Thank you - Page 2

I am English.
I have seen Police Dogs in training.
I have seen Police Dogs demonstrating their training.
I have had sensible conversations with Police and retired Police Dog handlers about their methods;
and learnt a lot - over 45 years involved with GSDs.
I have had retired Police Dogs to care for.
I am fed up with BS about  "We have to handle the REAL dogs cos they are K9s so we HAVE  to do it the hard way."
LS

"I am fed up with BS about  "We have to handle the REAL dogs cos they are K9s so we HAVE  to do it the hard way."
LS"

 There ARE real dogs, not SAR, not drug detection, not tracking dogs, but the real nasty ones, bred and trained to attempt, in a dark house, in a soccer stadium, during a demonstration...

You are right, a lot of dogs don´t need pressure, there are "modern" training methods way better than forcing the dog,

BUT

please don´t tell me that you are able to train EVERY dog with positive training ONLY. No way.

Your signal needs to be stronger than defense/fight drive/hunt drive/sexual drive within a millisecond.

A dog with a lot of hunt drive won´t "down" because of peace and love and rockn´roll 

Steve has handled a lot of dogs the rest of us wouldn't want to touch with a 10 foot pole. He has permanent scars from one of his own dogs damn near killing him.

He had to put the dog's head through a wall to get it to let go. The two became best friends after that, and it never happened again.


Steve doesn't want to get another dog, because he knows it will likely outlive him, and I fully understand that.

Susie why don't you read what I said to Yellow Rose before you try to judge me as saying All Dogs All Of The Time have to be treated with positive methods only.

What follows is obviously my opinion, based on my experiences, but backed by a lot of what other people say & do,
including many UK Police Dog Handlers;  I am not some maverick proposing something no one ever heard of before.

No one method of training suits every dog in all circumstances.  But the baseline is always preferable to be:  work
for reward and motivation. 
Its not as if we are discussing anything really NEW; 'kinder' methods have always been available to us, they have
just developed along with expanding knowledge,  but even Kohler isn't all "yank & crank".

If I said to you, you can go to work & do your job, but do not expect any payment for it or any gratitude ever, (from your employer, your family that your work would feed if you were paid, or the public you may be serving through your job) would you still get up and go do it, day after day ?   Or do you value even the occasional "Thank You" ?   Would you prefer that you at least sometimes got some recognition for what you do ?  That you normally do get a salary or a paypacket ? 
If the only thing you got out of the daily drudge was that once in a while your employer said :"Good Girl"? would you still do it, or would you start to resent that ?  If your employer decided the best way to deal with any mistakes you made at work was to shove you around physically, would you respect that ?

I am NOT saying that life, in training dogs, is all about dishing out the cookies.  But I get the distinct impression that - leaving aside all the mystique we want Joe Public to swallow about Police Dogs -  those who deny the advantages of motivational training are really those who do not 'like' change in their lives;  who do not want to put in the work (and make no mistake, doing it properly IS hard work);  who just want short cuts, either right from the start of a dogs education, or somewhere later if something goes wrong.  I do not have to have trained a Police Dog
to see that.

Maybe my disadvantage (or possibly US Police's disadvantage ?) here is that in the UK our Police Services train their
own dogs & handlers, rather than rely on bringing in some expert Trainer - who may or may not have handled and
served, themselves ?).  But they seem to manage it successfully, and they have come into the 21st Century with a
lot of their methods, already.

You say the difference is about having dogs that HAVE to obey, as opposed to what ?  Dogs that don't, so they run
riot, cause traffic accidents, bite people, lose OB competitions ?  Give me a break,  no-one WANTS their dog to
be a failure, to let them down in public, to be a dangerous liability.  I'm not speaking of someone's teacup Chihuahua, I'm first and foremost a Shepherdite, so I don't think like that (LoL!).  I have known far better
civilian pet obedience instructors than I could ever be, who have had REALLY shit-hot great performance dogs
that could do what Police Dogs do [and sometimes more / better]... but they did not have to rely on silly, harsh,
often less effective, methods to get there.  Why do you assume a 'kind' method is an ineffective method ?
In the hands of some people it might be but you can't tar everybody with the same brush;  and not all Police
Dog Handlers are born 'dog people'.

Quote: " Why do you assume a 'kind' method is an ineffective method ? "

While training German Shepherds 95% of the time I do use "kind" methods and I love the "modern" methods, but sometimes there are moments you need to use some force. You never met me ...

Again, we are talking about high drive dogs...

What I don´t like is to slander someone you never met, someone you never talked to, because of one video sequence.

Quote: "But I am sorry to hear about your hands.  Perhaps a few less dogchains in your life might have helped prevent that ..."
 
That in my opinion is "assuming" AND it´s insulting...

You don´t know the dog, the circumstances, the former and later training methods, nothing at all ...

Blaming a single person on this board is done easily, people only remember the bad things, true or not.

You should think about the difference between "discussing" and "being personal".

Steve doesn´t even answer any more, I feel sorry for a person who loves and trained dogs for decades.

(Only for the report: I hate this damn language barriere...)

"I am English. I have seen Police Dogs in training. I have seen Police Dogs demonstrating their training. I have had sensible conversations with Police and retired Police Dog handlers about their methods; and learnt a lot - over 45 years involved with GSDs. I have had retired Police Dogs to care for. I am fed up with BS about  "We have to handle the REAL dogs cos they are K9s so we HAVE  to do it the hard way." LS" We don´t know each other and I don´t want to assume anything ... Did you train high drive German Shepherds in protection work you got as an adult, not as a cute puppy? Sometimes unfortunately there is a difference between theory and practice.

Susie:

 At this given  month and last, Steve is in very much depression and not able to do  much posting, as he will later after AUGUST>  THE death of Becca is very much his withdrawal mechanism and he deserves that respect whether you or I agree with it or not..THANKS as you do see what happens when people do not KNOW ALL THE FACTS> 

 TOmorrow is not a good day nor was JUNE< JULY>August> referring to the onslaught coming days before Beccas death...Sorry to have to explain but very few know Steve like I do...

 My mission was to do that and That I did.  IT takes away nothing from his skills, certainly his intelligence, it just has a man trapped in the inability to be available to us when he is remembering things that meant more to him then to us.

I have some of the same reactions on special days, and things that bring back memories but Steve has shared all this on his website...so he is handling it.

JUST wanted to make clear...he has good days and bad days like all of us.
We just do not have a website open for scrutiny as he does..THAT  is his outlet to people as he is home bound.

I am making no excuses for Steve,I do not have to. I am a friend not anything else.. WE have been there done that nasty assumptions on this forum and you spoke kindly as why we should just discuss..and be more factual and not explode some situations. All trainers and breeders on here have different methods and different age periods in their lives. NOT all of us are young and not all of us are old.

Thanks
Now that we have cleared the pages...we can enjoy each others posts..
Greif and Fri  can come alive again...lol   inside joke.

One little fact , and I am sure many men have done this or maybe not..but Steve has had many of the dogs on his site, in the story he put up , that have been in the hand of an owner who had to either euthanize or  surrender as their own german shepherd on duty  either killed or maimed a human and Steve took this dog...sat by its kennel reading a book for hours , days until he saw this dog ready for submission and he opened the door to the kennel and met one big battle..BUT he did the I AM ALPHA and YOU are not..and he brought three I know of, these dogs back to civlil dogs..
and put titles on them...A little fact Steve doesn't tell to all people. The owner of one of them still in the hospital when he put the first title on it.

SO his hands have had no chains in them except the CHAINS of life back to Reality.. A helpful training tool  or two, like the Jack ass'(two donkeys pulling his plow) my father in law had, who said to me upon my first day at the farm, "Sometimes you have to get an animals attention FIRST" and I am not speaking of a pup or untrained animal..

Steve's speciality was problem solving with highly trained and serious hard dogs and he turned people away immediately if you were not a serious trainer and serious about his methods. GENE ENGLAND trains the same way..THEY both will make you mad in one minute if they see you are not wanting the best for the longest..IF you are not qualified and not willing to get a gsd that can be trained as a pup, neither had time in their agendas..I know other trainers just like them so this is not a unknown  trait and sometimes we say ..."well , do not join this club as the trainer is mean and won't let show lines in his club or was unkind about my dog..".WELL< truth sometimes frankly spoken gets the hide on our backs in a spin and we later in life see why.

THIS is the Steve I met. HE is still the same.  If the heat gets too much, clear the dog kennel.

 Gentle as a lamb he is not. TRuthful he is. HONEST sometimes is short to see and long to hope for.

YR

YR




 

I, too, lost my husband to cancer 8 years ago.

It's something that's hard to understand unless you've been there yourself.

Susie, Sunsilver, YR, possibly a few others,

It is physically difficult for me to type.
I've also learned message forums really aren't for me - so I reduced my participation by 95% or more.
It also should be obvious: I DO NOT RELATE TO, AND CAN'T REALLY COMMUNICATE WITH PET OWNERS. I never lived in that world. We have nothing in common - except maybe a computer?

Much of what YR wrote is accurate, some facts got mixed up. I don't really need to correct all the errors.
My own dogs, and the dogs I loved working with the most, were far too much dog for 99.9% of the world, including cops.
They weren't little puppies, or prey freaks, or family type dogs: they were grown, multi-owner, FAILURES or UNTRAINABLES. They were failures and untrainable because the PREVIOUS decision-maker wasn't able to make the right decisions.
Over here, they were SUCCESS and TRAINABLE. I proved it - over and over again.

The more dangerous, the better. Something to think about - an adult, bite trained dog who has been through 3 police agencies and 3 or 4 handlers. This is NOT a "normal dog" anymore. I loved 'em. "How much? Can you ship this afternoon? Well how about tomorrow morning?"

If I feel strong enough soon, I want to tell you about "Grey Dog" - San Diego PD. It's a GREAT story. And a very sad story, too. I wish I had somebody to TYPE for me. I can tell the story OK, it's this damn typing that's hurting. (btw - I don't have arthritis (yet) - the pain is from the strokes) 

I bought 5 Mals from Louisville KY PD. They had 5, I said "I'll take 'em all". YR watched that KY video (sent the day before I bought the 5 dogs) - both of us almost puked. Their moron handlers didn't have a clue how to handle dogs like this. Not only was the public in danger, the whole department had 5 ticking time bombs on their hands. The best of the 5 was Marco. Tampa PD officer trained him with me - daily - for 7-8 weeks. Then he got cop-stupid one night. Marco nearly killed him - about 1.5 seconds: permanently disabled, over 36 pins in both hands and wrists, can't even fire his gun with his left hand. 
(MY JOKE FOR TODAY: he had an "Ego Erection", which drew all the blood from his BRAIN, leaving it non-funtional.)
He moved to a desk job, never went near dogs again.  13 years in K9, co-founder of Tampa's K9 unit - all done in under 2 seconds.
Many videos of Marco are on my site. Great dog - but you had to read him. I could read him.  

YR was incorrect re: a 3-3 Frei Gugge male that I owned. The dog was psychotic - a known trait of close linebreeding on Frei. He literally killed someone (a criminal), and was in my kennel ASAP. Nobody could come near this dog except Rebecca and me - but it took me 3 days, 24 hours per day, in a lawn chair in the kennel right next to him. When I opened his kennel door, I turned my back and walked away - and got bit in the back of my thigh - a good one, too. I just slapped him upside the head, said "pfui!", and we went inside the house. He explored, peed everywhere, I called him back out to the kennels, and he came out. BINGO!  Hot dogs. I call, you come, you get hot dogs. I put him in a clean kennel, and we got along fine. This specific dog never required any force from me. Once we got past bonding, he was like a puppy (disguised as a VERY dangerous 5 year old). The bonding was UNBELIVABLY quick - I have never seen a "one-person dog" before. This was a "one-person" dog. In over 5 years that he lived with us, nobody could even get close to him. I have a video of this dog somewhere - TV news station was here, and the camera lady went towards the kennels to tape my pack. Gospel - she was at least 50' away from the kennels. Rolf nearly came over the TOP of a 6' high Mason kennel gate - I'm talking about a straight jump up - and his elbows WERE over the top. I had to get him in a crate in the house, and get her away - all at the same time.
Vet time? I had to go to the van with a syringe - acepromazine. The vet wouldn't even give him a rabies shot - he handed it to me, and watched me from inside his clinic. I brought him back an empty syringe, he gave me the rabies tag. When I say "nobody" I LITERALLY mean NOBODY. This sweet dog that slept in bed with us would actually try to kill you.  His head (actually his genetics) were 5800% beyond super-suspicious, but he was a GOOD, CLEAN biter, too. He'd "aus" for me. I couldn't EVER allow him to bite unless he was tied to something. NEVER free bites or run-aways on a helper (a stranger).  Only Bec or I took the free bites with Rolf.

I owned a Greif Lahntal son - Clint v.Hamskamp. He's the one I put a III on in Germany. I owned him for 5 or 6 days before trial. He's the one that tried me on and bit through my right cheek. 31 stitches inside my cheek, 12 under my chin. We had a war. His head accidentally went through a wall - I DID NOT WANT to do that - were were in combat, and it happened. My right hand was broken in 5 places, and several of Clint's teeth were knocked out. Clint was knocked out cold, too. Bec thought I killed him for a moment. I don't even know how I did that. I guess he just wanted to try me on for size that day - I'm not sure why, but reality is simple: a man and a dog get in a fight. Somebody has to win. We never had another problem.
Another thought: if you talk about me, be aware that my dogs were only ALLOWED to live here if they were "funny car" level biters. I'm saying .... no puppies (one exception: little Klein Klint), no wimps, no submissives - high powered biters, high suspicion, or I wouldn't waste my $ feeding them. I'd just give them to some nice family and get them out of here.

Onward: I don't understand one word about all this "chains" stuff. Can someone explain? Am I being accused of using "chains" or something?

Steve

Hundmutter said: But I am sorry to hear about your hands.  Perhaps a few less dogchains in your life might have helped prevent that ...