Working drives (dog vs bitch) - Page 1

Service dogs as in police service?

This is what I have personally witnessed or seen with other handlers/trainers.

1. A good female is more difficult to find then a male, but when you do find them they are more handler oriented.

2. Many handlers will not work a female (if they happen to be male) The whole macho ego thing gets in the way.

3. If you were to find a good female, she would work as equally good as a male.

4. When a female is obtained by a PD for K9, they are altered to avoid being "out of service". Males are not altered routinely.

5. If the male is driven and knows it's job then there should be no concerns. If the male is suitable for the work and the team is having problems then the handler and techniques should be closely looked at.

I personally love a good hard bitch myself. It's a matter of personal preference for those who are allowed to choose their dog. A good dog's a good dog's a good dog. Male, female, black, sable, pink or purple, if the dog can work then gender or color should not matter. Typically dogs of certain colors do tend to be better K9s just because of what they were bred for. That is not to say dogs of certain colors can not work in that venue, there just tends to be fewer good K9 candidates in certain lines.

I hope I have answered you questions.

Melissa

 As my sports dogs have always been house dogs I prefer females. They are in general more "attached" to the den (house).

As far as drives are concerned it depends on the dog, male or female.

Koach

For a little over 2 years I have observed and assisted with training for an urban PDK9 Unit who has an in-house training program.  I watched and assisted with 2 classes of 3 dog/handler teams (total of 6 teams) during their 640hr basic training program as well as their in-service training.

I believe it is not the level of prey/defense, but the difference in hardness/resilliency and fight drive between male vs female.  There are certainly some females that have what it takes, but in overall numbers there are more males than females who posess the necessary traits.

Also in addition to hardness resilliency to the decoy and environmental pressure, females in general tend to be more handler sensitive than males.  When dealing with the Police officer handler, who is more often than not, a more a police officer with a dog than a talented dog handler....having a dog that can bounce back from handler mistakes or over or ill timed corrections it is necessary to have a harder dog, especially in a training program that uses more compulsive methods than modern sport training.

Also, in the unit I work with,some semi-false information was handed down through generations in the depts. K9 unit. ( ie they don't have the drives, they don't work well away from the handler (ie building searches/area searches), they can't take the pressure etc).  They didn't think ANY female could do it, so never even considered using one...even in their post orders, the requirements for dogs were Males non-neutered between 1.5-2.5 years old.  Needless to say when they saw my bitch work along side of their K9's in their training, it at least put to rest the absolutness of their beliefs...My BF has said to the audience at a demo I did with them that before he met Ema he would have never considered working a female in police work, and she is the only bitch he's ever met that he would handle.

Melissa,

1. A good female is more difficult to find then a male

By this do you mean that typically males in the litter have higher levels of drive?
Or are they less secure, like they cant work in the absence of their handler?
For example the dog is sent on a search, finds the bad guy and the handler has not caught up to the dog

I have noticed with the good bitch dogs that they seem to be a bit nastier in their work when they are worked civilly.
Like bearing teeth in a snarliy way.
Has anyone noticed that?
They seem to work a bit differently.  I have not seen many female gsd's work so this observation is based on only a few of them

Basically what Melanie said (GSDfan)

"I believe it is not the level of prey/defense, but the difference in hardness/resiliency and fight drive between male vs female. There are certainly some females that have what it takes, but in overall numbers there are more males than females who posses the necessary traits."

A good female is equal in drives to a male. Finding a female that is resilient enough to deal with many of their non-dog handlers is difficult. They are generally more handler soft and where in the hands of an experienced dog person may do well would not with someone constantly cranking on her. Many of the handlers out there are not dog people and do what the generation before them tell them to do. I have personally seen a unit that makes it a routine thing to put the suit on and alpha roll their K9s until they urinate all over themselves. Very few females would be able to take that kind of handling and still be secure in their handler. There are many many many stories just like this from people who think they know dogs.

Melissa

I'm never happy to handle a sensitive female, nor do I ever want to be.  That makes a fitting female all the more important to me, difficult as they are to find.  Perhaps I'm setting limitations on my ability as a handler, but moreso, I think it's just that I don't want to compromise by modifying my approach for the dog's benefit.  Instead, I'd rather have the dog I want to have.  Has nothing to do with hardness to physical correction, so very rarely do I ever physically correct, but I find most females are too sensitive to me verbally.  Cowgirl up!

So the context that we are takling about hardness is towards the handler or "handler soft" and reslience being able to bounce back from a correction and not acting like their handler is trying to kill them and probably going down in drive during the work phase.  But are we also saying that the dog is soft towards the decoy? 

My female is definately handler soft although not extreme it is enough to get on my nerves a little.  But she is not soft to the decoy.

I prefer females.  I do not like the whole hormonal side of males, it's annoying.  Just the same for protection IMO, a good dog is a good dog, wether female or male.  I don't know if I would say they are more handler-soft, but testosterone is an aggressive hormone, isn't it, so maybe males are more challenging and females are the ones who are normal.

Males are more for police work, they say males go out and are better at apprehending, searching, etc, where as females want to stay close to the handler and it doesn't make as much sense for them to go out.  It's like someone said staying close to the den, staying with the home.