Aggression, Hard Dogs and thoughts out loud - Page 4

Susie - exactly! My dog was much more pleasant to walk in public AFTER training to CONTROL his natural protectiveness and aggression. As we were in schutzhund, we trained in all aspects, as per club policy, and the combination of obedience and control resulted in a dog that was a reliable, safe protector, and not a "liability on a leash" anymore.

You asked what breeders do, so I was stating what would happen to any one of our dogs (owned by us or owned by someone else) if they were found in such a circumstance. Simple and a fact. You can pretty much place any dog with a suitable owner as long as you're honest with people and not looking for financial gain through such placement.

Dog owner should mind his own potential/limits before he worries about his dog's. I myself would never own or come close to a gansta dog. I would never keep a (hard) puppy I find difficulty in controlling any time any where. I would not keep a puppy that shows uncalled for aggression to a neutral person. Not because the puppy or dog is bad but because I know my limits and I know what is good for me and my family and what is not.
Mack: dogs should not suffer because of our fantasies or shortcomings.

New members: Know your limits and capabilities and what suits you best, not all of us are supposed to be like professional trainers/breeders/handlers/Police officers, what suits them might not suit us. Gansta is not a good representative of the breed, when used cleverly in breeding it adds to the breed, but it's not suitable for the ordinary dog owner. Hard serious GSD is not also suitable for the novice, no novice needs such a dog, maybe a police officer does.

vtgsd writes “ The dog/(s) live with their current owners or are retired and live out life with a suitable family, person or couple... Same thing that happens to retired police K9s if they can't be kept by their handler.

Mackenzie writes: Is that every dog or just a contradiction to GSDfan, or, wishful thinking.

 

GSDfan's reply: In other parts of my reply I said things which are consistent with vtgsd: "You are talking about a small number of dogs IMO. Most of the extremely driven and hard dogs I know also have an off switch and live in a house with family, go on walks and to the park."

 

Of course not every single dog will live happily ever after.

Folks, I placed my first owner bred trained dog with Deleware State Police in 1977 and placed my last one in Sept, ( not bred but raised from 10 weeks and trained) 2014. And many many in between. All of my dogs were completely social, stable dogs within the family pack and in general the public. ( obviously the public didn't have the latitude my family did, but all of my dogs were approachable in public) so this concept of unstable police service dog is foreign to me. I think that extremes in aggression to the point of instability is just as bad as extreme shyness. Now that is different from an extremely strong dog that everyone can't handle but in right hands is productive dog. Both,( dog so aggressive that he cannot work or dog so insecure that they cannot work ) should never be bred in my opinion. But I'll close with this, the irony of this situation is insecurity, as the primary element in both, except flight/bite are the ways of expressing the insecurity, and yet I have seen so many shy insecure dogs bred over the years by so called knowledgable people, that don't realize they are just breeding the opposite end of the spectrum they shun. And thus are contributing just as much to the instability of the breed.

Gigante is that  to me, Gustav or GSDfan? 

 

Nice evening to all

 This one is for you.

That one was for Gustav.