure, but because of my duties, I ended up spending a great deal of time training other dogs or helping other handlers with their dogs.  You can spend weeks every year going to seminars, officer survival schools, traveling the country testing and selecting dogs for the work.  This takes considerable time away from running actual calls with your dog.  In addition, I ran hundreds of calls as a backup officer so I could evaluate the other team’s performance under real life events.  Would I rather it have been me and my dog out in front?  What handler wouldn’t?  But in the big picture, it was never about just me and my dogs catching the bad guy. The important thing was that he was caught.

I will link to a website that I am working on if you want to see some of the dogs I talk about.  I hope to have it completed soon, but since I needed to move closer to family to help take care of the grandkids who are now out of school during the day because of corona, I have no idea when that will be. 

https://k9cisco.com/

Centurian

sure, main reason domestication of dogs was dog's capacity to work in team with human to benefit both species. commercial breeding went even further by washing out traits, previously viewed as useful, accentuating in development the dependence of dogs on human's guidance, friendliness to extreme and submissiveness.
try to change your breeding program from present, purposed to fill households with pet type dogs to the type of breeding, based on the dogs aggressive and dominant toward human.
the dogs, i mentioned above, was such kind. overall not bad dogs but too much independence, not enough willingness to work in tandem with handler even after their rank challenge did fail. they didn't do the call anymore but from time to time during exercises refuse to execute commands, often backed by growls and showing the teeth. anyway they were very good as watchdogs, where minimum interaction with human involved.

Emoryg , I like the the expression of Cisco and from the expression seems to have a very nice projection of the kind of dog it is . Of course , that is a subjective impression and I am not seeing the dog and it's behavior in real time life. . Seems to be a really really nice dog , nore than a nice dog .. a dog that we would definately want.

Dtto , working ther Police canines , those with superb genetics was fun , awesome , fun -- what a thrill it was to see the dogs work with and for the police ..

Valk one of the nthemes that you talk about are how the predent day GSs have been , in a maner of speaking down ... that is to say .. "purposed to fill households with pet type dogs " and I couldnt agree more . And yes to have a dog that want to be dominant over a human that will pertservere in it's task is most wonderful .. But not as I have been writing about, OMOp , to have this make-up and ATTITUDE toward it's handler [pack]. BTW even th dogs you lastly described, for some pusposes nothing wrong with having a dog like that [ oif that is your need ] , who you can depend on to keep anyone and everyone from breaking into your business property.

emoryg
nice dedication to memory of your dogs.

Centurian
i see you not got my point. the handler aggressive dog and dog, who not have desire to cooperate and responds in fierce manner when being pushed - is not the same.
i known in the past several dogs, whom i can say with 100% certainty - dogs was handler aggressive and eventually have been shot. fortunately such extremely aggressive dogs very rare. the dogs, i mentioned above, i wouldn't call handler aggressive type. they become irritated when you try to force them to do things, they won't like to do.
you can feed them safely, take out of kennel and put back, leash them on, walk them, to some degree train but if that dogs got some own "dog's idea" into their head, it's useless to force them.
back then wasn't problem to find willing hands to take these dogs. the border didn't care about what happened to rejected dogs and wasn't in quest to generate revenue. the business was happy to get these dogs and even was willing to provide stuff for club needs in exchange.
those dogs was byproduct of breeding program. border never had intention to breed family companion dogs and unlike present day LE/military, who is searching for candidates among pet type dogs, did select suitable dogs from dog's stock, consisting dominant and aggressive type.

Valk
I do differentiate between dogs that are handler aggressive and those dogs that are protesters. To a degree we can get into grey areas, because what do you mean exactly and specifically by 'pushed the dog ' or ' forced the dog ' to do something. That has different meanings . Do you mean to say that the dog does not take your direction , does not accpet you rank status , that has such a loe prpensity to work with the hanlder [ BTW which is a a specific defined genetic trait *** ] A dog that bites a handler when not justified is a handler aggessive dog - that simple . If you are trying to tell me that the dog ..." if that dogs got some own "dog's idea" into their head : ... meaning it will ot cooperate because ot has such a low propensity to work with the hanlder , that dog is abnormal , temperament deficient . It is direly temperament deficient and that has nothing to do nor make the dog acceptable if you can walk the dog oin a leash . it is lacking something upstairts in it's head. !

If dog has bit the handler , knowingly , willingly , when all factors remain equal and in normalcy , doesn't matter , that dog aggressed the handler . How can I liken this : All people in life have to do things that they prefer not to do . But does that give a license to a person to fly off the handle because it was complelled to do something ? If a father compelled his son to do something do you expect that son to beat the hell out of his father. You wouldn't recognize that something is wrong in that kid's head ., that he is acting outside of normalcy , and that he was way out of sorts actually expressing his anger, rage , violence to his father. .. who cares if the father could take a walk with this kind of son , as long as the son got his way .

For many dogs protesting is part of being their make up and for those dogs that would not flinch to bite their handler [ not meaning redirected aggression ] that is not merely a simple protest . Protesting is well well within normalcy for some breeds . Rottweilers that we worked ... many times even having taught them to platz, they would platz and at the same time give to you a grunt. They were willful and vocalized this willfulness . Even if they got strong firm corrections , they did choose to bite you !

BTW , a dog growling at you gutterally/strongly bearing teeth , is giving you the chance to back off , or else . The dog is giving you a very very very clear , precise , ' distancng signal ' and when another human or a dog does not pay heed to that signal , what do you think comes next ? Many dogs in the past were trained with compulsion , sometimes very very strong compulsion ... and the vast majority did not evenbare teeth , growl , or even gave a thought of biting the handler.

Handler Aggression is very different from normal protesting and also 'Protests' that result in a bite to the handler is a kind of handler aggression- doesn't matter if you can take that kind of a dog for a walk or if that dog has something else in mind. Maybe the reasons and triggers for 'handler aggression ' are different such as : the dog thinks differently , the dog is stubborn , the dog is insecure , the dog is reactive , the dog has low propensity to work with the handler , and the dog aggresses but we can walk it , son and so on . As to why a dog is handler aggressive - that can be different for each dog . But handler aggression is handler aggresion. The reasons can be different but the result is the same-

Valk , maybe we see this feature a little differently but that is a.o.k and interesting...