ainbllllllleedKarlesruhe(Haak & Gerritsen, 2007)find (Ten Grootenhuyzen, Ring

Sport Kister en Vandaag bjj de K.K.U.S.H. Deel Twee) (Ten Grootenhuyzen, Ring
Sport Gister en Vandaag bij de K.U.S.H Eerste Deel)

i
The Police Dog
Evolution, History and Service

James R. Engel

ii
Cover: Belgian Malinois "Alexander Badger Man"
Owner Eric Wilson, Photo by author.

Also by the author:

Bouvier des Flandres, The Dogs of Flanders Fields, 1991

© Copyright 2018 James R. Engel

All Rights reserved.
The PDF version of this book may be freely copied and distributed
so long as it is not modified in any way.

Email: [email protected]
http://www.angelplace.net/dog/

Rev: November, 2021

iii
Dedicated to the women in my life:

Martha Engel, my mother

Kathleen Engel, my wife
Sarah and Meredith, my daughters

iv
 Contents

PREFACE 1
1 IN THE BEGINNING 5
Canine Origins 7
The Molossers 15
The Herding Heritage 20
Herding or Gathering Dogs 24
Livestock Guardians 24
Tending dogs 26
Advent of the Police Breeds 27
Police Dog Requisites 32
House Divided 38
2 NATURE AND NURTURE 42
Art and Science 44
Ethology 47
Terminology 49
On Aggression 50
Handler Aggression 53
Predation 53
Play objects 57
Fight or Flight 57
Fear 58
Defense 59
Fighting Drive 60
Hardness and Sharpness 62
Confidence and Sociability 63
Intelligence and Trainability 64
Born and Made 65
3 DOG TRAINING FOUNDATIONS 69
Obedience 69
Priorities 71
The Training Progression 72
All in the Family 75
Competitive Training 78
The Koehler Era 79
The Post Koehler Era 82
Obedience Classes 85
Dog Aggression 88
The Electric Training Collar 89
Breed Considerations 91
Sport and Service 92
4 CANINE PROTECTION TRAINING 95
Historical and Social Perspective 95
Expectations 100
The Bad Old Days 102
Selection and Preliminary Training 104
Formal Foundations 106
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 Discipline 109
Ongoing Training 111
The Helper 113
Suits and Sleeves 116
Man's Best Friend 123
5 CANINE SCENT WORK 125
The Scenting Process 127
Tracking and Trailing 128
Search and Patrol Work 134
Substance and Object Detection 136
The Bloodhound 142
Perspective 145
6 THE RING AND THE TRIAL 147
The Euro Way 148
Dog Sports 151
Schutzhund and IPO 156
Temperament or Character Testing 161
Schutzhund Commentaries 164
The Ringers 167
War, Politics, Commerce and History 168
The American Experience 172
USCA, the Early Years 174
American Ringers 177
Creeping Commercialism 181
A Dog of Your Own 185
Only in America 189
What are Obedience Trials Really? 191
Social and Political Context 192
7 THE BELGIAN HERITAGE 195
The Belgian Enigma 196
National Canine Organizations 200
Societe Royale Saint-Hubert 201
Kennel Club Belge 202
Breaking Out, the NVBK 204
Work and Sport 205
Belgian Ring Sport 207
The Belgian Shepherd 212
Adolphe Reul 213
Louis Vander Snickt 214
The Huyghebaert Brothers 214
Joseph Couplet 215
Felix Verbanck 215
Foundations 216
The War Years 223
Post War Years 225
The Laeken 228
The Malinois 230
The Groenendael 235
The Tervuren 236
America 237
The Bouvier des Flandres 239
End Game 245
Retrospect and Prognosis 246

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8 THE NETHERLANDS 250
The Dutch Shepherd 252
The Dutch Police Dog Trials 254
The Politiehond I Examination 259
Scoring 261
Current Trends 261
9 FRANCE 263
The French Herding Breeds 263
French Ring Sport 264
Commentary 270
10 GERMANY 271
The German Shepherd 271
The Early Years 272
The Founder's Touch 277
The Dogs of War 280
Show Lines and Working Lines 281
Rise of the Third Reich 284
Post World War II Germany 285
Germany Today 288
The Eastern Lines 290
The Color Code 291
SV Under Siege 292
WUSV 294
Home With the Troops 295
Structure and Stride 297
The Doberman Pinscher 300
The Rottweiler 304
The Giant Schnauzer 305
The Boxer 306
11 BRITISH ORIGINS 307
Edwin Richardson and his Airedale Terriers 308
12 THE PROTECTION DOG 310
Watch and Guard Dogs 312
The Personal Protection Dog 315
The Area or Premise Protection Dog 317
13 THE POLICE DOG 318
The Early Years 321
The Scales of Justice 327
Modern Deployment Strategies 328
Aggression and Discipline 330
Scent Work: Search and Detection 334
The Building Search 336
The War on Drugs 339
Explosives and Bomb Detection 342
Crowd Control 343
Administration and Leadership 344
Acquisition and Training 348
Trends 352
14 THE DOGS OF WAR 353
The Modern Era 355
WWI 357

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 The Specialists 360
The Messenger Dog 360
The Sentry or Guard Dog 361
The Patrol Dog 362
The Scout Dog 362
Explosive Detection Dogs 364
WWII 366
Korea and the 1950s 371
Vietnam 372
The Post Vietnam Era 375
Century Twenty One 376
Commentary 378
15 EMERGENCE OF THE BREED 380
Domestication 380
The Purebred Dog 381
The Dog Show 382
16 EVOLUTION, GENETICS AND MEDICAL SCREENING 385
Genetic Inheritance 385
Medical Screening 388
In Denial 390
Spiral to Oblivion? 393
17 THE ESTABLISHMENT 398
Fédération Cynologique Internationale 402
The American Kennel Club 407
GSDCA 411
The SV Empire 413
The American Working Dog Federation 419
England and Canada 428
18 IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES 429
The Euro Cabal 430
The Rest of Europe 432
America 434
A Shrinking World 436
Evolving Trends 438
APPENDICES: 445
KONRAD MOST 445
REGISTRATION STATISTICS 447
American 448
German Annual Registrations 449
French Registrations 450
Belgian Registrations 451
Netherlands Registrations 452
Dutch 2011 Registrations, puppies & imports 453
GLOSSARY 454
American Organizations 454
European Organizations 454
North American Titles 454
European Titles 455
European Registration Books 455
Dutch Hip Condition Ratings 455

viii
 German Terminology 456
BIBLIOGRAPHY 457
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 460
INDEX 462

ix
Preface

A police dog book is an enormously daunting project, especially for an American

physically and culturally so remote from the European origins of this heritage. Yet it
is a tale that needs to be told in depth and with perspective, with a sense of history,
rigor and culture – even a trace of skepticism – in order to deal with the
contradictions, the frailties of human and canine nature.
A long professional career as an electronics and systems engineer in the
communications industry, largely involved in providing communications and
information systems for police and other first responder agencies, has provided close
contact with police personnel at diverse levels, ranging from technical presentations
in board rooms before high ranking administrators, politicians and their ever present
consultants to riding along in a squad car to learn first-hand the realities of on the
street service, how the equipment and systems we were providing worked in the real
world. Many years of Schutzhund training and breeding, including extensive time in
Europe, provided contact with many officers and trainers, European and American,
and first hand insight into many aspects of practical police dog deployment.
Although the police dog as we know it today emerged from the herding dogs of
northern Europe at the advent of the twentieth century the use of dogs in the service
of those in power, be it the nobility of the ancient regime or the modern state, goes
back as far as history tells its story. Often these were of the Mastiff style – massive,
powerful and intimidating – serving to keep the working and agrarian classes, those
providing industrial and agricultural labor, in their preordained place. The industrial
and concurrent political and social revolutions of the latter nineteenth century
marked a real shift in power to a more egalitarian basis, and as the social and
economic status of the common man improved his dogs, especially the herders, took
on new roles, especially in police service. As the Industrial Revolution progressed
and the rural population migrated to burgeoning industrial and commercial cities the
modern police force evolved to maintain law and order. These incipient police forces
found ever expanding roles for herding dogs whose historical work in the fields and
meadows was evaporating.
The use of the term herders rather than referring to herding breeds is
appropriate, for these formal breeds were emerging concurrently, in the same era,
driven by the same demographic and societal currents as the modern police forces
and their emerging canine partners. As we shall see the evolution of formal canine
breeds, kennel clubs and dog shows has had insidious detrimental consequences,
and increasingly the actual police dog candidates are emerging from the fringes or
outside of this mainstream conformation show oriented world.
Our subject is the traditional patrol dog breeds with the protection, interdiction,
search and detection roles of the classic police dog, as it emerged in Belgium,
Germany and the rest of northern Europe, and as exemplified by the German
Shepherd Dog, known colloquially throughout the world as the police dog.
The original role of the police dog, evolving early in the twentieth century, was as
a partner for the officer on foot patrol, providing protection and deterrence,
especially at night. This involved both alerting on the presence of a potential
adversary – through the sharp canine hearing, olfactory prowess and keen night

1
vision – and engagement as necessary. In the era before squad cars, radio
communication and even street lighting the patrol dog expanded the presence of the
officer, projecting authority and respect.
While aggression is still often the public perception, that is the biting dog, today
the typical police dog serves multiple purposes, particularly those involving search or
substance detection, notably drugs. In our modern world the police dog who can only
bite is essentially obsolete or very special purpose, for the olfactory potential, the
sense of smell, is as or more important than deterrence and aggression. Some of
these olfactory functions – including drug, explosive and cadaver detection and
search and rescue – are at times fulfilled by specialist dogs without the protection or
aggressive role. An inherently much less aggressive breed, such as the Labrador
Retriever or Beagle, can be less threatening in a school or airport environment and
can be smaller and thus easier to maintain and more agile in searching restricted
areas such as the cargo bay of an airliner or a shipping container. The military also
uses many such dogs for bomb detection. Thus not every police or military dog is a
biting dog, and many search and detection dogs are civilian trained and handled,
usually in cooperative conjunction with police authorities.
Search and rescue functions – in urban disasters or wilderness areas – are often
conducted by civilian volunteer organizations, using a wide variety of medium sized
dogs, such as the Golden and Labrador Retrievers in addition to the more traditional
police breeds. In general, these dogs are selected and trained to be non-aggressive,
since disaster victims are not criminals and are likely to be injured, unconscious or in
a severely stressed mental state. These civilian search and rescue dogs and special
purpose detection dogs – the Labrador Retrievers, Beagles and mixed breeds – that
search for drugs, explosives or accelerants are discussed briefly in the chapter on
scent work, and then left for another author and another book. A little more detailed
discussion of the Bloodhound has been included in the scent work chapter because of
the close historical association with police work.
While the more primitive protection dog of the Molosser type has a long and
complex history, the focus here will be on the more modern, more formal police
service dogs. Since the military dogs – beginning particularly in the First World War
and serving with distinction in Iraq and Afghanistan even as I type these words –
have commonality in function, training and breed they are included to the extent
possible. The modern dual purpose police dogs and the military scout and patrol
dogs are essentially the same in training and function and come out of the same
breeding heritage, and are thus appropriately included here.
The police community by history and the nature of the work tends to be cohesive
and parochial, a band of brothers providing mutual support, right or wrong, in the
ongoing turmoil of fighting crime. Our so-called war on drugs has over the past
several decades accentuated this, and secrecy and deception, necessary in any war,
have also tended to estrange our police services from the public at large. In the real
world, serve and protect is an extremely difficult balance to create and maintain.
Police service by its very nature requires suspicion, the natural tendency toward
the default attitude of mistrust and distance from outsiders. Sometimes gathering
information for publications concerning police affairs tends to bring forth this
distrust, the sense that secrecy is fundamental, that enhanced public knowledge of
training and tactics can only be to the benefit of the adversary, the criminal element.
But my belief is that while this is quite understandable, and that while many areas –
such as details of drug concealment and detection – need to be closely guarded
secrets, broader public understanding of the realities of police service, especially
canine deployment, are good public relations, are to the long-term benefit of police
agencies and individual police officers as well as the community at large. Serving this
need for shared understanding is one of the primary reasons for this book.

2
 Early chapters explore the evolution of the dog and the ongoing relationship with
mankind, particularly as regards the pastoral existence and the canine herding
function. Subsequent chapters explore the historical development and contemporary
application of police style canines, both in the formal police and military context and
in terms of civilian training, breeding and personal and home protection. In order to
understand these applications, it is necessary to have a broad understanding of the
historical evolution of the protection breeds and the trial systems – such as the
German Schutzhund, Dutch Police Trials and the Belgian and French Ring Sports –
that have played such a fundamental role in the evolution and preservation of
effective police canine breeds.
Although much of this will provide background information and insight helpful to
the breeders, trainers and users of police style dogs, this book is in no sense
intended as a practical training manual. Rather it will cover the broad historical
evolution of the police, military and civilian working dog breeds, applications and the
supporting organizations and trial systems. While details of training methods and
procedures are not our subject, hopefully the understanding of the history and
evolution of these breeds, and the realities of contemporary police and military
service, will prove useful to the practical trainer as well as the student of history.
In a work of such broad scope and diverse audience there is always the tendency
to fall into jargon and assume knowledge common to the experienced but foreign to
the casual or inexperienced reader. As an example, using the term "Koehler method"
or just a reference to the man immediately conveys a great deal of information and
implication to most serious dog trainers, but is oblivious to a great many readers. I
generally deal with this with brief introductions, and often put explanatory
information in a footnote.
This work has evolved from many years of training, research and living with the
Bouviers des Flandres and from extensive European travel. Many sections of this
book are rooted in articles appearing over the years, beginning with my days as a
contributing editor to Dog Sports magazine in the 1980s and subsequently on my
various web sites and magazine articles. Much of this research was in preparation for
our award-winning book Bouvier des Flandres, The Dogs of Flanders Fields,
appearing in 1991.
From the beginning the concept for this work has been to strike a balance
between the need for a sequential narrative appropriate to those unfamiliar with the
police canine culture and the natural inclination of the more experienced to go
directly to the subject of interest at the moment. Thus each chapter and section is as
much as possible a standalone work for convenient reference, and the order of the
material is thus in a certain way arbitrary. The consequence has been that some
information has been repeated in slightly different ways in the varying contexts; this
has been a necessary compromise in order to render the individual chapters more
complete and readable on a standalone basis.
One of the difficulties in a book such as this is the seemingly never-ending
organizations with long names and arcane abbreviations, such as AKC, FCI, KNPV,
SV and on and on. But it just cannot be avoided, politics is life and any human
activity involving three or more people is fundamentally political in nature; to
understand the emergence and function of the police dog one must come to terms
with all of these human frailties, conflicts and sometimes even the nobility of the
people driving the process. For reference, there is an appendix with a complete
listing and brief explanation; perhaps in some future parallel universe this sort of
thing can be overcome.
Beginning January 1, 2012 the Schutzhund trial program, created and largely
controlled by the Germans and especially the German Shepherd bureaucrats, was
phased out in favor of the IPO program under international FCI control. This is much

3
more than a bureaucratic realignment, and in fact represents a major watershed in
working canine affairs, as will be extensively addressed in later chapters. In some
places, references to Schutzhund should more formally and correctly be to IPO, but
old habits die hard and the meaning should be taken from the specific context. In
general usage the generic use of the term Schutzhund for the historic trial system as
well as ongoing IPO practice seems likely to persist into the foreseeable future.
Through the years many people have contributed to this book, both directly and
indirectly. These include:
 Kathleen Engel, my wife, always the real breeder at Centauri and the person
who more than any other made this work possible.
 Caya Krisjne-Locker: dog trainer, breeder, KNPV judge and proprietor of the
world famous Caya’s Home Bouvier kennel in the Netherlands. Caya knows as
much about Bouviers as anybody in the world, and shares this knowledge
unstintingly.
 Erik Houttuin, now passed on, served as friend and mentor for many years.
As a Dutchman with extensive European experience, he introduced me first
hand to the Dutch Bouvier community and the exotic world of the KNPV, the
Dutch Police trainers.
 Michael Hasbrouck, French Ring enthusiast, trainer and promoter.
 Gordon Garrett, German Shepherd historian and authority.
 Kimball Vickery, police dog pioneer in Oregon, provided background material,
answered questions and did a detailed review of the manuscript.
 Rik Wolterbeek, Dutch police trainer with many years of American service.
 Lee Jiles provided historical information on the Belgian Shepherds and
reviewed various related text sections in draft form.
 Edmee Bowles, American foundation of the Bouvier des Flandres.
 Ria Klep, pioneering Dutch Schutzhund Bouvier trainer and breeder.

Photos not otherwise credited are my work, or an inadvertent omission, which

please bring to my attention. I am, of course, responsible for all errors, and would be
most grateful to anyone reporting them to me.

Jim Engel,
Marengo

4
1 In the Beginning

The wolf, the progenitor of the dog,

is an extraordinarily effective predator.
He is fleet of foot, of acute hearing and
olfactory capability, strong and bold in
the attack and works effectively in the
cooperative social structure of the
pack, attributes in many ways
naturally well matched for an alliance
with mankind. Although current
scientific thinking is that the process of
domestication was much more
complex than primitive capturing,
taming and thus directly domesticating
wolves to create the dog, the end
result is a remarkable working
partnership. From the beginning man
sought alliance with the dog as an
effective protector in order to take
advantage of these physical attributes
of fleetness and power in his own
struggle to survive and prosper. The
keen canine olfactory capability, acute
hearing and effective night vision are
fundamental components of this
protective functionality, for in order to
repel a marauding predator, man or
The Grey Wolf Photo Jaroslaw Miernik beast, it is necessary to detect his
presence before harm can be done to
livestock, property or members of the
band, family or village.
Once agriculture commenced the crops would have tended to attract growing
populations of varmints and pests, wild animals which at every opportunity would
feed on the crops, in the field or stored after harvest, such as rats and deer. Newly
domesticated animals, such as sheep, would have been enormously vulnerable to
predation. The presence of primitive dogs would have alleviated much of this both by
reducing the local population of prospective guest feeders, perhaps providing meat in
the process, and by driving them away, permanently intimidating them. As
carnivores, dogs or quasi-domesticated proto dogs would not have been inclined to
disturb the crops or stored grain and, as proven by contemporary practice, could
have been managed so as to fend off predators on the livestock while abstaining
themselves.
The use of the dog in livestock husbandry and herding was an enormously
important aspect of the contribution of the dog to the survival, advancement and
prosperity of mankind. Although the use of contemporary herding dogs, particularly
in the British Isles, often does not involve an important guardian role this is from the
historical perspective a recent and unusual set of circumstances. In earlier and more
primitive times, and over much of the world even today, herding and livestock

5
guarding was and is as much defense against predators as containment, control and
movement of the livestock itself. The common American or British perception of
herding as being what Border Collies do on television or in the recently fashionable
amateur herding trials reflects a very time and regional specific culture where control
and manipulation of the sheep is the totality of the functionality. This situation has
come about because of the eradication of the more significant predators in the British
Isles several centuries ago.
Conventional wisdom, as espoused in popular literature and general canine
books, is that man directly domesticated wolves to create the dog by capturing,
taming and selectively breeding wolf pups. This process, which would have occurred
over long periods of time, with false starts and failures along the way, and perhaps
in many places independently, would eventually have led to the breeding of animals
living out entire lives in the company of man. The taming process would no doubt
have been precarious with many becoming wild and aggressive as they matured and
thus eventually being culled or returning to the wild. But from time to time some, the
less aggressive and more tractable, and thus better adapted to life with man, would
eventually have been bred while living with the band or within the village and the
ongoing selection for the more tamable would gradually have increased the physical
and psychological differences from the wolf population.
So prevalent is this view that it is widely assumed as established scientific fact.
Yet the current literature belies this perception, that is, many current researchers
increasingly believe that the dog is likely not directly descended from the grey wolf
at all, but rather from an intermediate species or sub species, depending on the
particular viewpoint being espoused. Thus while the wolf and the dog are very
closely related, the emerging modern view is that there most likely was an
intermediate non-domesticated breed or stage of development, which would have
evolved and changed, thus distancing the first domesticated dogs from the wolf in
terms of time and evolutionary state. Furthermore, if these views come to
predominate under ongoing scientific scrutiny, increasingly likely, it will mean that
man did not directly domesticate the wolf after all, but rather an existing wild or
quasi-domesticated canid distinct from the wolf. This is of enormous importance, not
only for the advancement of science, but because the existing mythology contributed
to enormously misguided, ineffective and even damaging practices in canine
breeding and especially training. The "alpha wolf" concept of dog training is dead,
and being put to rest. We are the better for it.
Over the past thirty years science has made enormous strides in understanding
the evolution of the human race, knowledge of fundamental practical importance in
understanding the structure of modern society and the behavior of men, tribes and
nations even today. New tools of science such as linguistic analysis and investigation
of mitochondrial DNA sequence variation have resolved controversies and provided
revolutionary insight. In coming to understand ourselves better our relationship with
the domestic canine has been enhanced; these novel scientific methodologies have
also been applied to the canine with equally significant and far reaching results.
There are practical consequences of this for dog breeders and trainers as well as
historians. As an example, the concept of the alpha wolf has permeated the literature
and gospel of dog training over the past thirty years, almost anything can be and has
been justified and verified in terms of "just like the alpha wolf," perhaps most
notably the once popularly promoted concept of the alpha roll. Yet David Mech, who
popularized much of this in his famous 1970 book, has in the intervening years
fundamentally revised his views and publicly urged his publisher to take the obsolete
book out of print in favor of his subsequent work. (Mech, The Wolf: Ecology and
Behavior of an Endangered Species, 1970) (Mech, Personal Web Site)

6
 This enormous progress in the biological sciences in recent decades offers the
hope of better breeding, training, medical care and nutrition for our canine
companions. Most of this is sound science supported by substantial DNA evidence,
archeological discoveries and other scientific evaluation procedures which have come
into use. But there is always an element of conjecture in the popular literature and
care is needed to separate actual scientific reporting from amateur speculation,
especially extreme speculation intended to popularize a person, a point of view or a
commercial activity. All new knowledge and interpretation of existing knowledge
needs to be applied with common sense and caution, for there can be danger in
making simple minded interpretations and applying them blindly to training, breeding
and discipline. We do not need to repeat the sort of nonsense propagated in canine
circles based on the alpha wolf concept, which was always more hype than science.

Canine Origins
In the 1750s the famous Swedish biologist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus evolved a
classification system for plants and animals, thus creating the field of taxonomy. In
his system species with similar appearance were grouped into the genus, and the
Latin word for the dog, Canis, became the genus Canidae in which he classified the
wolf, fox, dog, jackals, coyotes and other similar creatures. The dog was viewed as a
species, and a number of sub species were identified according to general physical
appearance. It had long been known that dogs and wolves are very closely related,
as they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. By the 1990s modern molecular
biology had demonstrated that the gray wolf (Canis lupus) is the common ancestor
of the domestic dog and many authorities therefore reclassified the dog as a
subspecies of the wolf, that is, Canis lupus familiaris.
More recently some authorities, such as Coppinger, have nevertheless contended
that for practical and evolutionary reasons the domestic dog is best thought of as a
separate species. One consideration is that dogs can also produce viable offspring
when bred to coyotes and jackals, which are themselves separate canine species.
But more fundamentally they argue that although closely related the dog and wolf
are separate species because they have developed marked differences in
appearance, physiology, social mode and biological niche, and generally do not
interbreed in nature because of these differences.
All of this is important in our context because the concept of the dog as a
subspecies of the grey wolf implies that the first dogs were directly tamed and thus
large, aggressive pack oriented predators. There are, however, problems with this
perspective because such animals would have been very difficult to deal with, and
also because the dogs found with existent primitive peoples are much smaller, less
aggressive and less pack oriented. Contemporary thinking has increasingly
gravitated to the concept that the first domestic dogs were in fact very similar to
these smaller, much less aggressive dogs, which implies that there is an
intermediate evolutionary stage or species between the gray wolf and the first dogs.
This has far reaching implications.
Although there is much speculation about the relationship between mankind and
the progenitors of the domestic dog prior to the transition from hunter-gatherer to
pastoral and agricultural life, solid archeological evidence is sparse. The popular and
dramatic view of man the great hunter taming the wolf and teaming with him in the
pursuit of big game has little direct evidence and serious practical ramifications.
Janice Koler-Matznick remarks:
"At that time, humans had only clubs, axes, spears and knives. With these
tools, stealth and ambush are used to secure large prey. Wolves are
extremely difficult to condition to reliably inhibit inherent behavior. They

7
 instinctively chase large prey, and thus would hinder humans hunting
cursorial (quick running) game, rather than assist. Wolves are also
extremely food-possessive. If hungry tamed wolves did secure prey,
humans would have to fight them for it. Dingoes provide a modern
example of tamed wild canids as hunting aids. The Aborigines used dingoes
to locate small prey that goes to ground or trees, but prevented dingoes
from following when hunting kangaroos because the dingoes chased them
off. If tamed wild canids are not useful aids, for hunting cursorial game and
smaller canids are as proficient at locating smaller prey, there is no reason
to keep large wolves in domestication." (Koler-Matznick, 2002)
Thus it would seem likely that prior to agriculture and pastoral life men and
wolves may have interacted in various ways, perhaps with either scavenging from
the other according to the luck of the hunt. Wolves living in proximity to human
encampments or villages in order to scavenge may have inadvertently alerted in the
event of an intruder, just as the cry of the crow sometimes gives warning to the
observant man walking in the forest. But a directly tamed wolf is clearly
problematical as actively cooperating in the large game animal hunt or living in close
relationship to the human band. The ancestral role of the dog in seeking out game
and participating in the hunt for smaller game, driving them to ground or into the
trees where they could be dispatched and harvested, is much better established by
archeological evidence and observation of contemporary primitive practice than
actual participation in the pursuit and slaying of large game animals.
Although villages or long-term encampments occurred sporadically in the hunter-
gatherer era, in especially supportive locations, the advent of pastoral and
agricultural living, very roughly about 12,000 years ago, was the point in time at
which there begins to be substantial evidence of the human-canine relationship as
we know it. The band of hunter-gatherers was always on the move, often making
brief camps in the open, leaving little in the way of evidence of a primitive canine
association or anything else; many things remain uncertain in our current state of
knowledge.
Once planting and crop tending began mankind became tied to the soil and thus
gave up the mobile way of life. Archaeological evidence is strong that the dog was
present very early in this process. The immediate consequence of agricultural or
village life was the creation and disposal of edible waste in the immediate area rather
than spread across the countryside as the band moved in pursuit of game to hunt,
carrion to scavenge or the abundance of nature to gather. All known primitive
villages, those without a dogcatcher and eradication process, have quasi-tamed dogs
belonging to no one in particular which live as scavengers, on the social margins, on
the waste material. Even today large metropolitan areas, such as Moscow,
sometimes have significant populations of indigenous canines with the same general
physical attributes and quasi-domestic ecological niche.
In recent years Raymond Coppinger and others have theorized that as man
gradually adapted to fixed agricultural life elements of the regional wolf population
concurrently evolved into scavenging canines living on the periphery of human
society and villages. Their view is that the discarded human waste in a fixed location
attracted wolves as scavengers, and that gradually populations of these wolves
became more and more dependent and as a consequence became less wild, smaller,
with proportionately smaller heads and teeth, in other words, gradually became dogs
or proto dogs. Modern DNA analysis is gradually producing significant evidence to
support such speculation. (Coppinger & Coppinger, 2001)
In this view man did not domesticate the wolf at all, rather elements of the wolf
population through scavenging on village waste gradually evolved into the dog, or an
intermediate species, without any direct intervention, selection or even desire of

8
men. Even to this day in many societies, particularly in the Middle East, dogs are
regarded as unclean and much more of a nuisance than an asset, to be despised
rather than used or loved.
Others, such as Koler-Matznick, take the point of view that the primitive
agricultural village could not in general have supplied enough edible waste to support
the evolution of a population of proto dogs. (Or, in her words by private
communication: "The hunter-gatherer lifestyle did not produce enough refuse to
nourish canids as large as the wolf. If the wolf was domesticated, this started long
before there were permanent farming villages.")
Her view is that the available evidence most satisfactorily supports the concept of
domestic dogs as descended from a species of medium-sized generalist canids, a
truly wild species derived from but distinct from the wolf, that voluntarily adopted
the pariah niche and remained commensal, that is living on human waste food
without providing substantial benefit in return, for an extensive period before some
populations became truly domesticated.
The problem with this is that it is difficult to imagine an intermediate species not
able to obtain sufficient food from the waste of the human population being able to
compete with the wolf and other established predators. If this hypothetical
independent, intermediate species did in fact exist, the question becomes how did it
sustain itself, that is, what did it actually eat?
My view of this is that while the theories of Dr. Coppinger, Koler-Matznick and the
many other contributors may seem to differ in significant ways this might well turn
out to be primarily a matter of emphasis and the timing of the domestication process
rather than irreconcilable fundamental differences. There is a solidifying consensus
that there was an intermediate stage between the wolf and the domestication
process, and the primary questions are about how long did the process take, where
were these intermediate animals living, and how did they sustain themselves. Since
there are no old world coyotes, and since we know of reasonably successful
instances of taming new world coyote pups, perhaps the intermediate population was
similar to the coyote, filled a similar ecological niche.
The general view of the scientific community is that the transition to agriculture
was a response to growing populations, more and more people were competing for
limited resources and gradually some began to plant and then increasingly tend
crops. This was likely much more out of necessity than preference, for agricultural
life was generally harder, disease more prevalent and diversity and quality of food in
the village much less than for the hunter-gatherer band in pristine regions with
abundant natural food. In this view it was the lessening of this abundance due to
population increase that was the driving force behind the innovation of agriculture. It
would seem that even primitive men preferred a life of hunting and fishing – sending
the women and children out to gather the bounty of nature – to the labor of planting,
tending, gathering and processing grain. And perhaps the same diminishing supply of
food put pressure on the wolf to adapt along with the human populations; the fact
that the original domestic dogs were smaller with proportionately smaller teeth,
skulls and brains may have been an adaptation to hard times, a restricted food
supply.
The emergence of the dog as the despised scavenger on the edge of the human
social structure will no doubt strike many as less heartwarming than the traditional
notion of domestication by direct human intervention. The trouble is that people like
and want to believe nice stories, that is, taking puppies home for the children to play
with and having them grow up as dogs and living happily ever after is a lot more
appealing than the dirty village dogs that are there primarily to live by consuming
human waste. But the premise of an intermediate scavenger or pariah stage rather

9
than direct wolf domestication is compelling in many ways and seems likely to
emerge in time as the conventional wisdom.
Furthermore, contemporary efforts to tame wolves taken from the wild and wolf
and dog crosses have tended to be difficult; such animals must be kept in elaborate
pens or runs and cases of taking a wolf pup home and raising it in a normal pet
situation, even with the most capable trainer, virtually do not exist. While wolf pups
can to some extent be tamed, in general they are exceedingly difficult to train, that
is, teach to reliably come, bring, stay or sit on command.
Thus while it had been common to accept the dog as the result of a simple
process of man taming and domesticating the grey wolf, in the current scientific
thinking the domestication process turns out to be much more complex, with a
number of conundrums and apparent contradictions. For instance, the social
structure of the canine, that is, the dynamics of the pack, and the in many ways
similar structure of the hunter-gatherer bands are commonly put forth as the basis
of the human – canine alliance. Since the social structures are similar the migration
of individuals from one to the other would seem to provide a sound basis for
domestication.
A common counter example is that many of the larger wild cats are much more
powerful than any canine, but their solitary social structure makes training and
control in general problematic. Men may live with small domestic cats, but the cats
retain their fundamental independence and do not generally work at the direction of
or in direct cooperation with man, there are no herding or personal protection cats. If
they catch a mouse or a rat, it is because they are hungry or interested in the sport
of it, you cannot command a cat to go out and kill a mouse. Also, in domesticating a
predator, one which is physically smaller tends to tip the scale in deciding who is
ultimately boss in favor of the man.
The fact that men have trained cheetahs for hunting and large cats in circus acts
are common would on the surface seem to contradict this. Also, it has been pointed
out that you do not see wolves in circus acts because they are so much more difficult
to train.1
Perhaps the key to this conundrum is to focus on the distinction between the
concepts of tame and domesticated. As Ádám Miklósi comments:
"Biologists prefer to study domestication in the context of evolution. For
example, Price defines domestication as an 'evolutionary process by which
a population of animals becomes adapted to man and to the captive
environment by genetic changes.' Thus domestication is a Darwinian
process including forms of selection that are present in natural
populations." (Miklósi, 2007)
Dogs and sheep are domesticated, changed fundamentally in the process, while
Indian elephants are tamed, taken from the wild and trained to work. The reason for
taming rather than domesticating elephants seems to be that nature provides a
reliable and cost effective source of supply, negating any potential advantages of
actual domestication. Jared Diamond points out that only a very small number of
wild animals are practical candidates for domestication, for a variety of reasons
ranging from difficulty of reproduction in captivity to inherent difficulty in taming.
(Diamond, 1999) He goes on to point out that none of the large African grazing
1
Of course, it might well be that wolves are not common in circuses because their size
and similarity in appearance to domestic dogs would limit the audience appeal. The
existence of wolf acts in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, actually Borzois
(Russian wolfhounds) and white German Shepherds were used, has been brought to my
attention as a counter example.

10
animals such as the zebra and various antelope species have ever been
domesticated either for food or as draft or transportation animals in spite of repeated
and determined efforts. No large animals other than the dog and llama, very limited
in range and impact, were domesticated for either food or transport in the Americas
or Sub-Sahara Africa, a major factor in European world domination. (Diamond, 1999)
The dog is unique in that it is the only really large predator ever successfully
domesticated.
Taming is distinct from domestication, a process of taking a wild animal – a wolf,
bear or elephant - and by means of training, feeding and association modify the
behavior so that it will respond to various commands and refrain from killing you the
first time you turn your back. As we have seen, cheetahs, lions, tigers and bears can
to some extent be tamed, that is, to perform in circus acts. The severe injuries in the
Siegfried and Roy tiger act in Las Vegas a few years ago serve as a reminder that
this is an extremely shallow and hazardous process. Yet the fact remains that the big
cats are to some extent trained to a greater extent than has proven possible for the
wolf.
How then, if the wolf is so difficult to tame and then train for useful work, did the
dog become man’s best friend? Cats are domesticated but carry on their original
mode of existence, that is, hunt mice. Cats do not engage in cooperative activity –
herding, joint hunting – because in nature they lead a solitary rather than a
cooperative life. Cats are domesticated but do not take on new roles or work
cooperatively with their owners, are famously independent even in domestication.
Notice that all domestic cats are very small, small enough to insure that the man will
always be physically dominant, win a physical confrontation. Dogs are dangerous to
man primarily in packs and groups, and cats simply do not form groups. Dogs are
useful in cooperative work primarily because of the inherent social structure of the
ancestral canids. Taking a wolf for training is extremely difficult, but when derived
canids can be integrated into the human social structure training becomes
enormously successful and useful.
So how can you domesticate what you cannot tame? The answer would seem to
be that you cannot, but the dog evolved independently of man’s direct intervention
as a scavenger on the edge of human society, perhaps most importantly on the edge
of villages as man converted from hunting and gathering to agriculture. In this
process they became smaller, with proportionately smaller skulls and teeth, as
adaptations to living in a world of scarce food. In a similar way, as the Coppinagers
point out, the tight, cooperative pack structure gave way to much more independent
existence, for in scavenging others are there to share the food but not particularly
useful for obtaining it as they are in the hunt. At the edge of the village, other canids
are competitors rather than partners.
Koler-Matznick's differing view, via private communication, is that
"the dog ancestor was not a cooperative pack hunter of large game and
instead had the most common form of canid social organization, the mated
territorial pair that hunts small game. Note that the mid-size canids, the
coyote and Golden jackal, have the ability to be flexible in their social
groupings, and where there is plentiful larger prey like deer, they can form
long-term family groups to take advantage of the larger game."
At this point I leave the discussion to the experts, for I certainly do not have the
credentials to affirm or discredit any particular theory of the canine domestication
process. The purpose of this discussion has been to emphasize that dogs are much
more and much less than domesticated wolves, and that we need to be more careful
in statements beginning with "Since dogs are just domesticated wolves..."
The taming or domestication process for the dog occurred very rapidly, for after
millions of years of separate existence the dog emerged as part of mankind's

11
transition to agricultural and pastoral existence. This is in some ways contrary to
evolution as an acumination of random, accidental genetic modifications, implying
that the genetic basis of the dog was latent in the wolf for a very long time.
Key insights to the special nature of this canine domestication process have been
provided by the groundbreaking work on the taming of the silver fox by the Russian
scientist Dmitry Belyaev, commencing in the 1950s. Beginning with a foundation
population of foxes selected for apparent tameness, from existing stock being raised
for their pelts, and then in each generation selecting based only on tameness, within
30 to 35 generations the population had become to a very significant extent
domesticated. But, even though tameness had been the only selection criteria, there
were dramatic physical changes including floppy ears, short tails, short legs, lighter
colors and dental malformations, attributes generally associated with the canine.
Physical and psychological traits seemed locked together genetically in a way very
similar to that of the domestic dog. (Wang & Tedford, 2008)
There are significant ramifications here for the training and application of dogs.
In recent years the social structure and dynamics of the wolf pack has provided a lot
of the theory and verbiage in dog training literature and like many newly fashionable
concepts is perhaps taken beyond what is really warranted. If the self-domestication
scenario popularized by Coppinger, but growing out of extensive earlier work,
becomes the new conventional wisdom, perhaps too literal an interpretation of wolf
pack structure and dynamics will come to be seen as misleading as a guide to canine
training and application.
In recent years analysis of human mitochondrial DNA sequence variation has
indicated a common female ancestor for mankind about 100,000 years ago in Africa,
leading to the increasingly predominant Out of Africa theory of human origins.
Similar genetic analysis techniques have more recently been applied to the domestic
dog.
A 2002 article in Science magazine by Dr. Peter Savolainen, of the Royal Institute
of Technology in Sweden, reported on the analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequence
variation among 654 domestic dogs. Savolainen concluded that the most likely
scenario for the emergence of the domestic dog is from a common origin in a single
gene pool for all dog populations in a relatively short time about 9,000 to 14,000
years ago in eastern Asia, that is, the general region of China and South East Asia.
The canine DNA evidence indicates three females rather than a single maternal origin
for the domestic canine. Subsequent breeding back to wolves in some canine
populations is also supported by this evidence. (Savolainen, 2002)
Although there were subsequent claims of much earlier origination, a 2009 report
of much more comprehensive research by this group, which includes Dr. Savolainen,
lends further support to the earlier date:
"The mean sequence distance to ancestral haplotypes indicates an origin
5,400–16,300 years ago from at least 51 female wolf founders. These
results indicate that the domestic dog originated in southern China less
than 16,300 years ago, from several hundred wolves. The place and time
coincide approximately with the origin of rice agriculture, suggesting that
the dogs may have originated among sedentary hunter-gatherers or early
farmers, and the numerous founders indicate that wolf taming was an
important culture trait." (Pang, 2009)
Notice that while these genetic analyses of current dogs are of primary interest,
none of this eliminates the possibility of previous instances of regionalized sub
populations of wolves adapting physically and psychologically in an ongoing
relationship with primitive men. Such populations of pseudo dogs may have emerged
any number of times, only to become extinct as circumstances changed, and thus
leave no genetic remnants in our dogs of today.

12
 Although there was at one time speculation of genetic contributions to the
domestic dog from the other canids such as the jackal or coyote, these results of
DNA analysis and other evidence clearly indicate that this was never so. While it is
possible for a dog bred to a jackal or coyote to produce fertile offspring, the
occurrence of this is so unusual, virtually absent in nature, that no detectable
contribution to the current domestic dog gene pool is known to exist.
By saying indirectly descended it is meant that man did not domesticate the wolf
but rather a pariah like intermediate species. Regardless of the exact details of the
domestication process, and the fact that dogs and wolves can interbreed and
produce fertile hybrids, the dog is seen today as a separate and distinct species. The
fact that dogs returning to the wild do not take on the type, form and character of
the wolf but rather become very similar to the common pariah or the dingo is strong
supporting evidence for this view.
Subsequent to the initial domestication, and during their long association with
mankind, many fundamental differences in appearance, character and genetically
determined behavior propensities have evolved and been selected for to produce the
many diverse breeds now existent, further distancing the domestic dog from the wolf
and intermediate species. Thus while there is potential insight into dog behavior to
be gained from a study of the wolf and its social structure, it must be applied with
care and caution and only where actual experience verifies speculation.
To some it has seemed plausible that pastoral existence – that is, gradually
guiding and controlling a herd of reindeer, sheep or other stock animal in the process
of domestication – may have had a different mechanism, that is, been a process of
concurrent domestication of the stock animal and the appropriate herding dog. This
seems not to be the case. According to Dr. Myrdene Anderson (Anderson, 1986) the
domesticators of the reindeer, the Laplanders (or more correctly people of the Saami
culture) brought preexisting dogs with them as they migrated into the area from the
east. (Private communication) Although the Saami reindeer-herding dog was
fundamental to the domestication of the reindeer, it was never used as a sled dog,
transport being provided by the reindeer, usually castrated males. (Anderson, 1986)
The use of the dog for the sled team was typical of the Inuit or Eskimo cultures of
Siberia, the far north of America and on to Greenland. These dogs are also believed
to have gradually migrated into these northern areas along with the original
populations, as ongoing existence in these extremely cold regions without these dogs
was likely not possible.
In many regions, even to some reduced extent today, sheep are maintained in
massive herds and moved many miles, even hundreds of miles, yearly for forage in
the presence of serious predators such as the wolf. This process is highly dependent
on the use of herd guarding dogs, and although some postulate that this way of life
involved the concurrent domestication of the dog along with the sheep it seems likely
that the evolution of this way of life was dependent on the adaptation of the
necessary guarding dogs from preexisting domesticated dogs. Furthermore, as the
Coppingers point out, these guard dogs are not really bred by man in the sense of
selecting particular stud dogs for females in heat, since even today breeding occurs
to whatever dogs are acceptable to the female and litters likely produce pups from
several sires, with a preponderance of herd guarding dogs the norm because of
proximity but not excluding local dogs of every description. It is the selection process
subsequent to birth rather than the human directed selection of breeding pairs that
maintains these herd guarding dogs.
The emergence of the pastoral or herding dog is of particular interest and
significance in the story of the protection dog, for the modern police patrol dog, the
ultimate example of the genre, has emerged primarily from one very specific region

13
and culture, that is, the northern European tending style sheep dogs and the cattle
dogs of the same general region, such as the Belgian and German Shepherds.
Even from the beginning the dog, even the quasi-domesticated scavenger, would
provide a warning at the approach of other animals or hostile human beings on a
raid. The human-canine partnership evolved through many phases and in many
different settings, and the ability to alert and warn of, and possibly also fend off or
attack, intruding adversaries was a primary benefit of the association. Especially at
night the dog’s sensitive hearing and sense of smell provided security both to the
people and to the domestic or quasi domestic animals their sustenance depended on.
Intrusion detection, protection and defense were from the beginning a major part of
what the dog brought to the partnership with mankind.
The popular vision of the first dogs as hunting partners for wandering bands of
hunter-gatherers is problematic on two levels. If dogs were actually directly tamed
wolves – doubtful in light of current science – taking their food away from them
would have been extremely difficult, and in such a scenario the question becomes
what advantage the partnership would have provided to the newly tamed wolves.
Modern attempts to tame wolf pups taken days old from the nest never produce
adult dogs remotely useful for the sort of hunting envisioned. And if such a
partnership was viable, why did it only come into existence just before widespread
agriculture, rather than during the thousands of years when the wolf and hunter-
gatherers coexisted? If on the other hand the direct ancestor of the dog was the
thirty-pound scavenger of the village edge these incipient dogs would not have been
powerful hunters, but perhaps would have at best been useful for seeking out
smaller prey animals, perhaps for the human beings to dispatch.
Coppinger speculates that although there is scattered, often indirect, evidence of
canine associations as far back as 12 or 13 thousand years, the comprehensive
human-canine partnership began to flourish with the advent of agriculture, that while
the evidence for partnership in the hunt is tentative and sparse the evidence for dogs
as integral to the advent of widespread agriculture is broad and robust. This would
mean that the foundation canine roles were the herding dog and the varmint or pest
eradication dog that kept wild animals from consuming crops before they could
mature and be harvested. (Coppinger & Coppinger, 2001)page 283
Our knowledge of the evolution of the dog is ongoing and will without doubt
become more detailed and nuanced as archaeological discoveries are made and the
evolving tools of modern science such as genetic DNA analysis provide more firm
information as a basis on which to speculate. But for our purposes present
knowledge is more than ample to establish that the protective function of the dog
has played a major and perhaps at times irreplaceable role in the story of European
civilization from the very beginnings, as evidenced in the mythology of Rome where
Romulus and Remus, abandoned in the wilderness, were suckled by the she wolf and
thus survived to found the city and the empire.
In summary, the state of current science is that the domestic dog is descended,
probably indirectly, but primarily or entirely from the gray wolf. Earlier speculation of
genetic links to the jackal or coyote have largely gone out of favor. While this had
been the growing consensus over many years, the twenty-first century canine
genome research has served to confirm and emphasize this, as well as promise much
future knowledge. (Ostrander & Wayne, 2005)
Over more than twenty centuries, from before the Greeks and Romans, and well
into the twentieth century, a good dog was a necessity for virtually every European
farmer, stockman and herdsman. As Justin Chastel, Belgian working dog breeder
born prior to the First World War, said to me in recalling his childhood "when the sun
went down, all a farmer and his family had was his dog. There were no lights, no
police patrols and no telephones to summon help."

14
The Molossers
Throughout history the land has increasingly been owned and ruled by a small
elite, be they the lords of the manor of medieval Europe, the plantation owners of
the American South or the British or Dutch colonists of South Africa. Whether those
working the land or in the mines were serfs, peasants, slaves, tenant farmers or
share croppers the outcome was
much the same: those who
possessed the land or owned the
mine worked little or not at all
and benefited enormously, took
the necessities for granted and
luxuries as they came while those
who toiled the soil lived at a bare
sustenance level. Of course none
of this was ever really voluntary;
few of us would choose to be
enslaved or tied to the land or to
work in the mine.
Just as each class had its
function and place in life, they
also had dogs according to their
needs, desires and resources.
The shepherds and farmers had
their herding dogs, later to
emerge into formal breeds, and
the house dogs of the lower class
tended to be smaller and less
expensive to feed and keep.
Those in power maintained it
by force and rigorous social
bounds, ever vigilant to quench
any uprising from below, any sign
of rebellion. And rebellion has
always been just under the
Cane Corso
surface, be it the slaves of Rome
or the slaves of the American South. Usually these uprisings are crushed, but
sometimes they succeed, as in the French revolution which went on to change the
social fabric of Europe or the revolution of the slaves in Haiti which succeeded in
taking over that nation. Other successful rebellions lead to an even more oppressive
ruling class as in the Russian Revolution of 1918.
Just as firearms, and earlier weapons such as swords, were held away from the
working classes, large and powerful dogs were largely in the service of the rich and
powerful. If the aftermath of our American Revolution the right of the people to hold
arms was enshrined in our constitution, and although there is not a canine equivalent
of the second amendment free Americans of all classes came to possess these large,
powerful dogs, as in the progenitors of the American Bulldog in the rural South.
The classic examples would be the large English Mastiff and corresponding
national breeds such as the Dogue De Bordeaux in France and Cane Corso in Italy.
As European colonists spread around the world local variants emerged such as the
Dogo Argentino, Fila Brasileiro and Boerboel of South Africa. In many instances these
dogs protected the landowner’s interests beyond the immediate premises, as for
instance the function of the gamekeeper and his dog was to keep the peasant classes

15
from poaching on the game in the landowner’s forest. And, of course, all of the forest
belonged to one powerful lord or another; there was generally relatively little public
land open to the common man for sport or sustenance.
The term Molosser has come into use for these large, powerful dogs, usually with
down ears, a foreshortened muzzle and a short coat. The term Mastiff is sometimes
used as synonymous, but better usage is generally to reserve that term for the
original English Mastiff and its variants. Other nations and languages adopted their
own vernacular such as Dogge in German and dogue or dogo in French or Italian.
This terminology is in actual practice poorly defined and often confusing. In
general working dog conversation a distinction is made between the herding dogs or
herders and the mastiff style or Molosser, such as the American Bulldog. But the
Rottweiler is generally thought of as deriving from herding or droving dogs but yet is
often included in Molosser lists.
It is most important to realize that classifications such as Molosser and herder
are broad and have great overlap, and that many if not most breeds encompassed
by such classifications will have significant ancestry from other kinds of dog.
Comparative statements are particularly treacherous in that any generalization will
have numerous exceptions. State that the Molosser breeds are in general massive
and powerful and many will be quick to point out that many Boxers are less massive
than individual German Shepherds. The Rottweiler is commonly thought of as a
Molosser and by many others as a herding dog, and can thus be enlisted on either
side of any argument.
As an example, consider the Presa Canario of the Canary Islands. This is the
historical summary direct from the FCI standard:
"Molosser dog native of the islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, in the
Canary Archipelago. Emerging as a result of crosses between the
"majorero", a pre-Hispanic cattle dog originating from the islands, and
molosser dogs brought to the archipelago.
These crosses originated an ethnic grouping of dogs of "dogo" type, of
medium size, of brindle or fawn color, marked with white, of robust
morphology, characteristic of a molosser, but with agility and drive of
tremendous temperament, rustic and of an active and loyal character.
During the XVI and XVII centuries their population increased considerably.
Numerous mentions of them exist in the historical texts prior to the
conquest, mainly in the "Documents of the Town Council" which explained
the functions that they fulfilled. Essentially they functioned as a guardian
and cattle dog, as well subdued the cattle for the butchers."
The problem with all of this is that much of it is based on promotional enthusiasm
rather than objective, verifiable historical fact. Actual records of descent, a studbook,
only commenced in the 1960s or 70s. The process, as always, was on the basis of
"Yes, that one looks like it might be a Presa Canario." This is by no means intended
to slight this particular breed; this is exactly how the German Shepherds, the Belgian
Shepherds and the Bouviers came into existence as formal breeds. This is how all
breeds commence. Talk about this or that breed being descended from dogs brought
by the Romans two millennia ago and similar foundation mythology tends to
incorporate a great deal of poetic license in that these primitive types are continually
being genetically modified by random breedings to whatever is locally available.
While the Presa Canario is thought of as the Molosser type in actual fact a significant
portion of the genetic heritage is that of the native herding dogs present on the
islands prior to the more recent Spanish colonization.
A simple statement of origins is never enough to characterize a breed, for the
decisions of the breeders subsequent to the melding of the two originating types

16
must have had a profound influence on the dogs before us today, and these breeders
were among the farmers and cattlemen. The similarity to the Rottweiler is striking,
and it would seem reasonable to think of both of these breeds as intermediate
between the Molossers and the herders, perhaps even with a preponderance of
herder in functional terms.
Although substantial plantations predominated in many favorable regions of the
south, North America in general came to be dominated by independent family farms.
In the hill regions of the South in particular, Molosser style dogs for farm protection
and bull and hog control came into the hands of these small, family based
landholders. These dogs tended to be a little smaller, a little more quick and agile
than the classic English Mastiff. Remnants of these rural southern farm dogs formed
the basis of the American Bulldog after the Second World War.
In general the Molosser is thought of as heavy boned, large and powerful rather
than quick, fleet and agile. The bite is a methodical grip rather than a quick strike.
The typical short muzzle is characteristic of the guard dog relying on sight and sound
rather than olfactory prowess. In general, the attack of the Molosser was to be
direct, strong and persistent. Indeed, the Bulldog has become the ubiquities
personification of relentless, dogged persistence.
The herding dogs of protection dog discussions are not generally of the Border
Collie type of southern Scotland and northern England, where the land is sparse and
the sheep disperse to forage rather than remain in flocks, but rather tending style
dogs from northern European areas of Germany, the Low Countries and northern
France. The quintessential example of this was the dogs of the shepherds,
progenitors of the Belgian, Dutch and German Shepherds, who in the herding past
were primarily tending and guarding dogs needed where flocks were large, needed to
be kept intact and needed to be defended from serious predators.
Thus these tending style herders needed immense stamina to contain, guard and
guide the herd night and day. Such dogs were quick and fleet rather than large and
powerful. Being lighter boned and less massive than the Molosser, the power of the
attack comes from the quick strike rather than massive power. The muzzle tends to
be longer for more efficient breathing and for the olfactory capability necessary in
searching out strayed herd members.
While the function of the Molosser is to engage an opponent and prevent his
escape; that of the herder is different in fundamental ways. The primary duty of the
herder is to protect the flock or herd, which means that when an intruder retreats he
must react in a manner opposite to the Molosser, that is, break off the attack and
stay with the herd. Wolves and other predators are often quite canny; perfectly
capable of sending a couple to draw off the dogs in an extended chase while the
remainder can have their way with the herd.
In addition to the Molossers and herders, many regions had specific breeds or
types for predator eradication, such as the Irish and Russian wolfhounds. These
tended to be sight oriented chase dogs and were of entirely different breeding,
structure and character from the herding dogs or Molossers. These sight hounds
have had relatively little practical human protection or police application.
This distinction between the slower, powerful, dogged attack of the Molosser and
the quick strike, often with a quick release, of the herder plays a pivotal role in the
selection of breeds for modern functions such as police dog, guard dog and personal
protection. The effectiveness of police dog service in Europe is largely a consequence
of the various training, trial and breeding systems such as Schutzhund and the Dutch
Police or KNPV trial systems, which began to emerge very early in the twentieth
century. Just as police service emphasized the herders, these trials were primarily
participated in by the traditional herder based police breeds such as the German

17
Shepherd, Malinois, Bouvier and the others. Other breeds developed specifically as
police style working dogs, such as the Doberman Pinscher, also played a part.
The Molosser style dogs, other than the Rottweiler and Boxer, have generally not
been represented, and their participation has tended to decline with time. There has
been a double edged sword aspect to this, the trial systems were set up to
emphasize the nature of the herders, that is the quickness, and especially the control
in the emphasis on quick outs, recalls and automatic guard rather than engagement
when the adversary stands still. And this is not discrimination against other styles of
dogs, for these trials emphasize the natural tendencies of the larger, more robust
tending style herders precisely because they are the most useful and effective in
actual police service.
French Ring especially emphasizes the extreme aspects of the herding dog
nature, with great emphasis on quickness and agility in engaging a helper who is
expected to be deceptive and evasive. This is not really ever going to be to the
advantage of the Molosser, although in America we have seen at least one Ring III
American Bulldog.
This is a dilemma for the advocates of the Molosser breeds, especially those in
increasing popularity where there is a strong desire to emphasize proven working
capability. If these breeds are bred for success in Schutzhund and Ring, they will
need to become smaller, more agile, less bull dog like and quicker in the bite. But
will this in reality only diminish the traditional attributes of the breed, the power,
massiveness and strength? Is evolving a Molosser line into a pseudo herder ever
really the right direction?
Some Americans, such as Dominic Donovan on the east coast, have attempted to
create new breeds free of European domination and control, a new start in a new
land. Although precise combinations are closely held secrets, this seems quite
evidently an effort to combine some of the more robust and energetic Molossers with
short coated herders, mostly Malinois and perhaps Dutch Shepherds. In principle
there is no reason to object to this, Americans in general need to grow up and stand
on our own feet rather than sucking up to Europe; but it a difficult undertaking.
But would these dogs be Molossers? How much Malinois blood can you
incorporate and not have Malinois with a little outside breeding to maintain vigor,
size or whatever the needs of the moment seem to be, as in the Dutch police lines?
Are weight pulling or hog catching trials an answer? In this day and age the draft
dog is obsolete, even illegal in much of Europe, and the traditional bull and hog work
was in steep decline when the American Bulldog was pulled together by advocates in
the south like John Johnson and Alan Scott to preserve this heritage as the way of
southern life changed, eliminating their function just as the herding breeds were
established in Europe as police style patrol dogs half a century earlier for the same
reasons. (The Johnson dogs, created by crossing with English Bulldogs, are much
more massive and ponderous than the more athletic and functional Scott style dogs.)
In the big picture, the American and French revolutions stripping the ancient
regime of its land, its power and often its lives and the Industrial Revolution, moving
the masses from the land to the cities and putting power in the hands of an
emerging commercial and merchant class, have made the Molosser style dog less
prominent as the working herders of the lower classes have emerged as the modern
police patrol dog and to a large extent the guardian of farm, business and
homestead.
Just as in the herders and other fashionable show lines, many of the Molossers
have evolved into pathetic caricatures, as in the English Bull dogs and the Johnson
style of American Bulldog. The advocates of these breeds have a challenge even
more difficult than that facing the herder style dogs, for it is obvious that a Malinois

18
must pass a Schutzhund, KNPV or Ring trial in order to be proven worthy of his
breed heritage; but there are really no corresponding, generally available and widely
accepted Molosser criteria.
But in the larger picture, all of this is for another author and another book, for
the vast majority of police canines, and all serious departmental programs, are
based on the herding breeds of North Central Europe rather than the Molossers or
other variations.

19
The Herding Heritage

Shepherd with Flock and Dog Painting by Anton Mauve (1836 – 1888)

The police breeds as we know them today emerged from among the indigenous
herding dogs of north central Europe in response to the need for enhanced law
enforcement in rapidly expanding industrial cities in the latter 1800s. The question
for the canine historian, and the key to unlocking the essence of these breeds, is
why this latent foundation was among these herders, why these dogs rather than the
Airedales, Mastiffs, other Molossers – or any other breed or type – became the
working partners of the police officer worldwide. The answer lies in the evolution of
our common agricultural heritage.
For several million years man and the hominoids he evolved from had subsisted
by hunting, scavenging and gathering in competition with other predators and
herbivores. Very late in this process, only a few thousand years ago, a moment in
time on the evolutionary scale, rather than simply seeking out the bounty of nature
we began to domesticate our food sources, that is, gradually began to plant and tend
crops and to take active control of game animals. This was in response to increasing
human population and the consequent scarcity of naturally occurring food, an
alternative to population control through starvation. Population reduction by less
productive breeding, starvation or migration had always been the natural way of
reigning in growth, but eventually local human populations evolved means of
enhancing food supply through intervention and management in natural food
production. As game animals became more scarce and neighboring bands
increasingly put pressure on supply we evolved a process of controlling and
restraining them and fending off other predators, including other humans, so as to
provide sustenance in hard times when nature did not. Once the process reached
critical mass, that is as populations increased more and more beyond the capacity of

20
nature to provide, crops and domestic animals became the social foundation rather
than strategies for transient hard times. The world would never be the same.
Although there was enormous variation in the evolution of pastoral existence
according to climate, terrain, natural vegetation and the nature of the animals to be
tamed dogs were in many instances crucial partners in the process. Dogs may not
always have been necessary, and domestication would eventually have come forth
without them, but some pastoral traditions would have been much more difficult or
impossible without the use of herding dogs. Sheep and goats were the first to be
tamed and controlled, followed later by cattle and swine. Dogs were useful both for
controlling movement, that is, for keeping the herd together and moving it in search
of forage or for convenience and also in discouraging predation, that is keeping
wolves, lynx or other human beings from harvesting the livestock for their own
benefit.
In the centuries following the fall of Roman domination in the north of Europe the
land was held by the nobility and the church, and the common man was tied to the
land. This was generally a sparsely populated world vastly different from today,
where predators such as the wolf, lynx and bear still contested man for the benefit of
his livestock. The Romans had come with domesticated animals, cattle and sheep,
and their own herding and droving dogs, which remained even as direct Roman
domination waned and then vanished.
For twenty centuries these herdsman tended their sheep and cattle, aided by
their dogs. This was an era before cities and with larger distances between villages,
with vast open lands, much of it forest or of use primarily for grazing. Because of
this sparse population, the herds tended to be in large, open grassland where the
primary function of the dog and the stockman was to keep the flock or herd together
and to protect them from predators such as the wolf. Many herds moved great
distances yearly to take advantage of the lush grass and cool temperatures of the
highlands in the summer, retreating to lower elevations to avoid the snows of winter.
This continues even today in areas such as Greece, Spain and Turkey, although in
recent years trucks have augmented some of the long migrations. And the predators
were always present, alert for the opportunity to take down a wandering animal,
even today in many regions of the world.
Gradual increases in population caused favorably situated villages or trading
outposts to emerge into towns and eventually cities. In time this process, and the
increasingly onerous bondage of those working the land, built up the societal
pressures leading to the French Revolution, in the 1790s, which spilled across Europe
and then the world as a whole. This was the focal point of a process that over time
would transform agriculture and thus the age-old role of the herding dogs. This
revolution was at root about land, about wresting it away from the nobility and the
church of the ancient regime and allowing it to pass into the hands of the men and
woman who actually worked it.
Prior to the French Revolution the stock largely grazed on what is referred to
below as untilled land, what in America we would call open range. Although the
ancient role of the dog was largely that of guardian against the predators, times
were changing, the wolf was disappearing. The last known wolf in Belgium was killed
in the Ardennes in 1847. (Vanbutsele, 1988)
Von Stephanitz mentions bears as so prevalent in Prussia as late as the 1750s as
to occasion school closings. He further notes that the last known lynx was killed in
Westphalia in 1745 and lynx were being shot regularly in the mountains of Thuringia
up to the early 1800s. The wolf is mentioned as the most serious predator, and
numerous instances of large-scale killings and serious economic loss are cited;
predators were a very serious problem for the continental stockman until relatively

21
recent times. Even today a few wolves have reappeared in remote areas of Germany.
(von Stephanitz, 1925) p106
This way of life went on for many hundreds of years, and only began to change
with the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which took
increasing population from the country side to emerging cities and began to
mechanize the farm, reducing the need for agricultural labor. One consequence of
this was the evolution of formal police service commencing in rapidly growing cities,
which in time led to the evolution of the police dog. In the early years the canine
function was primarily aggression, that is, crowd control and providing security for
the patrol officer, particularly at night. In light of this the most obvious candidates
would have been drawn from the larger estate guardian breeds and similar dogs, and
in fact Great Danes and similar dogs were among the earliest recruits in Germany
and other places, long before the herders were established as formal breeds. But
over time the Molossers, Airedales and other candidates fell aside; and modern
police dogs evolved from the herding breeds, specifically the tending style dogs of
Belgium, Holland and Germany.
This revolutionary process – long, difficult and violent though it was – went hand
in hand with incessantly expanding populations to transform the way of life of the
herdsman and his flocks and dogs. This transformation, of the entire social order,
was for the herdsman from open land grazing to increasingly controlling the flocks in
more crowded circumstances, in close proximity to cultivated fields and over actively
used roads. As the predators were gradually pushed back and the livestock was
coming into closer proximity to expanding farm fields the canine protection role was
diminishing and the tending style herding dog was emerging.
In the decades following the French Revolution the expansion of crop farming to
fill more and more land, driven by and contributing to expanding populations, put
pressure on the herdsman, for now he had to find food for his herds and flocks in
close proximity to actively tilled land, which meant he and his dogs had to keep them
out of the tempting fields. This gradually altered the role of the dog, putting
increasing emphasis on herd control and less emphasis on the waning predation
threat. The larger and more fierce guardian dogs gradually gave way to the more
mobile, more agile working dogs of the stockman and shepherds, the progenitors of
the tending breeds of today such as the German and Belgian Shepherds.
The Industrial Revolution was a process of expanding industry in ever-larger
cities and mass migration from the country to industrial work in the cities. This
greatly accelerated the changes in an agricultural way of life that had been evolving
slowly. The handwriting was on the wall for these sheep and cattle tending breeds,
and for the shepherds and stockmen themselves.
In the words of Dr. Adolphe Reul, founder of the Belgian Shepherds:
"There was a time when Belgium possessed, according to its relatively
small territory a considerable number of dogs used for the guidance and
guard of the flocks of sheep, and even flocks of geese, because in the
whole country sheep were bred and used for their wool.
"As a result the price of wool and mutton fell, an inevitable consequence of
the ruthless competition that Argentina and Australia offer our own
producers, as a result of the given extension to the production and the use
of cotton and of the realized progress in the agricultural domain that has
brought it the suppression of the out of date system of untilled land, the
decrease of the number and the importance of the flocks is emphasized."
(Vanbutsele, 1988)
In another commentary Reul pointed out that the widespread use of chemical
fertilizer meant that the long term custom of leaving fields periodically fallow,

22
without a crop, was greatly reduced, further reducing the grazing land available to
the shepherd and his sheep.
Similar trends were taking place in other regions, such as Germany. Vanbutsele
goes on in his own words:
"Following the general counting, 969,000 sheep were enumerated in 1836,
583,000 in 1856 and 365,000 in 1880. The sheep were mainly bred in
Campine and the Walloon provinces." (Vanbutsele, 1988)
The Industrial Revolution was driven by technology, especially the steam engine
for mining, railroad and industrial use. Technology would continue to transform the
pastoral and agricultural world as the nineteenth century emerged into the twentieth,
with barbed wire, the tractor, combine and other novel inventions further reducing
the need for farm labor. The railroad, paved roads and eventually the truck were
transporting the stock to market, making the drover and his dogs relics of the past.
The horse went from the foundation of agriculture and transport to amusement,
racing and recreational riding, in a few short decades. The replacement of the sailing
vessel by the steam ship meant that foreign agricultural products from places such
as Argentina and New Zeeland could be economically transported to Europe,
relentlessly driving down prices of products such as wool and mutton.
As the sheep disappeared and the shepherds turned to work in the fields or in the
cities, the way of life of these herding dogs was in its own turn disappearing. In
order to preserve these dogs, and to meet the emerging social needs of urbanization,
men such as Louis Huyghebaert created new sports, the so-called dressage or
obedience, which with new emphasis on practical police style application quickly
evolved into the Belgian Ring sport. The evolution of these sport activities and the
invention of the police dog were part of the same process, for amateur breeding and
training was from the beginning an essential part of the European canine police and
civilian defense work.
Animal husbandry varies over time and region immensely according to the
climate, terrain, social structure, state of technology and the animals herded, that is,
sheep, cattle or others. The function and thus the physical and working attributes of
the herdsman's dogs have varied according to time and region. Many times a
differentiation is made between the herding of the sheep or other animals,
controlling and directing their movement in the pasture, countryside and along rural
roads and the guardian breeds whose function is solely to challenge and drive off
predators. But this is not a realistic way to think, for this division really includes only
the extreme ends of a wide spectrum of functionality, for over time and region the
vast majority of pastoral dogs have had roles that involved elements of each.
Furthermore, the distinction is often made between the drover’s dogs, as
exemplified by the Smooth Collie or the Rottweiler, who help transport the cattle or
sheep to market, and the more general herding dogs that tended or herded the
sheep in the fields and meadows. These are all broad generalizations, and in reality
any particular herdsman or farmer is likely to have dogs that perform several of
these functions in ways appropriate to his situation and needs, and the man himself
would probably tend to regard such arcane discussions of terminology as just plain
silly. Much of this has been invented and popularized by the citified, middle class
breed creator hobbyists, seeking to identify, differentiate and justify their newly
discovered show dog breed, something the stockmen in their fields and meadows
would no doubt regard at as humorous or outright absurd.
Nevertheless, in common usage today these pastoral dogs are by convention
broadly classified as herding or gathering dogs, livestock guardians or tending dogs.
Each of these shall be discussed in some detail in the following three sections.

23
Herding or Gathering Dogs
The stereotypical herding picture that most quickly comes to mind is the intense
Border Collie crouching and giving the eye; that is staring intensely as does a
stalking predator, from whence the behavior emanates. In the lowlands of the British
Isles, on the border of Scotland and England, the Border Collies do not deal primarily
with sheep in massive herds, but with sheep which generally roam free, exist on
their own, semi wild, to find sufficient grazing in a sparse and generally rough
environment with rocky slopes and deep gullies. This is of course only possible in
regions where predator pressure is very low, and the wolf has been extinct in the
British Isles for centuries. Because the sheep spend much of their lives essentially on
their own, roaming free, they are especially challenging for the dogs, who must
quickly gain control when the time comes for shearing or other interaction. These
dogs will bite or grip, preferably to the face or legs, to gain discipline. Breeding and
training the herding dog to grip or bite with enough intensity, and in the right way
according to the animals being worked, is fundamental to all herding. Herding is
controlled aggression, derives from the basic hunting and chasing instincts modified
by man through breeding and training to stop short of the kill or injury yet elicit
enough of the fear response in the herd and individual animal to gain and maintain
discipline. Such dogs generally work silently, circling the herd and then going to the
eye and stalk posture to control, with a quick run forward or to the side to direct or
cut off a sheep.
This style of herding and herd dog no doubt evolved concurrently with the
eradication of the predators such as the wolf and the increasing population density
and the resulting need to utilize ever more sparsely vegetated grazing land. Thus the
herding role evolved from keeping the animals in a compact group for effective
control and defense to one of locating and retrieving generally free ranging sheep.
When the sheep are gathered together, the dogs of the different shepherds must
often coexist in close proximity during the ordinary course of their herding work, for
semi wild sheep feeding and living on their own must be gathered and separated for
shearing, harvesting or breeding.
Although American and British people are typically familiar with this Border Collie
style of herding, this is a very special case, for in reality unattended sheep have
suffered significant loss from predation over most of history and most of the world
even today. In general the continuous presence of a shepherd and his dogs, or the
larger, more aggressive single purpose livestock guardian dogs, has been necessary
to protect the sheep.

Livestock Guardians
Guardian dogs are those which live permanently with the herd as surrogate
members, driving off or engaging predators, such as wolves, bears, lynx or jackals.
They are exemplified by the larger, sheep guardian dogs from the Pyrenees to the
Himalayas, such as the Komondor, Anatolian Shepherd Dog, Kuvasz, or Maremma
Sheepdog of Italy. These breeds are predominantly white today to match the color of
the sheep, but in much earlier times, prior to the Romans, when the sheep were of
varied colors encompassing black, grey to brown the guardian dogs also tended to
these colors, instances of which occur today. One explanation given is that the dogs
come to match the color of the sheep, with white becoming predominant in Roman
times because white sheep became desirable and common in that this facilitated the
dying of the wool. Others speculate that the color was more a matter of fashion, and
that the instances of northern European hobbyist breed creators with money to
spend encouraged some shepherds to select for white, by culling pups of other
colors, in order to supply this novel market.

24
 Sheep and goats were the earliest domestic animals, beginning about 8000 years
ago; and there is every indication in the earliest writings and existent art that
guardian dogs were essential from the very early stages in order to keep domestic
animals in a world where natural predators were ubiquitous. Over time the breeding
of the sheep and the dogs gradually evolved together, more by happenstance than
specific, premeditated human decisions, continually according to the evolving human
social and agricultural circumstances.
As Coppinger points out, until recently, before the advent of trucks for transport,
sheep, dogs and shepherds were continually on the move, often covering several
hundred miles in a yearly cycle. In these circumstances, on the move year round
with the sheep, it would have been impractical to confine a bitch in season to insure
a specific stud dog. The female was no doubt serviced by whatever dogs were
present and capable, perhaps several males. Coppinger points out that this is the
typical situation, even today, in some remote areas. (Coppinger & Coppinger, 2001)
Thus the sheep herd guarding dogs are a continuum from the Himalayas to the
Pyrenees in Spain, with local variation according to climate, terrain and local
husbandry practice. Under such circumstances men do not generally make breeding
selections, for the female will generally mate with the dog or dogs available, and
those dogs that work stay and those that do not move on or die out. The various
formal breeds are a modern creation, often at the instigation of European and
American hobbyists, who love to discover a new breed and make it fashionable as a
pet and show dog. Such dogs usually lose their real working potential and character
by the time they wind up in the dog show ring, and certainly shortly thereafter if any
vestige remains, for the fundamental fact is that such dogs were created to live with
the sheep rather than man and by their nature tend to make poor human
companions and pets.
Livestock dogs are the product of natural selective breeding and then imprinting
and socialization at a very young age rather than training; human contact is
generally minimized at this critical time. Although the dogs need to relate to the
herdsmen to some extent, the fundamental and deepest loyalty is to the herd, of
which they are from birth virtual members. These guardian dogs are primarily sheep
dogs, although they are sometimes also used with cattle. The initial imprinting is
species specific, that is, dogs raised with sheep will in general not develop a strong
enough affinity for cattle to be effective.
Most authorities regard these dogs as while perhaps exhibiting regional types or
variations fundamentally a breeding pool contiguous across the region, the breed
distinctions being the creation of dog show hobbyists. Of course, similar observations
also are relevant to the herders, for in the broad view the difference between the
German, Belgian and Dutch shepherds has more to do with national and regional
pride than fundamental differences in the indigenous herding dogs spread across
north western Europe.
Lest one think of these livestock guardian dogs as specific to Europe or Asia,
Charles Darwin reports dogs working in exactly this way in Uruguay in 1833 in his
famous The Voyage of the Beagle. (Coppinger & Coppinger, 2001) Indeed, guardian
dogs have enabled sheep raising for centuries and throughout the world, while the
Border Collie style of herding is very recent and very local, a peculiarity of
circumstances in the modern British Isles. Wherever men raise sheep, they either
bring the dogs along with the initial stock and adapt them to new circumstances or
quickly adapt local dogs to the guardian role, often evolving appropriate dogs
through interbreeding.
In popular conception the livestock guardian dog engages in nightly battles with
the wolves in a desperate struggle to preserve the herd. But Ray Coppinger makes
the point that in reality the simple presence of the dogs generally disrupts the

25
predator mode of operation, and that actual physical engagements are uncommon.
Just as wolf family groups or packs separate themselves spatially in a region, with
each group marking its own territory and tending to respect that of other groups,
thus minimizing physical violence, the existence of the guardian dogs within the herd
establishes the grazing area of the herd as the territory of a separate canine group,
which in the normal course of events is respected by the local canine predators. Just
as the best outcome of the police officer's career is many years of side arms training
without ever a shot in anger, the guardian dog as a deterrent rather than an active
combatant is the optimal mode of livestock husbandry.
In a similar way, for many years it was the common belief that the wolf and the
mountain lion were not natural predators on man, that there were no known
examples of attacks on human beings. In recent years, mountain lion and even wolf
attacks have become increasingly common because of restrictions on hunting and
the use of guns has gradually reduced the communal memory, a learned behavior of
man avoidance, in these predator species. Little Red Ridinghood was generally safe
from the wolf in North America because her father, grandfather and uncles for
generations shot at wolves at every opportunity.
By communal memory I mean that the fear and avoidance of man passed on
from the mother or within the pack. In a similar way, each generation of wolves
brought up in a social environment where sheep herd predation was not part of the
learning experience would tend to carry on the existing modes of hunting. Hard
times would of course lead to pressure for new means to survive, overcome social
inhibitions against sheep predation even in the presence of the guardian dogs.
The Coppinger book relates their experiences in an extensive project over many
years bringing old world livestock guarding dogs to America and introducing them to
American stockmen. This book became upon publication an immediate classic, which
everyone seriously interested in dogs of any type should not only obtain and read,
but seriously study. Even when not referenced directly, much of the material
presented here was first publically available in this source. (Coppinger & Coppinger,
2001)

Tending dogs
Dogs that control and direct the movement of the herd as well as protect it – as
exemplified by the German and Belgian Shepherd dogs – are generally referred to as
tending dogs. Such breeds work with large groups of sheep, which by nature and
breeding selection maintain the flock structure, rather than dispersing to feed as do
the sheep in environments served by the Border Collie. These dogs, often working in
pairs under the direction of the shepherd, move the flocks from place to place, along
roads as needed, to find continual access to new grazing and a safe place to rest the
flock in the night, when the dogs patrol the perimeter to prevent straying and drive
off predators. These tending dogs do not exhibit the eye and stalk behavior of the
gathering breeds, but rather push and grip the sheep as necessary to maintain
discipline.
Sheep in the larger herds of the tending style breeds live their entire lives under
the close control of the dogs and thus will naturally to stay in the herd and not
usually challenge a dog one on one, that is the dogs train the sheep continually and
the lambs grow up in an environment with basically trained sheep. This is in contrast
to the gathering breeds mentioned above, where the sheep often have only sporadic
interaction with the dogs, which thus must continually be able to assert discipline
over an animal used to living on its own.
Regional herding trials are generally popular and reflect the work of the various
breeds according to local circumstance and tradition, with those in the British Isles

26
involving the dogs working with a half dozen to a dozen sheep while the HGH
German Shepherd trials involve two dogs working several hundred sheep.
As we have seen, the herding dogs in general, and the continental tending breeds
in particular, needed the endurance to be in the fields for long periods of time, the
olfactory capability to seek out and identify lambs born in the fields or strayed from
the herd, the willingness to work with the handler combined with the initiative to
take action on their own as needed and the ability to exert control by biting and
griping with minimum viciousness and damage, that is, contain the hunting and
killing instinct short of the full natural cycle.
This is also an excellent job description of the modern police dog, and the
underlying reason why the vast majority of police breeds evolve from these tending
style herding dogs, developed over hundreds of years of service in the fields and
meadows and then consolidated into our police breeds at the turn of the twentieth
century.

Advent of the Police Breeds

The original working partnership between man and dog was primarily in diverse
agrarian roles, the first of which was likely watchdog and guardian of the primitive
band, homestead or village. Other roles were eradication of vermin or pests
decimating crops and participation in the hunt, sometimes one and the same thing
as in chasing down deer or antelope, which could be a threat to crops and also
provide meat for the campfire or table. The dogs were likely necessary partners in
the domestication of sheep, goats and cattle and went on to serve diverse livestock
guarding and management functions. These were hands on farmers and herdsmen
with crops to bring in, livestock to care for, farms to guard and families to support;
their dogs were of value according to their contribution to this work. All of the
attributes and capability of the modern police and military dogs were latent in these
primitive canine partners.
In time as class structures evolved the nobility and later commercial classes
created their own sort of dog – the modern hunting breeds especially, the retrievers
and pointers, and their household companion dogs – which were valued more for
leisure than work, often more valued than the working men and women whose labor
supported their elite life styles. But the working dogs were still there, these herders
and farmyard dogs, like their masters, living in obscurity, without written history or
elaborate records of decent, beyond the purview of those who could read and write
and thus create history.
In the middle to later 1800s the industrial age was awakening in Europe, the
peasants and tenant farmers were in the first tentative stage of becoming land-
owning farmers in the modern sense and many were migrating to cities to become
working men beginning the long struggle toward middle class status. This Industrial
Revolution, the demise of an agrarian way of life that had predominated in these
regions for a millennium, would bring profound changes in the way men worked with
their dogs and the nature of the working partnership.
The population was migrating to the cities and prime agricultural land was often
becoming too valuable for open grazing on unfenced land, rendering the herdsman
and his dogs increasingly obsolete. Mutton and wool were coming from places such
as South America and New Zeeland at prices that were dramatically lowering
European sheep production, especially in the Low Countries where the police dog
emerged.
Throughout much of Northern Europe – in Belgium, Germany and the
Netherlands – the more prosperous farmers, the veterinarians and indeed men from
diverse backgrounds began to take notice that these indigenous herding dogs were

27
disappearing as a thousand year old agricultural culture was evaporating before their
eyes. In response they began to establish the herding breeds, that is, to create
standards of appearance and character and to keep records of decent. The dog show
began as a means of gathering together these men and their dogs, to provide an
occasion for the formation of clubs and evolving the infrastructure of the modern
canine establishment.
These tending style dogs of the continental shepherd and cattleman, guardian as
well as herding dog, medium in size, quick and agile, resolute in defense, would
prove to be an ideal base on which to build a police patrol dog culture. The dogs of
the British Isles - gathering style dogs such as the Border Collies, the larger terriers
and the massive estate guardians – in time proved to be not of the right stuff, not
the needed balance of physique and character.
Thus this age old guardian role comes down to us in the form of the police
service dog, the military scout and patrol dog and the protection and watch dogs
serving farmers, stockmen and families of every sort. In continental Europe
especially, nations such as Belgium and Germany gathered together their regional
herders, rapidly becoming obsolete because of the advancing Industrial Revolution,
and created the police breeds such as the German and Belgian Shepherds, the
Rottweiler and the Bouvier des Flandres.
Beginning in the latter 1800s progressive police leadership, seeking to empower
and protect the police officer on foot patrol in industrial city neighborhoods – men
such as Konrad Most in Germany and Ernest van Wesemael in Belgium – began
programs that have continued to evolve and prosper until this day. This process was
facilitated by the establishment of police dog trial systems in cooperation with civilian
breeders and trainers, such as the Dutch police or KNPV trials, which began in 1907.
This close cooperation between civilian breed founders and trainers on the one hand
and the police and military administration on the other was a key element in the
rapid European progress in the evolution and deployment of effective police canines.
While the continental Europeans strode forward, the British and Americans
wallowed in ambivalence. Although there was a certain amount of early enthusiasm
in a few progressive police departments, with American police personnel going to
Belgium, buying dogs and establishing programs before the First World War, it was
seed spread upon barren ground, sometimes flourishing for a year or two but usually
dying out at a change in police administration or on a politician’s whim. Police
programs, almost always small, came and went. Finally in the early 1950s the last
existing program flickered out and for several years thereafter there were no known
formal American police canine programs.
The failure of a strong working dog culture to emerge in England and America
was fundamentally a matter of historical circumstance and the absence of strongly
protective British herding breeds. While the Germans and Belgians were busy
establishing their police dog culture – breeding traditions, trial systems and
deployment programs – with broad public support and active civilian participation at
every level, we procrastinated. In the English speaking world there were no new
police breeds to excite and interest civilians and no trial systems to draw young men
into training and competition, thus building a residual pool of knowledge and
experienced trainers and handlers available for police and military programs.
This entrenched British ambivalence to the protective canine is not rooted in an
especially humane culture; for bear baiting, pit dog fighting and other brutal canine
diversions had a long national history, and only became illegal relatively recently.
Perhaps this pervasive negative attitude springs from over reaction, that is the
process of eliminating pit fighting and similar atrocities may have carried over as a
general pacifist attitude and an aversion to all forms of canine aggression. Or
perhaps this was simply the paternalistic and self-preserving instinct of the British

28
upper class at work, the concept that – although aggressive dogs may perhaps be
necessary and useful in police applications – the breeding and especially the training
of such dogs should be closely guarded activities, conducted only under the auspices
of proper authorities. In this worldview the population in general is to be denied
access to such dogs and such training, just as every effort is made to keep lock
picking tools and techniques out of reach and secret, and firearms of all sorts
forbidden to the population at large. This of course ignores that such restrictions do
not keep explosives or firearms out of the hands of foreign terrorists or resourceful
domestic criminals.
Strangely enough, although America became the land of opportunity for the gun
enthusiast with the greatest per capita ownership in the world of even the most
exotic firearms, our attitudes toward the protection dog have primarily been
transplanted from the English. In general, English and American police forces, from
the politicians providing the money, policy and senior officers right on down through
the ranks, have a deep-seated suspicion of and aversion to cooperation with civilians
of any sort. The extension of this elitist predisposition to dog trainers and breeders,
as contrasted with the continental spirit of cooperation, plays a major role in the
relative lack of sophistication and self-sufficiency of contemporary police canine
programs. Ongoing dependence on European sources of dogs for deployment and
breeding, training guidance and methodology and sport culture increases operational
costs at a time of national economic stress when cost effectiveness is increasingly
the prerequisite for ongoing taxpayer support.
These cultural biases and attitudes carry over to the civilian national canine
organizations, the Kennel Club in Britain and the American Kennel Club, which have
historically maintained great distance from any aggressive canine propensities. This
of course reflects their origins in the upper class elements of British society, primarily
interested in their hunting dogs, their lap dogs and their estate guarding and
gamekeeper's dogs, that is, the Mastiff and similar breeds.
Indeed, the quintessential police dog, the German Shepherd, was given a new
name by the British on the eve of the First World War, along with the royal family
who gave up their German name to become the Windsors, in order to avoid seeming
too German. The British chose to call the breed the Alsatian, after the province of
Alsace, which although under French control subsequent to the First World War was
historically, culturally and linguistically as much German as French. Perhaps only the
Brits would go to such length to pretend that the German Shepherd is really some
sort of French dog, for there is no historical connection between the breed and this
border province other than in fertile and insecure British imaginations. Much of this
attitude comes through in the world of the American Kennel Club, which was from
the beginning under tight eastern, Protestant, upper class control.
While police service may be conceded as necessary, and even touted when there
is money to be made, breeding of the high class purebred dog in the English
speaking world has always been without any selection for practical working potential,
especially in regards to the canine protective and aggressive functions. As a
consequence the dogs produced are fundamentally useless for their work, and as
serious dogs have become necessary, especially in the wake of the September 11th
atrocity, they have increasingly been imported from continental Europe, especially
the Netherlands and Germany. The consequences of this have been deleterious in
that excellent or even marginal dogs have been difficult to identify and purchase and
more importantly the American police canine programs have evolved isolated from
the training, nurturing and breeding culture so important for effective deployment.
Police dog work is a team affair, and just as a chain is no stronger than its weakest
link the effectiveness of even the very best dog is severely limited if the handler is
lacking strong canine knowledge, skills and experience in addition to being a first
rate police officer. Such levels of skill are simply not provided and maintained by a

29
cursory instruction course for a new, inexperienced handler, and this has from the
beginning been the Achilles heel of the American police canine movement.
Indeed, effective management and cost control in the basic and ongoing training
process, both for handlers and the dogs, is the key to a viable police canine
movement. Over the years, many programs have gone out of existence because they
were perceived as not cost effective or simply beyond limited budget resources. The
yearly cost for a police officer may be well over a hundred thousand dollars. (This is
not what is seen in the paycheck, but rather reflects the overall cost of fringe
benefits, the salaries of administrative and support personnel and training time
reducing service availability.) Thus the decision to assign an officer for eight weeks
of training is generally going to be expensive, perhaps a fifteen or twenty thousand-
dollar investment. This may well be a good decision, but certainly not one to be
taken lightly. Thus the economic motivation for the purchase of trained dogs rather
than starting with untrained young dogs, many of which will inevitably be found
wanting and discarded as training commences, are apparent.
Although the emergence of the canine police function was occurring across much
of Northern Europe, after a brief flurry of interest in prewar Belgian programs
subsequent American attention to these breeds of the protective heritage,
commencing with the return of the troops from the First World War, focused on
Germany. Cavalry Captain Max von Stephanitz, prime mover for the German
Shepherd Dog, promulgated and promoted the foundation principles – that work
must come first, that form must be according to function – and this vision has
resonated around the world for well over a century.
The pioneering spirit of this German Shepherd culture demanded that a dog
possess the moral and physical attributes necessary for his work, which must be
proven on the working trial field as a prerequisite to breeding and service. In order
to demonstrate and prove these essential attributes such as courage, stamina,
working willingness and the olfactory potential these pioneers created a series of
tests which eventually came to be known as the Schutzhund trial, in English literally
the protection dog trial. Similar trials evolved concurrently elsewhere in northern
Europe.
From the time of Columbus the Europeans who came to America brought their
dogs with them, and European breeds, philosophy and authority have been
predominant even until this day. Actually, this goes back even further; several
thousand years earlier, for the American Indians brought their dogs with them across
the Bering Strait land bridge.
Following the First World War protective heritage German breeds, beginning with
the Shepherds and then later the Dobermans and Rottweilers, achieved enormous
popularity in America, catering to a deep and persistent desire in so many of us for
the perceived reflected machismo. The Belgians may have created the police dog,
but the Germans knew how to promote and popularize it to the general population as
well as the police specialist, for the genius of von Stephanitz encompassed promotion
and deep understanding of human nature as well as the canine. Although the
German Shepherd had been present in small numbers in America before the war,
popularity surged with the return of the troops, peaking at 21,596 AKC registrations
in 1926 and then crashing back down with the advent of the great depression of the
1930s.
The fly in this ointment was that American shepherds evolved strictly as show
and companion dogs, with no expectation of or realistic appreciation for working
capability. There is little doubt that many dogs lacking in courage or overly sensitive
to gun shots, of little or no value for breeding or service in Germany, found their way
into the American market, and more importantly, into our breeding programs.

30
 The Doberman Pinscher also became a prominent and popular breed in America
following the First World War, with many imports contributing to the rapidly
expanding American lines and a large and vigorous body of enthusiasts emerging.
The Doberman was promoted as a police dog and as a consequence served
prominently with the United States Marine Corps in the Pacific during the WWII. The
Doberman people were always good at promotion, perhaps a little too good in that
there was the tendency to take drive and working character for granted. Other
German dogs such as the Rottweiler and similar breeds in the rest of Europe, such as
the Beauceron, the Picardy Shepherd, the Belgian Malinois and the Bouvier des
Flandres, were rare in America, and in this era shared little of the protection dog
aura driving the popularity of these German breeds.
In the better classes of American society, as pandered to, manipulated and
encouraged by the AKC, canine aggression has from the beginning been perceived as
a behavior problem, something to deal with, rather than a fundamental and useful
attribute. It has always been slightly suspect, a touch low class. The use of the dog
for personal protection, security, military service or police patrol became a perhaps
necessary and useful function, but not something a respectable, upwardly mobile
person would want to be involved in. When the subject came up with a breeder or
advocate it would be patiently explained that certainly any German Shepherd or
Doberman, even, no, especially, their show dogs had the innate potential for the
police or protection role. It was portrayed as a simple matter of a little training, the
implication being that such techniques should be carefully held secret among proper
police authorities, least lower class elements should unlock the inner aggression for
nefarious purposes, just like methods and tools for lock picking should be kept out of
the hands of potential burglars.
Thus because of this passive culture encouraged and abetted by the AKC,
Americans prior to the 1970s, breeders and owners alike, remained profoundly
ignorant of the culture essential to the breeding, training and preservation of these
working breeds. There were no Schutzhund trials as tests for breed worthiness, and
more importantly no perception of the necessity of incessant testing of breeding
stock to maintain the requisite character attributes. Thus many dogs coming to
America were those insufficient for breeding in Germany, the timid or those lacking
in gun sureness, thus poisoning our well. In America the only criteria for quality was
a show ring increasingly deviating from the original breed in form as well as function.
The American shepherd and Doberman lines quickly became pale imitations of the
original, seriously deficient in both the appropriate athletic working structure and the
requisite character for their work. They became, quite literally, pathetic replicas of
the real thing.
Americans had been gradually becoming aware of this disparity and sought ways
of bringing this German culture, these training and breeding practices that were the
real foundation of these breeds, to our shores. Sporadically in places like the Bay
Area in California and suburban Chicago, local groups had been forming clubs and
training. In 1970 an American oriented national level Schutzhund organization came
into existence, and although it faltered and fell by the wayside by the end of the
decade German affiliated organizations such as the DVG and the United Schutzhund
Clubs of America were flourishing.
Because of the popularity of the German breeds, and half a century of German
promotion of their canine culture in the rest of the world, our dream of a sport and
trial system in America, which would hopefully bring forth the best in a man and a
dog, was focused on the Schutzhund trial. A few of us were determined to free these
lines and these dogs from the debasement of AKC style show breeding, to bring a
new and better era to America. We had the enthusiasm of the naive, really did
believe that we could transplant the heritage according to the vision of the European
founders.

31
 Many of us had our beginning in American style obedience, but found it
increasingly sterile and empty for dog and man alike, knew in our hearts that there
must be something more. We were warned about this esoteric German ritual called
Schutzhund, warned by our betters, warned that that it was not the American way,
that it was from the primitive past before the canine had been purified and the
aggression tamed and submerged. But some of us, drawn by the mystique of the
protection heritage, by the vision of dogs capable of more than heel and fetch,
sought out these forbidden rituals to see for ourselves.
We were transformed. Sometimes we saw our dogs come alive when given the
opportunity to serve the purpose of their ancestors, but often we were dismayed to
see that our noble working dog fell grievously short, that membership in a breed,
inscribed on a registration form or pedigree, did not in and of itself confer the
requisite character. Sooner or later most of us sought out truly advanced and
capable dogs of our own breed, witnessed the execution of the work of our breed
before our own eyes. For me it was in 1980, outside of St. Louis, where two
Germans with Schutzhund titled Bouviers des Flandres brought over by Dr. Erik
Houttuin opened my eyes; I had never imagined that such dogs could exist.
In time we came to believe that we were destined to fulfill the heritage of the
protective breeds in America, bring the training and ideals of Europe, especially the
Schutzhund program, to our shores to fulfill the age-old destiny of our breeds. As in
every revolution, we looked up to and idealized all things European, especially
German, and sought to emulate their heritage and ideals. Few of us had actually
been to Europe and the early encouragement and pioneering to a large extent came
from Germans who had to come to live in America after WWII.
For us Schutzhund came to be the sport for the common man and uncommon
dogs, the key to the excellence we saw for ourselves in titled German Shepherds,
often imported. These European trial systems held out the promise of being the way
in which the ordinary person, the family man with other obligations and limited
financial resources, could compete and contribute, and our dream was of making this
a reality in America.
Little did we dream that our heroes had feet of clay; that betrayal even then
lurked in high places in Germany.

Police Dog Requisites

Dogs serve so well in so many diverse roles because of the enormous range and
pliability of physique and character attributes inherent in their genetic heritage. Men
have for innumerable generations and centuries been creating, through breeding
selection, intentional and inadvertent, dogs that are massive and powerful, lean and
swift or small and appealing according to the requirements of a specific service, be it
hunting, guarding or lap dog. This is not selection in the classic evolutionary sense of
random genetic mutations bringing forth novel attributes, for that process is much
too slow; we have done this sort of thing over and over during the past ten or twenty
thousand years. Little or nothing fundamental has been created by mankind;
breeding selection brings forth latent attributes, present in the original canine
genetic base even if not evident in the phenotype, to produce dogs with the potential
at birth to excel in a specific role. The genetic potential is there, all we do is adjust
parameters through breeding selection.
Over much of history selection was not in the sense of physically isolating the in
season female and providing access to a human selected male, but rather a process
of females breeding to the available dogs, as in a herding environment, and men
selecting from the pups according to utility and preference which are to be valued,

32
protected and fed preferentially and which are to be treated less favorably, pushed
out or selectively culled.
Thus we are able create specialist lines and breeds in relatively short time spans
because the essential canine propensities and characteristics are and were latent in
the rootstock, available to be brought forward and stabilized, be it directly from the
wolf or through an intermediate species. As an example, all dogs have potential for
instinct driven hunting or prey seeking, but this can be latent and submerged as in
the Toy Poodle or active and intense as in the better specimens of the herding or
police breeds.
Nobody trains a Mastiff and takes it to the Greyhound track, but people
sometimes are foolish enough to train dogs of hunting breeds or lines whose
progenitors left the hunting field generations ago or German Shepherds from
American lines not tested in the crucible of the trial or service since the ancestors
were imported from Germany, perhaps disposed of because found wanting in the
home land. Yet the one is just as absurd as the other.
Sports cars and dump trucks are both vehicles with an engine, four wheels, or at
least wheel sets on four corners, a steering wheel and a driver’s seat. If you have
enough money for fuel you can drive any of them to Las Vegas, at least if you start
in North America. But if you go to the gravel yard and have the nice man dump a
yard of road bed gravel into the side seat of your sports car or enter your dump
truck into a sports car rally you are going to be disappointed, and all of the driving
skill in the world is not going to make one bit of difference. The same principle
applies to dogs. One can train the right German Shepherd to sort of point or retrieve,
and an occasional Chesapeake Bay Retriever will pass a Schutzhund trial, but on the
whole this sort of thing is going to be a lot of work, a little flat and mundane once
the novelty wears off and very unlikely to provide the personal satisfaction of top
level competition or service.
The typical domestic dog is in general smaller, less aggressive and much less
suspicious than the wolf, all necessary adaptions for integration into human social
structures. Skull and teeth are diminished in terms of relative proportions and
absolute size. The creation of the police or protection breed demands that some of
this be recovered, that is, there was a need to produce candidates in general larger,
with the more robust teeth, a more powerful bite and more dominance and
aggression than the typical house or farm yard dog. Such dogs are of course more
expensive in terms of maintenance – require more food, room, exercise and
discipline – than the village scavengers and thus by nature are less well adapted as
pet dogs or dogs in the hands of the population at large. Most of the problems
ordinary people have with police style dogs today have roots in these breeding
enhancements creating the more robust and aggressive dog necessary for police
service. This is the fundamental paradox of police dog breeding: in spite of all the
propaganda in support of pet sales only limited segments of the population are
willing and able to effectively deal with strong specimens from such breeds. This is
why these breeds are so often emasculated and why they are inexorably divided into
pet lines, replicas if you will, and those truly capable of high level police service.
By adapting lines of dogs through breeding selection as sheep guardians, herders
or police dogs the useful propensities are selected for and enhanced and those that
are deleterious are suppressed, first through selection and then through training and
conditioning. But this is an age-old process, likely commenced informally by
selecting, encouraging and supporting the better workers among random breedings
and neglecting, pushing out or culling the less useful dogs, a process operational for
generations and centuries before men began making specific breeding selections and
then later the invention of formal breeds and studbooks.

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 When the need for police and military dogs in the modern sense was becoming
increasingly compelling in the middle to later 1800s the use of the herders was not
preordained, for they were still in the fields and pastures, did not yet exist as breeds.
The various mastiff style dogs, massive estate guardians with roots extending back
to ancient war dogs, would have been obvious candidates. Diverse breeds including
Airedale Terriers and English Collies had their advocates and were worked with
before the various northern European herders were even in existence as formal
breeds.
But ultimately the tending style herders had the right stuff, the requisite
combination of moderate size, agility, stamina, trainability, olfactory acuteness and
especially the restrained aggressive nature necessary to defend with vigor, but resist
being drawn away in the chase, leaving the herd or flock unguarded. The massive
size and more overt aggression of the Molossers, the ancient style of war dog, was
not what was needed for police patrol in expanding urban factory and working class
districts at the turn of the twentieth century.
The emergence of the practical police dogs and the formal police breeds, such as
the German Shepherd or the Belgian Malinois, was concurrent; these trends were
opposite sides of the same coin. But almost from the beginning there was a
disconnect, once formal breeding began increasing majorities of these incipient police
breeds were being selected for the show ring rather than according to the actual
needs of the police officer. The political structures – the establishments – of the
breed clubs were increasingly in hands which saw money, prestige and power in
show ring glory. These men, these brothers of Judas, were right about money,
prestige and power; but they were and are wrong about police dogs.
Even today Malinois of the Dutch police community are often without formal
pedigree – are what they do on the trial field and in service. This community is quite
willing to blend in an overly aggressive dog to reinvigorate a line or a larger mastiff
style dog for more size; the trials and training decisions inevitably serve to discard
what does not contribute to working excellence. Just as the Scotsman with his
Border Collie is not concerned about the purity of the lines, if it can herd, get along
with the other dogs and is healthy and robust it is a Border Collie and all of the
scribbling on kennel club record books means exactly nothing.
Just as the cowboy of the American west could be light or dark – Negro,
Caucasian or Hispanic – dogs throughout time have been what they do, not who
their ancestors were. The breed in the kennel club sense, with the closed gene pool,
is a European invention less than two hundred years old, a twinkling of the eye in the
time scale of genetic evolution. As can so clearly be seen in the plague of genetic
defects and structural absurdities in the show breeds, and all of the medical
screening tests, this is evolving into a self-limiting genetic fiasco.
American Doberman and German Shepherd advocates, particularly the show
elements, tend to disparage what they like to refer as mongrels and half-breeds,
such as the lines of the KNPV trainers. But the Doberman is a genetic disaster no
longer even considered for serious police or military service and the useful German
Shepherds are increasingly from working lines on the fringes of the mainstream,
increasingly distinct from the show lines. This is true not only in North America but in
Germany as well. Where thirty years ago most of the Schutzhund podium places
were reserved for the German Shepherd, today the Shepherd predominates only in
his breed specific trials; in open competition increasingly the Malinois is enjoying his
lunch, and police departments, even in Germany, are looking to this Flemish breed.
Ultimately the pragmatic concept that a dog is what he does on the field, and
especially in actual service, will prevail. The incessant demand for the exported KNPV
dog worldwide, and the increasing price, demonstrates this and belies the kennel
club concept of the purebred, the pseudo purity of the arbitrarily closed gene pool.

34
This does not mean that we cannot or will not have breeds such as the German
Shepherd or Malinois with commonality of appearance and demeanor as well as
working character, but it does mean that in the long term it will be necessary to
bring whatever is needed from wherever it can be found into the lines to maintain
vigor, working drives and genetic diversity. This is how men have bred serious dogs
according to real needs for untold centuries, and will continue to do so in the future.
The concept of the purebred and the closed gene pool and conformation beauty
shows of the pseudo elite kennel clubs will wither in the face of practical reality, the
performance of the dog in service. Mankind has always selected dogs according to
performance and only later thought of the resulting body of breeding stock as a
breed, and those in need of actual working stock will always select in this way.
In an earlier era of Greeks and Romans, before the advent of firearms and
armored knights on horseback, the war dog as an actual combatant, where the
power to bite and attack was the inherent reason for the dog, was at least to some
extent of practical battlefield utility. At the turn of the twentieth century, about 1900,
the police dog was introduced for urban patrol, often in factory or working class
districts, where, especially at night, the police officer was alone, often unarmed, and
out of touch, with only his baton for defense and his whistle to summon help. In this
environment the patrol dog as a partner for the officer on foot patrol served primarily
for his aggressive capability, to fight beside the officer if necessary, to change the
dynamics of the street encounter. Even a pistol was neutral, could be taken and used
against the officer; but there was no way to turn the well-trained dog, injury to his
partner was only likely to enrage him further. There was very little mention of
substance, drug or explosive, detection in this era, although the ability of the dog
provide timely warning of an adversary through his olfactory capability, hearing or
sensitive night vision was of fundamental importance.
Today the police officer patrols in a radio-equipped squad car with a high capacity
side arm and often a virtual arsenal in the trunk or on the gun rack. Sophisticated
computer driven portable radio networks extend officer communication beyond the
vehicle to the streets and wherever else duty calls. The dog is confined in the back
area of a SUV or squad car, and while available for officer security, and sometimes
important in this role, it is no long the primary purpose. When the Navy SEAL team
went in to take out Osama bin Laden they were heavily armed with devastating
modern weaponry, the Malinois was not there to bite or fight, he was there to
intimidate the civilian population outside the compound, to control the field of action
with minimal risk or resources. In the Iraq or Afghanistan engagements, carried out
primarily on the streets and against a foe indistinguishable from the civilian
population, the primary function of the dogs was search, warning of potential
adversaries and explosive detection. Winning hearts and minds among a civilian
population much less sympathetic to the dog as a personal companion renders the
use of aggression for intimidation and control problematic, a double-edged sword.
Beyond the technical advances in firearms, vehicle use and modern radio
communications the scope of police responsibility has expanded enormously because
of societal demands for the suppression of recreational drug traffic and the necessity
of countering increasingly sophisticated organized crime operations with international
reach and expanding terrorist threats, also sophisticated and international in scope.
Thus in modern police service the olfactory potential – the ability to search, track
and for substance detection – has come to predominate, to be as or more important
than the ability to fight and bite. For this reason it has become increasingly essential
that these olfactory capabilities be emphasized in breeding, selection and training,
along with the aggressive potential.
Police canine structural and character requirements have evolved over time,
influencing training doctrine and methodology, breed preference and the

35
expectations of control and restraint of the dog. In the early years physical
intimidation in support of the foot patrol officer was a primary purpose and in
surveying surviving photos and descriptions we see a great deal of variation in size
and appearance. The modern dog in general needs to be agile and small enough to
get in and out of standard patrol vehicle configurations, healthy and durable enough
to provide a reasonable service life in return for increasingly large investments in the
candidate dogs and training, and stable and social enough to function in the
presence of civilians, diverse police personnel and other dogs.
The predominance of the tending style herding breeds, especially those of the
Low Countries and Germany, in contemporary police service is a consequence of the
age old guardian role with the flock or herd, discipline in the aggression, the instinct
to break off the engagement and remain with the livestock when the marauding
predator withdrew and the olfactory competence inherent in the need for predator
detection and seeking out lost animals. These powerful, agile dogs of medium size,
developed over centuries in the livestock tending role, live on in spite of the fact that
their age-old herding function has largely passed into history.
As we have seen, good police or protection dogs must be born and then made.
The founders of these breeds have created, through a long process of incessant
selection and testing, lines of dogs with good expectation of the robust, athletic
physical form and moral attributes such as aggression and courage necessary in a
serious police patrol style dog. Just buying any dog of a particular breed, that is, any
German Shepherd out of the newspaper or off the internet, is not sufficient, indeed
in many situations is little better than going down to the pound and picking out a dog
who looks like he might like to bite.
The problem is that all of these breeds have many litters produced casually for
profit, for show ring results or simply to make money. In all breeds – with the
exception of the Malinois – the typical or average puppy is simply not very good
because it is not out of a real working line.
And every puppy is a gamble, for some pups out of the best combinations are,
through the simple random processes of genetic diversity, going to be born without
the basic physiological make up to become good protection or police dogs. Much can
be done by observing and testing the puppy, but this only enhances the likelihood of
a suitable adult dog, does not produce certainty. At the end of the day, every puppy
is a gamble, a roll of the dice and all we can do is load the dice in our favor. It is for
this reason that many advanced trainers and police training programs purchase
young dogs from fifteen months to two years of age, so that they can see a hip X-ray
and other physical and medical conditions and can accurately evaluate the character
of the dog. There is a much bigger price for such a dog, but generally it is a
worthwhile investment for those with sufficient experience and need.
When my personal canine involvement commenced in the latter 1970s there were
a number of breeds – including the Doberman Pincher, the Rottweiler and the
Bouvier des Flandres – that had been intended historically as police and military
service breeds, were generally perceived in these roles and had honorable service
histories. 1 Although it was not obvious at the time, and advocates of each of these
breeds did their utmost to preserve and protect the legacy, all were rapidly declining
1
As a point of personal reference, I have been active in Schutzhund training for many
years and have trained and titled one German Shepherd and numerous Bouviers, and
also have observed other dogs and breeds in training over many years. Much of my
commentary here will relate to my Bouvier des Flandres experience, but the same
general trends have unfortunately prevailed for the other secondary breeds.

36
as serious police dogs in terms of number in service and the vigor and prominence of
serious working lines.
In the early years of the American working movement, primarily Schutzhund,
advocates for each of these breeds emerged, determined to create an ongoing
American tradition and community, each represented at the foundation of the
American Working Dog Federation in 1986. Over the years these early aspirations
faltered, and these breeds are in decline as service and working dogs. Today's reality
is that actual police dogs are German Shepherds and increasingly the Malinois, the
others falling by the wayside.
It is true that there are individuals of these secondary breeds in service here or
there, but these are fading exceptions, transient occurrences: often little more than
a photo of a dog with a man in a police uniform, portrayed as a police dog but upon
in reality not actually deployed or making street engagements. Sometimes trained
dogs are donated, and there is more diversity among the single purpose detection
dogs, a noble service but not the image projected by the concept of police dog.
Today the American military deploys only German, Dutch and Belgian Shepherds –
the Malinois – and most mainstream police programs worldwide have similar
practices. No one could regret this more than I do, but at this point in history it is
beyond any possible rational denial.
Although the focus of this discussion has been on the protection aspects of the
dog it cannot be emphasized enough that the olfactory capabilities and willingness
for the tracking, search or substance detection are also a product of breeding and
must be part of the selection process, for there are 100 tracking points in
Schutzhund and most police dogs must be capable of duel service, that is able to
search and capable of substance detection. And it is fundamental that working
willingness and obedience is the foundation of all useful work.1

1
This is not entirely true of the old style military sentry or guard dog, or the proverbial
civilian junkyard dog, where acclimation to one handler and raw aggression was more or
less enough, but such dogs and applications are now increasingly obsolete.

37
House Divided
Men have been drawn to fast horses and aggressive dogs for as long as they
have ridden and trained; and the robust, masculine, powerful persona of the police
breeds has always been immensely popular with large segments of the civilian
population. Many of us were and are perfectly at ease with such dogs, taking on the
responsibility to manage them, integrate them into a world of children, neighbors
and others with ease, providing the necessary responsibility, control and discipline.
Unfortunately, others find the reality more difficult to deal with than expected,
sometimes creating serious problems of control and inappropriate aggression.
This is in a certain way reminiscent of the performance cars coming out of Detroit
in the 1960s and early 70s, many virtually racetrack ready. But such cars were
temperamental, quasi track level vehicles often less than entirely suited to the
street, and in need of being driven with restraint and control, generally far below
their potential. A few notoriously required as much time tinkering as driving to keep
them running under the restraints of street use. This presented a problem for the
automotive executives, for there was immense money to be made, and the aura of
the performance models reflected to the entire brand; the auto company without a
race car image was in danger of being perceived as a supplier of stogy sedans for the
old folks, not a high profit margin business. Their solution was quite simple: bring
out models with racing stripes, spoiler wings and evocative monikers such as Gran
Turismo, Charger or Grand Prix but with only modest enhancements under the hood;
they sold by the millions and were enormously profitable.
In a similar way many early breeders, with the entrepreneurial spirit of a Detroit
executive, that is provide whatever will sell, began to produce softer, less demanding
dogs for those desiring the persona but not quite up to the reality. Just as there is
much more demand for pretend racing cars than real racing cars, there have always
been many more homes for pseudo police dogs than real police dogs; and people
ready to pay very good money for their illusions. The result has been the gradual
division of these breeds into the serious working lines and the show and play lines
for the less sophisticated and able segments of the public. The major exception to
this has been the Belgian Malinois, which has never had substantial popularity as a
companion or show dog.
Nothing could illustrate this debasement more surely than the AKC conformation
ring, where pathetic caricatures presented as German Shepherds slink around the
ring, hardly able to stand upright when brought to a trembling halt. Those
attempting to train such dogs invariably find them deficient in the confidence,
enthusiasm and fortitude that were the hallmark of the breed, as well as physically
inept and fragile. Even though the German Shepherd is known around the world as
the police dog, it is difficult to find a specimen from American lines capable of
serving credibly in a police role, and they are no longer prominent at a competitive
level in AKC obedience and other amateur sport venues.
Even more disturbing, over the past thirty years this debasement has also crept
into the German show lines: rather than the Germans influencing American breeders
to take on higher standards the American disease, spread by money, has corrupted
much of Shepherd breeding in Germany. In stark contrast, the German Shepherds
coming from the better European working lines, often from other nations such as the
Czech Republic or Belgium, regularly produce individuals with the potential for
excellence – exhibiting trainability, working willingness, aggression and confidence.
The other breeds with a police dog persona, other than the Malinois, have a similar
division, the primary difference being that none of them have a large enough pool of
working dogs to easily find a dog to train and work. For this reason, the vast
majority of serious, dual purpose police and military dogs today are Malinois,
German Shepherds or a few Dutch Shepherds. Today such dogs are often without
registration and sometimes of mixed background; the "purebred" concept has

38
increasingly lost credibility among such people, who are concerned with what a dog
can do on the field or street rather than what is scribbled in registration books.
Many of us in the beginning find all of this contrary to simple common sense;
quite naturally tend to believe that since the dogs look alike the character and the
adaptability for work or training must also be present throughout the breed. Show
breeders – European as well as American – encourage this mythology, minimize the
fact that the working potential is primarily a function of the genetic selection which is
greatly diluted in many lines. Their sales pitch is to the effect that if one is going to
expend so much money and work in training he might just as well have a beautiful
dog out of their champion lines, implying that genetic background is a secondary
factor in police work and trial field success. None of this is true, but it is the
foundation of the breed mythology, the sales propaganda. But it is a false
foundation, a bubble of credibility as it were, and destined to burst as all bubbles do
in time.
This propaganda is so insidious that most of us insist upon learning from direct
personal experience. Many years ago, in the later 1970s, we bought a young German
Shepherd male, mostly because like so many others I had grown up with a
fascination with police dogs and because my wife Kathy wanted a better dog for
obedience training. The dog came from a show breeder, at a time when we had
absolutely no idea that such distinctions existed, and would likely not have believed
had we been warned.
According to the plan we started tracking the dog, and I became the chief
criminal suspect, to be searched for in the fields and woods. Normal tracks became
much too easy and boring, and the dog tended to go fast, so I took to trying to
throw him off by taking big jumps to the side, doing acute turns, going over fences
and through ditches and anything else I could think off. The only rules were that I
could not cross back over the track or walk on the rail across the ditch, because the
dog would try to follow and slip off. The more I challenged this dog the greater his
enthusiasm and drive became.
By the time the dog got the AKC tracking title he had become essentially my dog,
so my wife gave him to me and went off to find the Bouvier she wanted in the first
place.1 So this young German Shepherd and I, knowing absolutely nothing, started
going along on obedience training night, and the dog progressed remarkably. It was
not all that long before we went to a big German Shepherd obedience trial specialty
where, much to my surprise, we came in third overall and took home a huge trophy.
We got the Companion Dog certificate with more impressive trophies, and shortly
thereafter the dog died from Parvovirus, which we had never heard of, within twelve
hours of the onset of symptoms; a truly sad story.
After a time we began to look for another Shepherd and began to run into some
of the German working lines which were just beginning to be promoted. We were not
convinced and went back to the original breeders for another dog, this time a much
more expensive dog promoted in terms of high-level show potential lines.
But there was a problem. When we went off to training nothing happened, the
beast was little more than dog meat in a fur sack. In obedience, on the recall, he
would get up and sort of ramble toward you, had no interest in tracking and basically
was a mild mannered, laid back, fairly dull dog. We were just looking into
Schutzhund and the new Bouvier progressed rapidly, but the expensive new
Shepherd would sort of bite like he was doing you a favor and could we please go
home now. The Shepherd people in the Schutzhund club tended to show a pained
1
I have never quite known how premeditated this was.

39
look on their face, which I did not really understand at the time, but to their credit
said nothing negative about the dog, which was sold shortly thereafter.
What is the moral of this tale? We started to look seriously into lines and
discovered that the first dog was mostly out of imported working lines, combined
with some credible older American breeding, and the second dog was of prominent
American show lines, meaning he was bred tight on then currently fashionable
conformation winners.
This experience was our introduction to working dogs, and has served us well.
Why was a novice trainer able to come in third out of a hundred or so German
Shepherds at a well-established Shepherd obedience club with many experienced
trainers? This was a real mystery, for I was a very ordinary novice as a trainer, could
see that there were much better trainers at our obedience club. It took a certain
amount of time to realize it, and even longer to believe it. But the fact was and is
that the trainers at this specialty club were working German Shepherds out of
American show lines, "pet quality" cast offs not deemed worthy of the show ring,
competing with one hand tied behind their backs, and that their dogs were on the
whole of very limited potential relative to dogs properly breed according to
demonstrated comprehensive working potential. We, everybody in America, had so
much to learn.
This is not an isolated instance, an accident of selecting the wrong dog, but
rather a generality, the common experience. In reality the vast majority of dogs
going into American police service today, regardless of breed, are imported or bred
out of European working lines, mostly German Shepherds and increasingly the
Malinois. The reasons for this are that these lines are much more trainable, energetic
and reliable than dogs out of show lines, European or American. The most
fundamental truth of working dog breeding is that when working intensity and
willingness is not incessantly the predominant factor in breeding selection, it quickly
withers.
When looking at the American registration statistics over the years, it becomes
apparent that about twenty five percent of Americans seeking a purebred companion
or family dog are looking for some sort of protection or police style dog to project the
desired image. The German Shepherd, for many reasons, good as well as bad, was
the beginning of the wave in the 1920s and is today still predominant almost a
century later. While other breeds have come and gone the total has consistently
been about a quarter of registrations. The Doberman Pincher sky rocketed in the
1970s and for a few years became even more popular than the German Shepherd. In
the 1990s the Rottweiler surged, which went hand in hand with the decline of the
Doberman.
On the whole the owners of these pretend dogs have been generally satisfied,
found friends and neighbors sufficiently impressed and the dogs on the whole
relatively easy to deal with. Breeders found that dumbing down and diluting the
character reduced customer problems, made good business sense and made their
breeding stock much easier to deal with. Nobody seemed to notice that they had
been given replicas, like the macho man cars with racing stripes and nothing special
under the hood.
Thus the vast majority of such dogs offered for sale in America today, the
German Shepherds and other police heritage breeds such as the Doberman Pinchers
or Bouviers des Flandres, are grossly deficient in working potential and character
because they are bred without regard for character, or more often in fact selected for
a low intensity character. Most dogs coming out of show lines, in Europe as well as
America, are seriously deficient in the fundamental attributes of intelligence, working
willingness, confidence and courage. This trend has become more and more
pronounced over the decades, for in the 1960s and even a little later you could see

40
some common ancestry in the successful working and show line Shepherds, but not
today. The breeders will of course promise you anything to make the sale, confident
that the customer will not know the difference, in reality wants the image but not the
reality.
Although this division has become much more pronounced in the past few
decades, in reality it emerged in the very beginning as the conformation winners
attracted the lion's share of the notoriety, prestige and money. Lest this be perceived
as the attitude of an over the edge elite, consider the experience of those involved
with Dorothy Eustis in the famous Fortunate Fields breeding and research program in
Switzerland, leading up to The Seeing Eye guide dog program for the blind at
Morristown, New Jersey. In their 1934 report, Elliott Humphrey and Lucien Warner,
leaders of the program, comment:
"It will be remembered that at the turn of this century the German
Shepherd as a breed began to split into two strains. The one produced
beautiful dogs, including all the show winners. The other produced working
dogs, including all the working champions. No dog of the championship
strains born since 1909 has produced winners in both show and working
classes. Thus the cleavage is complete." (Humphrey & Warner, 1934) p226
Even in these founding years, with the ringing words of von Stephanitz, still alive,
demanding character and working capability, the prestige and money gravitated to
those who did the minimum for work, sought glory in the politics of the conformation
ring. Ultimately, excellent working dogs are only produced by those whose highest
personal priority is working excellence. In the early years of the American awakening
many, even I, endorsed slogans such as "We can have it all," "One breed" or "The
Golden Middle." But thirty years of experience, during which my breed approached
ever closer to the abyss, has shown these slogans were and are blatant falsehoods,
for in the end such programs always lead to mediocrity, at the very best, in working
character.
But in the world of real police service, mediocrity is not enough.

41
 2 Nature and Nurture

The transition from the age of

agriculture to the age of
manufacturing, the Industrial
Revolution, dramatically altered the
relationship of the common man to
the natural world, resulting in the
loss of touch with age-old animal
husbandry skills. Breeding and
training of horses, dogs and other
domestic animals was
marginalized: became hobbies or
professions for an ever-shrinking
minority rather than the skills
necessary for ordinary men in their
day by day lives.
Practical knowledge of animal
behavior had been fundamental
from the beginning, for hunting
down animals to eat, and avoiding
Belgian Shepherd, Malinois Variety being hunted down and eaten, were
essential skill sets. The dawn of
agriculture and the domestication
of the dog, sheep and draft animals such as the oxen and later the horse meant that
most men needed practical animal training, breeding and management skills in order
to feed their family and provide security and shelter. Although the farmer and
herdsman may have lacked a body of abstract theory and esoteric terminology,
these people could and did breed, raise and train their horses, oxen and dogs as the
foundation of their ongoing existence.
These skills were practical and heuristic, based on ways devised and evolved over
time and passed from generation to generation, rather than the more abstract
concepts of what we think of as science today. The development of modern science
was pending the evolution of writing and mathematics; would unfold only slowly, for
even the classic Greeks explained the world in terms of the four elements of earth,
water, fire and air. This was little more than made up science in that it represented
little real knowledge of today's chemistry, physics and biology; but as time went on
men such as Newton, Einstein, Darwin, Skinner and Lorenz moved us forward to new
levels of understanding. But the tentative speculation of these Greeks and other
ancient peoples was not in vain; for it was from these beginnings that our current
knowledge evolved. If we somehow manage to persist for another two millennia the
knowledge of today will in its own turn likely seem quaint and primitive in light of
new science.
On a theoretical or abstract level our understanding of human and animal
behavior and cognitive function remains primitive; we train our animals using
methods that gradually evolved over time because they work. But we cannot yet
fully explain the underlying mechanisms of the process, the Schrodinger equation for
the mind and brain remains to be formulated. We have only tentative understanding
of the mechanisms by which the brain functions and our knowledge of the forces

42
shaping human or canine emotion, cognitive function and social behavior remains
primitive. In reality, the sciences of psychology and ethology are at a comparable
level to the classic Greek understanding of chemistry and physics.
Sigmund Freud is regarded as the founder of psychology, but today most of his
concepts have evolved and been discarded or substantially modified, to the point
that the original theory is on the whole repudiated. This is of course how science
works; it is often an ugly and disorganized process. But the problem is that
outmoded – and often simply wrong – concepts carry on in the conventional wisdom
and are used in making bad decisions of public policy and personal action. Much of
this sort of thing, reliance on outmoded science, carries on in practical dog training,
selection and breeding even today.
Meager as our theoretical understanding of cognition and behavior is, on a
practical level the common man – until the advent of the automobile and tractor a
century ago – needed a working knowledge of animal training and use in order to
earn his living and support his family. The stockman, herdsman and farmer needed
to be able to effectively breed, select and train the domesticated animals life
depended upon. Until a brief century ago our very existence was dependent on this
practical animal husbandry skill, this ability to work the horse, oxen and dog. Thus in
a sense those of us struggling to sharpen our dog training skills today are simply
striving to recover the day by day knowledge of our great grandfathers. While their
book knowledge of breeding and training may have been small, the practical hands
on knowledge was immense, was in fact the legacy of the advent of agriculture
several thousand years ago.
What we do understand is that all creatures, including both men and dogs, are
born with genetically predetermined behavioral propensities, produced by the
evolutionary process, to make the actions and reactions necessary for survival
inherent, preordained behavior patterns. The fact is that these instincts or drives
evolved over hundreds of thousands of years of hunter-gatherer existence, and
continue to present training opportunities as well as cause problems in modern
industrial and agricultural society. The inborn potential for aggressive behavior in
most creatures, and especially pronounced in predators such as men and dogs, is a
fundamental fact of our lives, as explored by Konrad Lorenz, and others. In order to
master dog training, it is necessary to understand these drives and instincts as well
as possible, for the training process consists primarily of harnessing them to produce
the desired response and behavior.
At first glance, it may seem that comparing man and dog is a stretch, that man,
with his technical knowledge, ability to speak, read and write, is an entirely different
sort of creature than the dog. But the commonality is compelling, for both man and
the wolf evolved in small, cooperating social groups to live by hunting and
scavenging, often among much larger and more powerful predators. This is in
contrast to the big cats – the tigers, cheetahs and leopards – whose solitary hunting
resulted in much less interactive social structures.1 The social dynamics of the wolf
pack and the primitive hunter-gather human band have much in common; but also
important differences.
As mentioned in previous chapters, even though it has become fashionable to
think of dogs as directly domesticated wolves, this does not line up well with the
1
The lions, which generally form long term, structured social groups, are the obvious
exception. The purpose of the lion pride is thought to have more to do with social
structure maintenance than hunting; perhaps because most lions live in an open
savanna environment rather than the jungle, forest or mountain areas typical of the
other big cats.

43
current scientific view that man probably did not directly domesticate the wolf at all
but rather an intermediate and now no longer existent population, probably
scavengers, derived from the wolf. The evolutionary process operating on these
intermediate populations was substantial, modifying the innate behavior
characteristics as well as the physical attributes. Thus even though it is still common
to explain many things in terms of wolf behavior and the pack structure, it is prudent
to keep in the back of the mind that this is a substantial oversimplification. The wolf
characteristics referred to may turn out to be more remote in time and evolutionary
distance and thus less directly defining of canine behavior than we have tended to
believe.
On the other hand, proto dogs likely did come into existence at the emergence of
agricultural man, adapting a scavenger role on the outskirts of emerging human
encampments or primitive villages. (Some researches argue for an earlier
relationship, some thousands of years prior in the age of hunting and gathering, but
details on how such a population could survive, especially as regards obtaining
enough food, are scant.) Whether these constituted a separate species is something
we can leave to the specialists to work out.
What is key for us to understand is that some sort of intermediate stage in all
likelihood did exist, and that the wolf heritage, though perhaps much more remote,
was a primary factor in our ability to in turn integrate these prototype dogs into our
social structure and create the domesticated dog. We are able to train our dogs
because they have evolved on the edge of and then within our social structures. The
fact that this occurred in a very brief time span – a few thousand years – means that
all of these fundamental canine attributes were latent in the wolf rather than caused
by random genetic modification and selection. As the dog came into existence as a
truly domestic animal in full partnership with mankind, he took on many roles,
mostly relating to defense or protection and various aspects of animal husbandry or
herding.

Art and Science

Since dogs do not talk, at least to most of us, our understanding of how they
learn and why they respond and behave as they do remains in the realm of
observation, speculation and conjecture. It is true that scientists such as Ivan
Pavlov, B.F. Skinner and Konrad Lorenz have taken significant strides in creating a
science of animal behavior, but to a certain extent training remains in the realm of
experience and art rather than science. Since there are major differences among
breeds and individual dogs in willingness and inclination to learn and perform, those
seeking a dog naturally want to select one with a high likelihood of success. Several
key questions emerge:
 Why can dogs be trained at all?
 How can the best dog for a particular function be selected?
 What is the best training approach in a specific situation?

On a superficial level training can be thought of as a process of bringing a dog to

the point where it will perform a task, such as working a track in a particular style or
fetching an object and presenting it in a ritualistic way. In the process of creating a
rote animal act for entertainment this is what it amounts to, but for those seeking
useful service from the dog this trick for a treat approach is not and cannot be the
essence of it, for you can teach parrots, pigs and even the big cats to execute rote
stunts. The process of making the police dog or herding candidate ready for service
is one of molding a relationship in which it can and will cooperate not simply in rote
tasks such as fetch but in situations where the dog must show initiative and take
independent actions, such as a building search where the dog must guard if the

44
found person passively stands his ground but engage if he flees or shows aggression.
The police dog emerged from the herders, and the shepherd does not teach a young
dog how to herd so much as he molds and directs the inborn instincts and natural
propensities.
More particularly, since this is a book about police and protection dogs, the
questions are why dogs are capable of human aggression and how to select and train
dogs that can be effective, intimidating and useful yet still respond to and be under
control of the handler. In his seminal popular book, On Aggression, Lorenz explores
the complex evolutionary function of inter and intra species aggression and how it
relates to territorial spacing, social order and breeding selection, and particularly how
propensities and instincts can have extensions and consequences in venues beyond
the original evolutionary purpose. (Lorenz, 1963) There is no chapter in the Lorenz
book on teaching an obstinate dog to out, release the bite, but a broad
understanding of the emerging knowledge of behavior can lend insight into the
training approaches evolved in a heuristic way and handed down over generations.
Lorenz accepted aggression as part of nature, and while deeply concerned about
controlling its consequences in a modern world of war and conflict much more
complex and hazardous than quarrels among hunting bands, he saw redirection,
control and understanding of aggression as more realistic than trying to eliminate it.
In many important ways the key to selecting the right pup or older dog is the
selection of the appropriate breed, that is, a Malinois or a German Shepherd for a
police dog, a retriever such as the Labrador for duck hunting and one of the pointing
breeds for upland game. This would perhaps seem obvious, for the original purpose
of these breeds was supposed to be the breeding selection for the physical and moral
attributes conducive to success in the particular line of work.
What is important but not at all obvious to the casual observer is that selecting a
breed and randomly acquiring a pup is quite often an unproductive and ultimately
frustrating experience, for the reality today is that most retrievers are not especially
trainable for retrieving, many pointers do not instinctively point well and many
German Shepherds falter at anything approaching real police work. The problem is
that most puppies of these breeds are produced by those knowing or caring little
about the work of the breed but rather are interested in accumulating the tin and
plastic cups they hand out at the beauty shows, in being important in some way in
an otherwise empty, dull and pathetic life or are simply lured by easy money. The
consequence is that virtually all breeds with specific, serious originating purposes
have today been split into diverging lines, virtually different breeds: the real workers
and the popular AKC style companions and commodity dogs. The first indication as
to the nature of a particular breeder is that virtually all serious working people, of
any discipline, hold registry bodies such as the American Kennel Club in contempt.
An ongoing problem today is that sport systems, Schutzhund and French Ring in
particular, are increasingly focused on things irrelevant to real police and protection
applications, such as straight sits, artificial and exaggerated animation in heeling and
whether during a search the dog looks into a blind experience has shown to be
empty. Increasingly the rules force the judge to focus on trivialities rather than
revealing the underlying functional nature of the dog. Close inspection shows that
these things occur much more blatantly in systems under the thumb of conformation
oriented organizations such as the FCI national European clubs, such as the SV. In
general venues under the auspices of working breeders and trainers, such as KNPV
and the NVBK, are much more practical, realistic and effective at producing truly
useful dogs. This is a serious problem, for if the trial awards points for the wrong
things, in the end the system, on the whole, will produce the wrong dogs.

45
 So why, exactly, can you train a dog, induce him to obey? Is it because he loves
you? Is it because he knows you will beat him if he does not? Is it because he hopes
you will flip him a chunk of meat if he does?
Dogs adopt behavior patterns we condone and reinforce and respond to
command because experience has created the expectation of desirable consequences
for compliance and undesired experiences otherwise. These consequences must
come to include the approval or disapproval of the handler as well as more tangible
rewards or corrections, because in real service immediate response to the handler
rather than the expectation of a physical reward is essential. The expectation of food
or a thrown ball comes to be situation dependent, a conditioned response in a series
of predictable exercises – useful in a contrived competition consisting of an invariant
series of rote exercises but prone to failure in responding to asynchronous,
unpredictable situations and commands under the stress of a tactical engagement.
In the harmonious relationship the sense of fondness and ease between man and
dog are natural and desirable; these emotional and psychological bonds are in fact
the basis for the utility of the canine. When this relationship is soundly established
the dog is most content, and thus predictable and stable, in the world he
understands how to control, where he can chose good things and avoid conflict
through compliance. But there is nothing remarkable or unique about this: families,
business operations and military units function best where there is established
leadership, esprit de corps, and the tranquility that comes to the individual whose
desirable actions lead to approval and predictable reward and undesirable actions
cause discord, under his own choice and control.
Western culture, in particular the European, places enormous emphasis on the
emotional bond between man and dog; as evidenced in innumerable stories,
especially popular in children's literature, emphasizing and celebrating the proverbial
love of a dog. Canine heroes on the movie screen or television perform amazing
feats, come to the rescue of their master – typically a personable young girl or boy –
on their own initiative with no evidence of training or a conditioned response. The
one-man dog, emanating unconditional love, is the stuff of legend. The temptation is
to conclude that love should be the foundation of service, that training is merely the
process of forming and directing the natural emotional bond, that the natural and
morally correct way of dog training is no force training through the guidance of the
natural love of the dog. The dog is expected to obey you because he loves you. The
problem is that the dog will naturally expect reciprocity, expect you to cater to his
whims and desires, and avoid the expectation of undesirable responses, because you
love him in return.
This is a false basis for serious training. Often the dog must respond to a
command or situation in a way that is unnatural, that is food refusal or the call off in
the long pursuit. Discipline, on occasion demanding sincere force, is necessary to
produce a reliably trained dog for practical service as in police patrol or hunting. All
training, including human education, is based on reward and punishment in balance,
applied consistently according to the needs of the specific situation. Punishment is
perhaps a harsh word, for many young men and woman understand that a lack of
diligence in high school classes would lead to a life of menial, uninteresting work;
and many dogs quickly learn – through effective training – that the correct response
is also the most desirable. As an example, the release of the bite in the protection
training is best taught from the beginning, where minimal correction will produce the
release of the puppy tug. When the release command is delayed until late in the
training, vigorous or even harsh corrections often become necessary. Good training
strategy and practice will succeed with measured, humane corrections, but an
element of compulsion is always necessary in serious dog training.

46
 The emotional bond must be conceived and realized as the consequence of a
good training regimen, not the basis of training. The spoiled dog without discipline
will often exhibit affection and have a happy demeanor, and come to expect that the
basis of love should be his doing what he pleases and you supplying the means. This
is not dog training, it is handler training.
It is human nature to believe that one's dog loves them above all others, is the
proverbial one-man dog, that there is a unique bond. The reality is that a confident,
stable dog – the most useful kind – has the potential over time to transition to a new
handler, just as many human beings can in time adapt to a new partner after the
passing of a spouse. Dogs incapable of making such a transition tend to be flawed,
seriously insecure.
The primary difference in the learning process between men and their dogs is
that dogs live in a world of short term consequences and the human being from a
very young age begins to be able to relate increasingly distant past incidents and
their consequences to current behavior decisions. By the time the five year old
begins school he is already much better at long term associations between actions
and consequences than the family dog will ever be. In a good family situation you
can sit down and explain behavior expectations to a five year old and in a meaningful
way use reminders of prior experience to establish expected future behavior
patterns. None of this is possible with a dog, everything must be taught without the
use of language, a process that is awkward for the modern man where training a
new family dog may be the first experience at dealing with animals, something that
became routine experience for most children in a farm setting two hundred years
ago. Much of the frustration, failure and abuse in dog training is rooted in
unreasonable expectations on the part of the human that the dog should be able to
make these longer term associations, and a tendency to inflict increasing punishment
on a dog which cannot possibly have any idea of why he is being punished.
Avoidance, fear and stress in the dog are the inevitable consequences.

Ethology
In the early twentieth century men such as Ivan Pavlov in Russia and Konrad
Lorenz in Austria, famous for books such as On Aggression, pioneered the more
formal study of animal behavior, beginning the difficult process of putting the age old
arts of breeding and training on a more scientific basis. Pavlov, most famous for
originating the concept of the conditioned response, was a physiologist primarily
interested in the chemical and biological functions of life. His behavioral discoveries
were made in a more or less incidental way, based on fortuitous behavior
observations of animals undergoing experiments in his laboratory.
Lorenz spent a lifetime observing and interpreting animal behavior, as much as
possible in a natural setting, with minimal outside influence and constraint. In doing
so he played a key role in founding the science of ethology, defined as the study of
animal behavioral patterns, particularly in their natural habitat, usually proposing
evolutionary explanations. In addition to Lorenz, the discipline of ethology is
associated with the name of his associate Dutch biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen, with
whom he shared a Nobel prize in 1973. As the creator of popular books Lorenz has
gained the lion's share of publicity and name recognition. Ethology has extended the
concept of evolution – which had revolutionized our understanding of the physical
form of plants and animals – to our understanding of the behavior, social
mechanisms and organization of animal life, eventually lending insight into human
social behavior. The ethologists based their concepts of human social and group
behavior on the concept of this behavior as natural extensions of the evolutionary
processes that created the behavior patterns of animals such as flocks of geese, the
wolf pack and the territorial behavior of birds and animals.

47
 For better or worse, the rise of ethology brought terms such as imprinting,
operant conditioning, conditioned response and dominance into scientific usage,
which has spilled out into the larger world, and in particular the discipline of canine
training. Studies of the wolf pack social structure by men such as David Mechhave
brought concepts such as dominance and the so-called alpha wolf into the common
vernacular of dog training, sometimes with misunderstanding.
Much of the value of the work of people such as Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall,
who studied Gorillas and Chimpanzees respectively in natural settings in Africa, is
that to the maximum extent possible they were observers rather than intruders, in
the fundamental spirit of the science of ethology. This has led to enormous
advancement in our understanding, for Chimpanzee studies on animals living in a
cage and interacting primarily with graduate students have serious limitations that
tend to be glossed over. Observations of wolves living in confinement have similar
limitations, and have created misleading impressions which have extended into the
mythology of dog training.
Unfortunately, it seems that many of the concepts of wolf behavior, such as the
alpha wolf, had originations in studies of confined wolves in grossly artificial and
unnatural circumstances. The problem is that just throwing unrelated wolves into a
pen does not create a pack and the group dynamics is not that of a naturally
evolving family group in the wild. To their credit men such as Mech recognized and
corrected this, but it has proven difficult to push the genie back into the bottle. The
modern view of the wolf pack in the wild is that of a family group with cooperation in
hunting and rearing the typically single yearly litter. Pack cohesion and cooperation
springs from a natural social dynamic rather than a "leader of the pack" inflicting a
thrashing on lower ranking members from time to time to remind them who is boss.
(Mech, The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species, 1970)
Dog training for police service was well advanced when the field of ethology
began to emerge, and the reaction of dog trainers has varied. Many trainers have
benefited by incorporating this new understanding into ongoing programs, but some,
aspiring to recognition as dog-training experts, picked up the vocabulary and began
to style themselves as authorities, sometimes to the extent of giving seminars and
writing articles. But an elaborate vocabulary and a condescending manner without
hands on success is in the long term fatal to credibility, and can create confusion in
the minds of beginning trainers. The beginner is well advised to focus on the
teaching of those with practical success, and incorporate more advanced and esoteric
concepts as their knowledge, perception and confidence increase. The difficulty with
this advice is of course that the beginner can hardly be expected to find and
recognize "practical success." Getting started in dog training unfortunately involves
some trial and error in identifying good teachers and mentors because most of those
involved are salesmen on one level or another as well as trainers, seeking a following
for success in business or advancement of personal reputation and status.
On the other hand it is a serious mistake to ignore developments in science and
mathematics when they are not obviously practical. I recall as an engineering
student regarding the theory of prime numbers as something of theoretical interest
only, of no use whatsoever in what I thought of at the time as the real world.
Fortunately, people in this instance more clever and wise than I went on to use
prime number theory as the foundation of the security and encryption systems that
are now the basis of secure internet communication and commerce, of a new
commercial world order. All fundamental scientific knowledge expands the human
potential, is important and valuable even when there is a lapse of time before
practical applications evolve and are proven.
Reading the popular books by Lorenz such as King Solomon's Ring, Man Meets
Dog and On Aggression is not likely to reveal a quick and easy solution to the

48
problem of convincing a dog to release the grip on the protection sleeve, but the
insight gained might perhaps help a person to grow as a trainer and become better
able to devise training solutions on the basis of fact rather than myth, certainly
something more valuable than a trick to solve an immediate problem.
Ethology is not a monolithic body of knowledge with universally accepted
principles, as a quick look at a list of well-known figures associated with the field will
reveal, which includes: Raymond Coppinger, Richard Dawkins, Dian Fossey, Jane
Goodall, Julian Huxley, Konrad Lorenz, Desmond Morris and B. F. Skinner. Rather it
is evolving and changing; the books David Mech writes on the wolf in more recent
years to some extent modify and extend his earlier work, which is how science is
supposed to work.
Coppinger is a particularly credible and worthwhile source, for he spent many
years training and competing racing sled dogs and then years in the field working
with livestock guarding dog. Dirty hands, or hands that have been dirty, may not be
fashionable in academic circles, but when seeking out wisdom and guidance for dog
training they are every bit as essential as a sharp and agile mind.
The dog trainer should be open to new knowledge and concepts, but not quick to
adapt the latest fad; respect both the accomplishments of the practical trainer who
can win a major championship or consistently produce high quality police dogs and
the scientist, perhaps oblivious to the practicalities of animal training, but making
important and useful discoveries leading to better understanding of underlying
principles. The cabinet maker of today often has enormous practical skill learned as
an apprentice of an older master, but that does not mean that men of science – who
could not put up a straight shelf in the kitchen for their wife – are not part of the
process, for were it not for discoveries in chemistry, metallurgy and mechanics
leading to novel adhesives, carbide tipped cutting tools and high speed steels the
advanced techniques of the modern cabinet maker today would never have come
into existence.
Thus, to summarize, canine ethology or psychology as a body of abstract
knowledge has produced substantial advancement in our understanding of animal
behavior, but is still at a relatively immature state. Academics such as the
Coppingers, greatly aided by personal hands on training experience, are going
beyond abstract observation and theorizing to make enormously interesting and
useful advances in canine behavior and training. Dog breeding, selection and training
still is and should be passed from generation to generation as practical or heuristic
skill and knowledge, but progress comes from incorporating new insights and
knowledge, as proven in practical training, from the emerging science of ethology
and other academic research.

Terminology
Where the Greeks spoke of earth, wind and fire the canine world speaks of drives
and instincts such as prey and defense, as well as other attributes such as
trainability, aggression and sharpness. While these terms serve the ordinary
purposes of education and discussion reasonably well, defining and explaining them
precisely, devoid of subtle contradiction, is surprisingly elusive.
Dog training is even today much more art, based on heuristics, than science and
has evolved an elaborate terminology used as often to paper over mystery and
confusion as to express objective knowledge. But unless one chooses to start over at
the beginning and attempt to rediscover the practical knowledge developed over the
many centuries of domestication it is necessary to deal with the existing terminology,
flawed as it may be, in order to benefit from the accumulated knowledge. In the era
when most men learned to breed, train and manage their farm animals working

49
alongside fathers, grandfathers and uncles terminology and written knowledge was
secondary, but today many of us take up dog training or horsemanship devoid of the
knowledge and perspective once common to most ten year old boys, making us
much more dependent on written and verbal instruction.
Scientists and medical professionals have always had a certain propensity to
create elaborate terminology as a cover for the fact that they are in fundamental
ways as confused and uncertain as the rest of us. By adapting a mildly
condescending attitude to the layman and parading the esoteric vocabulary they are
often given credit for much more real understanding than they actually have, which
is exactly the point. In a similar way, the armchair canine experts, equipped with an
array of buzzwords, can create the facade of knowledge far beyond any real ability to
deal with actual dogs. The advent of the internet has taken this tendency to pretend
knowledge to an entirely new level.
Over millions of years the evolutionary process has brought forth powerful inborn
desires and natural propensities to hold and protect territory, enforce social structure
and hunt down prey animals as a source of sustenance. These primitive inborn
tendencies, created by nature to provide food and social stability to the predator
population, have come to be referred to as instincts or drives. Dog training is largely
a matter of understanding, often more on a heuristic or practical level than
theoretically, and harnessing these drives in order to produce individual dogs with
desired, useful trained behavior patterns and responses.
The intrinsic nature of these behavior mechanisms is the subject of ongoing
scientific debate and investigation and no two sources are likely to agree entirely on
all of the details. Many things, such as fear of snakes or heights, are believed to be
inborn, while others are learned from parents, siblings or others at very early ages.
But even if one were to understand the operational principles perfectly, the
tremendous variation among individuals would still make training difficult and a
matter of experience and capability gradually accumulated in a heuristic way.
Serious dog training discussions thus feature terms such as prey drive and
defensive instinct; which tend to be casually bandied about, used to explain every
behavior incident and to substantiate any and every point of view. The novice
sometimes picks up on this, acquires a few buzzwords and soon comes to think of
himself as ready to enter the discussion on an equal footing with the experienced
trainer, especially as an anonymous internet expert. Indeed, a line of patter full of
references to the social structure of the wolf pack and terms such as prey or defense
and an occasional comment about a sharp dog can make one a player in many
internet discussions with very little real experience or knowledge to back it up. This
can have the effect of inhibiting further progress in understanding and in training, as
a litany of buzzwords takes the place of real knowledge, gained through work and
experience.
What, exactly, is prey drive or the defensive instinct? The answer, disconcerting
as it may be, is the same as the one Alice heard from the Queen of Hearts when she
entered Wonderland through the rabbit hole: these words, and most of the
terminology of dog training and behavior, mean exactly what the speaker thinks they
mean at the moment he utters the words, which varies from person to person as well
as time to time, even in the same discussion. Nevertheless, an appreciation of the
commonly used terminology, imperfect as it must be, is a prerequisite to learning
about dog behavior and training.

On Aggression
In the introduction of his seminal book On Aggression Konrad Lorenz defines
aggression as "the fighting instinct in beast and man which is directed against

50
members of the same species." Lorenz goes on to explain aggression as an
evolutionary instinct which emerged as the foundation of social order, that is
territory, social rank and sexual preference. An important function of aggression is
maintaining separation, spreading a species over large enough individual or group
territories for sufficient resources to maintain life, particularly food. (Lorenz, 1963)
The concept of aggression as a phenomenon within the species, a mechanism for
social order among the same sort of animal, is fundamental. Predators hunt in order
to eat, and aggression within the species is an ongoing mechanism of social order as
when a pack of wolves repel outsiders or two rams bang heads in order to gain
sexual precedence. Violence between different species in nature beyond hunting for
food, or efforts to repel the predator, is unusual because nothing important for
survival is at issue and all violence risks life limiting injury.
The immediate problem in a book about police dogs is that most of our discussion
of aggression concerns the use of dogs to pursue, engage and hold men, a different
species. The resolution is to think of the dog as being integrated within the human
social structure, which makes the aggression against other men an extension,
beyond nature, a consequence of the original intra species social integration.
Aggression is a fundamental aspect of most creatures, but its manifestation must
be limited and restrained in order to maintain social order but yet not lead to the
extinction of the species through unnecessary violence. In the relentless world of
natural selection animals fight only out of necessity, that is, to preserve territory for
feeding and to produce and raise offspring, for mating precedence, to drive off other
animals from a kill to obtain food, or to defend a kill. Most engagements are in a
sense ritualistic, almost always broken off short of death or serious injury when the
outcome is clear, or when one participant retreats in order to live for another day.
Aggression is necessary for life, but social mechanisms must minimize actual
physical engagement in order to preserve life from one generation to the next.
So aggression does not and cannot mean a propensity to fight on any pretext,
with nothing to gain, to go out on hunt and destroy expeditions with no specific
purpose like some young male specimens of homo sapiens prowling bars with an
obnoxious attitude to provoke a drunken fight just for the fun of it, or to establish
the aura of masculinity.
Inherent aggression as the evolutionary produced mechanism for establishing
territory, rank order and sexual preference and the incessant need to hunt down
food are the twin foundations defining the behavior and character of all predators
and their interactions with other creatures. This is true of both dog and man, and the
integration of canine social structures and instincts into the human relationship
brings an entirely new level of subtlety and complexity to the relationship. There is a
tendency to think of aggression as applicable primarily to the protection or police
pursuit and active search aspects of canine training, but to do so misses the
fundamental point. Instinctive aggression is an inherent driving force in all creatures,
including man, and comprehending and adapting training procedures and philosophy
to these primitive instincts and drives is fundamental to all training. In a broader
sense, beyond the world of dogs and dog training, a modern comprehension of the
role of aggression in human behavior is fundamental to the understanding of history
and the social order as a whole.
Thus through the work of Lorenz and other ethologists we have come to
understand that aggression is a fundamental aspect of all animal life, and is
especially important and complex in predatory species such as dog and man. In
creating the police patrol dog, mankind has redirected and controlled the canine
aggressive potential to his own benefit, substantially modifying and directing these
natural instincts and capabilities through breeding selection and ever more
sophisticated training methodology. Effective police dog training thus must be based

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on this knowledge, both formal and academic as established by men such as Lorenz
and even more fundamentally the practical, instinctive knowledge that has evolved
over the thousands of years of the human-canine partnership.
There is a significant range of aggression in individual dogs of the protective
breeds. At one extreme is the very aggressive dog that is only truly safe in the hands
of his trainer, who must be aware 100% of the time of his surroundings so as to
avoid the wrong situation. Such a dog can be difficult in a home and is often a kennel
kept dog. These dogs can often be titled by an experienced and capable handler, but
are not generally high scoring, depending on the trial system, that is may do well in
KNPV but less well in other venues.
The obvious question is: who needs it? The short answer is that such dogs need
to be maintained as a resource in the overall breeding pool, that aggregate
aggression tends to diminish over time and a reservoir is necessary to revitalize a
breed. Many dilettantes come to desire such dogs, perhaps as an augmentation to
their masculinity, but placing such a dog in the wrong situation can be extremely bad
for the general public perception of a breed as a whole. In breeding there is
sometimes a misguided tendency to breed tight to such a dog, on the principle that
there can never be too much aggression. In reality there absolutely can be too much
aggression, and great care is necessary in such breeding.
As with most complex systems and attributes, there is a general Gaussian
distribution, the famous bell shaped curve, for aggression. The super aggressive
dogs mentioned above are in the upper tail of the curve, and as you move toward
the mean there is a sweet spot of dogs more aggressive than the mean but not
extreme. This is where you find the better patrol dog, competition and breeding
candidates, and companion dogs for those with the experience and discipline to deal
with them, that is, such dogs can be placed in carefully selected general homes.
A broad middle range of dogs is multipurpose, that is, probably capable of a title,
possibly capable of realistic police service (depending on the needs and capability of
the department) and a good fit for a large number of homes. One more level down,
we find is a broad spectrum of dogs that, while only perhaps capable of a title, and
not a good police or serious guard candidates, make reasonable companion animals
in a broad spectrum of homes.
Below this you find the dogs significantly below average, which might show
aggression based on fear. Such a dog may bite, and may be dominant in a situation
with a weak handler, but is on the whole not of much use and in many situations
potentially dangerous. Some inexperienced people think such a dog is much more
than he is, and mistakenly think of this type of dog as good police or protection
candidates. A few of these dogs sometimes need to be put down because they are
potentially dangerous and a liability to those placing the dog as well as those
receiving it. But on the whole these are mostly easygoing dogs which should be
placed in the less experienced or demanding companion homes. While such dogs
always are produced to a certain extent, breeding selection favoring such dogs, often
with an eye to the pet market, is generally not a good thing.
There are a few dogs only minimally compliant to command under duress,
perhaps growling at a low level and subtly threatening the handler without going to
the point of overt aggression, and who may lash out in an unpredictable way. Such
dogs are referred to as passive aggressive. Unless this attitude reflects fear and
uncertainty which can evolve into confidence and cooperation through low-key
training, not always a good bet; such dogs in general make for frustration and
disappointment in the training. In general I dislike such dogs; will discard one for
training and particularly from a breeding program.

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Handler Aggression
One of the fundamental issues of protection dog training is bringing forth the
aggression against the appropriate adversary while at the same time maintaining the
leadership of the handler in restraint and control of the dog. Powerful, aggressive
dogs are naturally those destined to rise to the top in the social structure, which
means that it is the most natural thing in the world for them to seek to dominate the
handler, to perceive themselves as boss and be in control.
These strong dogs may show a strong inclination to dominate the handler and
respond to a correction with an escalating show of warning or aggression. This must
be dealt with in an appropriate way so as to bring control to the relationship but
leave the hardness and aggressiveness there for the situations necessitating it.
Achieving this balance with a good dog is the most fundamental skill necessary for
successful police level training.
Beyond the initial training, this can arise as an issue when a new handler is
introduced, as for instance when a dog is sold or a police or military dog needs to be
transferred to a new handler. More than one handler has been severely injured
when, upon taking over a previously trained dog, assuming that a bold and forceful
manner will quickly bring the dog under control. A team is a partnership, and the
partnership does not exist in the beginning, but must be built based on mutual
confidence and respect rather than brute force. Ignoring this can produce a beaten
down, ineffective dog or a dog that will, when the moment presents itself, show
dominance by attacking the handler.
My style of training is to seek to become the dog’s leader, but by a thin margin,
that is, be able to direct his work and make the decision to out or restrain without
diminishing the dog’s potential to be dominant over the decoy. One must lead, but
the gap between the leader and the working dog must be narrow enough to allow
the dog initiative and the ability to make the decision to respond to the unexpected
situation. This can be a serious conflict between the needs of the sport trainer and
actual police service, for all trials are highly structured and the tendency to train for
the pattern for sport success through compulsion and pattern repetition is in many
ways counterproductive for effective real world service. The highest scoring sport
dogs are not necessarily the best for practical service or as breeding candidates, and
understanding this distinction is an important mile stone on the journey to real
knowledge of working dog training, application and breeding.

Predation
Cat and mouse is an age-old game with serious purposes and consequences. The
kitten is presented with an injured mouse to play with so as to bring forth the
inherent chase instinct, necessary to grow up as an effective predator, and thus
secure the food necessary to survive and carry on the species. There is such a strong
element of play in this that cat and mouse has become a descriptive phrase for many
of the games that humans engage in; and as the phrase implies there can be a great
deal of aggression and maliciousness in game playing at any level. Most kittens or
pups are born with the natural instinct to chase what moves and pounce upon it if he
can, and this is the essence and foundation of prey drive. Notice that a rubber ball or
wad of paper will incite the instinct; it is the motion that causes the chase reaction,
not hunger or the nature of the object. Growing up is becoming an effective enough
hunter to feed and reproduce, a process that may take months and years under the
guidance of the mother or pack, and a great deal of trial and error. But the inborn
prey instinct – present in the beginning – is the foundation. Predatory instinct is what
makes the terrier kill a rat, a fox run down a rabbit and a wolf pack run the deer or
the moose.

53
 Trainers and breeders tend to think of canine protective behavior – "prey" and
"defense" – as a simple one-dimensional continuum. We speak of a dog being
predominantly one or the other and make reference to a dog's fundamental
character as in a 60/40 ratio of prey to defense. In reality this is an enormous over
simplification of complex processes. The so-called prey drive is a manifestation of a
whole sequence of instinctive predatory actions culminating in the consumption of
the prey as food. The defensive process, fight or flight, is also a complex set of
interactions. These are distinct processes with different objectives – food for
sustenance and avoidance of becoming the meal of a predator. They are related in
that the instinctive defensive actions evolved to avoid being eaten and also for
reacting to the threats of same species aggression relating to territory, sexual
preference and social rank.
Most dogs will chase a cat that runs, and if he can catch him will kill him. But if
the cat turns and takes a stand the dog may back down in confusion, for flight was
the immediate cause of the chase and when it ceases the drive may abate. In this
scenario the dog begins in a classic predatory sequence of instinctive responses, but
when the cat turns there is a decision point, he will likely carry through and kill the
cat, but he may switch into a defensive mode where fight or flight become the
options. This dramatic shift of mode will reveal much of what the dog is made up of,
which was the rationale for the flight and then turn in the original Schutzhund
courage test, now lost on the altar of political correctness.
This inborn instinct to chase and kill is fundamental in all predatory animals, so
much so that the conventional wisdom is that herding originated as an adaptation of
this complex instinctive process. Modern gun dogs, the retrievers and pointers, were
also created by modifying the instinctive predatory process through selective
breeding, as were the herd guardian and police breeds. When a dog bites and shakes
an arm or a sleeve, it is natural to see this as a manifestation of this age-old hunting
instinct, in which the shaking motion serves to break the back or neck.
In evolving the police breeds we selectively adapted elements of both the
complex primitive predatory process and the defensive instincts which evolved to
evade predation and cope with inter species aggression. Just as the enormous
diversity of our canine breeds – from the large and ponderous Mastiff to the petite
Poodle – was and is potentially available in the foundation genetic resources, the
moral and character attributes of the police breeds were also incipient, brought forth
by man through selective breeding. Since this process takes place over a few
hundred or thousand years, much too short a time for random genetic mutations to
be the driving process, we know that we are merely rearranging – emphasizing and
suppressing – what was present in the primitive ancestral gene pool.
Furthermore, although the primitive fight or flight response, present in all
animals, prey as well as predator, can elicit an aggressive response when the animal
perceives itself as cornered, the more advanced police dog functions, such as
building searches and suspect pursuit, are based in the complex suite of hunting
instincts and responses.
Ethologists such as Coppinger1 envision the predation process as a complex
sequence of instinctive actions, which they refer to as motor patterns. In the
broadest sense, applicable in a general way to all carnivores, the hunting or prey
process is enumerated as:

1
Much of this discussion draws on Chapter 6 of the Coppinger book, which I strongly
encourage the reader to purchase and study. (Coppinger & Coppinger, 2001)

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orient > eye > stalk > chase > grab-bite > kill-bite > dissect > consume

In this scenario some motor patterns or responses may be omitted or

emphasized as adaptions to specific natural situations according to diverse factors,
such as terrain and attributes of the predator and prey. In general the big cats excel
at the eye and stalk because, while very fast in the beginning, they quickly tire. If a
leopard cannot creep close to his prey, he is probably going to go to bed hungry. The
wolf not so much, the pack quite often is able to run its prey down over much
greater distances.
In a similar way, men create lines and breeds of dogs for specific purposes
through selective breeding and training, suppressing or accentuating the instinctive
predatory motor patterns according to need and circumstance. Perhaps the most
important feature of this for the practical working dog breeder and trainer is that the
adult configuration of these patterns, although dependent on genetic potential, is
established and solidified through the imprinting process. Herd guardians have
virtually no eye or stalk propensities because they are an integral part of the flock
during the imprinting process, and individuals separated during the very short
imprinting time become useless as guardians. The famous eye and stalk of the
Border Collie are the most obvious manifestation of this, and illustrate how
fundamentally herding in its diverse forms is just different, imprinting selected,
manifestations of the ancestral predation process.
As Coppinger so eloquently points out, this process is the essential resolution of
the old nature versus nurture controversy, not only are nature and nurture part of
the process, opposite sides of the same coin, a huge component of the necessary
nurturing takes place during a few, critically timed, days and weeks as the imprinting
process. There is only ever one chance to get this right. The nature aspect of this is
essential; the propensities must be incipient in order for the imprinting process to
draw them out. Attempting to raise a Border Collie as a guardian and a Komondor as
a herder can only, inevitably, ruin two perfectly good dogs.1
The orient phase of the predation process is the seeking, actively searching or
lying in wait, of a potential prey animal. The eye phase, exemplified by the eye
contact of the Border Collie, is a challenge process where the commitment to the
actual engagement commences.
The stalk is the attempt to surreptitiously approach as close as possible; this is
critical for the big cats because they are incredibly fast over a short distance but of
limited range, they will either succeed over a few hundred feet or fail. The stalk is
perhaps less critical for predators with less speed but more endurance such as the
wolf. Primitive man evolved a persistence or endurance strategy in which he selected
a victim such as an antelope and simply pursued it, kept it in sight or tracked it, until
it ultimately succumbed to exhaustion, at which point the man could simply walk up
and finish the kill. The stalk probably plays little or no part in this particular hunting
mode.
The chase is the essence of the hunt, but according to the physical structure of
the predator – the tradeoff between initial speed and endurance – may go on for a
few seconds or many hours. Even mankind has adapted the primitive predation
process to his evolutionary needs and opportunities. Because of the long distance
efficiency of bipedal running as compared the quadruped gaits of common prey
animals human beings in warm climates evolved persistence hunting, in which they
1
Those extending this reasoning to our school systems will likely become branded as
politically incorrect, but any amount of money poured into school budgets cannot
overcome emotional and developmental failures over the first two or three years of life.

55
simply chased a chosen prey animal until it was brought down by heat exhaustion. In
this instance, the eye and stalk phases of the predation process are of minimal
importance as compared to the chase. Similarly, grab or kill bites are not critical
stages when the target animal is prostrate due to heat exhaustion.
The grab-bite and kill-bite may be essentially combined in a powerful predator
such as a tiger, where the kill is complete within seconds of the end of the chase, but
may be distinct as in a wolf pack worrying a cornered or exhausted moose. The
dissect process is the tearing open of the carcass, or the still living animal, for
consumption. Some hunting dogs, such as the pointers, carry the process only
through the eye and stalk process, the chase being the flush as the hunter's
command. The retriever will persist through the grab-bite, but must return to the
hunter and present the prey, omitting the killing, dissection and consumption
phases. In terms of hunting dog terminology, the retriever must be bred and trained
for the soft mouth. Hunting dogs which actually persist through the kill phase often
are bred to cease at that point, that is, not tear open or begin consumption of the
carcass.
In the police dog the orientation phase is the search, as in a building or field. The
eye and stalking process are essentially suppressed in breeding and training, and the
chase should end in a clean grab-bite or grip and stop short of further injury in a kill-
bite, that is, the dog should not thrash the arm or leg or slash and maul.
In evolving working types or formal breeds man has through selective breeding
enhanced or diminished, often to the vanishing point, various stages of this sequence
into or out of his working dogs. The Border Collie style herder has great emphasis on
the eye in order to intimidate and control the sheep, and might in the extreme go to
a grab-bite, but actually killing a sheep is seriously faulty. (Apparently an occasional
killing of a sheep is in some circumstances seen as necessary for discipline –
unavoidable collateral damage – but the habitual sheep killing herding dog is going
to be culled.) In hunting the pointer must not take the next step beyond stalk, that is
chase, for that would cause the birds to flush and deny the hunter his shot. Prior to
the introduction of firearms, and against predators or vermin even today, some dogs
are bred to complete the cycle and actually kill the prey. The ideal police dog would
halt at the grab-bite stage, which is why shaking the sleeve or suit in a way
reminiscent of breaking the back of a prey animal is faulty. Much of the working
specialization of our various breeds can be convincingly explained as emphasizing or
breeding out various combinations of these motor patterns.
This prey drive sequence is fundamental to protection training, is what initially
motivates the distance engagements, for the merely defensive component of the
canine nature provides no reason to pursue an adversary at a distance. In nature it
is almost always the instinctive – and correct – response to break off the
engagement when the adversary disengages and retreats, permitting both to survive
for another day. In a certain sense, when man – through breeding selection and
training – brings forth dogs willing and excited to pursue and engage a human
adversary at a distance he is creating something beyond the normal bounds of
natural behavior.
It is entirely reasonable to think of as the dog willing to go out into a strange
area, away from his handler, and attack an adversary which is not a direct threat to
the dog, the handler or the home territory, as driven by this primitive hunting or
prey drive. And there is an element of truth in this. But, as we shall further explore
under the heading fighting drive, there has to be more to it than that. For the natural
canine hunts to eat, and thus prefers the easy quarry, the old, the sick, the injured.
When the prey, such as the deer or other large animal, shows strength and the
ability to defend the wolf with effective survival instincts backs off and seeks easier
prey, because it is better to go hungry for a day rather than risk the injury that could

56
end life, that is prevent the wolf from hunting. Prey drive seeks out the weak and the
fearful, but will tend to disengage from the quarry that shows strength because
natural selection favors such discretion. Thus the effective police or patrol dog must
have an extra dimension, beyond the natural hunting or prey drive, which enables it
to go out the distance reliably in order to engage the foe willing to turn and
aggressively defend.
Play objects
Prey drive is too often thought of as simply the propensity to chase a ball or
moving object, but this is an overly simplistic a view. Many sport competition dogs
will respond endlessly to the thrown ball, Kong or Frisbee, and many trainers use this
as a reward and enthusiasm or drive building mechanism. On the other hand, our
first Bouvier had very little ball or chase drive, and in fact would, on the second or
third throw, take the object off into the bushes and bury it, yet was a dog very
aggressive against a man at a distance. This was more than thirty years ago, and
this was not especially uncommon in other breeds in that era. Although it has
become fashionable to breed for chase object orientation, many contend that this is
motivated by sport success and question whether it is, in the long term, sound
breeding for actual police service dogs.
The words play and prey describe slightly different focus points on the canine
temperament and response spectrum, and it is in general quite difficult to define the
difference in an unambiguous way. But I am convinced that there is a difference and
that it is important: the individual dog, including dogs with great practical potential,
will show significant variation with some excellent dogs exhibiting strong desire to
chase balls and Kongs, but others, perhaps of even greater real potential for serious
protection work, will show little or no object interest. There are today trainers who
will proclaim a young dog a bad candidate because he does not react in an expected
way, is not a replica of a previous dog or fashionable methods. But often the failure
here is in the simple minded, one method trainer rather than the dog, and
sometimes a good dog is discarded because a trainer is limited in scope, unable to
deal with the diversity of the working canine. The tendency of sport to increasingly
reward simple prey drive is a serious problem in the police dog world today.
Many dogs with serious real world potential exhibit relatively little ball or object
drive, yet properly trained will pursue a human adversary at an extreme distance
from the handler, gaining power and speed with every step. This is clearly not a
response to fear or the need to defend, and is not an extension of an object
associated play drive. Clearly, something more fundamental, and in a sense
unnatural to the wolf, is in play here. Just giving it a label, calling it prey drive or
fighting drive (as we shall discuss in a moment) does not really bring fundamental
understanding of the underlying phenomena.

Fight or Flight
When the cat arches his back, puffs up and dances sideways, to appear as large
as possible, when the cobra spreads its hood, when the dog growls and postures,
when the gorilla pounds his chest it is not to precipitate a fight or violence, but
rather a strategy for self-preservation, a tactic to make an adversary stand down, to
avoid an engagement where neither side has anything to gain proportionate to the
risk of injury or death.
To this point we have focused on aggression, the inter species mechanism of
social order, and predation, the process of hunting in order to secure food for
sustenance. For the individual animal this produces an inherently hostile world where
survival is never a given, where the danger of becoming a meal, starving because of
failure in the hunt or being marginalized within the species social structure is ever
present. A complex set of instinctive defensive mechanisms have arisen through the

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evolutionary process to foster survival in this inherently dangerous world. Effective
protection dog breeding and training requires comprehension and manipulation of
these defensive instincts, bringing them into a useful balance with social aggression
and predatory drives and skills.
Fear
Fear is good. Fear is fundamental to the nature of dog and man, is an essential
survival mechanism. The defensive drive, flight or fight, is rooted in fear, and serves
well when an unexpected and potentially dangerous encounter arises. Everyday
garden-variety fear creates caution, is that quiet warning in the mind not to leap to
the unknown without reason. Most men and dogs will instinctively step back at their
first interaction with a rattlesnake, experience inbred fear and react in a life
preserving manner. Those that do not back off may not live to have offspring, the
primitive evolutionary mechanism creating and reinforcing this fearful propensity.
But fear is the ultimate double-edged sword. It can be excessive, and the
successful creature must have the capacity, courage if you will, to overcome the
natural and necessary fearful reaction and act according to the situation. While the
confident, aggressive dog will certainly bite, and with proper training can be a very
useful partner, excessively fearful dogs also can and will bite, and can inflect serious
damage. But the fear driven dog is unpredictable, will perhaps run if he can see a
way out and will respond to imaginary or perceived threats as well as situations
eliciting appropriate fear. The fear driven bite is likely be unpredictable, slashing and
erratic rather than full, persistent and confident.
Failure to perceive early on the difference between the confident, aggressive dog
and one biting out of fear can lead to confusion and bad decisions in training and
breeding selection. While careful training, home field advantage and use of the
training helper as the trial decoy can often produce a title, this cannot create what is
not there, more dog than that present in the underlying genetic potential. If the
newly titled dog is in the hands of a sport trainer and goes home, never to see a real
engagement or procreate, no harm is done. But if the title becomes the basis for
placing the dog in actual service, serious negative consequences could be the result.
Under the stress of an engagement against an especially aggressive foe unrestrained
by sport rules, and unforeseeable circumstances, the dog may fail to engage or
persist in his attack. If such a dog is used for breeding rather than service the
potential consequences can be even more serious, for the progeny are likely to
inherent this weakness, projecting dire consequences far into the future.
There is a great deal of bluff and posturing in the unconfident or fearful dog, and
he often learns that by putting on a show people will keep their distance, giving him
an element of control over his fear laden world. But when pushed beyond his level of
comfort, his ability to retain his composure, the tendency is to slash out, or run, thus
becoming unpredictable or dangerous. It is the responsibility of breeders and trainers
to differentiate between real and apparent strength and courage and make
deployment and breeding decisions accordingly.
The useful protection dog is the confident dog, in which experience and training
easily predominate over primitive fear in realistic working environments. Proper
schooling, with escalating aggression on the part of the helper, incorporating novel
threats to acclimate the dog to the unexpected, teaches the dog that he can and will
prevail, gradually creating overpowering confidence. Such a dog will release
promptly on command because he is confident that he can dominate, and go into a
strong, assertive guarding posture. The correct bite is controlled and focused through
the confidence of the trained response and the handler is able to bring the attack to
an end with a verbal release command because of this same confidence.
Experienced trainers come to understand that clever training can often partially
mask or redirect deficiencies in a dog's inherent character. All protection training is

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to some extent directed at overcoming fear; allowing the dog to react predictably
and usefully in spite of fear. The problem which arises with the marginal dog is that
he may be trainable to the point of doing well in known situations, such as a trial,
but revert to a fear driven response in the face of an unexpected, new situation. This
is a difficulty in all training, for it is impossible to foresee and prepare for everything
the dog might encounter in a working environment.
Thus while a reasonably confident dog can be acclimated to overcome natural
fears, there is always the potential, in any dog, that he will revert to a fearful
reaction in a new situation. This is why it is important that the handler understand
the nature of his dog rather than just a few commands, so as to the extent possible
foresee and correctly respond to such situations.1
Defense
Defense is a fear driven response to a perceived threat, directed at self-
preservation of the individual and thus ultimately the survival of the species. When
the threat is real the defensive mechanism can often preserve life, but when the
threat exists only internally, in the mind of the dog, it can seriously interfere with
other life sustaining instincts. In nature fighting, as opposed to hunting for food, the
predation process discussed previously, needs to be a last resort because of the
ever-present risk of death or a crippling injury. There is often the need to defend
food as in a carcass in the face of a determined scavenger, for sexual precedence or
to maintain group or individual territory. But when these ends cannot be achieved by
bluff or posturing discretion often is the better part of valor, a creature can survive
many engagements where backing down was not really necessary, but a single
injury can be life ending if it renders an animal unable to hunt the food necessary for
survival or evade ever present predators.
In dog training this instinct to defend, referred to as the defensive drive, is a
fundamental aspect of the canine instinctive response which needs to be called upon
and used, but in a most cautious and restrained manner. Old-fashioned area
protection dog training, that is, the proverbial junkyard dog or the primitive military
sentry dog, tended to rely primarily on building up fear in the face of intruders and in
breaking down the inhibitions of aggression. Control, other than the ability of the
handler to place, remove and care for the dog, was not a requirement. This primitive
form of training is less and less useful today, where there is emphasis on control and
restraint in non-threatening situations, in developing discretion in the dog.
(Incessantly decreasing cost of electronic surveillance equipment and expanding
legal liability have played an important role in the reduced demand for such dogs.)
As we have seen, defensive drive is based in fear. Fear is a powerful and
necessary response to what is perceived as a serious threat. In men, dogs and most
other advanced creatures there are powerful physiological reactions, including the
release of adrenalin into the blood stream. In this state, created by nature for literal
fight to the death or flight for survival, creatures are capable of physical and mental
feats otherwise beyond their potential. There are risks and costs to this process,
which is why in nature it is reserved for the most serious circumstances.
The old fashioned junk yard dog training, where the dog learns through negative
experience that every human being except a few handlers are the enemy, to be
feared, to be attacked preemptively at every opportunity. Just as this style of dog
has become much less common because of the liability, cost and the emergence of
video and electronic surveillance, this mode of training, based in fear and unthinking,
1
This is of course not limited to dogs; none of us can be certain how we will respond to a
sudden, fear provoking situation until we come face to face with it.

59
preemptive attack response, is also rapidly becoming obsolete, along with the old
fashioned pillow suit.
In protection dog training, creating a situation that will routinely bring forth a
pronounced defensive reaction in response to purposefully incited fear is a double-
edged sword. It can make a dog bite, and bite hard with great determination. But
the extreme manifestations of fear reaction are reserved by nature for the
emergency, and the routine inducement of fear for a desired response in training, in
a trial or on the street is difficult to produce reliably, stressful for the dog, the
handler and the helper and fundamentally unreliable. Fear can also make the
marginal dog run, and once the dog runs this may become the natural response,
easier each time it occurs.
The defensive instinct is in play at some level, and necessary, in all protection
work; but it needs to be used minimally and with restraint, in an ancillary and
supporting role rather than as the primary motivational force. In society today, it
seems reasonable that those dogs that can only show aggression in response to
purely defensive instincts should not be trained at all; and furthermore that for the
primarily protective breeds such dogs should not be bred.
Although our current explanations of canine behavior have been focused on the
instinctive aggression, predatory and defensive processes, further insight has proven
necessary. The traditional two dimensional world of prey and defense is overly
simplistic; there is much more to modern police service dog behavior than a simple
extension of the primitive instincts to hunt for sustenance or respond to a perceived
threat out of fear.

Fighting Drive
In the primitive natural state, the wolf and other predators have no reason, no
survival related purpose, to go into unknown territory and pursue a creature
presenting no immediate threat, aggression with no specific survival function. In
contrast the inherent purpose of the police service dog requires that, when the
situation arises, he must at human direction pursue and engage a man at a
significant distance or search deep into a large, dark, unknown natural area or
building such as an empty store, factory or warehouse. Clearly something else is in
play. The term fighting drive has come into use to describe this propensity to pursue
and engage at a distance.
Some hold to the view that this is an unnecessary complication; that the dog
pursues at a distance out of simple prey drive. The conventional response to this is
that the prey chase is opportunistic, usually ending in failure because the prey is too
fleet or physically threatening, that something else must cause the dog to persist
even when the fleeing adversary turns and becomes aggressive.
In my view the foundation of fighting drive is inborn, instinctive aggression as
understood and described by ethologists such as Konrad Lorenz, taken to a new level
through breeding selection. The dog running hard to engage a distant man with
great vigor is driven by impulses and desires akin to the competitive human athlete,
as exemplified in our inherently aggressive sports such as American football. In both
instances, these drives are beyond the necessities of survival, as explained in terms
of prey and defense, are extraordinary in that the fulfillment of or reward for the
aggressive desire to strike and engage is the action itself, the spirit of winning, which
we have come to call fighting drive. The line between fighting drive and stupidity can
be thin; many football players suffer grievous, accumulating brain injuries casting a
deep shadow over the remainder of their lives.
Competitiveness is an essential aspect of the police canine character, and a
fundamental component of the development is to bring forth and solidify the latent

60
potential through successful training scenarios. The inborn drive to dominate in the
struggle for food, to mate, that is, for sex, for the dominant role in the social
hierarchy were necessary attributes in the successful wolf and other predators and
carry on in the work of today's service dogs. In this context, it is seems reasonable
to believe that the wellspring of fighting drive is to be found in the inherently
competitive nature of the individual dog, aggression instincts necessary for survival
and prosperity over the centuries, enhanced through breeding selection.
In the longer distance aspects of dog training as a protection activity the hunting
or prey drive will generally create the initial pursuit of the adversary, and if the man
continues to run and allows the dog to take the sleeve or bite the suit while fleeing
these instincts may be sufficient. But when the distance closes and the man turns
and responds with aggressive postures and actions other drives must come into
play.1 Most hunting engagements by the predator in nature fail, because the prey
has strong survival skills and instincts of his own, and because it is better to
disengage than risk injury. Primitive defensive instincts are fight or flight under
attack, and thus not the source of the drive to engage at a distance where there is
no direct threat.
While a potential for fighting drive must be latent in the ancestors of the dog, in a
certain sense it can be thought of as the creation of man, as a necessary extension,
through breeding selection and then training, beyond those drives evident in nature
to create something novel and useful, the modern police service dog. Wolves do not
occur in nature with the massive size or foreshortened muzzle of the larger mastiffs;
but the genetic potential was there for man to bring this structure forth through
breeding selection. In a similar way, the potential for what we call fighting drive was
latent in nature and brought forth by man through breeding selection for our specific
needs and desires. Indeed, this enhancement of the capability for the strong distance
attack is an essential aspect of the creation a police patrol style breed. While this
may not be the drive initial training is based on, may not appear until later in the
training process, it is the fundamental defining attribute of most if not all serious
high-level protection, that is aggressive search and pursuit dogs.
Fighting drive has been a topic of incessant ongoing debate and discussion
among dog trainers. Some dismiss it as imaginary and simple obfuscation, people
making things more complex than they really need to be. Others see it as the Holy
Grail, the key to the understanding of the protective canine. Real understanding of
what we have come to call fighting drive requires that it be perceived as a
manifestation of primitive aggressive instincts, solidified and directed by man to his
own ends through selection – breeding decisions made through training, evaluation
and testing.
Hard science is based on experimental verification. Albert Einstein pondered the
working of the physical universe and devised a theory and a set of equations now
known as general relativity. One of the consequences was the prediction that light is
subject to gravity because of its energy created mass, and that the path of light from
a distant star passing close to our sun would thus be deflected, causing the star to
appear to shift position. This was unforeseen, but when the observations were made
the deflection of light by gravity was verified and Einstein's theory was vindicated.
Prey and defense are simplifications, some would say over simplifications, of
science increasingly well established through the work of Lorenz and the other
twentieth century ethologists. Fighting drive is a little bit more difficult to relate
directly to this body of knowledge, but perhaps one useful way of thinking about it is
1
This is why the elimination of the turn on the dog in the Schutzhund courage test
seriously lessened its selective value from a breeding point of view.

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as an extension or enabling mechanism for the maintenance of territory in the sense
of Lorenz.
Concepts such as "fighting drive" are not hard science in that they make specific,
verifiable predictions; there is no experiment to be performed to prove whether or
not it actually exists as an objective reality. My view is that it is a useful concept that
presents a plausible model for observed behavior and brings into play the idea of
behavior manifestations to some extent created or at least enhanced by human
selection in breeding, useful in the overall understanding of the police dog in terms
of breeding and training. Whatever your personal views might be, the terminology
has come to be in general use, which one must be aware of to understand and
participate in discussion of canine behavior and training.

Hardness and Sharpness

The term hardness refers to the dog that is very strong in the pursuit and bite
and, particularly, responds to overt aggression on the part of the adversary with
even more aggression and drive. Hurt the hard dog and he will come back to hurt
you more rather than disengage. Hardness is in a general sense the opposite of
shyness in the protection work. In some contexts the hard dog can tend to
insensitivity to handler correction or even evolve into handler aggression. Usually the
dog very hard in fighting the helper is also less sensitive to physical correction, and if
not brought along with care can become handler aggressive. Although positive only
training, denying the need for vigorous physical correction, has become quite
fashionable in certain circles, hardness as an aspect of aggression is a necessary
aspect of police dog breeding and training, and sometimes a hard and aggressive
dog requires a hard and aggressive edge in the boss to establish a useful working
relationship. This is usually minimal when an experienced, competent trainer begins
with the pup or young dog, but the older dog who has been allowed to discover that
most people will back down will from time to time require more severity. This
requires great care, for losing a confrontation with a dog can produce serious injury
to the man and an even greater training problem.
For this reason, with very hard dogs it is important to introduce the out early and
with emphasis on the concept that the best way to the next bite is the quick out and
intense guard. A dog with extreme hardness can be very difficult to force to release
and once the dog becomes habitually disobedient to a release command the quick,
clean, reliable out can be very difficult to achieve. The guys hanging around at the
club may be impressed by the dogged refusal to release, but judges in a trial or
court of law are much less likely to be understanding. I personally tend to like most
hard dogs, but that may be a flaw in my character rather than a rational response,
for the hard dog, not brought up carefully, can be the difficult dog. In a world where
many dogs are trained and then sold to military or police departments, the potential
down side is that a really hard dog assigned to the handler not quite psychologically
tough enough to deal with it may become a liability; sometimes it is wise to be
careful of what you wish for. Military dogs for instance may have several handlers in
a career, and it is unlikely that all of them will be very experienced and dominant.
The sharp dog is the very intense dog, very quick to bite. This tends to be the
more defensive dog, rather than the high prey and / or play dog. The sharp dog
sometimes has a tendency to be an insecure or fearful dog and such dogs are often
perceived by inexperienced people as desirable police or protection dogs, which very
often is not the case at all.
On the other hand, a sharp, confidently aggressive dog can be an extraordinarily
impressive and effective dog in the right situation, in the hands of a particularly good
police handler for instance, and there are trainers who find such dogs exhilarating
and just plain fun to work. The problem can come if the dog needs to be taken over

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by another handler. If, for instance, there were to be a police administrative decision
to transfer the dog where the person making the selection was not an experienced
canine smart person, the dog might wind up in the hands of an inadequate new
handler. This is not necessarily a matter of an inferior or poor handler, but just a
mismatch between the dog and the handler. Such a dog has the potential to be
aggressive to a new handler if the acclimation and training adjustments are not done
in a careful and confident manner.
For me, personally, a little bit of sharpness goes a long way, for a moment's
hesitation between the perception of the threat and the engagement of the dog can
give the handler the moment he needs to rein in the dog and avoid biting the wrong
person in the wrong situation. Of all the aspects of the canine nature, sharpness is
perhaps the most aptly compared to the double edged sword, and most of us would
tend to prefer slightly less sharpness to a little bit too much.
Sharpness combined with inherent insecurity or fearfulness, often referred to as
the sharp-shy dog, is a volatile and dangerous combination. Such a dog will be prone
to make quick, perhaps unprovoked, lunging attacks, and then retreat ready for
another strike, or to run. This dog is in general most undesirable and unless handled
very carefully can be quite dangerous. Such dogs are difficult, and if these
propensities are pronounced should in general not be trained or bred. Sometimes it
becomes necessary and appropriate to put such a dog down.
Confidence and Sociability
Confidence and sociability are often thought of as synonymous, different words
for basically the same thing, but there are important distinctions. The confident dog
is relaxed among strangers because he is not inappropriately fearful. He may or may
not be social, that is, may or may not want or accept touching or familiarity by
strangers. Confidence and sociability in the adult dog are more than any other aspect
influenced by the initial imprinting in the critical puppy time periods. Some people
seem to think that severely restricted socialization will make the pup more
aggressive, a better protection dog. My opinion is that this is exactly wrong, the
aggressive drive is there or it is not, and all of the isolation in the world will just
accentuate fear and the lack of confidence of the inherently inferior dog, creating a
dangerous rather than useful dog. A good strong dog benefits enormously by
appropriate early socialization; he does not have to become everybody's friend, but
he does have to maintain distance and composure in diverse social settings. As a
personal experience, a couple of my most aggressive and strong Bouviers were
everybody's friend if approached with a little bit of good sense, almost anybody could
pet them and play with them. I like that in a dog, it just made my life a whole lot
easier, and these dogs would flip into drive in a flash when seriously provoked or in
the presence of the helper. Other, equally good, dogs will only accept social
interaction as a trained response under the insistence of the handler, which is an
important reason for the careful matching of handler to the propensities of the dog.
The extreme social dog, whose world is full of friends he has yet to meet, usually
is perceived as very confident and is often especially desirable for the typical
companion dog owner. The protection dog, on the other hand, lives in a world where
there are people other than new friends, where an element of wariness is necessary,
where being social to the extent of total acceptance of strangers is indistinguishable
from stupidity.
A certain level of confidence, with a touch of fear to create awareness of danger,
is generally a good thing, but being confident is different from being nice or social.
History indicates that Attila the Hun was supremely confident, believed absolutely
that when he conquered the entire subjected population was at his disposal, the
woman for his sexual gratification, the children to sell into slavery the men to slay or
enslave according to his pleasure or convenience. Bullies in all contexts of life are

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generally confident, because they exhibit this behavior in an environment where
experience has shown it to be effective, where they are personally invulnerable.
Most serious trainers will deal with or prefer a moderately or less social dog
which is hard, strong and otherwise controllable.1 We need a dog that will become
suspicious and alert when there is a potential or overt threat. Suspicion and reserve
can be thought of as the opposite of sociability, and the overly social dog will often
not take his protection work seriously enough. Thus sociability in the protection dog
in moderation is in general a desirable attribute. The social dog is one at ease among
strangers and in new and different places. He can be walked in a crowd of strangers
on a loose lead and his aggression is selective and controlled. Most handlers do not
want strangers to pet or interact with their dog and discourage such manifestations
of what are perceived as sociability in the companion dog.
In the service dog context, the confident dog is the secure dog which will tend to
react only to a clear provocation and will retain composure and demeanor under
stress. Where the overly sharp dog will tend to the preemptive bite, which may be
inappropriate, the confident dog, appropriately raised and trained, will give a strong
warning and hold his ground. The overly sharp dog may be lacking in confidence.
Sociability is perhaps the most desirable attribute in the family pet where the
owners want a safe, easy to deal with dog and do not expect any protective
functionality. Thus the highly social dog is the best dog in the vast majority of
situations. But this level of sociability, to the point where a real threat does not alert
the dog, is inappropriate for dogs of the protective heritage. Sociability is especially
subject to the imprinting process, is influenced and established in the critical stage of
puppy development, most influential approximately from when the eyes and ears
open until about sixteen weeks or four months.
Confidence is to some extent genetically predetermined; while appropriate puppy
imprinting and socialization are desirable in all dogs, some are born with a
predisposition for inappropriate fearfulness and insecurity which can only be covered
up, cannot be corrected by socialization and training.
Intelligence and Trainability
From time to time there are articles in the press ranking the relative intelligence
of various animals or the canine breeds. This is mostly nonsense, for at root it
relates to subservience, the willingness to perform tricks for praise or a treat, rather
than fundamental differences in cognitive power. Dogs such as the sight hounds or
herd guardian breeds often rate poorly, but this reflects the nature of their work,
often devoid of human interaction. The herd guardian is bred and socialized to be
stoic and devoid of responsiveness to human beings, to be concerned primarily with
preserving the herd from predation. The Bloodhound is single minded and plodding,
unresponsive except to the scent he is following, but on the trail he brings new
meaning to the word dogged. The retriever or pointer is bred for and knows his
work, and is unlikely to be flashy or animated in the view of the casual observer,
unaware of the actual requirements and function. Dogs bred and selected for
independence and reliability may appear lethargic because thoroughness and
persistence are the essence of their functionality.
Intelligence in the canine is difficult to define and quantify because our tendency
is to relate it to human modes and reactions, largely verbal in nature, and thus not
entirely appropriate to understanding the dog. Bernie Brown, well-known Golden
1
I do not personally prefer a less social dog, but will deal with it when the other aspects
are of value. One of our females came back to us as inherently unsocial, but was a good
breeding resource. Sometimes this comes from bad early experience rather than genetic
factors.

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Retriever AKC obedience trainer, has commented that you need a fairly stupid dog to
put up with the nonsense in this rote sport. There are dogs capable of associating
several dozen words with various toys and fetching the object from another room on
verbal command, and thus applauded and perceived as very intelligent. But what is
the practical utility of this sort of thing?
Intelligence is in a certain way a detriment in the trial, for it can lead to initiative
and independent action, and the judge busily detracting points for disobedience
rather than awarding extra credit. The dog who moves on the long down to rest in
the shade demonstrates intelligence and initiative, but the judge is still going to take
ten points and the handler is going to be frustrated, and perhaps a little bit angry.
This is why they are called the obedience trials rather than intelligence tests, and is
an implicit indication of what we really value in a dog.
Trainability, the willingness to understand and comply with handler commands, is
a vitally important aspect of canine application, but is, contrary to common
perception, different from intelligence. The Border Collie, working in response to
intense handler interaction and command to maneuver the flock, appears to be and
is extremely intelligent, and ranks at or near the top of most lists. But the herd
guardian dog, often working alone without guidance, surely takes on more real
responsibility.
Wolf pups, even taken from the nest and intensively socialized, with no contact
with adult wolves, are extremely difficult to train, unreliable and treacherous. It is
the adaption to the human social structure, where compliance with human direction
and command is essential, where trainability was introduced. In actual fact, by
observation of problem solving ability, such as defeating cage and fence latches,
wolves are in general much more intelligent than dogs, that adaption to the human
social structure was in a fundamental sense a dumbing down process. (Coppinger &
Coppinger, 2001)
Thus trainability, the willingness to accept a human leader while still maintaining
the potential for aggression and event initiated reaction, is something added, or at
least greatly enhanced and emphasized, in the domestication process as wolves,
directly or indirectly, evolved into dogs. So, in a fundamental way the price of
trainability and compliance, working willingness, has been the diminution of real
intelligence, in the sense of independence and mental initiative. (Sometimes our
school systems seem to emphasize trainability and rote memory; perhaps we are
also "domesticating" our children.)
In creating the police patrol dog, we needed to regain a measure of these ancient
wolf traits, that is, breed larger, more aggressive dogs with larger teeth, more
powerful jaws and more real intelligence. Yet more and more our sport trials demand
rote obedience rather than initiative, for reasons of political correctness and the
commercial salability of pets. Perhaps there is something wrong with this picture.

Born and Made

Comprehending the principles of animal behavior and molding it through breeding
and training has been fundamental to the evolution of mankind at least since the
dawn of agriculture. This process began on a heuristic, practical basis as breeding
and training knowledge passed down hands on, father to son. As this practical
knowledge struggled to become science it came to be understood that behavior has
two fundamental, underlying determining mechanisms, that is, innate inbred
propensities and potential present prior to birth and then the subsequent life
experience and training. This in and of itself is not a great revelation, for every child
born in a village or on a farm throughout most of history came to understand, at

65
least implicitly, that it would be extremely difficult to train one of the barn cats in the
same way as one can train a dog or a horse.
Thus the science of ethology sprang from this age-old desire to comprehend the
roles of nature and nurture, to understand to what extent animal behavior is
determined by genetic predisposition and what is the role of nurture, that is
upbringing and training. The work of Lorenz and other ethnologists in the middle
twentieth century produced fundamental new understanding, providing an
evolutionary perspective to common behavior mechanisms such as aggression and
predation. Nurture is not just the aggregate life experience after birth, but is a
process with distinct time periods where experience and learning profoundly mold
the behavior and function of the animal for the remainder of life. In the days and
weeks after birth the brain continues to grow and undergo permanent changes, hard
wiring as it were, strongly affected by the associations and experiences of the the
young animal. This is the imprinting process. At very specific times in the early life
cycle, which vary markedly with species, windows of opportunity to mold future
behavior shut, forever limiting or expanding the potential of the animal to function in
the world in which it finds itself. This is of enormous practical importance in
breeding, training and utilizing dogs of all kinds and purposes; for the most
fundamental truth about dogs and work is that the excellent working dog is based on
the foundation of proven working lines and in equal importance the character
solidification in the first weeks of puppy life. Formal training of the young dog is
based upon and limited to the potential of this foundation. Poor training of the older
dog, if not actually abusive, can often be overcome; but a poor foundation in terms
of breeding lines or inappropriate puppy experience can never be entirely rectified.
In particular, the pup born in a kennel and denied sufficient human interaction and
other experience before about sixteen weeks is irrevocably different from his sibling
benefiting from extensive, well-founded socialization
Everyone involved in the selection, training and deployment of police dogs comes
to believe that consistent success requires dogs from the appropriate breeds, and
further that the lines must be those recently verified as to working character.
American police departments no longer make public appeals for donated dogs and
generally are not open to accepting offered donations. The reason for this is that
police trainers have come to realize that the dogs must be both born and then made,
that it is difficult and cost prohibitive because of failure rate of training dogs not out
of established breeding lines. The less obvious reason for such care in candidate
selection is that the dog with inappropriate socialization and imprinting in the critical
weeks is forever limited in ways that cannot be known from physical appearance, the
pedigree and to some extent even in initial hands on character evaluation. Donated
dogs are available because someone does not want them, and poor breeding or
permanent character limitations because of puppy socialization are likely reasons for
the dissatisfaction.
Thus a primary contribution of Lorenz and his generation of ethologists is the
concept of imprinting and the critical stages of social development. The original work
of Lorenz primarily was with geese and other creatures, but the principle of
imprinting has proven to be general to most species. For the domestic dog, the
original, formal observations were a result of studies and experiments commencing
shortly after WWII at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, associated with
names such as Fuller, Scott and Marston. (Scott & Fuller, 1965)
The reason for this profound long-term effect of the socialization process is that
the actual physical structure of the brain itself is altered. As Coppinger notes:
"At birth a puppy has essentially all the brain cells it is ever going to have
during its whole life.

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 If the puppy brain has essentially the same number of cells as the adult
brain, how can it grow ten times bigger? The answer is that brain growth is
almost entirely in the connections between the cells. Of all the brain cells
present at birth, a huge number are not connected or wired together. What
takes place during puppy development is the wiring pattern of the nerve
cells. Some nerves make their connections spontaneously, driven by
internal signals. Some nerves actually "look" for a muscle to attach to.
Other connections are motivated by external signals. External to the brain,
that is. For example, the eye tells the brain how many cells it needs to
have in order to run the eyeball. Big eyes need more cells than small eyes,
and thus animals with big eyes tell their brain to connect up a greater
number of cells for eye function.
It is not only the size of the eye to which the brain must accommodate, but
also the activity of the eye. The brain accommodates to the eye by growing
the appropriate connections for both its size and its activity. The brain of a
puppy raised in the dark doesn't make as many connections. A puppy that
is raised in an impoverished environment has a smaller brain. It has the
same number of cells, but not as many get wired together." (Coppinger &
Coppinger, 2001) p.111

For the domestic dog, the critical period of social development is from
approximately two weeks, the opening of the eyes, to sixteen weeks; providing
socialization and broadening experiences in this time period is fundamental for a pup
to grow up into a well-balanced and trainable dog. (The fact that the wolf has much
different, generally earlier and shorter, critical periods is a fundamental reason for
the difficulty in taming and training.)
The work of these scientists is of course significant and most commendable, but
for centuries before Lorenz and his associates won the Nobel prize for reporting
these discoveries illiterate shepherds knew that for the pup to become a successful
herd guardian he must almost from birth live with, sleep with and associate with the
sheep, suckling along with the lambs on a ewe. The pup is often separated from the
mother, littermates and human contact and totally immersed in the life of the flock,
living exactly as a lamb. Puppies from even the best lines of working herd guardians
are virtually useless for this work if they are raised to four months without intimate
contact with the sheep and the flock.
While the window of socialization and imprinting opportunity for the pup is from
eye opening or about two weeks to sixteen weeks, the wolf is significantly different.
The wolf pup becomes capable of socialization and imprinting at eye opening or 13
days just as the dog, but the window is open for a much shorter time, ending at
about 19 days at the onset of hazard avoidance behavior. Thus while the domestic
dog is open to socialization for about 16 weeks, the corresponding period in the wolf
is less than a week, which is a further indication of the difficulty that is encountered
in attempting to tame and train a wolf.
There is a general tendency to think of nurture in terms of formal training, but
this misses the mark in fundamental ways. The profound transformation in the brain
of the pup in the first weeks has a long term effect on the nature of the adult, either
setting the stage for successful training or at the extremes of early deprivation
producing an adult essentially un-trainable and of little practical use.
Just as we have found that it is very difficult to educate children entering school
at five or six years of age without the benefit of good nutrition and a foundation of
knowledge, linguistic ability and basic acceptance of deportment fostered in a stable
early home life, training the year old dog is very difficult if he is not healthy and has

67
not been properly socialized in the critical period and grown up in a supportive
environment, with strong human bonds and relationships.
These principles of performance based breeding selection, proper imprinting in
the critical periods, good nutrition, exercise and social development in the younger
pup set the stage for the training of the maturing working dog. This has to a large
extent been understood practically and intuitively over time, but the accumulated
knowledge of scientists, breeders and trainers over the past century has given us the
potential to breed and train better dogs capable of greater service to mankind.
Unfortunately, the AKC and FCI purebred show dog world encourages exactly the
opposite of good breeding practice, that is, breeding on the basis of show ring
politics and superficial aspects of appearance, raising pups in a kennel environment
often devoid of appropriate socialization, and little or no training of the adult dog,
which often lives out a dreary existence in a kennel run. As a consequence, police
agencies increasingly look to sources, such as KNPV lines, in which breeding
selection is practical and performance driven, often with little regard for pedigree or
registration.

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3 Dog Training Foundations

Although this book is not a training manual, knowledge

of the historical evolution and conceptual basis of training,
and current practice, is fundamental to an understanding
of the breeding and deployment of sport and work dogs.
These breeds cannot be fully understood and appreciated
without hands on training; not everything can be learned
from a book.

Obedience
Obedience is the essence and foundation of all training,
the rest is mostly a matter of getting out of the dog’s way
and letting the instincts and drives nature and generations
of breeding selection have created fulfill their intended
purpose. You cannot teach a dog how to track, you do not
even really know how a dog tracks; all you can do is teach
him the desired procedures, to respond in specific ways and adapt particular styles.
Even much of this is superficial, to satisfy the judge in competitive venues rather
than actually having to do with finding something of importance in and of itself.
Protection dog training is essentially a matter of letting the good dog out,
overcoming the inhibitions of early training and day-by-day life so as to respond with
spirit and power when confronted by an adversary. Strong grips become second
nature through proper sleeve or suit presentation and crisp outs evolve as the dog
learns that a quick, clean out is the sure path to the next bite. But the instinct and
drive to engage and fight must be there, cannot be created through training.
In police or military service obedience, especially under stress and distraction, is
a prerequisite, but only meaningful to the extent that it provides a foundation for the
scent detection and protection service rather than as an end in and of itself. For
these reasons obedience must not be heavy handed or intimidating, which
diminishes or interferes with the initiative and enthusiasm for the actual working
service. These are important considerations in the evolution of obedience training
foundations in drive building, with correction remaining, but as a necessary
component to be applied minimally and with finesse rather than a heavy hand.
Although protection applications and scent work are covered in subsequent
chapters, they must not be perceived as separate topics; this is about dog training,
and while the focus is on formal obedience the most important principle for police
work is that one trains dogs, not tracking, obedience and protection as separate,
stand-alone skill sets. Obedience only finds meaning and value as the foundation of
effective search, substance detection, pursuit and apprehension functions which are
the essence of police canine service.
To train a dog one must establish psychological distance, become his leader
rather than his friend; just as in raising children the parental role must be exactly
that rather than friend and companion. For these reasons, many serious trainers
keep their dog in a kennel run, at least through the initial training, rather than the
home in order to maintain the correct relationship and focus on work as the best part
of life. (Often an older or retired dog is in the house and the young buck is in the
kennel.)

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 Heavy handed compulsion will perhaps create a certain level of compliance, and
is the usual method of managing slaves. This is effective for human beings because
they comprehend long-term cause and effect, know that the overseer will have them
lashed to a post and whipped until the back is raw to achieve compliance. Dogs can
also to an extent be trained in this way, but it is ineffective, unpleasant and can be
dangerous in that at some point some dogs are likely to become handler aggressive.
You never get more than grudging acquiescence and you live with the fear that the
dog may revolt at the most inopportune moment. The other end of the spectrum, the
so-called purely positive approach, has its own set of flaws and is discussed in detail
later.
Ultimately all training comes down to a balance between compulsion and reward;
it truly is as simple as that. Compulsion very seldom needs to be a matter of harsh
correction, and if the foundation of the relationship is strong and well maintained
most dogs do quite well with minimal corrections, to the point where they are quite
subtle, perhaps not even discernible to the casual observer.
Over the years different training methodologies have emerged and been touted,
sometimes reflecting real differences in philosophy and process but often merely to
differentiate and popularize a particular trainer, seminar or book. The consequence is
that in the beginning each of us must sort out vigorously defended training
methodologies and philosophies, each, like a religion, promising the one true way.
Naturally other training regimens are portrayed as producing disobedient, out of
control dogs living as they please or despondent, surely dogs under the cruel yoke of
repression.
Obedience training in the broad sense has two somewhat divergent aspects. One
is training the dog to respond to commands or specific situations, such as an
escaping prisoner, with the desirable action, in this case pursuit and restraint. The
other is less specifically obedience in the command and respond sense but rather
related to establishing desirable behavior patterns as in house training, staying off
the furniture or avoiding interaction with other, neutral dogs. It is important to notice
that these aspects differ in focus: one is concerned with teaching the dog to respond
in a specific desired manner, that is, the way that you, the judge or the rules
require. The other is focused on what not to do, and the importance of refraining
when no one is hovering with the threat of immediate retribution.
Obedience and general social deportment are best developed through reward and
approval of correct behavior and minimal but sufficient correction of inappropriate
actions or responses. Heavy-handed domination, breaking the dog to be subservient
and cowed, is inappropriate and self-defeating. The downside should be quite
obvious: a cowering, intimidated dog is unpleasant to live with, and is much less
effective for those needing a dog where initiative is an important aspect of the actual
service, as in police or patrol service.
While police training is often thought of as tracking or searching, obedience and
protection one must be aware that you train dogs rather than tricks and exercises;
pressure and problems in one aspect of training are surely going to have
ramifications in other aspects. Thus when you put pressure on in tracking or
obedience the dog may be a bit less sure in protection. In general, problems or
pressure in one area mean that you should tend to hold your ground in others. In
particular, if you are doing things like a forced retrieve or disciplined tracking then in
protection the emphasis should be on fun and drive building rather than higher levels
of discipline.
Remember, if your dog is not having fun most of the time then perhaps you are
doing something wrong or you have the wrong dog. And when your dog is having
fun, you will be having fun too. For the serious trainer the gradual realization that
you are training the wrong dog is always a possibility. No matter how good the pup's

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background and how solid the foundation there remains the possibility that training
will reveal inadequacy, in which case you face the gut wrenching decision of breaking
the emotional bonds with your dog, so carefully nurtured, or going on with the
knowledge that the original competitive or service aspirations are compromised.
The essence of effective training is establishing and maintaining the correct
relationship between man and dog; the methodology or procedural details are of
secondary importance. The handler must become the leader; the dog must work
from the instinctive and accepted concept that life is good when the boss is happy.
But the gap between man and dog should be small so that the dog can naturally
have initiative and joy in his work within established guide lines. Actually, as one of
my reviewers with a police administration background points out, this is a pretty
good approach to managing people too.

Priorities
We have and train dogs for diverse purposes. Some of us want a dog with which
to share an otherwise less fulfilling life and thus need one obedient and well behaved
enough to be secure and compliant. Others desire a dog as sports equipment,
acquired in the hope of one day standing on a podium for a few moments and
waving a large, empty cup. Still others seek a working partner. In order to achieve
these ends it is necessary to acquire a dog according to breed and appropriate lines
– most of the working and hunting breeds are sharply divided between the real and
the ornamental – and to select a pup with the greatest expectation of success, based
both on pedigree and evaluation of the candidate in terms of physique and character
attributes.
The skill and art of dog training often evolves over most of a lifetime. Those
fortunate enough to have a well-established training environment with abundant
clubs and instructors, and especially those with an effective mentor, have an
enormous advantage, can advance quite quickly. But many of us, particularly
Americans involved in the early years of the protection sports, especially those
involved in one of the so-called alternate breeds, struggled to develop the skills on
our own, in an inherently frustrating trial and error process.
As a consequence many of us go through several dogs in order to reach higher
levels, and the training process, especially the social aspects, must build the
experience base, social connections and credibility to get a better dog next time
around. Credibility is important because the best candidates normally go to those
whose previous efforts indicate potential future commitment and success; while it is
true that proffering enough cash will buy many or most pups, those taking this tack
are unlikely to have the knowledge and intuitive instinct necessary to make the best
selection. Even the companion owner will be rewarded for his diligence in training not
only because of better control and behavior in his current dog, but because if
perceptive and observant he will gain in the knowledge and insight helpful in finding
good dogs down the road and training them with greater ease and effectiveness.
Training and obedience are synonymous in many minds, but for those seeking
functionality such as pointing or retrieving in hunting dogs or search, pursuit and
engagement in the police dog the obedience must be instilled in such a way as to
allow the instinctive capabilities bred into the dog to reach their potential, so that the
dog can hunt or retrieve in response to command or search for and physically
engage an adversary under the direction of the police handler. In police work the
release and guard under command are just as essential as the willingness to engage
directly and with power; the trick is to consistently achieve and demonstrate the one
without inhibiting the other. In order to achieve these ends, the training regimen
must be holistic, that is a program that builds aggression and power, or tracking
initiative, together with the requisite discipline and control. Training must be

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perceived as quite broad in scope, encompassing functions such as tracking and
protection as integral facets of the program; it must become an effective means of
developing and enhancing the whole dog.
At a competitive level many young dogs will be found wanting and thus
discarded. In order to achieve success, the competitive trainer must start with the
best possible candidate – which is why many are willing to pay substantial sums for
an older dog already demonstrating the potential – and conduct his training in a
manner that will clearly differentiate the inadequate candidate as quickly as possible
without putting excessive stress on a dog which would otherwise have achieved
success. This is by its nature a complex and demanding process, and all trainers fall
short of these ideals to some extent. If there were an easy formula for cranking out
winners there would be no excitement in the competition, for to be winners there
must be losers.
In summary, although motivations and methodologies are as diverse as the
people involved, the basic goals of dog training are enhancement of the desirability
of the dog as a personal and family companion by instilling good manners and
bringing the inbred drives and instincts to fruition for work or sport competition.

The Training Progression

Dog training has evolved over time. When I began in the late 1970s, in a Bill
Koehler1 oriented obedience training club, the primary reward was handler praise,
and this was also the approach I learned in my early Schutzhund training. Food and
prey or chase objects such as balls were not commonly used, and often disparaged.
Many think of this as old school training, and some of us are not entirely convinced
that it is obsolete.
During the intervening years a more modern school with emphasis on drive
building and making extensive use of food and chase objects such as balls and
Kongs, has come to the forefront. This has been enormously successful and
transformative in competition venues. But the nature of this transformation is
problematical to the extent that it exacerbates the ongoing separation between
formal trials and actual police service in terms of breeding selection and correlation
between sport success and suitability for real world service.
Men have been training dogs for untold generations, but the name most closely
associated with the foundations of modern police and military training is that of
Konrad Most in Germany. His 1910 book Training Dogs, a Manual, translated to
English in the early 1950s, is even today the classic reference to the old school
foundations of police dog training. (Most, 1910) Bill Koehler's book represents a
direct descendant of this philosophy, and his name has come into general use as a
short hand reference to this entire school; in this sense there is really no distinct
Koehler method but rather a continuation and evolution of traditional methodology.
Training regimens tend to be based on a sequence of teaching, repetition and
proofing. There is nothing magic about these words but they do provide a convenient
basis for discussion and experience tends to show that these stages are a natural
pattern in the training progression whether the actual words are invoked or not.

1
For the benefit of my European or non-American readers, William Koehler was a very
well-known and popular trainer, teacher and author of a number of very influential dog
training books. He was a military trainer and later trained dogs for appearances in
various movies. His methods were akin to those of Konrad Most, and his name has
become a moniker for "old fashioned" training generally not using either food or prey
objects such as balls and Kongs for motivation.

72
 You teach the dog, for instance, by placing the dumbbell in his mouth and holding
the grip, and then on command taking it back and praising the dog, who complies
because you have physical control of his head and the dumbbell. In time this
progresses to the forced retrieve, that is, compulsion in doing the exercise, which
often can be accomplished in as little as five minutes of the lifetime of the dog, after
proper preparation and with consistent follow up. The new school alternative to the
forced retrieve is a more inductive approach where the dog is encouraged and
praised when he makes a
tentative effort to take the
object, this encouragement
leading to enthusiasm and
compliance. These are not
distinct and opposing methods so
much as the end points of a
continuum, most real training
incorporating a synthesis of both
concepts according to the
trainer's instinctive response to
the needs of the moment.
Trainers become better and
thus more successful by learning
to adapt according to the
individual dog and the needs of
the moment. Mechanistic or
cookbook training methods with
a one-procedure fits all paradigm
Schutzhund send out.
in general tend to produce
mediocre results. There are rules,
guidelines and principles in dog training, but excellence evolves through developing
the instinct and confidence to break the rules according to the needs of the moment.
Instinct is the key word here, for if the trainer needs to go through an explicit mental
decision making process even the most transient delay all too often results in a lost
training opportunity.
The use of the forced retrieve is a subject of intense ongoing controversy, not
only in terms of the specific exercise but the underlying training philosophy. The
Koehler approach, evolving out of traditional methodology exemplified by that of
Konrad Most in Germany, old school if you will, was based on teaching followed by
repetition where failure to perform resulted in a correction such as a tug on the
training collar, and compliance brought forth handler praise. The more inductive
approach relies on the desire to comply spontaneously arising from within the dog
rather than from compulsion.
Teaching merges into the repetition phase where the exercise is performed over
time with increasing emphasis in quickness, enthusiasm and style in the
performance, with corrections for noncompliance, subtle or substantial according to
handler instinct, and rewards. The efficacy of both correction and reward are
dependent on precise timing, for a moments delay in correction is just punishing a
confused dog. A delayed reward does not have as much immediate negative effect,
but a repeated pattern of rewards as random events will tend to make the training
more pleasant for the dog but do nothing to reinforce compliance, enthusiasm or
style in the exercises.
This repetition phase tends to be the longest, indeed extends over the entire
competitive or service career. The various exercises can gradually be incorporated
into a sequence corresponding to the trial procedure, generally referred to as pattern
training. The advantage is that the dog gets into the flow of the routine, anticipating

73
and thus responding to the next exercise. The down side is that if something unusual
breaks the pattern the dog may not maintain discipline or confidence in his
performance. A further consideration is that the real world need for a dog does not
occur in a foreseeable pattern of events, excellence in a police dog is in how he
performs in stressful circumstances according to unfolding events and handler
direction in response to the field situation. My view is that the competitive trainer
should nevertheless do a certain amount of pattern training, including occasionally
the entire trial sequence, but that this should be in moderation, a relatively small
portion of the normal training routine.
Proofing is having the dog perform under distraction, perhaps with another dog
present, or a man with a sleeve. An specific example of proofing or distraction
training is having fellow trainers throw a ball or Kong among themselves while you
do your obedience exercises, teaching the dog that not all balls are his and that
commands are not suggestions in case there is nothing more interesting going on.
The ultimate proof is of course the actual trial performance.
These phases are in reality abstractions and generalities without hard boundaries,
that is, teaching morphs gradually into training as the emphasis changes from
showing the dog what is required to insisting that he take responsibility. Training in
turn merges into proofing as increasingly overt distractions are introduced.
Many training problems have a root cause in preliminary phases of teaching.
Generally exercises are introduced sequentially, one at a time, and training focuses
on the new exercise until compliance is well established, with previous exercises
done intermittently. If an exercise is not sufficiently instilled and established as a
conditioned response before the next one commences, the dog may become
confused and exhibit stress or avoidance.
Overly enthusiastic trainers will sometimes introduce distractions much too early
and in an unfair way, which results in a dog being punished for behavior he has no
way of comprehending as incorrect. As an example, I can recall a training class
where the dogs were lined up and each handler in turn threw his dumbbell for his
dog to retrieve. Naturally it was not long before a dog went out after his neighbor’s
dumbbell, and the instructor indicated that a correction was appropriate. This was
wrong, for the dog had not been taught that it was specifically his dumbbell and his
handler’s command that required the retrieve. Sometimes proponents of Koehler
come to see the distractions as an end in themselves rather than subsidiary to the
training process, usually with negative consequences.
Although the progressions introduced here are in terms of the obedience
exercises, they lend insight into other venues such as searching or tracking and the
protection or aggressive search work. These applications differ because the objective
is to induce the dog to explore and develop his natural and instinctive capabilities,
based on the canine physique, the sensitive nose and strong grip, for use under
handler direction and control. Here the trainer takes on more of a passive and
supporting role, that is, provides the situation where the dog can learn on his own
initiative, encouraged by handler praise. But in order for this training to be successful
the ultimate reward for the dog must be the work itself rather than pleasing the
handler, the primary motivation and reward must come from within the dog. To
come from within the dog these responses must be incipient in the dog, and this is
the purpose of generation upon generation of breeding selection.
There is so much more to dog training than a sequence of rote obedience
exercises.

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All in the Family
Large and potentially aggressive dogs require living situations where there is a
commitment to training and discipline, owners with an informed desire for a serious
dog and the personal commitment and psychological attributes to be the boss.
Unfortunately in most police breeds today pet or commercially oriented show
breeders have evolved emasculated lines, impotent replicas in a sense, in order to
provide dogs with substantially less in the way of aggression, energy and drive
adapted to casual owners. When we became involved in the late 1970s this was
much less prevalent; our first Bouvier des Flandres (out of the Bowles lines) went on
to Schutzhund III and an advanced tracking title. In that era there was less
distinction between work and companion lines, American and Canadian breeders
having had stock much closer to the breed origins. Today, thirty years later, the
commodity companions in most of these breeds, including the German Shepherd,
Doberman and Bouvier des Flandres, are softer, less energetic and much less
intense. The consequences of minimal obedience training or ineffective training are
less serious than with actual police level dogs, but the potential for competition or
service is also essentially nil. This section, while applicable to all dogs, is focused on
these lower intensity or companion dogs. Those with dogs out of serious lines, even
if not contemplating actual service or competition, need to become aware of the
issues covered in the next section on competitive or service level training.
Training in manners and social behavior is not optional; the only question being
whether good habits and desirable deportment is to be established or the dog is to
establish his own behavior patterns and force you to adapt to his chosen lifestyle.
Make no mistake, whether you realize it or not training commences the day the dog
comes into your home in that specific behaviors are rewarded or tolerated and others
discouraged. If the pup is fed from the table or allowed to sleep on the sofa the adult
is going to persist in these things as well. It is not my place to dictate your behavior
code. Indeed, if you come to my house you are likely to see an old bitch comfortably
asleep on the sofa and a dog sprawled out on the bed. The point is that you must
decide what is to be allowed and then consistently enforce your rules.
This is not a training manual, will not present the details of training methodology.
You will of course want to refer to texts such as Koehler's basic obedience book and
others as listed in the suggested reading section. But even the best texts will not
directly provide the instinctive reactions in command, correction and reward that are
the essence of training, which is why a competent instructor can be so helpful for the
novice.
There is an enormous amount of intuition and timing in dog training, which is
more in the realm of art than science. So much depends on the subtleties – attitude,
timing, reading the dog. One can study a text and then go to the training field and
do what it says in a mechanistic manner and yet, while the motions are more or less
those described, the dog's perception may be very different because of variations in
timing, emphasis and the nature of the individual animal. A split second can measure
the difference between an effective correction that the dog perceives and responds
to and merely annoying a confused dog. When it comes right down to it, no book can
contain words that extend the gifts of perception and timing.
In training the dog is above all entitled to consistency; it is not fair to punish
today what was tolerated yesterday. Teach him that he has to bark twice and roll
over before entering the living room if you want to – just begin early and allow no
exceptions if this is what is to be necessary for your satisfaction. Thus each dog
owner needs to adapt his own rules, appropriate to his circumstances, preferences
and life style, and then consistently enforce them.
Being a puppy is the time to grow, to develop and have fun. Most of the activity
with the pup, and there should be a lot of time with the trainer, should be essentially

75
play. The confidence and self-assurance necessary for stable, responsible adult dogs
takes time to develop; to attempt to accelerate the growing up process by putting
pressure on the pup to perform beyond his maturity is likely to have negative long-
term consequences.
The avenue to success is through firm but gentle training of the young dog,
keeping the training sessions short and crisp, varying the routine and working under
conditions that are pleasant, which means in the evening or at night during hot
summer weather. In training, once is often enough; if a dog correctly executes an
exercise, a barrier retrieve or a recall, then praise him and leave well enough alone
and go on to something else. If you run it into the ground and finally cause a
problem to surface then a positive experience has been turned into a negative one.
Correctly timed praise, when the dog has truly been correct, is vital.
An element of force, and sometimes the infliction a correction, is inherent in
every effective obedience program. The dog must come to accept that your orders
require compliance. While the sessions should be generally short, sometimes it
comes down to a contest of wills, of persisting because the dog avoids doing what he
knows you require or does not take you seriously. On occasion I have been drawn
into a lengthy test of wills in order to establish my authority in a situation where a
physical correction was not appropriate or likely to be effective. For me this has often
been a moving sit, stand or down in response to the command, a pattern of the dog
doing one or the other but not the one corresponding to the command. On one
particular occasion the dog, on doing the stand for examination, would be perfect
right up to the end and then slightly move one foot. It was flat out defiance, pure
and simple. A loss of temper would have been a setback, the next time the situation
would have only been worse. It was a simple matter of waiting it out, repeating the
exercise until the dog finally did it correctly twice consecutively and then praising
him and ending the session.
By being patient and persistent the dog learns that doing what is required is the
easier way. Thus the concept is to repeat the exercise as many times as necessary to
make the dog understand that he cannot get out of it by playing dumb, without
impatience or excess pressure. Then quit after two correct executions, being certain
to praise the dog. In this way he is rewarded for correct action and hopefully next
time will just do it in order to avoid the hassle.
But such confrontations should be the exception, for if you and your dog are not
having fun most of the time something is seriously wrong. When there are problems
with your training attitude or methodology it is necessary to resolve them before
proceeding, for little will be accomplished unless both the person and the dog are
willing participants.
There are a number of skills and procedures requisite to success in training, such
as the use of the collar and leash as correction tools. Timing and technique are
important factors that are best developed by experience and practice under the eye
of one who can point out faulty execution.
But training procedures and tricks are ultimately of secondary importance, the
essence of effective training is communicating with your dog. You must be able to
understand his motivations, desires and fears and use this knowledge to make him
understand what you require and motivate him to act accordingly. Whether your
objectives in training are simply a safer, easier and more convenient life with your
dog or trial competition, the primary objective should be building up the
communication capability.
The physical and psychological demands of aggression-based training require
much of the dog in terms of self-confidence, emotional stability and courage;
attributes which come to fulfillment only slowly with maturity. The larger and more
robust dogs required, such as the Bouvier, can take longer to mature to this level,

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and the stress of overextending the dog can be less than apparent until damage is
done. Young dogs, although becoming impressive, are often still quite juvenile at a
year and in need of being treated as such, regardless of how large and rambunctious
they may be. Many problems are caused by the failure to perceive that emotional
maturity often lags physical development; and there are significant variations in the
maturation patterns of individual dogs to which the trainer must be sensitive. This
does not mean that training must be delayed until the dog is mature, but that it
must always be according to the maturity of the dog.
While the tendency is to think of training in terms of classes and formal sessions,
the reality is that we train our dogs as we live with our dogs according to what we
encourage, tolerate or punish. You do not have a choice about training but rather
only the options of doing it well and with wisdom or poorly through the tolerance or
encouragement of undesirable behavior.
It needs to be understood that dogs are dogs, not little people or children
substitutes, although a little discipline of children works from time to time too. Dogs
should be exposed to and learn to cope with increasingly demanding experiences,
such as being in the crate, not lunging on a leash, and not jumping up on others.
This is a short list of things that can be beneficial for a dog to become acclimated to
as he grows up:
 Spending a night in a crate.
 Being in a crate when the owner is out of the house for a few hours.
 Going to the vet, and wearing a muzzle.
 Staying in a kennel run for a few days
 Spending a day or two with someone else.

Not all of these are necessarily convenient or appropriate for every dog or the
choice of every owner, but the more diverse the experience in the formative months
the better able he will be able to deal with separation and other stressful situations
as they occur in daily life.
Every dog should be acclimated to spending time in a crate; from an early age it
is wise to crate train him, starting with a few minutes and progressing to several
hours and then overnight. In this way you can confine and keep the dog safe – and
the contents of your home intact – while you are gone, have service people in with
doors open and other similar situations.
Transporting a dog in a vehicle should be in a well-secured crate. In a smaller
automobile or utility vehicle the crate might be constrained by the size of the
available location, but in a larger vehicle or the back of a truck the crate should be
securely restrained. In the case of a traffic accident well secured crate will provide
the best situation at the moment of impact and prevent the dog from getting loose
and running away, being run over by traffic or becoming aggressive to police officers
or others responding to provide medical assistance. Be aware of the fact that you
might not be conscious to command the dog, and your lack of response will likely be
extremely stressful for the dog, making his reactions less predictable.
In recent years public dog parks have become more popular. Some areas are set
aside specifically for training, often further outside of residential areas, and often the
people, who tend to be more experienced trainers, are responsible, careful not to
interfere with others. We are fortunate enough to live on a number of acres and train
in similar settings, but this is not always the situation. But other dog parks,
particularly in an urban setting, are intended primarily for pet or companion dogs,
and large numbers of loose dogs can be a volatile situation. If a dog park is an only
alternative, consider going very early in the morning or when the weather is
unpleasant but bearable so as to have minimum risk; for some reason the
troublesome people and dogs do not seem to be early risers.

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Competitive Training
Over the past thirty years there has been rapid evolution in working dog
breeding, training and sport competition. Training and breeding have emphasized
drive building, the creation of dogs which are perceived as energetic, responsive and
happy in their work.1 Increasingly, competition rules and judging have abetted this.
This is in many minds, including my own, a double-edged sword, for there has also
been a gathering trend to be less and less demanding, particularly in the protection
exercises, particularly in Schutzhund. The attack on the handler exercise is gone, the
sticks are padded, the distances and threat level in the courage test have been
incessantly reduced. What we have is dogs looking better and better doing less and
less; perhaps they will ultimately evolve to do nothing with perfection. Schutzhund,
now rebranded as IPO, has less and less relevance to the realities of actual police
service. These trends have in general had negative consequences for training
strategy and practice in terms of producing and deploying real police dogs.
There is of course a positive aspect to these drive building trends, more emphasis
on motivation and encouragement rather than defaulting to immediate compulsion,
which was always bad dog training, is on the whole a good thing. As competition
oriented training has increasingly focused on early drive building over past decades,
training has commenced earlier and become less stressful for both trainers and dogs.
Discipline and compulsion will always be fundamental elements of dog training, but
by starting young and increasing intensity slowly and with perception, and applying
pressure with sophistication rather than brute force, the innate potential for an
enthusiastic demeanor as well as reliable compliance with command can more nearly
be realized.
Establishing desirable behavior patterns in the young dog as he matures tends to
minimize the need for severity in correction. Historically the need for harsher
correction was rooted in the tendency to delay training until the dogs were mature
enough to cope with it, but the problem was that less discipline as the dog grew up
created the attitudes and behavior problems likely to require more severity. It was in
a way the old chicken and egg paradox all over again.
Drive building based training commencing at younger ages has demanded of the
trainer more sophistication, perception and skill in that too much pressure too early
can limit the long term potential. When the inevitable precociousness of the high
drive pup leads the impatient trainer into overly harsh remedies the advantages of
early training can be negated. The trainer needs to be constantly alert for indications
that it is time to go slowly or even back off to allow maturity to catch up.
The reprimand or correction is necessary for effective dog training; but too often
it is rooted in trainer frustration rather than a carefully applied response to
disobedience. In order to be effective the reprimand must be immediate, measured
and in response to an actual disobedience rather than confusion. Early training
applied with a heavy hand is likely to result in a resentful, sullen dog and set the
stage for long-term training and life problems. It is difficult for the novice and
experienced trainer alike to know when the leniency appropriate to the pup is called
for and when the dog is mature enough to insist on adult standards of behavior; it is
perhaps better to allow the devious young adult to get away with puppy tricks for a
few extra weeks or months than to force responsibility on a dog that is not quite
ready.

1
Drive is a term that has come into use meaning energetic and enthusiastic fulfillment of
inherent genetic propensities, as in prey drive or food drive.

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 In the initial stages of the protection training young pups are encouraged to bite
and pull jute covered tugs and to run with their prize. This can gradually evolve to
having a stranger present the tug, and then become gradually more serious in the
game. At roughly a year of age, always according to the development of the
individual, the young dog will be introduced to a relatively soft puppy sleeve.
Many years ago, in the early days of Schutzhund training in America, the
teaching of the release or out command was generally delayed until a relatively
advanced stage of the training, when the dog was biting with confidence and overt
aggression. The down side to introducing the release at this stage was the tendency
to require severe corrections. The universal practice today is to introduce the out
very early, in play before actual bite building. The pup learns that the clean release
is the surest way to the satisfaction of the next bite, and the session ends with the
dog winning the sleeve and taking it off the field as a prize. In this approach, the
only release not rewarded is at the end of the protection phase of the trial, a
relatively small part of the over training regimen.
The danger in pushing the protection work too fast is that apparent success and
the resulting over confidence on the part of the handler may cause the youngster to
be pushed too hard and consequently break down. A young dog can show impressive
progress and strength in one location and working with a particular decoy and falter
in another place or when facing another person. He who pushes his pup can do
damage that will take months to repair and may in fact diminish the ultimate
potential. Facing a large and aggressive man with a stick is meant to be a test of the
courage and character of the adult dog; it takes time and maturity to build up the
young dog to face the hard protection work.
The inherent problem inherent in the drive building trends is not in the
methodology, which is generally sound when discipline is sufficient, but rather that
trial rules and judging have been so accommodating to the resulting rote
performance, more and more failing to vigorously challenge and test the dog through
variation in exercises, overt decoy aggression and other means of more faithfully
emulating the realities of street service. The rules and judging, particularly in
Schutzhund, have evolved on the principle that what drive building produces must be
the right thing, more and more ignoring the realities of actual police service.
For me, the most important objective of training a dog is not obtaining a trial title
or even good behavior but the pure joy of participating in the fulfillment of the dog.
It is a satisfaction to follow him as he works out a difficult track, persists even
though changes in ground cover or cross tracks are momentarily confusing, and
works out the problems. The execution of a set of obedience exercises by a good
team is a pleasure to behold, calling for maximum rapport between a handler and
dog. The protection work is the most spectacular, makes the greatest impression on
the casual audience. When done well it is truly a compelling demonstration of what a
good man and dog can accomplish together.

The Koehler Era

For many Americans introduced to canine obedience in the 1960s through the
80s obedience training was according to the methods and philosophy of Bill Koehler,
the man whose training, books and seminars rightly cause him to be regarded as the
modern father of American obedience training.
The Koehler Method of Dog Training, first published in 1962, quickly became the
standard. Koehler more than any other American taught that obedience as
preparation for the formal working trial and obedience resulting in a successful home
companion are and should be the result of the same fundamental process. Koehler
was decidedly old school in that, after an appropriate teaching phase to establish

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that the dog understands what is required; a level of compulsion is necessary and
appropriate to produce reliable performance, even in the presence of distractions.
Training with introduced distractions became the hallmark of the Koehler approach.
Koehler of course did not invent obedience training or the specific methodologies,
in the early 1900s Konrad Most in Germany had produced an extraordinarily
influential book, translated into English in the fifties. But the Koehler book formed
the foundation for innumerable classes and provided cohesion and a common
methodology for many American obedience club programs. Thus when I speak of the
Koehler method it can be thought of as a good representative of a broad class of
training methodologies emphasizing careful, patient introductory training and then
the evenhanded application of reward and compulsion to produce consistent results.
In the Bouvier world for instance, the well-regarded Dutch trainer Caya Krisjne-
Locker – who was not particularly aware of Koehler when she came to America as a
teacher – teaches a very similar approach.
Koehler stressed handler praise as the fundamental reward, and was in general
negative about the use of objects such as balls or Kongs or food as motivation in
training. In his era the distinction between sport and real training was not nearly
what it has become today, and as many point out it is not practical to carry a bag of
doggie cookies on police patrol; it is a bit difficult to imagine a police officer with his
automatic, radio and a shiny leather hot dog dispenser on his belt.
There were of course those in that era negative on the Koehler method,
portraying it as stressful and unpleasant, even unkind, to the dog. Much was made
of the ear pinch as an aid in retrieval training and suspending or hanging a dog in a
response to inappropriate aggression. Many painted Koehler as an overly forceful and
unforgiving trainer. And the truth is that some training done in Koehler’s name was
and is unfair and unnecessarily harsh; some trainers applied it blindly and with their
own inappropriate extensions and embellishments. Some instructors could not seem
to grasp the difference between distraction training and tricking the dog into a
mistake so he could be punished. (When done in a law enforcement environment this
becomes entrapment.)
I was fortunate enough to converse with Koehler in conjunction with various
seminars, a couple of times over dinner and via a number of letters. He was most
helpful and encouraging when I was in the beginning process of pulling my original
Bouvier book together and seeking a publisher. Throughout all of this his emphasis
was always on consistency and fairness to the dog.
The Bill Koehler I knew and saw in action, when he visited my original obedience
club on several occasions, and in California, was a soft-spoken, low key, even gentle
trainer. While the book covers a number of severe corrective procedures, these are
included as the last in an escalating series of solutions, efforts to deal with serious
behavior problems, where the remaining alternative might well be putting the dog
down. In almost all instances they are the consequence of strong or fearful dogs
becoming out of control and with the danger inherent in a physically mature dog.
I am willing to take extreme measures, such as the use of a rubber hose on a
dog, where necessary. But to keep things in perspective, I have, to the best of my
memory, taken out a hose three times in some 35 years of training, and actually
used it twice. Both dogs were mature male Bouviers in other home situations. One
was a dog with the inclination to go after small dogs. I took the dog to training night
at our obedience club and, with the owner’s prior knowledge, approached a small
dog. The male went after the little dog and I rung his bell, struck him quickly across
the bridge of the nose. Hopefully he had no idea where it came from and stepped
back in some confusion. We subsequently approached another dog, and this time
even though the lunge at the small dog was much more tentative, the result was the

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same. The third small dog was cause for a step back and that was pretty much the
end of the problem.
Today the radio controlled shock collar has often taken the place of other, less
sophisticated, methods of applying compulsion. This "hearing aid" can be an effective
adjunct to training, but should come only after a thorough grounding in conventional
training, and under the guidance of an experienced instructor. And of course the
much cheaper and more reliable old-fashioned pinch or prong collar, properly
applied, can even today be quite effective.
Overt compulsion in dog training tends to make the squeamish squeal. A prime
example is the famous Koehler ear pinch as a means of reinforcing the dumbbell
retrieve. The common picture conjured up is a long brutal struggle involving much
resistance, pressure and compulsion. In general, the reality can be and for good
trainers usually is quite different. Although I tend to use a prong collar as a
correction in the forced retrieve, the principles are the same. My dog Iron was a
good example, he was a very strong dog imported from Holland after police reports
on behavior in the original home caused the breeder to get him back and offer him to
me. Iron was subject to the appropriate preliminary training where the dumbbell is
placed in the mouth and held until the release command is given, to make sure he
truly understood what was required.
The fateful forced retrieve training occurred on one day. The dog was back tied
with a two-inch leather collar; the pinch collar with the separate, foreword directed
leash was put on. The dumbbell was offered and with a slight tug on the pinch collar
the dog took and held the dumbbell. This was repeated a couple of times on the back
tie, a couple of times off the back tie and a couple of times from the ground. End of
the dreaded forced retrieve.
Not that it is always that easy. I trained one Bouvier male out of the fashionable
Dutch show lines. This dog was entirely different. No matter how long the
preparation was he would play stupid and resist the dumbbell. After a long and
unpleasant session he would finally get the message and take the dumbbell. But two
days later it was as if he had never seen a dumbbell before. The point here is that all
dogs are not created equal, that the background, the breeding selection process in
the lines behind the dog, has a profound effect on the trainability of the individual
dog. Obedience training can bring forth and refine the genetic potential; but it cannot
create what is not there, conjure out of thin air character attributes not latent in the
genetic background of the dog.
As mentioned above, Koehler and others of his era was generally negative about
the use of food and play objects as rewards in dog training. His general thesis was
that these things are not reliable motivators; that you are essentially offering the
dog a deal, do this and get that. This of course implies a choice on the dog’s part,
clearly not the road to reliability. In general the higher-level trainers have moved
beyond this and incorporate play objects and food rewards in order to build drive and
enthusiasm. Just as Einstein went beyond Newton in the understanding of the
physical world without diminishing the stature of Newton, advances in training
practice have not diminished the foundation laid by Koehler and the others of his era.
As a final point, many characterize Koehler, Konrad Most and the others of this
school as being of the reward and punishment methodology. Punishment, defined as
the infliction of delayed correction, is useless and abusive, for a dog can only
understand an immediate action. But Koehler in his books, in person and in the
obedience classes I began my dog training in emphasized above all else the timing of
the correction and the reward. These accusations are false and dishonest, and reflect
poorly on the people perpetuating them, whether out of ignorance or maliciousness.

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The Post Koehler Era
Over the past thirty years, the use of food and prey drive objects such as balls or
Kongs as motivation has become a fundamental component of many if not most
training regimens. At an extreme, a few trainers promote what they refer to as a
purely positive approach, where the dog is supposedly never subjected to correction
or negative consequences. Koehler and similar traditional approaches are, implicitly
or explicitly, often disparaged as old fashioned at best or as brutal and repressive at
worst.
What is the truth of all of this?
The reality is that competitive canine events such as AKC obedience and the
various protection sports such as Schutzhund and Ring have changed and evolved,
with the emphasis on quick, crisp work and an enthusiastic demeanor. In order to
accomplish this it has become increasingly necessary to select for what have come to
be referred to as high drive dogs, that is dogs with an active spirit, great
enthusiasm, and especially pronounced prey or object drive so that balls or Kongs
can become primary motivation tools. The early training process becomes a matter
of building and reinforcing these incipient drives, which have become fundamental to
training for competition. An important open question is to what extent these trends
in evaluation, training and breeding selection relate to discernible enhancements in
actual police patrol performance, and to what extent they reflect and exacerbate
further divergence between practical real world service requirements and
increasingly artificial sport venues.
The research of Ivan Pavlov and other behavior scientists did much to consolidate
and formalize our understanding of behavior, and his work on the conditioned
response based on repeated cycles of reward for performance illuminates the process
of training to create the conditioned response. A prime example is provided by
animal acts, as in trained seals and dolphins, where the fish reward occurs during
the actual performance. The adaptation of these conditioning and training methods
from entertainment act preparation to higher scoring performances in dog trials is
the essence of the modern school of canine training, and the effectiveness of this in
terms of trial results is beyond question. The question that remains is what these
evolutionary developments mean in terms of police dog performance on the streets.
Notice that the role of the human being in the performance based on the
conditioned response is marginalized or even absent. The trained seal responds to
the setting, the sequence of events and the expectation of the reward, the command
of the man being secondary to the process, or even absent. The setting for the
performance and the sequence of events are rigidly maintained to minimize
distraction so that the conditioned response can play out. The sport trial obedience
performance is in many ways similar, and the commands of the handler become
almost secondary, reduced to the role of supporting markers in the sequence of
conditioned responses. Trial judging is rapidly evolving into a world of style points
rather than an objective recording of whether the exercise was actually completed
correctly.
But the police canine officer operates in an entirely different world. There is no
sequence of events and ceremony leading up to the conditioned response. The
canine team responds to unpredictable unfolding events in an environment, often
with serious distractions and extreme stress, where there is no do over, where a
break down in discipline may have long-term consequences much more serious than
a reduced trial score. The commands of the police officer to his dog are of course
based on conditioning and training, but they are real commands rather than timing
markers in a scripted obedience performance. Criminals are not apprehended
because the police dog twists his body in a U shaped curve to stare intensely into the
face of the handler, they are apprehended because the dog is alert, environment and

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situation aware, responding to command, able to adapt to the unexpected, to
improvise in response to unpredictable actions by his adversary.
Older training books, such as that of Most, generally mention food only in the
context of training food refusal as a safety precaution in order to keep a dog from
being poisoned, either on purpose or inadvertently by coming across spoiled or
contaminated food. Tracking or search training in this era is often described as an
extension of the object retrieve rather than the food hunt of modern practice, and I
have seen Belgian training done in this way. There is a case to be made today that
the use of food for motivation and reward is a further – and some would say
undesirable – step in the ongoing separation of training for points and training for
real service.
Dog breeding and training cannot and should not ignore the advances in
understanding revealed in the work of scientists like Pavlov and innovative hands on
trainers, revert to a previous less sophisticated era. But questions and issues remain.
One question is to what extent these new school training methods are useful in the
preparation of dogs for real police service. But a more important issue is whether the
evolving training and trial scoring realities are producing breeding and selection
decisions for rote dogs which are animated and precise but lacking in the initiative,
hardness and fighting drive that comes into question when the pattern is no longer
there to support the rote trained response.
None of this is meant to imply that we should ignore methods demonstrated to
be effective and useful, but our focus should be to increasingly build up the
requirements of the working trials through features such as variation in the order
and pattern of the exercises from trial to trial, longer distances in the remote pursuit
exercises, a call off, that is, a command to return to the handler when the dog is in
pursuit of the adversary. Our current trend is to more and more achieve points
through superficialities such as focusing on the face of the handler while heeling,
transforming our trials into events eventually determined by style points.
So, are the old school methods associated with names such as Most and Koehler
obsolete, as so many would claim or imply? My answer is no. The basic Koehler
approach is still fundamentally relevant and generally appropriate for the companion
animal in inexperienced hands. This is particularly true of working breeds destined to
mature as large and powerful dogs.
The evolution of obedience competition to emphasize the quick rote execution
and strong focus on the handler has meant that top level competition is increasingly
restricted to specific breeds such as the Golden Retriever and the Border Collie and,
indeed, into specific competition lines within these breeds. Similar evolution has
occurred in the world of the protection sports, and played a role in the separation of
breeding lines into competitive trial and serious police service factions. In the
companion dog world this has resulted in a divergence of obedience classes into
those focused on the garden-variety home companion with no expectation of trial
competition and more advanced venues for the serious obedience trial candidate.
Thus the obedience competition trainer, while his training in many ways may
retain elements of a Koehler style regimen, will adopt his methods to gradually
introduce combinations of drive building methods, that is food and prey drive objects
such as balls and Kongs, into his program. In short, competitive success today, while
it can be effectively built on a Koehler foundation, needs to incorporate elements of
the drive building methods which have come into common use.
Just as a fishing lure must first appeal to the fisherman in the store before the
fish have a chance to give an opinion, some training philosophies pander to what the
novice wants to believe rather than what is actually meaningful in real life dog
training, as in the highly promoted concept of purely positive training, essentially, if
taken literally, a cult with a focus on love and understanding to the exclusion of

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compulsion. While this is probably on the whole preferable to the brute force of slave
management, it is seriously flawed in terms of the basic nature of man and beast
alike, for essentially the dog becomes an equal, and there is no leadership or control
among equals; the truly useful and effective dog must obey commands promptly and
reliably, which comes only through the discipline of consequences for noncompliance.
The reality is that purely positive training is often more of a strategy to sell a book or
draw people into seminars; in practice there is usually an element of compulsion.
Proponents of this approach will recite a litany of dogs they have seen or known
of ruined through compulsion in training, which may have a basis in fact but
indicates an inappropriate use of compulsion rather than that compulsion is not
necessary. The implication is that by being nice to the dog you never have to force
him to do what you want, that he will naturally reward your friendly, undemanding
approach by performing according to your desire. Many of us have been witness to
the sad result of similarly permissive theories of child rearing.
In a very limited sense you can train a dog to do what he naturally wants to do
without compulsion; exercises such as catch the cookie for instance. The trained seal
jumps through the hoop for the reward, the chunk of fish from the pail. There is no
force or compulsion, but the trainer can carefully select tricks with a quick response,
and if a seal does not want to do a particular trick it can be omitted from the act. But
in serious canine training the dog must learn to do things he would prefer not to do,
as in release the sleeve, and must respond reliably and with vigor when there is no
expectation of an immediate, explicit reward such as food or a ball to play with. This
is discipline, not really present in the trained seal act, but fundamental to a dog that
is going to go in harm's way on the street. Discipline ultimately requires compulsion.
It may have very little overt force, it may be subtle, but it must be there.
If this sort of non-compulsive training is an overreaction there has been a
persistent element of brutal training to inspire overreaction. But the mainstream
trainers whose foundation is the tradition of Koehler and Most were not and are not
in any sense brutal, inappropriate or ineffective; but it cannot be denied that things
done under this banner have gone beyond good training into brutal training in too
many instances. There have been video clips on the internet and television of
American police trainers suspending a police dog with his feet off the ground and
kicking him without mercy. (In this instance the video was taken public by another
police officer, showing courage and compassion in overcoming the general and
natural tendency to honor the blue line.) I know directly from two KNPV judges that
several dogs have died on KNPV training fields as a direct result of brutal compulsion
in training. These are unusual and shameful extremes, but they are a reality that
needs to be incessantly guarded against.
There are those in AKC, Schutzhund and KNPV who have used very compulsive
methods. Sometimes they may seem to have good success for a while, but in the
end both the trainers and the dogs tend to burn out. Such training creates conflict
the consequences of which will inexorably turn up at the most inopportune moment.
And of course severely conflicted training is a good way to be very seriously bitten.
One remedy is in judging, that is, for the system to reward a happy, up performance
by giving the judge the latitude to reward more than just rote execution of the
exercise.
Some will perhaps perceive such training as abusive, but these are important
issues which require candid discussion. I do not believe that dogs perform well
because they love you. I believe that dogs perform well because they enjoy the
experience of training with you. When I was a beginner as a trainer I came to realize
that I had to make the dog go to training, and that something was seriously wrong.
Now all of my dogs pull to go out for tracking, obedience and protection. This is not
bragging, I just simply stop and figure out how to restore drive when I find it is not

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present. Sometimes, this means finding a home for a dog, and that is the nature of
breeding selection.
In all training, the time comes when track means track, heel means heel and out
means out. The handler must be the boss; just as in my work I have a boss. When I
was actively employed, my boss was usually a very good man, and we normally had
an excellent relationship. Sometimes we might disagree, which is permitted. But in
the end, the boss makes decisions and the employee carries out the plan or seeks a
different situation. So it must be in dog training; there must be consequences to fail
to perform an exercise the dog understands, and sometimes compulsion is
necessary. No dogs in any serious sport or line of work perform at the top level
without an element of compulsion.
The truth is that effective training is always a balance between compulsion and
reward. It should be obvious that brutally applied compulsion, as in beating the dog
if he delays an instant in fulfilling the slightest trainer whim, is stupid, cruel and
more to the point fundamentally ineffective. But purely reward based training can
also be cruel if the lack of real discipline results in an accident or a dog being
disposed of as unmanageable, neither outcome likely to result in a good ending for
the dog.
Effective dog training entirely devoid of compulsion, however subtly and cleverly
applied, in reality cannot produce reliable, useful dogs. The slogan itself is primarily
crafted to sell books, seminars or individual trainers to the gullible. The implication,
and the appeal, is that one can train without any unpleasant compulsion or
punishment; the reward of a hot dog chunk and pleasing the trainer can be enough.
This is indeed the appeal of the slogan, but if this is applied literally it is preordained
to failure.
If, on the other hand, "Purely Positive Training" in the end conveys to the dog
that he can be positive that working with you will make his life pleasant – with the
implication that less than the best effort will make life less pleasant – then it is little
more than a clever slogan to sell a book, promote an individual trainer or attract
training clients. In this case, the need of compulsion, while perhaps only implied, is
nevertheless real.
Compulsion is a fundamental component of all effective training protocols, but
used to excess or with a heavy hand is detrimental in that an intimidated dog will be
timid in his work and erratic and unpredictable when confused.
In summary, I believe that:
 He who uses the least amount of compulsion to train his dog is the best
trainer.
 He who uses just the slightest amount of compulsion less than necessary is
destined to be a frustrated, unsuccessful trainer.
 He who can discern the necessary level of compulsion is the wisest trainer
and will have the reward of the best his dog is capable of.

Obedience Classes
Although much of a dog's training occurs as a natural part of daily living or
independent training, there is also a place for formal instruction. The options include
amateur and commercial group classes with much variation in size and sophistication
– and cost – and private instruction. Private lessons are likely to be more expensive,
but much more focused on your particular level of knowledge, the attributes of your
dog and specific problems as they occur. An instructor or coach can often spot
incipient training problems and thus nip them in the bud rather than after a poor
habit is ingrained and thus in need of extensive remedial action, an ounce of
prevention being better than a pound of cure. Group instruction, properly run, can

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provide good distraction training through the discipline of working in the presence of
the other dogs, an opportunity to see alternatives that might not suit your dog and
often become pleasant social experiences.
Effective dog training is on one level a relatively straightforward process, but in
an era where many of us grow up outside the agricultural tradition, where dealing
with animals was a routine part of life, there is generally a need for direct
instruction. Training for competition or service is a more subtle and less forgiving
process best learned hands on under the influence of a teacher or mentor.
Experienced trainers can of course do much of their obedience and tracking
foundation working alone, and even in later phases where others are necessary to
provide distractions or assistance there is no particular need for especially skilled
people. But ultimately to rise to his potential every trainer needs mentors and
colleagues who can observe and point out faults or make suggestions.
When we first became interested in Schutzhund in the late 1970s, some of those
in our obedience club and dog people in general were seriously concerned about the
protection work; there was a fairly widespread attitude that civilian participation in
the protection was inappropriate and that the dogs would become overly aggressive
in inappropriate circumstances, a liability. Some obedience clubs would not allow
guest training privileges for those involved. Although I have not been involved in
AKC style obedience activity for many years and am out of direct personal touch, my
general impression is that these concerns have abated.
Nevertheless it should be kept in mind that many people in general and some
instructors are uncomfortable in the presence of high level or intense dogs and are
thus best avoided. Also, some class situations allow or even encourage dog
interaction, things like doggie playtime, which in my opinion is never appropriate for
a serious police bred dog. In general those with police level lines, or generally with
the associated breeds, need to ascertain the prevailing attitude of potential
instructors or class situations and seek training assistance from those with
enthusiasm and experience with such training, especially if the dog is to be involved
in protection work beyond the basic obedience.
Protection training by its nature requires at least two people, the training helper
and the handler, and is greatly facilitated by larger groups for things such as line
handling and distractions. While this can and often is done in groups of two or three,
in general larger groups – such as a sport club, police training unit, or even a
commercial class – become the most effective approach.
Many amateur obedience training clubs offer classes, and these can be very high
quality, cost effective solutions. There are of course many commercial
establishments and individual instructors working out of their home or coming to
yours. Begin your search with your social network, your friends and acquaintances,
particularly those with well-behaved dogs. Ask around; inquire at your veterinarian
office, do a quick internet search. Watch for an operation that has some history, has
been going on for a while. Be especially sensitive to an empathetic attitude toward
the police breed culture and the protection work.
In selecting a class, the novice should consider his level of experience, the time
he is willing to devote and what it is he wants to accomplish with his dog. The highly
competitive AKC obedience or Schutzhund competitor that offers classes to others is
perhaps not a good choice for the inexperienced dog owner who does not really
understand what it is all about; for the pressure is likely to be incompatible with his
needs and desires.
On the other hand the person who has done some training and wants become
competitive in trial situations is well advised to seek out the instructor who has
personally been successful in such venues. He should understand and accept the
pressure and expectation of persistence and consistency that preparation for serious

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competition demands. He must also be prepared to accept that the instructor may
inform him that his dog is just not good enough and that in order to be competitive
he should get another one. (A second opinion is most definitely in order here,
especially if this is coupled with an offer to provide a better dog.) This is simply the
nature of things, for just as relatively few men have the potential to be a first rate
athlete, not all dogs are good candidates for top-level competition, be it obedience or
one of the protection sports.
In many urban areas there are a number of options from which to select a formal
training class. Such classes are run by park districts, obedience clubs and private
individuals of varying degrees of competence. (Anybody that wants to can hang out
a shingle and be an instant training instructor.) There is thus a wide diversity in class
size, quality of instruction, philosophy and objectives of the program. Regardless of
the organization involved or the philosophy espoused, the most important factor is
the capability, experience and enthusiasm of the instructor, who should be seen in
action if at all possible before a commitment is made.
The ideal format would be four or five dog/handler teams that met for an hour or
less two or three times a week so that the instructor could give the amount of
individual attention necessary and so that a faulty technique would not be practiced
for an entire week before being corrected. If at all possible, avoid the large class
situation, more than ten or twelve dogs. Such classes tend to result in a mechanistic
approach, with the instructor demonstrating an exercise and then mass confusion as
the class attempts to duplicate it.
When a potential class opportunity has been identified, it is wise to observe one
or preferably a couple of training sections. If there is reluctance to permit this, be
cautious, there is probably a reason. Mention the Koehler book that you bought and
notice the reaction. If it is an "Oh my god, not that" be on the alert. A strong
negative reaction might be a warning signal, you need a compassionate and
sensitive instructor, but one committed to discipline in the conduct of the class and
in the development of the dog.
In observing the training you should be alert to the instructor's control of the
class. Are problem dogs segregated for separate attention? If serious problems are
dealt with in class by stopping and working individually with the problem dog others
may benefit from observing the problem and remedy. But if this becomes routine, it
can quickly degenerate to the point where the typical student winds up standing
around wasting his time and money. In the obedience club we were initially involved
in the director of training and perhaps another senior trainer would observe a
number of concurrent beginning obedience classes and be able to pull out a problem
dog and/or handler for one on one problem resolution. In the more advanced classes
such a situation would be unusual, for the instructor is dealing with someone they
probably know from previous classes and problems will have been identified and
dealt with.
There is a lot of variation in instructor quality, the discipline expected of the
participants, the general level of the clientele and the number in the class. Many
classes tend to be oversubscribed in the expectation that there will be significant
dropouts, people who will come for a couple of times and then just disappear. This
can work to your advantage, for you might end up with a very small class or even a
semi private training situation. But in a really large class the individual is likely to be
more or less lost in the crowd.
Active trainers with increasing experience usually evolve into group training
situations instead of formal classes, where experienced fellow trainers can make
suggestions, point out things they can see from the sideline that you cannot be
aware of and provide opportunities to train in the presence of other dogs and people,

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as in procedures for reporting to a judge where two participants and their dogs are
present, in the Schutzhund venue for instance.
Although my early obedience and Schutzhund training provided an environment
where neutrality to all other dogs was a given requirement, apparently some
contemporary training encourages social interaction among the dogs. This is a
serious mistake. My recommendation is to avoid classes that condone or even
encourage interaction with other dogs, impartiality and aloofness should always be
an essential aspect of the training discipline.
There is a lot more art than science to dog training, and the instructor who has a
set pattern and methodology that is expected to work for every dog may well be
covering up a fundamental inability to deal with the dog and handler on an individual
basis. It is an unfortunate fact that such an approach is almost a necessity when
dealing with an excessively large class.
Thus the novice would do well to consider private or small group sessions with an
experienced instructor. Such an approach might be somewhat more expensive in the
short term, but when you consider that in a class situation seventy or eighty percent
of the time is spent standing around individual instruction may well be the more cost
effective option.

Dog Aggression
A fundamental requirement of police canine training and deployment is ensuring
that each dog reacts appropriately in the presence of other dogs in training, on the
street and in everyday of life. This is especially important in the police breeds
because of the size, power and inherent aggression and inborn, instinctive tendency
to dominance. Much of civilian training deals with dominance and aggression as
undesirable attributes, problems to be solved through training and breeding. But
dominance and power in the police dog are not problems to be resolved but rather
essential attributes enhanced through breeding selection. In order to maintain
general order and safety it is essential for the police dog handler to have a clearly
established leadership role which precludes direct canine dominance initiatives, that
is, dogs posturing and making eye contact with other dogs, behavior which
unchecked will likely ultimately lead to dog fighting. This is among the reasons that
much of police dog training is done in groups where appropriate relationships with
other dogs can be established and potential problems identified and dealt with.
Although dogs are not simply domesticated wolves, the consequences of their
extended family social structure based on group cohesion, and instinctive reactions
to exclude intruding outsiders, powerfully influence modern canine behavior. The
domestication process over time modified these natural relationships according to
new canine roles, but much of the aggression and dominance of the wolf is retained
as the basis of the working utility. Although the stock manipulation aspects of
herding evolved as an extension of the hunting instinct, predation control is based on
pack or group cohesion with strong instinctive reactions to exclude all outside
intrusions. From a historical perspective the primary function of the herd guardians
was to regard the herd as the extended pack or family and thus to drive off or if
necessary fight intruders, be they man or beast.
The key to human and canine survival is flexibility and adaptability. In the
lowlands of the British Isles for instance the Border Collies deal not primarily with
sheep in herds, but with sheep who routinely roam free to find sufficient grazing in a
sparse and often rough environment, that is with steep slopes and deep gullies. This
is of course only possible in regions where predator pressure is vanishingly small,
and the wolf has been extinct in the British Isles for centuries. Thus the herding role
evolved locally from keeping the animals in a compact group for effective control and

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defense to one of locating and retrieving effectively free ranging sheep. In this work
the dogs of neighboring shepherds must often coexist in close proximity during the
ordinary course of their herding work. But this style of herding is a recent evolution
according to circumstances unusual from a historical perspective rather than typical
of herding work in general. Over much of history and most of the world today the
guardian role of the working stock dog predominates.
The fighting breeds, such as the Pit Bull Terrier, were for many generations bred
according to the propensity to fight, to engage and persist onto death, any unknown
dog. The cur, the dog not immediate and persistent in his attack, was ruthlessly
culled. While the pit bulls on the streets today are often descended from among the
rejects or excess fighting stock, and are often cross bred to god knows what, much
of the blind fighting instinct can be and often is still present, even when not
immediately apparent. Sometimes the owners of such dogs are unaware of this
potential and thus careless and irresponsible in the management of their dogs; and
sometimes they are simply on the lookout for the opportunity for their dogs to
dominate and thus prove their manhood.
Thus on the streets and in the neighborhoods of contemporary America we have
dogs from diverse backgrounds with widely differing social propensities, from those
basically a generation or two removed from fighting stock to those from more
cooperative backgrounds much less likely to initiate aggression or dominance. In
light of this the only sane way to raise and train dogs for this environment is to
reinforce from the beginning the concept that new dogs in new situations must be
ignored, that guarded neutrality is the appropriate response.
Yet it has apparently become fashionable in many pet training circles to have
doggie playtime as part of training classes and in general encourage playful
interaction. In the newly fashionable urban dog parks, it is apparently the
expectation that large numbers of dogs can just be turned loose together and
expected to interact peacefully. (There are also many public training areas, and here
there is a strong expectation that each owner will keep his dog under control and
avoid interfering with their training.)
If you teach your dog that an unknown dog is an opportunity to make new
friends, there is always the possibility that he is going to start a fight without really
understanding what is happening. All dogs should be taught to remain neutral in the
presence of other dogs, not to initiate interaction; one should be leery of any training
venue where the instructor is not firmly committed to this principle.

The Electric Training Collar

Beginning in the late 1970s the radio controlled correction collar, which applies
an electrical stimulation to the throat area of the dog – thus enabling a remote
correction – has gradually come into common use. Although the early units were
expensive and fragile, today's units have become quite sophisticated, reliable and
affordable. Modern collars provide fine remote calibration of stimulation level and
independent audio and vibration modes to communicate with the dog. When applied
with skill and discretion they are enormously useful in many situations, both for
general training and special situations such as smaller or more fragile handlers with
larger or more hardheaded dogs. These devices are in common use by most police
and military agencies and mainstream trainers worldwide, with very little incidence
of inappropriate use, injury or abuse. In some situations electric collars are even
utilized in on the street police deployment. A further benefit of the electric collar is
that they enable people with disabilities to properly control and train their dogs, thus
opening up a new world of companionship and pleasure in otherwise restricted lives.

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 Although the strength of the shock of the early units could be set by means of
plugs or switches on the collar itself, there was no flexibility, no way for the trainer
to apply differing levels of correction according circumstances arising during training.
Modern units allow the adjustment of the level of correction remotely, according to
the needs of the dog and the situation. Once the dog learns to associate the
vibration signal with the electric stimulation it is often sufficient to use the vibration
only, which is activated by a separate button on the remote control. Some units also
have a remote sound beep. This sort of thing is enormously useful in training; my
experience is that once the dog has been properly introduced to the collar the use of
the vibration or warning beep is much more prevalent than an actual shock
correction.1
Unfortunately, humans being what they are, the potential for inappropriate use or
abuse is there. The novice should not begin by strapping on the electric collar and
experimenting on his dog, but rather should proceed through initial training in the
conventional way, with a collar, long line as necessary and leash. The guidance of an
experienced trainer or instructor leading up to the initial use of the electric collar will
generally facilitate safe and effective use. More experienced trainers will generally
introduce the electric collar according to their perceived needs and preferences,
always with great care in the initial introduction and acclimation process. It is
generally appropriate that the dog should wear a dummy collar or the regular collar
turned off during preliminary training so as to lessen the association of the
equipment with the correction; although most dogs quickly learn to associate the
collar with the possibility of a correction, and, more to the point, the lack of a collar
with an electric correction not being possible.
Effective electric collar use requires patience, timing and discretion on the part of
the handler; attributes that however latent in the beginner need to be developed
through the normal collar and leash training process. When you make a mistake in
timing or correction level with the training or prong collar it is immediately obvious,
the link between cause and effect is apparent. This tends to provide quick, obvious
feedback and allows the handler to develop the skill of the appropriate, well-timed
correction.
There are those who make a business of running expensive weekend seminars
where the novice is led to expect that in two days he will be introduced to the E
collar, probably sold to him at substantial mark up, and jump over all of the effort
necessary to build skill and insight by traditional training methods. Such people are
akin to the old-fashioned snake oil salesmen, and will likely be out of town counting
their cash when the negative consequences of the poor training begin to emerge and
become apparent.
As a consequence of the political pressure of left leaning animal rights political
elements – the same people behind the banning of ear cropping and tail docking –
the use of the electric collar is now banned in much of Europe. This is most unwise
and inappropriate, for such devices have been used over many years by mainstream
trainers, including most police and military trainers, with efficacy and minimal
danger, injury or unfair correction to the dogs, which generally exhibit a demeanor of
enthusiasm and happiness in their work. These bans also sometimes extend to other
commonly used training equipment such as prong collars. Prong collars have been in
universal use for at least half a century, and properly used are generally safe and
humane. As opposed to other commonly used training collars, such as the metal link
choke collar or slip collar, prong collars are inherently limited slip devices and
properly fitted cannot and do not choke the dog.
1
Bark prevention collars, which detect the vibration of the bark and apply a correcting
shock are similar in construction but not remotely controlled.

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 Such bans are most unfortunate in that the remote collars are enormously
effective in many situations. It of course cannot be denied that dog training imposes
serious obligations to maintain the spirit and practice of sportsmanship, safety and
humane treatment for all involved, most especially for the dogs. But abusive or
inhumane training is a matter of personal responsibility and action rather than the
specific equipment utilized; abuse is possible with even the most primitive and
innocuous equipment, such as a leash and an ordinary chain, fabric or leather collar.
All training is ultimately a matter of a balance between compulsion and reward, and
excessive compulsion is a matter of the wrong training technique, faulty application
on the part of the trainer or an inappropriate dog for the intended function. Properly
applied, compulsion is often not apparent to the casual observer lacking training
knowledge and skills.
All emotion driven public policy is subject to unforeseen and unintended
consequences. Banning the electric correction collar means that trainers will revert to
previous devices and technique which prevailed before the use of modern methods,
equipment and procedures, many of which had their own dangers for the dog and
potential for abuse. Much of this training involved long lines which can be used to
restrain and correct a dog, which at a distance can inadvertently apply sharp force
potentially injurious to the dog, and which can with a rapidly moving dog hang up on
a branch, post, or other trainer and supply a sharp and potentially injurious jolt to
the dog. Long lines are inherently much more dangerous and more subject to abuse
than modern remote control units. Other methods of remote correction, which would
likely come back into use, involved throwing light throw chains or pebbles at the dog.
(At what point a humane pebble becomes an inhumane rock would become an
important issue.)
The fact remains that properly used radio controlled collars are in fact the safest,
most reliable and most humane devices in common use for dog training today.

Breed Considerations
Specific breed commentary has been avoided in this training discussion because
it tends to evolve into excuse making and encourage reality avoidance in the
enthusiastic breed advocate, especially the novice. The foremost principle is that one
must train the dog in front of him rather than some abstraction of all dogs or the
mythology of a particular breed, that is, adapt methods and temper responses
according to what is experienced with this dog rather than preexisting expectations,
often illusions based more on mythology than objective reality.
My experience has led to the conviction that at the elementary level dog training
is dog training, that those learning the process should not commence working with a
Rottweiler, Bouvier or Doberman based on perceived esoteric breed characteristics,
but rather should train the dog in front of them, adapting timing, pressure and
technique according to what is actually experienced rather than what is projected
from expectations often rooted in breed mythology. With experience over a number
of dogs specific breed propensities – the intensive defensive drive of the Bouvier, the
flash of the Doberman, the stubbornness of the Rottweiler – will emerge as
generalities, but one should discover and adapt to these things as the training
progresses rather than proceed according to preconceived expectations. As one
advances in experience and expectations expand to embrace more competitive
scores in competition, seeking out guidance from those with a history of success in a
particular venue or breed will help to evolve the insight and experience necessary to
perceive and deal with emerging behavior characteristics in their early stages when
they are easier to channel and correct.
That said, selection of a particular breed, lines within that breed and a specific
pup or young dog within those lines has enormous consequences in terms of the

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potential for satisfaction in a particular sport venue or service application. The
appropriate sports equipment for IPO or one of the suit sports is a German Shepherd
or increasingly a Malinois, and those whose primary objective is to wave a cup go
directly to these breeds, and so should you if this is your priority.
Certainly the Rottweiler advocate should work within his breed, and when he
goes on the sport field his dog is judged according to the same rules as any other.
But the rules have primarily evolved under the influence of the German Shepherd
establishment for IPO and the Malinois community for the other sports, and beyond
the basic requirements of the exercises the winning points are in the style of the
performance in the eye of the judge, who became a judge by convincing other
judges that he could and would give the winning points according to the traditional
expected style. Is this right or fair? Probably not, but it is reality. To be a "winner"
the Rottweiler enthusiast needs to find a young dog that he can train to do a
convincing German Shepherd impersonation, that is snappy stylish healing with the
neck in a big U shape to stare intensely into the eyes of the handler and speedy
recalls. But the Rottweiler was created as a massive, powerful, aggressive dog – one
certainly capable of obedience, reasonable social deportment and completing a trial
obedience routine. But it is unrealistic to judge such a dog in terms of the style, flash
and subservience of a sport winning Malinois or German Shepherd.
One must come to understand that at the higher levels the dog sports are a
political and commercial process and that those making the rules, certifying the
judges and especially selecting the judges for elite events are doing so for their own
diverse agendas, which ultimately relate to supporting particular breeds, national
pride and commercial interests. If this offends your sense of amateur idealism, take
note of the fact that the Olympic games have given in and openly embraced
professionalism, overt commercialism and nationalism, with the façade of
amateurism relegated to the disappearing world of university athletics participated in
by rich young men with no need or expectation of a professional career. Today
American college football is a world where amateurism is little more than an excuse
to cheat the "student athletes" out of a legitimate share of the enormous profits.
Why should anyone expect dog sports to be different?
At the end of the day, dog training can only be successful when one selects a
candidate dog, training regimen and guidance according to his own goals and
expectations, finds fulfillment and satisfaction from within himself rather than
according to the manipulation of organizations primarily serving the interests of the
establishment insiders and those seeking to derive income from their involvement.

Sport and Service

As we have seen, much of contemporary obedience training is based on the
conditioned response to the cue or marker, one variation being clicker training, the
objective being to take a dog to the trial field or ring and reliably, like clockwork,
demonstrate a precise pattern of conditioned responses. The rules, judging and
tradition are all geared to minimize distractions or variations in the environment or
routine. But the police dog does not live in such a pristine, well-ordered world, must
respond to unpredictable events and challenges, often under the stress of a hostile
engagement. The old school Koehler style – typical of traditional training – puts
emphasis on distractions and unforeseen challenges, on exposing the dog to so many
novel situations and occurrences that he emerges well prepared to deal with the
intrinsically unpredictable nature of the street working environment. This inherent,
profound conflict between sport and service has serious ongoing consequences for
police dog breeding and deployment, for rote sport training does not in the long term
well serve either breeding selection or training for actual police service.

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 My expectation is that if this trend continues unabated police and sport lines will
diverge to the point where they separate entirely; the emerging preference of KNPV
and ring style Malinois for police service may well be the harbinger of things to
come.
From the beginning, at the turn of the twentieth century, these training and
evaluation venues had diverse and ultimately conflicting functions:
 Identification of suitable dogs for breeding so as to enhance the overall
quality of individual breeds and lines in terms of willingness, initiative,
physical aptitude, stability and courage.
 Fostering an emerging community of trainers and especially instructors and
training helpers so as to evolve and propagate increasingly more effective
training regimens and make this emerging body of knowledge more generally
accessible.
 Provide a competitive sport venue as a recreational outlet for amateur
trainers, thus providing an ongoing source or pool of young trainers,
instructors and especially training helpers.

Multiple objectives unfortunately tend to have the potential to foster tension and
compromise as conflicting priorities emerge. As sport participation becomes the
primary objective and competition intensifies the focus is increasingly on trial points
with less regard for other, often unintended, consequences of the training regimen.
As competition becomes more intense winners and champions are increasingly those
teams which can flawlessly display a precise rote performance. The need to
differentiate between increasingly similar performances should have led to more
demanding exercises so as to reveal the intrinsically better dogs, that is variation in
the routine, novel distractions in each trial, greater distances and in general more
physically and psychologically challenging exercises.
Instead, especially in Schutzhund, judging came to focus on stylistic aspects,
such as intensive focus on the handler in the heeling or snappy sits, in order to
differentiate among increasingly precise dogs. Even tracking and protection evolved
to become stylized sequences of exercises with emphasis on rote obedience rather
than more effective performance, where style points predominate over evaluation of
attributes important for police work such as initiative and stability in the face of
unforeseen and unprepared for occurrences. Most critically, initiative on the part of
the dog becomes a fault rather than an essential aspect of his usefulness; all other
things are sacrificed for the servile performance. The problem with all of this is that
when increasingly formalized sport drives the selection process it will produce higher
scoring dogs but not necessarily better or even in the longer term adequate police
dogs; if you test for the wrong things ultimately you are going to wind up with the
wrong dogs. As a consequence the cops, at least the smart ones, begin to look
elsewhere.
In my professional career as an electronic and systems engineer, primarily
concerned with the evolution and deployment of public safety radio and dispatch
systems for police and fire agencies, it was my practice to spend as much time as
possible on customer sites, riding along with a patrol officer or spending a night in a
dispatch center. Interaction with the patrolmen, sergeants and dispatchers as well as
the department technical and administrative personnel provided an enormously
useful insight into real world police communication, dispatch and control functions.
On one level system creation was a matter of antenna site design and placement,
radio circuitry and integration of the communication infrastructure into the agency
computer operations, but much more important was the way the system interacted
with and enabled the personnel, the dispatchers and responders in the field. Such
things simply are not obvious or even comprehendible to an engineer sitting at a

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desk or running computer simulations in a research laboratory. It was not literally
hands on experience, but it was the next best thing.
In a similar way the evolution and advancement of police dog breeding and
deployment is most effectively realized through active police trainer, handler and
administrator participation so that evolving breeding lines, training regimen and trial
criteria can be based on realistic service requirements rather than arbitrary exercises
conjured out of thin air by sport bureaucrats and show breeders. When police
trainers and handlers, bringing street perspective, are not an active part of the
process over time it tends to drift off course, serves the wrong training priorities and
as a consequence ultimately produces the wrong dogs. Some venues such as Dutch
KNPV have always had strong police participation, but Schutzhund and even more
egregiously IPO evolved in the latter half of the twentieth century according to the
needs and profit of show breeders and canine bureaucrats with little or no concern or
empathy for the requirements of actual police dog service.
As a practical example, refusal of food from a stranger or found on scene is an
important part of police service preparation, and part of the evaluation process in
KNPV and ring trials, because poisoning the police dogs or inadvertent contact with
spoiled food is a real hazard of service. But Schutzhund and IPO, where food as a
motivator and reward is common in much of the training, do not have food refusal
requirements, ignore the practical consequences. In a similar way, the arbitrary nose
in each footstep style of Schutzhund tracking is largely trained by putting food in
each footstep, not only creating a working style less and less relevant to practical
work but potentially setting the dog up to be poisoned in his service.
This divergence in the priorities of sport and service has been especially
disruptive in America, in many ways retarding progress toward an increasingly
independent domestic breeding and deployment culture. A more effective American
police dog culture can only evolve through police and civilian cooperation, which
requires that sport rules and especially judging become more attuned to attributes
important in actual police service rather than arbitrary style. As a specific example,
IPO trials should incorporate food refusal at several points and thrown balls or Kongs
as distractions during the obedience phase of the trial in order to demonstrate that
the toys and rewards have not become ends in themselves.
Similar problems are becoming evident in Europe, but many experienced
Europeans, and younger Europeans with established mentors, are much better able
to carry on their breeding and training in the old ways, especially in unified and
cohesive clubs and training groups. Unfortunately for Americans our involvement, in
the 1970s and 80s, came at a time when this divergence was emerging, thus
thwarting the establishment of police and sport cooperation, and fostering ongoing
dependence on European support and dogs. Commercially, this has been to the
advantage of many European breeders, judges, dog brokers, politicians and canine
organization bureaucrats.

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4 Canine Protection Training

An effective police or military

protection dog is the creation of
mankind through generations of
breeding selection, emerging from the
tending style herding lines of northern
Europe, culminating in the creation of
our police breeds at the advent of the
twentieth century. Performance based
breeding selection is a never ending
process in order to maintain an ongoing
supply of young working candidates, for
one cannot teach or train effective
aggression based service skills, they
must be there, must be incipient in the
heart of the dog.
Protection training, especially in the initial stages, is primarily a process of
encouraging the inbred instincts to mature and assert themselves, overcoming
social, man created, inhibitions so that the natural propensities can evolve into overt
behavior patterns. Good dogs selected from proven working lines, properly raised in
an environment promoting drive building and a minimum of heavy-handed discipline
in general readily respond to the opportunity to engage the human adversary. In
such instances the training quickly becomes a matter of control, procedure and
technique, that is, teaching the dog to desist from responding to provocative actions
at handler direction, to guard rather than engage as necessary and to release on
command. It is a fine edge, for the dog must be capable of vigorously responding to
direct aggression without handler action so as to defend the interests of the team
when the handler is disabled or distracted.
Although the structure of this book is intended to make each chapter as much as
possible a self-contained, stand-alone entity, protection training has evolved a
convoluted terminology, involving references to concepts such as predatory drive
and the self-preservation protection instinct. Those familiar with these concepts and
terms are certainly welcome to proceed directly, but others, less familiar, would be
well advised to review Chapter 2, Age Old Skills, for an introduction to the underlying
concepts and terminology.

Historical and Social Perspective

Canine obedience training is universally regarded as a good thing; there is no
rational reason to object to well behaved dogs under firm handler control. Protection
training and the breeding of willing dogs, encouraging and enhancing the inclination
to bite human beings, is similar to civilian gun ownership and recreational drug or
alcohol use in that diverse elements of society have always had the inclination to
endorse vigorous legal and cultural restrictions on such activity. Although much of
this is rooted in the general population with no specific involvement in dog breeding
and training, elements of the canine communities have also been ambivalent or
antagonistic to the protection applications. In Belgium some of the early police
administrators were generally opposed to civilian activity and elements of the early
Belgian Shepherd establishment had a strong preference for herding, obedience and

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tracking for civilian training and competition to the exclusion of participation in
protection work. These minority reservations did not prevail, but did in fact exist,
apparently for the usual reasons of appealing to the more gentile and pacifist
attitudes of the emerging canine show dog establishment. Historically entities such
as the AKC and the German Shepherd Dog Club of America were actively hostile to
civilian protection activity and ambivalent toward police applications. Although this
opposition has somewhat abated as registration numbers collapsed, beginning in the
middle 1990s, the bureaucrats of the conformation establishment always stand ready
to throw the heritage under the bus for their own advantage. All of this was
exacerbated by the civil rights conflicts in the American South in the 1960s; snarling
German Shepherds along with fire hoses and aggressive response by club wielding
police officers was not generally regarded as good publicity.
But in spite of this squeamishness the police oriented breeds were from the
beginning enormously popular among civilian populations. Total German Shepherd
registrations in the homeland were closing in on 100,000 at the advent of WWI,
enormous growth in little more than a decade, and in the aftermath of the war the
Shepherd became overnight the top AKC breed in terms of annual registration
numbers. In later years similar popularity surges for the Doberman Pincher and
Rottweiler demonstrated the staying power of this inclination; a significant segment
of the American population has held an affinity for the police dog persona, and been
quite willing to switch breeds in order to own the latest and most fashionable
protection dog in spite of the fact that most of the puppies supplied to this market
have come from increasingly softer, more servile, less serious breeding lines.
Conformation oriented breeders, in Europe as well as America, benefited from
this and encouraged and abetted this virile image, for it provided an enormous outlet
at very good price for pups that for one reason or another were deemed as lacking in
show potential. In general this market for lowest common denominator dogs was
typically larger, easier to sell into and more lucrative than the production of actual
police or military potential dogs, the replicas soon becoming much more popular and
lucrative than the real thing.
This commercialization has been an ongoing problem for police and other
agencies in that, generally, viable candidates today come only from very specific
police level lines, maintained by the more serious and traditional trainers and
breeders. Thus not every dog from these breeds has the potential for successful
training and deployment; winnowing the wheat from the chaff in candidate selection
is an ongoing process for every prospering police or military canine program.
Thus society in general, especially in the English speaking world, has had a
complex and often conflicted attitude toward these breeds; there on the one hand
being significant support for the idea that biting dogs are a societal problem and that
such dogs should be strongly discouraged or at least bred and trained under tight
control for police service only. On the other hand, as mentioned above, such dogs
have become enormously popular exactly because of the police dog persona; many
of us are drawn by the reflected sense of personal vigor and masculinity such a dog
is perceived as providing. Thus there is an ongoing conflict between pacifist elements
which believe passionately that guns and aggressive dogs should not be in the hands
of the population as a whole and those who find fulfillment and personal liberty in
their possession and are equally passionate in defense of their rights as citizens to
unfettered access to any sort of gun or dog. This conflict is a profound political,
ethical and practical rift in western civilization today; emotional commitment and a
sense of impending loss of personal liberty or societal order, peace and tranquility
make compromise – common ground – very difficult to establish.
These conflicts and contradictions exist on several levels. The advent of the
canine establishment in the latter nineteenth century – featuring formal breeds,

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registry books, dog shows and national kennel clubs – transformed the structure of
the canine world. Especially in the English speaking nations the ideals and formalities
of this emerging canine establishment were those of the proper upper classes, with
emphasis on their hunting and house or lap dogs, and with a sense of gentility
disparaging overt aggression. Aggressive dogs were generally perceived as vulgar,
working class outcasts in this elite social hierarchy, as witnessed by the long delay in
accepting the Belgian Shepherds into the formal Belgian registration system, which
evolved in emulation of the British Kennel Club. As a consequence, the emerging
protection breeds became in a sense the forbidden fruit for the upwardly mobile
civilian; for to endorse and flaunt the inherent aggression, the broad basis of the
popularity, was also to embrace lower class values, thus jeopardizing one's social
aspirations.
These dogs of the more refined social elements were conceived as the noble
friends and companions of mankind, especially the right sort of mankind, and
elimination of any residual potential for overt aggression was a fundamental
foundation of this new canine world order. Upwardly mobile urban middle class show
dog hobbyists very much wanted to become perceived as being of the right sort, to
feel included in this world of gentility and privilege. In such a world dogs which bit
people, especially those bred and trained to bite people, were perceived as grossly
inappropriate. Just as the people needed to labor in the fields and factories or
provide services were to be kept in their place, perhaps necessary but not the sort
for your children to play with or your daughters to marry, working dogs – like
working men – were to be segregated, to exist on the periphery and for the benefit
of elite society.
The resolute guard or protection dog has always had the aura of power and
masculinity and in the era before firearms hunting dogs commonly participated in the
kill as well as the chase or search. The upper classes in this era, and especially those
aspiring to higher social stature, might disparage overt aggression in dogs as well as
men, but on some level the powerful, confident, capable dog was always desired and
admired, covertly if not openly. Formal duels, bear baiting, the dog fighting pit and
other activities for manly men, and the women who admired and married them, may
have gone out of fashion and the realm of legal activity, but the desire to perceive
oneself as strong, capable and bold, and to have dogs with these qualities to
reinforce this aura, has always been an integral part of our fascination with such
dogs.
The advent of the police breeds thus created a problem in that many of these
better sorts of people sought such dogs out for fashionable breeding programs and
show ring competition, but were unable to reconcile the conflict of breeds whose
functionality was based in aggression in a world where canine aggression was
perceived as vulgar and low class. The solution was to evolve a mythology, an
unspoken agreement to pretend that real police dogs still lurked in the souls of these
pathetic, emasculated caricatures of the show ring. Of course it was and is an
enormous, obvious, blatant falsehood; but it has become the conventional wisdom,
the rationale of show line pseudo police dog breeding everywhere, even the
European homelands, even in Germany, even in the SV, the mother club of the
German Shepherd.
In America there was much less conflict in the early years since protection
applications of any sort were at the extreme fringe of the canine world, with virtually
no civilian involvement. American breeders resolutely emasculated their lines,
practical protection training activity was virtually nonexistent and police programs
were small, sparse, short lived and entirely out of the mainstream. There were no
American military programs prior to WWII and in the aftermath military canine
activity was on a vanishingly small scale prior to the Vietnam conflict.

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 Schutzhund protection engagement. The padded sleeve is separate, has a bite bar,
comes in both left and right arm versions. The leather pants are for decoy
protection, the dog is to bite only the offered sleeve. Shoes generally have rubber
cleats for good footing. Stick is fiberglass, padded and then leather covered. Dog is
the German Shepherd Gass Moravia Artex or Chico, earning his Schutzhund III,
owned and trained by Chris Hruby.

Thus while the police dog was becoming enormously popular in America, nobody
quite knew quite what to do with them in terms of practical application of their
working potential. As a result they evolved primarily as nonfunctional replicas for
dilettantes, becoming increasingly soft and fragile show dogs whose popularity was
in reality based on mythology and pretend masculinity and vitality.
In the 1950s and into the sixties working dogs in America were at a low ebb, all
police department programs had gone extinct and training involving any sort of
aggression was on the extreme fringe of the canine world, a small number of guard
dog trainers with their old fashioned pillow suits and junk yard dogs. Schutzhund or
any sort of amateur sport training was years in the future. None of the breed books
of the era ever really said anything about Schutzhund or protection applications
beyond vague references to war service and police work; somehow biting dogs were
analogous to your parents having sex: they must have because you were there but
nobody really wanted to think about it.
The reemergence of police canine programs in the 1970s, driven to an extent by
our national war on drug distribution, the spectacular success of canine scout and
search dogs in Vietnam and a little later the emerging popularity of Schutzhund
created a surge in serious protection dog training in America, ongoing even today.

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 Civilian applications of canine aggression are generally defensive in nature, as in
personal, business or residence protection; there are very few circumstances where
it is legal or appropriate for the ordinary citizen to send a dog for an engagement at
a distance. Deterrence is usually the preferred mode of operation, an alert, barking
dog can often send a potential problem down the road or alert the homeowner or
pedestrian to the potential threat, often sufficient to avert criminal or violent
interaction. The defensive fight or flight instinct is generally sufficient and
appropriate; the posturing of aggression associated with this behavior often works as
nature intended, causing a potential adversary to stand down thus averting an actual
engagement. A successful bluff is usually the best outcome, without risk of injury or
the potential legal ramifications of the dog actually biting an assailant, who always
has the potential to prevail in court at great cost to the dog owner.
But the police dog must bring more, must have a strong offensive game to
complement the defense, the ability to engage enthusiastically at a distance, as in
pursuit and engagement deployments or area and building searches. For the patrol
dog the bluff is not enough, many adversaries will persist and fight back and the dog
must prevail until the handler or others can gain control and affect an apprehension.
In the early years defense of the officer walking a beat, particularly at night in an era
prior to street lighting, and intimidation on the street was the primary police canine
role. But today the purpose of the dog is to extend the reach of the officer, to
employ canine speed, agility and potential for intimidation and aggression to
apprehend a suspect, offset his potential for violence or, most desirably, produce an
apprehension without a physical engagement. Because of this need for overt
aggression at a distance the defensive instinct, while necessary and fundamental, is
in and of itself insufficient. To go beyond the simple close in protection the dog must
have sufficient fighting drive to carry the action to a distant adversary and prevail.
Today a fundamental issue in canine protection training, and particularly in
evaluation, is the relationship between sport performance and police patrol service.
In the ideal, the highest scoring and most successful sport dogs would on the whole
also be the best police candidates, that is, the trial should test and verify those
attributes and capabilities fundamental to effective service. Just as the nature of
police service evolves over time, driven by technical advancements such as the
routine use of patrol vehicles and ubiquitous radio communication, and societal
expectations in terms of evenhanded justice, the parameters of police canine service,
and thus breeding, of necessity evolve.
In general there has been an increasing emphasis on discipline and control,
partially driven by the fact that civilian video recording, aided and abetted by
technical innovation and increasingly protected by court rulings, is possible in even
the most remote and isolated circumstances. The days of "what happens on the
street stays on the street" are over; street justice is increasingly subject to formal
judicial review as citizens of the lower social strata are increasingly aware of their
rights and civilian video recording and increasingly vehicle based departmental video,
makes all police action potentially viewable in court. These evolving dynamics extend
to canine service, and today there are instances of police canine handlers winding up
in prison because of unwarranted aggression and inappropriate bites. On the whole,
these are good things.
An ongoing problem, to be explored more completely in subsequent chapters, is
that increasingly sport competition has become stylized and come to favor the
compliant dog in a rote display of a routine series of exercises. Today these conflicts
are so far advanced that we are seeing an evolving division of these breeds into
show, sport and police lines rather than the historical division between show and
work. This is, or should be, of great concern to all involved.

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 Since most of my background and experience has been in Schutzhund, the
tendency here is to speak in terms of sleeve presentation and other references to
specific aspects of this style of training. In general suit training is according to the
same foundation principles with adaptions for equipment, and variations in technique
or training approach are discussed as appropriate. For instance the modern
Schutzhund helper will often slip or release the sleeve to end an engagement,
allowing the dog to carry it off; a maneuver not directly possible with a full body
style suit. Ring trainers will typically use tugs and other preliminary play devices and
have leg paddings which can be released for the dog to carry and various other
adaptations to allow reinforcement and reward of the predatory drive. As another
example of variation in training philosophy and practice, emphasis on the full grip
upon engagement is strong in Schutzhund, important in Belgian Ring and KNPV and
less so in French Ring. This needs to be understood both from the point of view of
trial points and the consequences for subsequent field deployment.

Expectations
The job description of the police or military dog has variations according to the
requirements of the working and deployment environment and the policies, culture
and preferences of the particular agency. General functional requirements calling
upon the aggressive potential include:
 Apprehension of a fleeing subject.
 Searching for and detaining or engaging persons hidden in a building or other
area.
 Response to any attack on the handler or others.
 Guarding a stationary suspect, that is, prevent him from fleeing.
 Guarding a person under escort.

Guard of an object, such as a bicycle or jacket, was also often an historical

requirement, and these exercises are still included in trial systems such as KNPV or
the ring sports. Such things are less prevalent in actual service because routine foot
patrol is unusual, because the dog on his own is more vulnerable in that his
adversary is more likely to be armed, and because of liability in the event the dog
engages an incidental civilian with no specific criminal intent. Tactical radio systems,
vehicle based patrol and more sophisticated and better armed criminals have driven
evolution in the tactics of and requirements on police officers and their dogs.
Crowd control was historically an important canine function, even the primary
reason for the dogs in some situations, but has to a major extent disappeared from
public view in more recent years, especially in the United States. In the current era
large-scale public demonstrations are often planned and scripted by quasi-
professional political activists rather than the spontaneous eruptions of ordinary
citizens. A primary objective is to provoke police response which can be taken to the
courts for redress or for publicity and propaganda purposes; the video camera and
manipulation of the press have become primary tools. In the 1960s snarling police
dogs and fire hoses became all too common on the evening news, and police
agencies have become much more sophisticated in training and deployment. In
America particularly the use of dogs has been greatly curtailed, and if present at all
they are in the background, deployed in a way unlikely to result in a featured role on
the evening news.
Many patrol dogs today have a primary substance detection role, typically drugs
for police dogs and explosives for military service dogs, in addition to the protection
and aggression roles. Although single purpose detection dogs of various breeds are
in common use, the aggressive potential of the police bred dog is often desirable
because of the natural intensity, the resilience in difficult environments and the

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immediate visual identification as a police or service dog. The protection function of
such dogs may be primarily the defense of the dog and handler as they perform their
detection services, with less emphasis on wider area search or pursuit capabilities or
other more specialized or advanced functions. In such applications deterrence is an
important benefit, the dog can intimidate without harming people encountered at a
crime scene or in a military engagement, especially in urban areas, as in our recent
Middle East engagements, where the adversaries are difficult to distinguish from the
indigenous civilian population. Other applications require dogs more exclusively
focused on the protection functions.
A primary justification of the police canine is the use of less than deadly force.
Converting this to practical reality is one of the most fundamental and challenging
aspects of training and deployment, for a person of interest may be entirely
innocent, and the deployed dog may encounter innocent people other than the
intended subject of the action. A factory or warehouse may for instance contain an
unsuspecting watchman or guard, perhaps asleep in some remote corner, or a child,
as well as a possible thief. Or the dog may redirect toward some other person in his
field of view when sent after a fleeing subject, sometimes another police officer.
Other police personnel present in an engagement are sometimes bitten by a
police dog out of confusion, poor situational management or just old-fashioned bad
luck; and even with the best selection, training and deployment practices this is
always a possibility. Sometimes the inappropriate aggression is against the handler
rather than another police officer; and shooting the dog to resolve a conflict is a rare
but unfortunately not unknown result of such incidents. Overt aggressive potential
without the commitment to stability and reliable handler control and discipline is a
serious threat to the agency personnel and the general public and in the long term
the credibility and thus the viability of the canine program.
An effective police canine service with good public relations is founded in a solid
selection and training program, with emphasis on practices and tactics where safety
and control are built in with the foundation rather than afterthoughts. Training for
the call off and the bark and hold in a search situation are often endorsed as tactics
contributing to these ends, and incorporated in practical qualification tests such as
the KNPV trial. The call off is a command, usually verbal but sometimes a whistle or
other device, to cause the dog to break off the pursuit of a subject and return to the
handler or to go to the down position. The bark and guard on a search procedure is
the trained response to halt in front of a found subject and bark intensely rather than
biting, intended to intimidate the subject and let the handler and others know of a
find if out of sight.
But to an extent these can be public relations ploys which prove to be less than
effective and reliable in the field: calling off the dog requires that it be in view of the
handler, but a fleeing suspect, potentially an innocent person reacting in fear and
panic, may go out of sight around a corner or disappear from view in a wooded area.
Bark and hold is dependent on a subject locking up into a motionless posture,
possible for the trial decoy with extensive experience and the protection of the body
suit, but often not a reasonable expectation of an unprotected, inexperienced
civilian, criminal or otherwise. The dog in the bark and hold posture is also
vulnerable to a subject with a gun. The work of a police dog and his handler are by
their nature often extremely hazardous; good strategy and training can minimize but
never eliminate these hazards.
Good public relations are fundamental for successful canine programs ln a sport
club, police unit or any other context. Therefore control and neutrality in the
presence of non-threatening people, animals such as other dogs and unexpected
circumstances are a fundamental part of selection and training. This is equally as
important as the characteristics of courage, hardness and aggression so admired and

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necessary in the police dog persona. The foundation of the aggression potential
comes from breeding, and as a consequence much of the training, both initial and
especially maintenance of the in service dog, is focused on proofing the dog against
possible distractions, such as other dogs or people engaged in innocent activity.
Just as the bravest man will know fear and insecurity but overcome it in the
course of his duty, each dog is potentially subject to insecurity and fear of things
such as gunshots or threats from the stick or bat of an adversary. Fear is natural and
necessary to elicit an appropriate response, but a significant aspect of training is
preparing the dog to persist in the face of aggressive action from the subject, such
as striking with a bat, stick or other object. Stick hits, pushing or driving a dog on
the sleeve and verbal intimidation during an engagement are thus generally part of
the training regimen and trial or evaluation process. Teaching the muzzled dog to
fight is also a time honored practice, although more prevalent in police rather than
sport training. Other examples of testing and training include long distance pursuits
and engagements, for going out away from the security and support of the handler
can bring out the latent fear and insecurity in the marginal dog.

The Bad Old Days

In its most primitive form protection training is based on raw defense, often
implemented by isolating the young dog from human contact – negative socialization
in a sense – to foster fear toward all unknown humans. As the training commences
the dog is restrained to preclude escape, by chaining to a fence for instance, and
applying pressure by a show of threat and aggression on the part of the decoy and
striking or beating the dog as necessary. The lesson for the dog is that all human
beings are a threat best dealt with by a preemptive show of extreme aggression.
This was never pretty, and of only limited real utility; even a cornered rat will fight.
But in a quick, dirty and very crude sense this is sometimes superficially effective.
In earlier years American canine protection applications involved a certain
amount of "agitation" to bring out the aggression of an often reluctant or marginal
dog, such things as flanking, that is, grabbing and pulling the web of skin between
the hind leg and body, striking the dog or cornering and pressuring the dog until he
snaps and bites out of fear. Most of this was driven by simple stupidity and
ignorance, the attempt to turn random dogs into supposed protection dogs. Crude
methods were used because more sophisticated breeding, candidate selection and
training approaches evolving in Europe were not yet widely understood in America.
Much of the historical repugnance toward protection training on the part of the public
in general and the canine community, particularly in America, was based on the
observation or reports of this sort of crude and inhumane training of dogs. The fact
that the dogs were often inadequate or marginal to start with, because those doing
the training did not really understand the requisite character, tended to exacerbate
the situation.
This old-fashioned approach to training was primarily built on fear and defense,
cornering or threatening a dog to elicit a fighting response because the possibility of
flight had been precluded by physical restraint. Although some vestiges of this have
limited applications even today, modern methods emphasize escalating response to
the predatory drive in combination with lower emphasis on defensive reaction;
basically evolving as increasingly serious games. The defensive instinct is a
fundamental aspect of the canine nature, and must be sufficient and drawn out
carefully in training, but initial training should as much as possible be based on the
predatory instinct. A primary reason for this is that true defense involves enormous
psychological and psychological stress on the dog, the serious fear and the release of
adrenaline into the system for a desperate fight or flight response. This is difficult to
invoke on a routine basis and unnecessary, the dog responding from the predatory

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and fighting instincts rather than fear knows joy in his work and gains confidence
that he will prevail regardless of what his adversary might do. Sometimes a little bit
of defensive pressure, followed by the decoy cowering and retreating at the first sign
of aggression, is used to bring out a reluctant young dog. This needs to be the work
of an experienced helper, and should perhaps be taken as a sign that the young dog
is not quite ready.
This junkyard dog style was typical of much or most of American training into the
1960s and 70s, and was largely responsible for the poor public perception of
protection work. The inherent problem is that this tends to produce a dog essentially
fighting from a foundation of fear, and the response to fear is unpredictable and
context dependent, which means the dog is likely to be indiscriminate and difficult to
control. When the dog is weak or genetically insecure it might look impressive right
up to the moment he runs and thus allows the adversary to win and succeed in his
robbery, rape or home invasion. To train a capable dog in this way, to create and
build on insecurity, to focus on fear driven aggression, is a waste and puts a
potentially dangerous dog in the world at large. Good dogs improperly trained in this
way can become dangerous dogs, and very good dogs can become very dangerous.
To force an insecure or inadequate dog to take on primarily fear based
aggression is morally wrong, is dog abuse and is fraud when the dog is sold for
service or bred based on the deceptive perception. Eliciting response from the
defensive instinct is a legitimate and important aspect of all canine aggression
training, even today. But this needs to be in the context of a balanced program with
emphasis on the predatory and fighting instincts. Eliciting a defensive response by
pushing the dog to respond at an extreme fight or flight point is wrong and
ineffective, but eliciting the earlier and lower level stages of the defensive response
and channeling this into a prey or fighting response where the dog succeeds and
defeats the helper builds confidence and allows inborn courage to emerge. An
escalating pattern of such engagements can play an important role in preparing the
dog for fearful and stress inducing incidents in order to succeed in field deployment.
Balance is the key to success, training the dog at the other extreme, entirely
based on the prey response where the helper never sufficiently challenges the dog
by overt physical aggression and body posture, where the dog becomes confident
because the engagement is a script with his win preordained, can produce success in
the trial. But a more demanding helper or adversary encountered in real service may
go beyond sport scenarios, break the script and sometimes thus break the dog. This
is never a good thing, and failure in the field is an especially bad way to make the
discovery.
Although modern training has become much more sophisticated and effective
even today remnants of the old-fashioned defense based methods persist. Cornering
the dog by back tying to a fence or a tight hold by the handler, with the helper
approaching with verbal threats, ominous body language and a threatening stick or
whip and then suddenly creating a bite opportunity is a standard approach to
training. Done with skill this can build confidence and aggression. But dogs which
respond only to such an approach are of very limited potential and should not be
used in service or breeding.
Americans are fond of gadgets and mechanical contraptions, and this extends to
dog training. Innovations in bite sleeve construction, promising rapid training
progress and automatic full grips, are continually offered by competing firms and
vendors, and new features in bite suits and protective pants are continually
introduced. Much of this is profit driven; a pile of discarded sleeves replaced by the
latest and greatest model represents pure profit for the vendors.
Table training, going back to hunting dog practice, has become fashionable in the
past twenty years or so. Such training generally employs a round table, perhaps six

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feet across, with a post or ring in the center to which the dog is restrained, often on
a harness. This brings the dog face to face with the helper and can bring a higher
level of threat and conflict. The dog is restrained so when great fear is induced the
option of flight is precluded, and ultimately the dog must fight, the idea is to teach
the dog that the only safe place is on the sleeve. Sometimes dogs are under such
stress that they lose control of their bowels and bladder. Dogs fighting desperately
for survival can be enormously intense and aggressive, but only the novice is taken
in, those with experience recognize, and are dismayed by, what they are seeing.
While table training has been controversial and often rightfully condemned, the
table itself is just another training device, morally neutral. An enormous amount of
bad training has been done based on the table, but there are trainers using a table,
often smaller and square rather than round, in the process of perfectly good training.
If something bad is going on in table training, it is not the table itself but the
training. More recently, the training "box" has come into use, based on the same
general principles. Here the dog is in something akin to a small open front horse
stall, on a platform perhaps two feet above floor level, restrained often on a harness
with a wall on either side. Regardless of the mechanical contraptions involved, good
training is good training and bad training is bad training. And training based primarily
on fear, the raw invocation of the fight or flight instincts, is always bad training.
In my mind the old-fashioned fear based training is morally repugnant, is animal
abuse when the dog is weak and fights back only from primitive survival instincts.
When push comes to shove in a real world engagement or under pressure in the trial
the dog may very well rediscover the option of flight at the worst possible moment.
Eliciting the defensive response, done with skill and restraint and built on a
foundation of confidence established through primary reliance on the predatory
instincts is useful in preparing the dog for pressure he may see in the field or in the
trial. But fear should not be the primary mechanism of dog training, and when fear is
the only way to bring out a response the dog is inadequate and training should
cease, a better dog is needed.
The Schutzhund movement in the 1970s and 1980s and more sophisticated
police program administration brought a generally much better approach to training
to America, one based on balance in selection and training foundation. In this
approach the young dog is brought along by playing with a jute tug or an ordinary
towel, the biting is part of the game and the dog wins in the end. As the dog
becomes stronger and more mature the play is a little more intense and evolves to
bring forward the defensive or fighting instincts. Over time the dog must become
more assertive and aggressive in order to win.

Selection and Preliminary Training

Procuring, training and deploying police, military or security dogs must be done
in a business like way so as to produce a profit or run a governmental operation
within a reasonable budget. Expending time and money before eventually discarding
the marginal dog greatly adds to program cost; it is essential to start with the best
possible candidates and to initially focus on testing as well as training so as to
identify and discard inadequate dogs as quickly as possible.
Capable, cost effective protection dogs are most reliably – and thus most
economically – drawn from among strong working lines. Not every pup, even from
the best lines, is born with the inherent potential to become an adequate police dog,
and it can take a great deal of time and effort to bring the actual potential into focus.
For the casual amateur trainer this can become a matter of eventually seeking
another dog or being satisfied with the marginal dog, perhaps capable of a home
field title on a good day but not something for breeding or to take in harm's way. But
for police or military training, where the time of both the handler and the trainers is

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a substantial ongoing expense, expending inordinate time attempting to train a dog
which will ultimately be discarded becomes a serious financial drain.
Modern police and military dogs often serve in the presence of innocent people,
including the taxpayers supporting the various programs. Extreme, overt aggression
with marginal control was at one time sufficient or desired for some military
perimeter security or old style police crowd intimidation applications, but today the
vast majority must be reasonably social, neutral in non-threatening environments, in
order to be acceptable. Effective socialization of the puppy and a foundation of
confident social neutrality and obedience are today prerequisites for most service
environments. For these reasons, and the need to test the aggressive potential early
in the full time training cycle, professional programs often purchase older dogs, or
dogs with some training, where experienced personnel can evaluate the dogs and
thus greatly increase the expectation of success. As an example, the United States
military training operation, at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, breeds some of its
own Malinois, which are placed in foster homes as pups to mature in a supportive
environment providing good imprinting and social foundations. (This emulates a
practice which has been ongoing for seeing eye dog programs for many years.)
This is also why police and military programs today are reluctant to accept
donated dogs, for the cost of processing, training and then all too often discarding
such dogs becomes prohibitive. Misguided efforts to train inadequate or marginal
dogs, even from the police breeds, is inherently wasteful and likely to produce
disappointment in service even if such dogs are moved through a training program
without being pushed hard enough to demonstrate a realistic expectation of street
success.
The strong emotional bond between handler and dog is the foundation of
effective service, and in the ideal the pup comes into the long-term handler's care
when it leaves the whelping box. But this is not generally practical in a world where a
large portion of candidates, even from the best of lines, are found wanting and
moved on. For economic and logistical reasons, patrol dogs are often brought to
maturity in other environments to begin training as a more mature dog, where the
inadequate can be quickly – and thus more cost effectively – identified and
discarded. The typical police officer may have only one or two partners in a career.
Military tours of duty are normally not much more than a year; when dogs are in
short supply, as they have been in the Middle East conflicts for the past ten years,
the military dogs remain in service, that is are generally placed with a new handler
when the current handler's deployment comes to an end.
Although there have historically been instances of programs where a single dog
was partnered with several concurrent handlers, and very unusual circumstances
where this is current practice, the most effective and normal situation is an ongoing
team of a single dog and handler where the dog resides with the handler. Thus the
police canine usually resides with the officer in his home, and the military service
dog and handler are together more or less around the clock when deployed.
Dogs are typically trained by full time specialist personnel and then introduced to
the handler in a relatively brief transitional training program. The foundation training
may be done either by commercial operations for eventual sale to the deploying
agency or trained by full time in house personnel. For these reasons, training the
individual handler is thus focused on establishing a viable working relationship with
his specific dog, already trained by specialists, and establishing the necessary
emotional bond, discipline and control rather than training the handler to become a
ground up dog trainer. Just as the military truck driver does not need to know how to
design or repair diesel engines, canine handler training is specific to the skills and
knowledge needed to deploy an existing trained dog. (Such handlers may and often
do have or develop more advanced skills, sometimes moving up a step to join the

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ranks of the training staff.) Military dogs often have relatively long service careers
and thus routinely transfer to a new handler, sometimes several times.
Today most established trainers work with their dogs to build confidence and
drive at a young age, balancing light obedience and impartiality in the presence of
neutral people and dogs with early aggression encouragement. The older dog which
has been subjected to heavy-handed obedience – or admonished or punished for
exuberance and enthusiasm – may require a period of encouragement and patience
to understand that aggression is permissible and praise worthy in specific
circumstances. In general a good dog who has been well socialized and exhibits
acceptable manners will respond well; ruining dogs by being too nice to them or
insisting on obedience and deportment is unlikely. On the other hand, lack of
socialization and building fear in the young dog is likely to have long-term negative
consequences, in the extreme rendering the dog dangerous or spooky and thus
useless.
The importance of bringing out and encouraging the young dog is sometimes
illustrated by an older dog of good potential, but through a lack of encouragement
and a figurative tight leash in his early years does not immediately comprehend that
aggression is acceptable, and may exhibit symptoms of avoidance. If the basic
quality is there, a patient handler and helper can sometimes bring such a dog
around, but this can be time consuming, a little frustrating and sometimes less than
fully successful.
On the other hand, delaying training until a year or so old, as was the
conventional wisdom many years ago, at least in some circles, can have its own set
of problems. I recall like it was yesterday taking my old Gambit dog to training at
about a year old, some thirty years ago. The introduction was to be a puppy or
young dog circle, where a group of dogs, each on a line with a harness or leather
collar, were to be introduced to beginning aggressive response, the idea being that
the vocalization and response of the group would bring out the initially unsure dogs,
sort of a group excitement thing. The helper would go around the circle, shaking a
rag or tug at the dogs, seeking to elicit a response, eventually allowing one to get
the object. One way or another the puppy sleeve came within reach and Gambit took
it, and the problem was not getting him to bite, and not building a firm or secure
bite, but how to get him to release. There was some sincere verbalization from the
helper to get the dog off, for puppy sleeves are compressible, and the man was in
real pain.
Based on thirty years of more perspective, this dog should have been started at a
much younger age, and the release should have been built in from the beginning. In
that way the inherent aggression could have been shaped and directed as it matured
rather than emerging all at once, fully ready to go. Things have changed enormously
over the years, we were a couple of years into Schutzhund training before seeing a
German trainer with a Bouvier actually let the dog carry the sleeve off the field. I
was astonished to see such a thing, which indicates where we were at the time. We
had so much to learn.

Formal Foundations
Effective protection training requires simulating an engagement in a way that is
realistic for the dog, that is emulates as nearly as possible the situations likely to be
experienced in service or the trial, and is safe for the human adversary, variously
referred to as the helper, agitator or decoy. Although early stages of training may
involve biting and pulling on an object such as a rolled burlap bag or tug, as the dog
advances to actually bite the helper injury is prevented or minimized by the use of
protective equipment, that is padded arms in Schutzhund style training and a wide
variety of padded protection training suits. Such suits can be very elaborate and

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expensive, that is often more than $1000 US dollars, sometimes much more, not an
insignificant sum for sports equipment.
Protection training is largely a matter of finding the right dog and getting out of
the way, letting the dog out to become mature in confidence and strength by winning
at each stage, first by making the helper flee and then by controlling the helper with
his bite. When extensive and elaborate effort is necessary to bring forth the
aggression and the willingness to engage and bite, generally it is a matter of the
wrong dog or a dog where the natural behavior propensities have been suppressed
through heavy-handed discipline, an overly dominating handler or home situation.
Even when such dogs can be induced to bite in defense through pressure, the
aggressive capability may be only on the surface, likely to evaporate in a street
encounter.
Usually informal training of the pup or very young dog is a matter of increasingly
intense play with the handler, involving the grip of a rolled up burlap sack or
commercially produced tug toy. In the transition to formal training with the helper,
he will often also play with the young dog in a similar way, perhaps with the same
objects employed in the preliminary training.
In the beginning stages of formal training especially, the helper is the dog trainer
while the handler plays a secondary, supporting role. The helper is in the best
position to gauge the response of the dog, by the firmness and calmness of the grip
as well as what he observes, to know when it is necessary to reduce pressure and
momentarily revert into a more overtly prey oriented presentation and when
pressure can be increased to build drive and confidence through one small success at
a time. As the dog matures the helper begins to bring more pressure through the
intensity of presentation, by fighting after the grip and later by the stick in order to
bring the defense into balance and build the confidence to respond to the
unexpected. The protection engagements are driven by the prey and defensive or
fighting instincts, and the most effective training program continually adapts to bring
these drives into balance, to produce persistence, reliability and vigor in the dog's
performance. This is primarily the function of the training helper, and while physical
attributes such as quickness and strength are important elements of this work the
most important helper skill is the ability to perceive moment by moment what is in
the dog's mind, to see into his soul and know his fears and the depth of his
aggression, and instinctively react to build confidence and drive. Immediate,
instinctive response is the key element, one must become able to perceive the
emerging problem in the early stages and react; a few moments to consider a
response will often mean that the opportunity to build confidence or allay fear is lost.
This is why experience and practice as well as abstract knowledge are of such
fundamental importance in this work.
When I became involved in Schutzhund in the early 1980s young dog training
was generally more defense oriented than it has become today. Typically it would
begin with the helper quietly, menacingly approaching the young dog, staring
directly at him, a practice referred to as making eye contact. A good helper can have
enormous presence – demand the dog's attention, intimidate the dog – with very
little overt motion through demeanor, presentation and posture. (This is very similar
to the famous "eye" employed by Border Collie style herding dogs.) The dog may
hesitate, and then give a tentative bark, in response to which the helper immediately
retreats, often going out of sight in a blind. This experience builds confidence, shows
the dog that he is in control, can make the adversary flee. Notice that this exercise
begins by bringing out a defensive response but immediately flips over into a prey
driven reaction. In this era it was not the usual practice to have the dog carry the
sleeve but rather focus back on the helper when it was released, sometimes by
helper threat after the sleeve release to draw the attention back. Teaching the out,
the release of the sleeve or body suit, was generally deferred to a later phase of the

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training, which meant that it was often difficult and required vigorous enforcement
corrections. (This was an important reason for the transition to the more overtly prey
oriented introduction typical today, where the teaching of the release is integrated
from the beginning and thus generally less demanding of force and more reliable in
the long term.)
In more recent years there has been a trend to bring out the young dog more in
prey, for instance attaching a line to a tug or the sleeve itself and throwing it to one
side and then retrieving it, inducing the pup to chase it in prey, similar to playing
with a kitten with a mouse or object on a string. The follow up is often a series of
helper run by maneuvers, with the sleeve just out of reach, resulting in a strong grip
when it finally is presented. The usual conclusion of the exercise today is slipping the
sleeve for the dog to carry.
In my view a measure of defense and the potential for resolute fighting drive is
also essential, and it is normal to gently probe for defense in the beginning, and if
adequate potential seems to be present to leave it alone and progress primarily
through prey, where the dog is driven by the excitement of the engagement. This
also sets the stage for control, and when the young dog is taught from relatively
early in the progression that the release is sure to be rewarded by another bite, and
carries the sleeve off the field after the last bite, the extreme pressure sometimes
needed to enforce the out on a strong adult dog is minimized or entirely eliminated.
This shift in emphasis toward early reliance on the prey response has been an
evolutionary trend, a matter of focus and emphasis in the balance point, for these
are not diametrically opposite methodologies, but rather end points of a continuum.
Good programs will continually adjust the balance between prey and defense
according to the short-term response of the dog. Generally I find slightly challenging
the dog early on useful for gauging his intrinsic nature as a down the road reference
point. A moderate awakening of the defensive instinct with transition to prey can
build confidence and enthusiasm. I have always been a little more comfortable with
the concept of fighting the helper rather than playing with the equipment, but
perhaps I am just an old dog having trouble with new tricks. In the broader
perspective these are secondary issues, for if the power and aggression are present
in the heart of the dog emphasis on preliminary prey training is not going to diminish
the ultimate intensity and drive. The key element is always the ability of the helper
to perceive weakness or insecurity and immediately adapt on the fly to produce the
win for the dog, regardless of underlying philosophical training issues. This is not a
matter of right or wrong so much as observing the reactions and at the first
indication of insecurity immediately adapting the exercise to conclude with a win,
thus building confidence.
Training based on foundations in prey and play have proven to be effective in
many circumstances, and when real aggression and response through fighting drive
and escalating helper aggression, and confident response to unexpected threats
outside the trial script, is incorporated in later training this is a perfectly rational and
reasonable approach. But when dogs are only tested to the script, and when trials
are adapted to remove the stress of standing up to real, unscripted decoy
aggression, as in the instances of the removal of the attack on the handler and the
old fashioned turn on the dog courage test in Schutzhund, we are entering the realm
of pretend and fantasy protection training. This will not be viable in the longer term,
for serious police and military trainers will be forced to look for real dogs from other
sources, exacerbating the ongoing separation between real service and traditional
sport training and national breed clubs.
This general trend to a more purely prey oriented introduction to protection
training is perhaps a reaction, even an overreaction, to the historically abusive
methods of earlier American training. Particularly in sport venues there is a tendency

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to regard the whole thing as some sort of a game, to be uncomfortable with real
anger and aggression in the dog. Many French Ring proponents are this way, but it is
a general trend among a large component of civilian sport oriented trainers.
The normal sequence is to introduce the young dog to objects such as the tug
and then progress through a soft puppy sleeve, usually introduced as a separate
object rather than on the arm and finally the puppy sleeve on the arm. At each of
these stages the helper pulls away, inducing the dog to bite more firmly and
persistently in order to maintain possession of the object. Once the bite is engaged,
helper aggression evaporates as he pulls away, showing passivity and avoiding eye
contact or other aggressive gestures and postures.
Since the dog is firmly restrained by an agitation harness or wide leather collar,
which the line handler must absolutely control, the helper can come closer and closer
before fleeing. In early bites the helper tends to run by the dog or the dog is allowed
to move forward, restrained by the line, to get the grip on an essentially fleeing
opponent. The sequence is from gripping an object, to gripping the object held by
the helper, to biting a padded arm on a passive or retreating helper to, eventually,
the point where the dog in his mind is engaging the man rather than the object.
As the process progresses the helper will more and more step forward into the
dog with a presented sleeve and allow a bite, to which he typically turns and pulls
away, maintaining the horizontal sleeve position so as not to twist the sleeve in the
mouth. This turning the head and body away, and shunning eye contact, is a
submissive posture intended to give the dog the sense of winning, that is, building
confidence. If the dog releases his grip the helper escapes, ending the fun and the
game. This builds the strong, firm, persistent grips desired in the trial and service.
Today the engagement will usually end with the helper slipping his arm out of the
sleeve, allowing the dog to carry the prey object home in triumph.
As the training advances the helper is more persistent and aggressive, in time
responding to the bite by stepping forward into the dog, with the opposite hand up
with a stick or in a threatening posture. This evolves into a process, called driving
the dog, of continually stepping into the dog with an increasingly aggressive
demeanor and increasingly threatening with, and eventually striking with the stick.
Every dog is different and presents a new set of training challenges; there is no
recipe to turn out good protection dogs automatically like apple pies. Thus there
must be variation and ongoing adaption in the process of bringing out and enhancing
the willingness and ability of a young dog to engage, to go to the sleeve or suit and
take the desired firm, confident grip and fight the man even when he is aggressive
and uses the stick to test confidence and courage.
In most protection training programs the desired bite is the full grip, in which the
initial bite is firm and persistent, taking in and holding as much of the offered sleeve
or suit fabric and padding as possible. Thus the full grip is the fundamental objective
from the beginning of training, because it is the safest for the dog and the helper,
because it is the most desirable in most deployment circumstances and because it
measures and builds confidence in the dog. One important consideration is safety,
for with the full, secure grip the weight of the dog is not brought to bear on the
fangs, which function primarily to keep the sleeve or suit from slipping rather than
bearing the weight of the dog and the forces arising from the aggressive motions of
the helper. Since the teeth are simply keeping the sleeve from slipping rather than
bearing the weight of the dog, broken teeth are much less likely.
Discipline
Much of the operational justification for the police dog is limited and recallable
force, that is, a non-deadly option to the gun in deployment engagements. The
concept of innocent until proven guilty, although not perfectly observed, is the

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foundation of the modern judicial system and the deployment of canine force must
be justified in these terms. For these reasons the ideal modern police dog should be
recallable, engage with minimum practical force and release a bite and go into the
guard mode upon handler command, or when the adversary ceases resistance. This
is of course all fine in theory, but in reality adversaries flee or fight back in
unpredictable ways and people, too often innocent people, get bitten; but training
and deployment decisions need to strive for the ideal in a much less than perfect
world. The adaptability of the tending style herding breeds to this mode of operation
is a primary reason for their evolution into our police breeds of today.
Uncontrolled aggression, where the off lead dog is beyond effective handler
control, has little practical utility in the modern urban environment. On their own
dogs revert to primitive, instinctive reactions according to territory and social
associations where unknown people are often by default adversaries; it is the
responsibility of the handler to maintain control and to the extent possible direct
limited aggression to the intended adversary rather than incidental people present,
including other law enforcement personnel.
In the trial there is always an out or release command after a bite when the
helper becomes stationary or locks up, to which the dog must respond by releasing
and going into a strong guarding posture. In the early years of my Schutzhund
experience the general tendency was to introduce the out or release relatively late in
the training cycle, when the dog was showing strong aggression, often in the days or
weeks leading up to a first trial. The conventional wisdom behind this was concern
that the coercion necessary to compel the release would intimidate and confuse the
dog and thus diminish the intensity and drive. The consequence was often a crisis in
training because a great deal of pressure and compulsion was necessary to affect a
release, and the dog would have the tendency to bite again immediately.
Furthermore the out was a result of handler intimidation, which meant that the dog
would be less likely to comply the further away he was. In the trial the handler is
relatively far from the dog, and the dogs would often perceive that the trial situation
was different, further reducing the incentive for compliance.
Training is reward and punishment, and in the old-fashioned mode of training the
release was almost completely coercion, there was nothing in the dog's mind that
was or could be construed as a reward in releasing the bite and giving up the
engagement. In obedience a reward in the form of food or the expectation of a ball
for a straight sit or quick recall was a practical ancillary approach, but balls and
treats mean little to a serious dog engaged with the helper. These dogs were bred
and selected for aggression, tenacity and fighting drive, and to give up the fight and
release is contrary to this basic nature.
Contemporary practice is to introduce the out as much as possible based on
reward rather than physical compulsion. The problem is that a ball or a treat are not
practical or sufficient, mean nothing to the dog in the aggression mode. The solution
was found in giving the young dog another bite as a reward for a clean release, with
the dog carrying the sleeve off the field after the last bite so that every release is
quickly followed by the reward of another so that the association is firmly
established. Properly executed, this training process usually results in a quick, clean
out and an intense guard because of the expectation of an immediate repeat bite.
Rather than delaying the release to late stages in the training cycle, often under the
pressure of an approaching first trial, the release is incorporated from the very
beginning, sometimes even in playing with the puppy tug or burlap sack before the
introduction of the helper. Some correction and coercion is often necessary, but it is
secondary and transitory, reinforcing the basic reward based training process.
Tom Rose used to teach a sit stabilization method where the dog was on a long
line and a harness and a second person, often the dog's handler, was behind the

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helper with a separate line and a pinch collar. The advantage of this is that the
correction is into the helper, which avoids a tug of war scenario. When the correction
is from behind the dog, strong dogs will often become extremely stubborn and
difficult, persist and become even more determined in response to the compulsion.
In the Schutzhund trial the decoy always comes to a complete halt, becomes
locked in a fixed position, before the release command, and the dog is always
expected to go into an intense guard mode. In ring sport the out is in some
situations required before the complete cessation of decoy motion, and the dog is in
some exercises recalled rather than expected to guard.
When the dog outs or releases, he must stay focused on the helper. With proper
training the dog believes that he has won, and is challenging his adversary to
continue the fight. This is, of course, the picture that makes the judge tend to give
full points. And, even more importantly, it is the picture in the police patrol dog that
makes the suspect just want it all to come to an immediate end, puts him in the
frame of mind to accept apprehension without further resistance.
While the release and guard is the most difficult and important aspect of
discipline, the dog must also learn to guard a subject under escort and to reliably
stay in the heal position as the handler moves about the trial field, even though the
helper is present and sometimes in plain sight. The protection or guard dog is made
in breeding selection rather than on the training field, and the fundamental task of
protection training is to build reliable discipline and control, and teach correct biting
technique, that is proper grips, while minimizing inhibitions on aggression.

Ongoing Training
The normal training sequence is motivation, teaching, repetition, distraction
proofing and testing or evaluation. This is not a linear process progressing
sequentially one phase at a time but rather a continuum with emphasis on
motivation and teaching in the early stages gradually evolving to build reliability and
confidence through success in scenarios with escalating complexity, pressure and
unexpected challenges. Helper presentation increases in presence, persistence and
unpredictability. It is important to subject the dog to new and unexpected challenges
beyond the trial, such as sudden direct attacks from unexpected places and long
distance pursuits on a new field with a new helper. Distractions can also include the
introduction of a second helper, barrels or buckets suddenly bouncing to the side or
behind the engaged dog or throwing large, soft objects such as a plastic swimming
pool or light folding chair at or to the side of the dog as he engages. Unexpected
attacks away from the training field, on the street or in the dark, are also a common
practice. (Belgian Ring incorporates this sort of unexpected occurrence into the
actual trial.)
Distractions, unexpected occurrences during training and at other times, serve
two purposes, that is, they build and maintain excitement, anticipation and
enthusiasm in the dog and they create confidence that will carry on through the
inevitable unscripted adversary responses typical of actual on the street service.
Surprise events are also part of the evaluation process, for the dog who falters in a
new situation, even if he regains composure through acclimation, must be
questioned as an actual patrol candidate. It is true that this is less of a consideration
in trial preparation, where in the popular systems there is little or no variation; but
this is a serious and difficult to overcome limitation of the working trial and the
reason why the trial or resulting title should not be the ultimate deciding factor in the
suitability of a dog for service or breeding.
In general, while most of protection training is confidence building, acclimation to
increasing threats and overt helper aggression and establishment of discipline in

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increasingly demanding circumstances, it is necessary from time to time to test the
dog, to create novel, unexpected threats to gauge the progress. When the dog does
well training is on track, and if the dog should show insecurity the competent helper
will immediately convert a testing situation into a confidence building exercise, show
enough weakness to give the dog a win. This can often be done by fleeing and
allowing the dog to catch up and take the sleeve or by going back to line agitation.
In commercial or agency environments, testing and evaluation are usually
incorporated early in the training because elimination of inadequate prospects is a
primary requirement, and must be done as soon as possible consistent with sound
and humane training because the process is expensive; military or police dog
programs cannot routinely put six or eight weeks of training in a dog only to wash
him out. (Although inevitably on occasion a dog will be on the edge and thus be
taken further in order to make a good ultimate decision.)
Testing is both informal and ongoing and formal in the trial. The working trial is a
known and predictable sequence of exercises with consistency in trial helper behavior
as a fundamental feature. The consistency of the exercise sequence is the strength
of the system in that it is the foundation of repeatable testing; helps insure that each
dog receiving a title has met similar challenges. But it is also the weakness of the
system in that it does not emulate the enormous variety in adversary response –
that is evasive and retaliatory action that the dog would encounter in actual police
service. Good trainers and clever handlers are often able to conceal flaws and put
titles on dogs, often with impressive scores, and this will always be true.
Because of these inherent limitations in the formal trial, it is necessary for the
serious working dog breeder and trainer to take personal responsibility, to strive for
deeper understanding than the trial can provide. Failure in a trial coming as a
surprise is an indication of a failure in the testing aspect of training and the intrinsic
competence of the trainer. It is true that there can be a bad day, the baseball batting
champion sometimes strikes out, and professional football players sometimes throw
interceptions rather than touchdown passes; but these are the exceptions.
Protection work can be like magic in that a skilled practitioner can deceive the
eye by directing attention away from the action and by feigning pressure. The attack
on the handler, where the helper suddenly appears and intensively approaches the
dog in an intimidating way, demanding response to a serious threat, can actually
consist of a quick show of threat and then subtly stepping back to draw the dog in; it
happens so quickly that the inexperienced will usually be deceived. This show of
threat and then weakness to let the dog win easily is the foundation of protection
training, but is not a valid test to verify the dog. Such deceptions are created for a
variety of reasons, including convincing a customer that his beloved pet has been
transformed into Fang the wonder dog, selling a marginal or inadequate dog and
passing a trial or certification. This is the inherent weakness of the Schutzhund trial,
for a dog can be and often is certified working on a familiar helper who knows from
experience the strengths and weaknesses of the dog and how to elicit the most
impressive responses, where he can show pressure and where he must subtly ease
off. This is why experienced people will very often ask to test a dog on a new and
neutral helper of their own selection before purchasing a dog.
In canine protection work, as in so much of life, what you think you see is not
always what is actually transpiring. Some exercises, such as a dog being agitated in
his own vehicle, may be full of sound and fury but signify essentially nothing. Most
creatures will put up some sort of a fight when cornered and seriously frightened;
this the most primitive defensive instinct. Knowing what you are seeing is a matter
of understanding what the dog must overcome. A strong, confident man facing a dog
directly, wielding a stick, or stepping into the dog to accept the bite is a true
challenge; the man running by the dog is much less challenging and weak or fearful

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dogs will often bite a man turning away. Distance is also a challenge to the weak or
marginal dog, every step away from the handler is into the unknown, and away from
security. The KNPV trial features extremely long runs, often with a call off, in order
to test the dog. The old style Schutzhund courage test lured the dog to a significant
distance by a fleeing helper, who suddenly turned and charged the dog. The level of
challenge and stress is demonstrated by the fact that this exercise was eliminated
from Schutzhund by the conformation show politicians for the same reason they
eliminated the attack on the handler, these were the heart of the old Schutzhund
trial, and too many of the show line German Shepherds were proving to be
inadequate.
In evaluating a dog it is necessary to know and understand what is truly
challenging, reveals inherent flaws, and what is being set up to impress the less than
sophisticated audience. Holding a dog in on a short leash while a familiar helper
makes a big show of arm waving and intimidation is fine for beginning dog training,
but not a demonstration of strong character, is a bit like the little guy in a bar whose
friends are holding him back from the fight, scared to death that they might actually
let him loose. In a similar way, leaving a dog in a vehicle with open or partially open
windows and having a helper approach in an aggressive way is likely to result in a lot
of barking and showing of teeth from even a relatively weak dog, yet many people
are impressed with such things. Inexperienced people in the market for a candidate
or trained older dog are often well advised to seek out, and pay for if necessary,
assistance from a competent trainer in testing and evaluating the dog. A seller
unwilling to have the dog tested on a neutral field by a new helper should be taken
as an indication that extreme caution is appropriate.

The Helper
The training decoy or helper1, the man who puts on the suit or sleeve to
impersonate the human adversary, is the foundation of the training process. This
work is quite demanding, both in terms of the requisite knowledge and skill and the
physical strength and quickness to engage the dogs, many of which are big and
powerful or quick and energetic, hitting and biting very hard. Working the novice
dogs, trying to bring forth the latent aggression, often involves a great deal of skill
and physical exertion. Although accidents in the sense of a bite on unprotected flesh
are unusual, most helpers end their day with aches and pains from the physical
impact. It is said, only partially in jest, that there are two kinds of helpers: those
with back problems and those whose back problems have yet to surface.
Selecting a protection helper to work with is the prerogative of the owner or
trainer, but once this commitment is made it becomes the training helper's function
to provide direction, to devise and adapt his procedures according the characteristics
of the dog and where it is at in the training process. It is generally desirable for the
young dog to work consistently with a primary helper for the sake of continuity, so
as to adapt to the progress and propensities of the dog, and to give the dog
confidence through familiarity. In this way the dog sees the same picture from
session to session, without disconcerting differences in technique and presentation.
Also by noting reactions and trends over time the astute helper is often able to
perceive and resolve small problems as they emerge with minor corrections and
adaptions rather than having to deal with a significant problem. As the dog
progresses and gains confidence it is the normal practice to introduce gradually other
helpers in order to present diverse presentations and styles. The handler of the titled
1
The terms decoy, helper and agitator are used more or less interchangeably.

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 or trial ready dog will
often seek out diverse
helpers in order to
prepare the dog for
whatever might happen in
the next trial.
Although size,
strength and quickness do
matter in the decoy,
ultimately such things are
less important than
intuitive knowledge of the
nature of the canine,
honed through experience
for instinctively
presenting the picture
and challenge the dog
The Schutzhund catch on the long bite. Notice that the
needs to progress. While
helper has the stick high to threaten the dog, that the sleeve
is away from the body so that it can flex in as the dog good communication
engages and that the helper is almost at a stop, and in a between helper and
fraction of a second will catch the dog with little forward handler is essential, one
motion and two feet on the ground prepared to flex on simply cannot expect to
engagement. (Helper Waine Singleton. Dog is Carla Smith's micro manage on the
Attis Daisy Nina Dvora.) training field. The handler
or person working the line
on the harness or collar must respond to helper direction; although there is typically
a brief discussion prior to the session only the helper can effectively make the
moment-by-moment decisions.
In many ways the training helper is similar to your personal physician; it is your
prerogative to choose but once committed you need to accept guidance, follow the
program and procedures in a cooperative way. Those finding themselves in
disagreement consistently are working with the wrong person and need to adjust
either their attitude or seek a more compatible helper to work with.
While the blatantly insecure dog is obvious, even to the owner if he is willing to
see it, only the helper facing the dog, looking into his eyes, observing the subtleties
of demeanor and feeling the strength, confidence and firmness of the grips, has the
complete picture. It is a quick, intense, intuitive process and the handler must pay
close attention and react quickly to direction, often nonverbal as in a nod of the head
or a quick glance at the handler to indicate increased or lessened line tension or an
out command. It is the skill of the helper which is ultimately responsible for
channeling aggression, bite building and confidence establishment, and he must
make the intuitive moment-by-moment hands on decisions. As the training
progresses the helper will increasingly apply pressure in subtle ways involving eye
contact, demeanor and sleeve presentation, observing reactions and adapting
accordingly. As the training advances and the focus changes to discipline and control,
these roles begin to reverse: the handler gradually begins to make more of the
ongoing decisions, trains and corrects the dog and more and more directs the helper.
In the refinement and polishing of the nearly ready dog, the handler normally directs
the helper so as to create temptations and distractions so that he can correct faulty
actions by the dog, such as nipping the sleeve during a guard exercise, which would
result in trial point loss.
Excellence in the protection dog flows from his internal confidence and fighting
drive, and to build and maintain such dogs the training exercises must be
increasingly intense and focused, with the helper increasingly in the role of

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adversary. Conflicts or misunderstandings between handler and helper, particularly
on the field, interrupt the flow of training and are seriously detrimental to the
progress of the dog. For the helper to slip out of character to engage in a running
commentary or direct the handler verbally confuses the dog enormously, with the
worst possible scenario being to stop and discuss things during a session, with the
dog just standing there. When the helper suddenly flips roles from adversary to
neutral person it immediately confuses and sucks the drive out of the dog; and when
this occurs often in training it is extremely detrimental to the long-term progress and
potential of the dog. The proper thing to do when there is serious confusion is to give
the dog a good strong bite, a brief fight and then put him away. In this way the
differences can be worked out in detail and a new session begun to resume the
training.
Virtually all initial and drive building level training takes place on a line, attached
to a harness or the wide leather collar, because there is minimal obedience in the
beginning and because much of drive building is a process of overcoming inhibition,
either innate social inhibitions or created in previous training. Handling the line
demands a great deal of knowledge, skill and understanding of the process, which
the novice trainer is, by definition, lacking. Often a third person will handle the line,
in order to avoid dealing with two novices at one time, the dog and inexperienced
owner.
Third party line handling has significant advantages even when the handler is
experienced. The young dog is often uncertain and insecure, and can be overly
sensitive to the presence of the handler, yet quickly accept a third person as just
part of the equipment on training day. Typically in this situation, the line handler's
role is to provide correct restraint on the line and perhaps coach the inexperienced
handler, but direct interactions with the dog such as commands and corrections
come from the actual handler. The third person can sometimes make verbal or other
suggestions or directions which would be extremely distracting to the dog were the
helper to take on this additional role. Sometimes there is pinch or chain correction
collar in addition the control line. Corrections in many circumstances, especially in
enforcing the out command, are much more effective when the line on the pinch or
chain collar is such that a correction is toward rather than away from the helper. This
is because a correction that pulls the dog away often only reinforces the
determination to hold on.
Protection dog training is very serious business and an accident can produce a
bite to exposed flesh and a serious injury, other injuries such as muscle pulls or
strains or injury to the dog such as broken canine teeth. The handler or line handler
plays a key role in safety by preventing the dog from reaching the helper at the
wrong time or in the wrong manner or by restraining the dog when a potentially
dangerous situation evolves. On occasion the helper will go down, either trip or be
caught off balance by the dog. If on the line it is the responsibility of the line handler
to protect the helper, which is only one of several reasons why virtually all of the
early training is on a line. Older and more experienced dogs will generally hold the
bite on the sleeve or suit if possible or refrain from biting or harassing the down
helper. This is entirely appropriate for the in service police dog, guarding but not
engaging the downed suspect gives the police handler and other officers the
opportunity to deal with the situation. At the risk of excessive anthropomorphism,
my perception is that most dogs have or develop a sense of fair play and are not
generally looking for the cheap shot. When two dogs face off, if one goes into the
down submissive posture usually the other dog will stand over him but not otherwise
bite or harass, and similar response to the down human adversary is reasonably
explained as a natural extension of this instinctive behavior.
Helpers or decoys serve two distinct functions or roles; that of training helper as
discussed to this point and that of trial decoy, where the purpose is to test the dog

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and reveal correct or improper response and verify the courage and control in the
dog. The trial helper must be physically capable, honest and consistent, but reading
and evaluating the dog, the core of the training helper's task, is much less
important, for his responsibility is to test the dog so as to allow the judge to assign
the appropriate points. Although many helpers easily step into either role, the best
trial helpers are not necessarily great training helpers and many men who may be
less physically gifted, or older, excel at training because of their intuitive grasp of
canine reaction, honed through experience, and ability read the dog and devise an
effective approach. The key trial helper skills and attributes are more physical than
mental in that he must be strong, quick, reliable and honest, but not necessarily
especially skilled in observing and reacting to the particular propensities of the dog
before him. Quite the opposite in fact, his function is to work all of the dogs in a
uniform way, setting aside his personal observations of the nature of the dog and
leaving evaluation and commentary to the judge.

Suits and Sleeves

Canine protection training requires equipment and protocols that allow the dog to
bite or grip with minimal risk of serious injury to the helper. Although the agitation
muzzle can provide this protection in some situations, most training today relies
primarily on protective equipment worn by the helper to take the brunt of the bite.
The helper's protection comes in two basic forms: the full body suit where the dog in
principal may bite wherever he can or a separate, padded arm sleeve where the dog
normally bites only the presented forearm. Even with the best equipment safe
training requires skill, knowledge and commitment on the part of the helper, the
handler and third parties handling a line. An inadvertent dog bite is only one
potential injury, as the high impact of the bite and the extreme athletic maneuvers,
such as the dog pursuing from behind and leaping to grip the sleeve, can lead to all
of the common injuries of serious contact sports, especially to the back and knees.
Although I am not aware of any statistical data, my general impression is that
serious and disabling injuries to the helper are much more often the result of a twist
or strain, producing knee, shoulder or back damage for instance, rather than an
actual bite. Safety for the dog is also dependent on good equipment and skillful
work, for he is without protective equipment and dependent on both the helper and
often the line handler to insure a minimal impact and secure grip. The full, firm,
secure grip is very important to the safety of the dog, for in this situation the grip on
the sleeve or suit is through the power of the jaws, with the teeth merely keeping
the grip from slipping. The faulty grip can put the weight of the dog on the canine
teeth, which can often lead to a broken tooth.
The historical configuration and construction of protective equipment has been
according to the nation and sport, that is, the removable, padded sleeve and forearm
only bite was characteristic of Schutzhund and thus associated with Germany and
the German Shepherd. The rest of the European police dog world – the Dutch,
Belgians and French – have from the beginning primarily relied on variations of the
full body suit allowing the dog wide latitude in bite placement and style. The suit
consists of pants that strap over the shoulders and a fully padded jacket, both
intended to withstand bites. In the bite jacket especially protection from contusion
and actual puncture is dependent on the skill of the helper in making a presentation
that results in the bite to the fabric of the jacket itself, the arm being positioned
within the jacket sleeve to avoid a direct bite. This is generally not entirely effective
and minor injury to the helper is not the least bit uncommon. Helpers will often use
an elastic bandage wrap (Ace being a popular brand name) commonly used for
ankles and other applications in vigorous sports on the arms or legs where extra
protection is desirable. Suit construction at the top level is complex and continually
evolving, with many suits made to special order according to the measurements and

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 French Ring Suit. Top and bottom separate, bottom generally supported by
suspenders over shoulder. Dog may bite legs, body or arms. In other exercises
the helper will use a split bamboo stick.
Beauceron: Avatar des Ombres Valeureux, owner Tim Welch, helper Waleed Maalouf

preferences of the helper. The French Ringers and their suit makers tend to favor
bright colors and elaborate decorative fashions, which resonates with the general
tendency of the ring helper to be a performer, a part of the spectacle, rather than in
the background to the dog.
These differences in equipment configuration and construction necessitate
inherently distinct biting and training styles in that the forearm presentation of the
bite sleeve allows the helper to aggressively run at the dog and accept the bite in a
catch maneuver designed to dissipate safely the momentum of the dog, which is
difficult to do with a body suit. The inherent problem is that this teaches the dog that
his adversary is cooperative, will always present a forearm in a highly stylized
manner, an unrealistic preparation for a real world where adversaries are real
enemies with a natural desire to evade or strike back at the dog.
These contrasting protection trial procedures and practices are driven more by
historical differences in equipment configuration than deep-seated philosophical
considerations, which seem to have evolved more to justify existing practice rather
than on their own internal, intrinsic merits. Equipment style selection and design is
always a compromise. The use of the sleeve means that the dog learns only one
style of bite, making variations in presentation and engagement scenarios more
difficult to implement. The suit generally renders impractical running hard at the dog
and demanding a full engagement as the criteria of success, one of the
fundamentally most demanding and intimidating maneuvers. This philosophical
division along national lines – the parties to which engaged in two gut wrenching
twentieth century military confrontations – has engendered the irrational, deep-
seated distrust and hostility normally reserved for religions differences.
Although Schutzhund style training involves the dog only biting the presented
arm, and some dogs are occasionally worked without any other protection, dogs will
at unpredictable times bite whatever they can get at. This can come from frustration,
inexperience or plain nastiness in the dog; or an illicit bite may be the response to an
inappropriate or poorly timed sleeve presentation. Thus when using the sleeve the

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helper is also generally protected from inadvertent body or leg bites by a pair of
padded pants, usually with straps over the shoulders to support the weight while still
giving maximum mobility. A sleeveless jacket is sometimes also used. In recent
years the trend has been toward much lighter pants, referred to as scratch pants,
which prevent damage from the claws and minimize but do not entirely eliminate the
pain and damage from a bite. This trend has in general been a consequence of more
resilient materials increasingly available and reasonable in price. In initial training
the ability of the dog to bite, the reach, is usually restricted by a line attached to an
agitation harness or wide protection collar, usually leather. In this situation the
safety of the helper is directly related to the skill and alertness of the line handler
and effective communication between the two.
The dog goes to the sleeve because of the manner of presentation and training,
that is, he is restrained by the line, and the sleeve is presented in such a way that it
is the natural and effectively only way to get a grip. In training the helper often
releases the sleeve so that the dog can carry it, making it in a way the object of the
exercise rather than the man. Many would make the point that equipment
orientation brings into question the commitment of the dog to persist in an actual
encounter with an aggressive and unpredictable man. These are valid concerns, but
proper training will also test the dog in more realistic, unpredictable situations and
correct any revealed vulnerabilities.
Hidden sleeves are commonly employed to test the willingness to engage what
appears to be a person without distinctive equipment. Such sleeves tend to be
harder and more compact, and are worn under an article of normal clothing to
conceal their presence. The elastic bandage can be wrapped over the arm under the
hidden sleeve to provide more protection. The external surface which the dog bites is
often leather rather than jute like fabric, but the diameter can be only slightly larger
than the man's arm, allowing the larger dogs to gain a secure grip encompassing
most of the sleeve. Purely sport trainers seldom employ hidden sleeves, or other
ancillary training methods countering equipment reliance, because these are
perceived as a distraction to the fixed scenario nature of the trial.
Dogs persistently failing to make a strong transition from equipment to the man
are generally unsuitable for actual service, and the fact that some dogs relying on
equipment for motivation do quite well in the trial is one reason that trial results are
not definitive indications of suitability. Those making breeding selections or acquiring
dogs for police service need to be aware of these issues and sufficiently test each
dog to their satisfaction; the trial or title can never be the ultimate determination of
quality or real value. This is especially true of the export market. Locally if a dog
slides through a trial on a lucky day or with a soft judge, prospective purchasers
generally have or can locate contacts with firsthand knowledge, but those purchasing
an import, especially through a broker, are unlikely to have similar access.
Sometimes in training the helper will work with only the sleeve or with a leather
apron for scratch protection, usually when the dog is securely restrained by a line.
For obvious reasons, the experienced helper tends to work this way only when
confident in the ability of the handler to maintain control over the reach of the dog
by good line handling and proper equipment. This is often done with young dogs
because it provides more mobility and thus animation in the presentation and
because it is less tiring in warmer weather or when many dogs are to be worked.
French Ring trainers often use a separate, detachable leg pad in young dog training
for similar reasons of convenience and allowing the dog the encouragement of
actually taking possession of the padded object.
Although the Belgian, Dutch and French systems all incorporate a full body suit,
which the dog will bite in the way natural to him and according to his training, there
are substantial differences in the construction of the suit itself and the style of

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presentation and training. The Dutch police or KNPV suits are still relatively stiff and
heavy and as a consequence there is a lack of mobility in training and trial
maneuvers, while the French Ring trainers have evolved much lighter suits and much
more active and agile helper behavior. Typically leg, thigh, arm and body bites are
permitted or encouraged. In general in KNPV, bites are to the upper part of the body
or upper arm rather than the leg or a presented forearm. An exception is that most
KNPV participants train their dogs to go to the leg in the bicycle exercise, in which
the dog pursues a person fleeing on a bicycle, in the interest of safety, although dogs
going airborne and making a spectacular grab of an arm or shoulder have also been
popular, especially for the audience. The French Ringers generally prefer the leg bite
because of the style of the decoy work and the scoring of the judges. The Ring
helper is expected to evade the bite by shifting his body and by deceptive
maneuvers. In most other systems the function of the decoy is to present a
consistent picture to each dog in the interests of safety and fairness.
In Schutzhund the dogs come in fast and hit hard on the long bite or courage
test; the function of the helper is to safely catch the dog and then drive him, that is,
push into and threaten him with the stick in an attempt to intimidate and cause a
release, which results in failure if the dog does not immediately come back hard. On
the long bite the helper runs toward the dog, slowing as the dog begins to engage,
so as to minimize the speed of impact, which is the combined forward speed of the
dog and the helper, while still maintaining the threat to the dog. The point of
physical engagement is referred to as the catch, which is exactly what should occur:
the dog will grip the sleeve and carry it forward while his momentum dissipates
because the helper allows the arm and sleeve to flex. A hard impact where the
helper holds his arm rigid relative to his body is faulty and very dangerous; this is
sometimes referred to as jamming the dog. The helper must position the sleeve
correctly and maintain relative position once the dog leaves the ground, for at this
point the dog has little control over his trajectory, although he can to some extent
twist his body in the air to adjust position slightly for the bite. The helper will
typically allow the dog to swing to the side, dissipating momentum, and as the dog
gathers his feet under him on the ground begin the drive of the dog. In addition to
correctly executing the catch and drive, the helper is expected to wind up driving the
dog in a direction providing an unobstructed view for the judge. The consistent
execution is fair to all dogs and allows the judge to place himself for the desired
point of view to score the dog. All of this requires an enormous amount of skill and
practice on the part of the helper, which is why really good helpers are so greatly
respected and valued.
The suit style decoys do not run at the dog but rather hold their ground and
threaten the dog with the stick, which is split bamboo in Ring and a freshly cut three
quarter inch sapling in KNPV. The KNPV decoy does not evade, but will strike the dog
a sharp blow with the sapling before the dog actually engages. This can be very
intimidating, and if a dog is going to fail this is likely to be the moment.
The French Ring helper on the other hand is, by culture and tradition, expected to
evade the dog, that is, make last moment maneuvers to the left or right and
otherwise deceive the dog. This results in the dog slowing slightly and looking for the
helper to commit. Most French Ring dogs are rigorously trained to go to the thigh or
leg because going higher gives the decoy more opportunity for evasive maneuver
and the consequent loss of points.
My view is that the suit sports would in general be enhanced by an exercise
where the helper aggressively runs directly at the dog in the most intimidating
manner possible; but the mechanics and dynamics of the suit render a safe and yet
intimidating final engagement in such a scenario very difficult. The ring dog, at one
level or another, comes to understand that there is an invisible plane in front of the
helper which will not be crossed, that safety and security are always just a step

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back. This implicit plane of safety is an inherent negative aspect of the suit training,
but credible and workable alternatives are difficult to conceive. Nevertheless the fact
remains that aggressively running hard directly at the dog with threatening gestures
and verbalization is enormously intimidating and in the ideal would be incorporated
into every serious test.
On the other hand there is a credible argument that Schutzhund helpers making
a predictable presentation and uniform catch on all occasions acclimates dogs
inappropriately and thus reduces the intimidation of the test, does not adequately
emulate the pressure of real world encounters. Real criminals after all are not often
capable of or willing to behave in this way. Introducing systematic variation in the
final approach would require that the dog hesitate, gather himself and react
according to the action of the decoy, providing the opportunity of a more realistic
and truly demanding evaluation of the dog's courage, judgment and discipline. Such
an approach would also lessen impact and thus the danger of injury, without any
lessening of effective real world engagement potential. But evasive action by a
Schutzhund helper would be likely to result in dogs going to the exposed body parts
rather than the sleeve, contrary to the spirit, traditions and rules of the program.
These are difficult problems to remedy.
The dramatic high-speed catch is deeply ingrained in the Schutzhund culture,
perhaps to the detriment of more effective and safer dogs. Recognition that long
standing sport and trial traditions and procedures are becoming obsolete or having
unintended consequences is not unique to the dog sports, for American style football
is struggling with severe long term brain injuries as a consequence of the
glorification of extreme physical impact, and thoroughbred horse breeding creates
such extreme lightness in bone in the feet and legs that every day horses routinely
collapse and are put down because the power of their muscles and ligamentation
simply snap bones bred at the edge of fragility for lightness and speed.
In the early days the decoy’s suit tended to be heavy, stiff and awkward which
limited mobility, rendering the helper less agile and more awkward. This was an
impediment to realistic training scenarios and drained the energy of the helper.
These awkward suits were primarily a consequence of the available materials,
usually leather, coarse jute and padding. The old-fashioned American pillow suit,
looking very much like the Michelin man of automobile tire fame, was a good
example. Photos of the earlier European suits, while still quite restrictive, give the
appearance of being more mobile and thus more realistic.
These material and design limitations of early bite suits were perhaps a factor for
the German preference for the bite sleeve. By putting the primary bite padding into
the sleeve and making the rest of the suit relatively light to protect only against an
inadvertent bite they were able to make the helper more mobile and minimized
energy expenditure.
As mentioned, over the years, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, modern
materials such as ballistic nylon or Kevlar began to supplement and replace the
heavy leather, fiber and jute padding of traditional suits, making them much lighter
and much more flexible. KNPV and to a lesser extent the Belgian Ring program have
been conservative and largely retained original materials, designs and training
procedures. But these material and technical developments revolutionized French
Ring almost overnight, changing it into a virtually new sport and replacing the
predominance of the German Shepherd at the competitive levels with the lighter,
quicker, much more mobile Belgian Malinois, and putting the focus of the sport on
the skill and mobility of the decoy. As with any fundamental change there are
positive and negative consequences, French Ring has become much more of a game
for the agile dog and an arena for the initiative and showmanship of the helper
rather than a test for the powerful, aggressive dog.

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 The sleeve sports, Schutzhund and IPO, have also benefited from modern
materials through lighter and more flexible equipment, which has enhanced
durability and made the work physically less tiring for the helper. The effect of this
on the actual training process has been marginal, has not had the profound effect on
the nature of the training and trial as has occurred in French Ring sport.
As we have seen, in Schutzhund the dog is trained and expected to go to the
arm, which is presented according to rules, custom and style to allow a safe bite
even when the dog engages at high speed and with much power. Although in the
trial the Schutzhund helper usually wears a vest like padded jacket to protect the
body in the event of an errant bite, the sleeve itself is a separate piece of equipment.
While soft puppy or young dog sleeves can usually be used on either arm, the trial
sleeve is left or right handed and incorporates a built up section on the forearm
known as the bite bar. Although not used in formal trials, police and protection style
trainers sometimes use more compact sleeves or arm protection, known as hidden
sleeves, which are worn under a shirt or jacket to determine to what extent the dog
is reacting to the equipment rather than the actions and demeanor of the helper.
The helper's equipment is always a compromise: the lighter, less bulky and
thinner the gear the more quick and mobile, and thus realistic, his performance can
be. Thus the willingness to risk contusion, abrasion or an actual puncture by one or
more canine teeth determines the potential for quickness and mobility. In addition to
freedom in working the dog, lighter equipment is less tiring and thus enables one to
work more dogs and for longer periods.
The agitation muzzle is a mask or cage like device worn over the dog's muzzle to
prevent a bite but still allow unrestricted or minimally restricted breathing. Such
muzzles are relatively massive and heavy, since they must allow the dog to engage
and butt the helper with the muzzle, minimizing the possibility of injury to either
party. It is typically heavy leather held together with sturdy rivets and strapped
securely behind the ears to prevent an actual bite but allowing the dog to head butt
or otherwise engage and fight the helper. Careful design and construction is
necessary to prevent the muzzle coming off because of material failure or the dog
slipping out of it, which has obvious implications for unpleasant consequences.
Not all muzzles are suitable for agitation work; some are intended to merely
restrict the dog, that is prevent a bite in inappropriate situations as for example
when he must be in close proximity to people or other animals. Examples include a
police dog in a crowd or when providing veterinary aid to an injured or aggressive
dog. Such muzzles are typically of fabric or plastic construction rather than the more
expensive leather agitation muzzles.
The agitation muzzle historically played an important supporting role, especially
in the early years when suits and protective gear was primitive, that is, heavy, bulky,
stiff and hot. When the dog is muzzled, the helper is able to work without a suit or
other protection, thus becoming much more mobile and agile.
Use of the agitation muzzle in sport work, where the bite occurs in a very stylized
and restricted scenario, is unusual. In my experience of some thirty years in
Schutzhund I cannot recall an instance of the use of the muzzle in protection
training. It is also absent in the KNPV trial, although it may be part of some training
programs. The French Ring people use a muzzle during part of the obedience
exercise, but not in the actual protection work. There is some muzzle work in the
Belgian Ring.
American police trainers use the agitation muzzle more extensively. A primary
reason is that it acclimates a dog to aggression against a man without any specific
equipment, which is of course what he will see in service. The person emulating the
suspect in training the building search or an outdoor search can more conveniently
hide or be concealed and much more realistically represents actual service. Dogs do

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to some extent become equipment oriented, that is, associate the suit or the sleeve
with the occasion for aggression, sometimes becoming confused or tentative in the
absence of the equipment. This is fine for the sport situation, but unacceptable in the
actual service dog; a solid foundation in aggression in as many scenarios and
circumstances as possible, with the decoy as closely as possible emulating field
situations, is fundamental.
I have never done any serious decoy work with a muzzled dog, but the people
that have tell me it is hard, demanding and exhausting work when done well; an
enthusiastic muzzled dog is very punishing. Bites or lacerations may rarely occur
when a muzzle slips off, but a lot of soreness and bruising is routine. As mentioned
above, the hidden sleeve is another effective tool for bring realism to the protection
training.
The case could perhaps be made that the evolution of the modern suit, so much
lighter and more flexible, has negated the original rationale for the use of the bite
bar style sleeve, that the fundamental reason for the Schutzhund style of training
has been eliminated by modern technology. The counter argument is that no matter
how light and flexible the suit, it is still not adaptable to aggressively running at and
engaging the dog, and thus in a serious way limited. In the Schutzhund long bite the
points go to the dog that launches himself without hesitation to make a spectacular
bite, relying on the skill and honesty of the helper to make a proper catch. But in a
realistic police encounter the actions of the man are going to be unpredictable with
no formal arm presentation to facilitate a good bite. Seen in this light, the value of
the courage test is in what it demonstrates about the character of the dog rather
than practical on the street engagements.
Each style of equipment, that is the suit or the sleeve, is a compromise that in its
own way limits the freedom of the helper to maneuver and engage, and thus
restricts his ultimate potential, both in training and testing. My view is that we need
ongoing reevaluation of much of this in light of modern equipment, training
methodologies and breeding; that trial procedures should be periodically reevaluated
in terms of current police deployment realities. Both French Ring and particularly
Schutzhund have been diminished by sport and politically motivated compromises;
become much too stylized, put too much emphasis on features that do not relate to
real world service. The removal of the attack on the handler and the old style turn
and attack courage test in IPO were serious degradations, inappropriate concessions
to show line breeding and political correctness. The KNPV program has been very
conservative and tended not to take advantage of modern materials; new thinking
could perhaps bring more mobility and quickness to the work of the KNPV helper. We
need to refocus on these trials as gauges of suitability for actual police service,
incorporating modern materials, knowledge and technique – and accounting for
evolution and change in police deployment practices.
Trial or training scenarios can only emulate and approximate a minute sample of
the enormous range of unpredictable events that could potentially occur in the
ongoing police engagement. Even for the most experienced canine team, the next
encounter may produce entirely unforeseen, threatening challenges. No dog or man
is ever perfectly prepared; this is the nature of life. In the end the determining factor
is not the equipment or abstract philosophical foundations of the training, but rather
the intensity, dedication and vigor of the decoy and the determination of the trainer
and decoy to challenge the dog in training as fully as possible rather than merely
preparing for a rote trial performance. Ultimately it is the courage, instincts and
trained responses of the man and his dog that are decisive, rather than the training
equipment or underlying philosophy.

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Man's Best Friend
In the police dog world the hard biting, aggressive dog is greatly admired, and
the man with one tends to have a little more swagger in his step. But in a broader
social context unwarranted dog aggression is an enormous social burden worldwide,
resulting in death, disfigurement and a lifetime of disability – physical and emotional
– for thousands of men, woman and especially children. Dog bites and aggression
contribute significantly to the national cost of medical care, as reflected in insurance
rates and increasing limitations by insurance carriers. Roughly a thousand Americans
are daily bitten severely enough to seek hospital emergency treatment, resulting in
thousands of hospitalizations often generating enormous bills, a significant ongoing
social burden. All sorts of dogs are potentially dangerous and become involved, but
those bred for size, power and aggression are for the obvious reasons the most
physically capable of contributing to the carnage. Small dogs may be pugnacious or
even nasty, but when they bite it is without the power of the larger dogs, and adults
and older children can much more effectively fend them off.
Dogs are so useful because of their inherent genetic pliability; through breeding
selection we are able to create diverse types or breeds vastly different in size,
physique, behavior propensities and aggressive potential. Thus the potential for
damage from the individual dog is according to his breeding, both in terms of
physical capability and social propensities. But ultimately all dogs descend from
wolves, fierce predators driven by innate hunting, social aggression and defensive
instincts and drives, which are often not apparent in daily life, but never entirely
absent.
In creating the police breeds we have produced dogs which are larger, more
robust and much more aggressive than the norm, and taken on an enormous
responsibility to maintain control of individual dogs and to keep the wrong dogs out
of irresponsible hands. Demonstration of stability and control has been an
increasingly predominant factor in breeding selection and more prominent as a
prerequisite to on the street service. Although some handlers and units have
perpetrated or condoned on the street brutality involving savage canine bites on
passive, incapacitated or handcuffed suspects – and sometimes wound up in jail –
generally our record is credible, demonstrates ongoing responsibility from the top
down, that is police and sport administration right on down through individual
breeders, trainers and handlers.
This pliability of the canine genetic potential is a double edged sword, providing
the baser elements of mankind the potential for enormous evil rather than good. The
blood sports – canine bull and bear baiting and dog fighting – have a long and sordid
history on the dark side of our canine heritage. The dog fighting community has been
condoned, excused and even justified. Apologists make reference to higher class
acceptance and participation by supposedly respectable people with clean hands
such as lawyers, bankers and politicians. But lawyers, bankers and politicians – as
well as main stream clergy – have condoned, profited from and participated in
slavery, prostitution and abuse of the working class as well as dog fighting; clean
hands, fancy clothing and social status has never in reality been correlated with
moral rectitude or social justice. The truth is that the breeding of dogs to fight for
the entertainment of perverts is and has always been closely linked with crime and
gambling, notwithstanding participation by those with social advantage. This is a
shameful chapter in the story of man and dog, an abomination.
Most canine attacks resulting in human fatality in America are a direct
consequence of this dog fighting heritage, perpetrated by animals bred over
generations for the fighting pit. In the years 2005 through 2012 canine attack
resulted in 251 deaths in America. Pit Bulls were responsible for 151 of these
fatalities or 60% of the total. Rottweilers, in second place in this grisly compilation,
killed 32 Americans in this time period. Fatalities are of course just the most

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dramatic and press worthy incidents; thousands more are maimed, disabled and
traumatized with relatively little attention because such things are so routine and
commonplace.
Smooth talking apologists contend that the Pit Bull inclination toward overt
aggression and savagery merely reflects irresponsible owners, that all breeds and
lines are inherently similar, that inappropriate aggression is primarily the result of
environment, upbringing and training rather than the genetic propensities present at
birth. This is an absurd canard. Pit Bulls were created by blending Molossers and
terriers to create fighting lines through breeding selection, eliminating or minimizing
the normal instincts for self-preservation, the tendency to stand down from a
confrontation except where life is at stake, to remove through breeding selection all
inhibitions against senseless violence.
The word "game" was coined to venerate this perversion of the partnership
between man and dog, this glorification of the relentless, senseless propensity to
attack and kill for no reason except entertainment, to provide the thrill of blood and
gore for the perverts standing in and around the fighting pit. Even several
generations away from pit fighting selection these dogs, like unexploded bombs
rediscovered decades after a war, have the potential to revert to their pit fight legacy
and strike out to maim and kill. It is, after all, the losers, dogs defective even in this
bizarre world, which were discarded to become the foundation of urban street
breeding. This glorification of the game dog is the shared shame of this perverse
community. Michel Vick, famous American football star – personally torturing his
dogs onto death for the crime of losing in the pit – was not an aberration, but rather
was the quintessential personification of everything evil the pit dog fighting culture
stands for.
Although individual law enforcement personnel have from time to time condoned
or engaged in dog fighting, the fact that it is patently beyond any civilized moral
code and almost universally illegal in civilized nations demands absolute separation
from police canine breeding, selection and deployment. Beyond these issues the
fighting line dogs have become the symbols and agents of the cruder and more
brutal criminal elements, owned, postured and paraded to bolster fragile egos and
intimidate the most vulnerable elements of society. Police deployment of such dogs
would be rightly perceived as symbols of brutality and oppression rather than service
and protection.
European evaluation venues such as KNPV and the ring sports generally preclude
participation by fighting breeds or lines, and venues that do not strenuously exclude
dogs of the fighting heritage, and any association with those involved, are simply
pandering to the perverts; there is no other honest way to say it.

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 5 Canine Scent Work

When the distant ancestors of

mankind began to walk upright
they greatly enhanced daytime
visual effectiveness because the
point of view was moved high
above the ground, allowing the
man to scan large areas and spot
potential adversaries or prey at a
distance. The placement of the
eyes close together enhanced
distant sight and depth
perception, unlike a grazing
animal such as an antelope or
horse, where the eyes are placed
for a wider view to detect a
predator in any direction at the
Malinois tracking in the Schutzhund style, notice the earliest possible moment. Depth
intensity and nose pushed deeply in the grass. Line perception greatly facilitated the
attached so as to pull nose down. Strap at rear unusual
eventual effective use of the bow
but permitted. Photo Donna Haynes
and arrow or the throwing spear.
As in all evolutionary turning points compromises were inevitable, capabilities
lessened as well as enhanced, for the nose of the upright human is far from the
ground and thus much less effectively placed for the use of the olfactory capability.
Most of the odors useful in seeking food, tracking or locating game or detecting the
presence of potential adversaries reside in the layer of air close to the ground, held
by the dampness and shade of the vegetation, resulting in a significantly reduced
level of human olfactory acuity. In order to see further and better, and gain the use
of his hands, man gave up much of the effectiveness of the ancestral scenting
capability.
In the daylight the vision of a man is superior to that of his dog, which lives in a
world of scent that is as literally beyond our comprehension as sight is beyond the
man blind from birth. Relative to human beings, canine vision is much more effective
at night, primarily motion sensitive and with much less capability to distinguish color.
Visual acuity, the ability to perceive detail, is much less in the dog than in man.
Binocular vision, the overlapping field of view of the two eyes, is the foundation
of depth perception. Thus the canine eye set determines the field of view and the
effectiveness of depth perception. Relative to man, the dog has better peripheral
vision and less effective binocular vision. The nose of the dog, always close to the
ground, incorporating enormous nasal cavities, is much larger in size compared to a
human being, and the cells for scent detection in the nasal passages are orders of
magnitude more sensitive and numerous. The size and placement of the nostrils and
nasal sensory organs is a design problem in that the eyes literally have to be placed
so as see around the nose. While dogs in general have wider set eyes compared to
human beings, and thus less effective binocular vision, there is significant variation
in breeds and regional types. The sight hounds, for instance, are much more visually
oriented than other breeds or varieties. As a consequence, the placement and size of
the nose and the frontal vision is the reason for the characteristic head configuration,

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with more stop in the profile view, allowing better forward vision but lesser scenting
capability. For these reasons using a sight hound for any sort of scent work is usually
a poor choice.
In the night the dog regains the visual advantage, and when the man retreats to
sleep the night away it is often his dog which provides the night watch, especially of
the flock or herd. These vastly different yet complementary sensatory adaptions and
capabilities are basic to the human–canine partnership. A man and dog together can
have the best of both worlds, for the man is able to see at great distance and
constantly scan the horizon or distant areas, alert for an adversary or potential game
animal, while his dog is there to bring his acute sense of smell to the partnership, to
seek out prey animals or follow a wounded animal so that it can become a meal for
everyone. The sharp canine hearing, olfactory capability and night vision become
aggregate sensatory assets of the team, are in many ways the foundation of the
value of the dog to mankind.
In order to benefit from the dog's olfactory prowess, it is necessary to teach him
the desired behaviors according to situation and command, that is, begin tracking
when the line is attached to the harness or collar or commence searching in response
to the handler's demeanor and direction. Motivation is the foundation of dog training,
even at the most crude level as in do what I want or I will hurt you. But correction as
primary motivation is ineffective in scent work foundation training, the emphasis
must be on positive motivation, must rely on the inherent instincts of the dog. As in
any aspect of training, once the foundation is there, the dog understands what is to
be done, then appropriate and proportionate correction may become necessary, but
this generally has little to do with the work itself but rather the obedience aspects.
This is much more relevant and important in sport competition where the judge will
deduct style points for arbitrary behavior, such as taking a step off the track to check
the odor, having nothing at all to do with success in the task or the usefulness of the
dog.
In reality, you cannot teach a dog how to track or search, you do not even really
know how a dog tracks; all you can do is teach him the desired procedures, to
respond in specific ways and adapt particular styles. Motivation for tracking or area
searching draws on the natural prey or hunting instincts, essentially adapts and
redirects natural propensities. Substance detection is more difficult and subtle in that
cocaine, marijuana or gun powder are in and of themselves of no interest to a dog;
other reward mechanisms must be introduced.
Generally speaking practical canine scent work tends to focus either on living
creatures or the detection of objects and substances. The former category
encompasses all of the variations of sport and subsistence hunting as well as
applications focused on human beings, such as lost persons, criminals or enemy
soldiers in a military engagement. Substances and objects of interest include crime
scene evidence, truffles in the woods, illicit drugs and bombs or explosives among
many other things, the list being virtually endless.
Human focused scent work naturally breaks down into searching where an
unknown number of persons, often disaster victims or lost persons, may or may not
be present in a specific, and often quite large, area and tracking or trailing where the
object is to find a specific individual starting from a known or conjectured point of
presence. Although there is significant overlap, large-scale search and rescue is
generally conducted by well-trained volunteer civilian groups and tracking or trailing
is more often the province of police, military or other governmental personnel.
Cadaver work, searching for the remains of deceased persons, is another
specialty, often taken on by civilian volunteers, sometimes in conjunction with search
and rescue operations. Well trained dogs can be taken an a small boat to find bodies
entirely under water in a lake or larger stream. The variations are almost endless,

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 including things such as searching for buried avalanche victims in a ski area. In
addition to the police applications and searching for truffles mentioned above,
innumerable other object and substance applications have evolved, include detecting
leaks in buried natural gas pipelines. (Johnson, 1975)

The Scenting Process

At first impression the most remarkable aspect of the canine olfactory capability
is perhaps the sensitivity, that the dog can detect scents that are remarkably old or
dilute. But even more remarkable and useful is the power of discrimination, the
ability to identify one odor among others that are much more fresh, intense or
pungent. Not only is this important in hunting or when seeking a human being in an
area where many others have been more recently present, it is also critical in drug
detection, where the dog must alert on a trace of an illicit substance among much
more numerous and concentrated ambient odors or the odor of substances in which
drugs are hidden in order to mask their presence.
For the dog the sense of smell is a primary communication mechanism, just as
important as sound or vision is for us. Scientific research has revealed the existence
of pheromones, chemical and biological bodily secretions that serve as biological
signal agents. (Syrotuck, 1972) These biological signals are thought to be primarily
effective for communication within a species, such as for sexual attraction when a
female is ready to breed. The distance from which the female in heat can attract the
male is remarkable, a concrete demonstration of the efficacy of these pheromones. It
is also thought that such chemical messenger agents may enable the dog to sense
and interpret these odors in another
species, perhaps allowing a dog to
sense human emotional states such
as fear or aggression.
The primary sense of smell resides
in olfactory sensor cells in the nose,
which bind with particles or water
born substances drawn into the nose
to create nerve signals to the brain,
just as the receptor cells in the back
of the eyeball convert packets of light
energy, photons, to nerve impulses.
Syrotuck indicates that while a man
normally has about five million of
these olfactory sensor cells, a larger
dog will have perhaps 220 million. In
a similar way, the region of the brain
devoted to interpreting these
sensations is much larger in the dog
than in man.
Although it is a slightly arbitrary
distinction, the odors that a dog is
able to detect are thought of as being
either air borne or ground scent. By
its nature the air borne scent carries
with the wind or breeze and over time
dissipates, eventually to the point that
even a dog can no longer detect it.
Naval drug detection dog Jake with handler Blake Even when there is no or little breeze,
Soller U.S. Navy photo Vance Vasquez as in the interior of a closed building,

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the scent constantly dissipates, spreads out, until it is distributed in the available
airspace. If the source, such as a concealed man or illicit substance, remains present
in a confined air space it continually emanates scent particles and gasses, in which
case there is usually a gradient, a lessening in intensity with distance from the
source. The ability to sense these infinitesimal odor intensity gradients is what
enables the dog to locate quickly the source, that is, the sought person or substance.
Airborne scent can sometimes be seen in action when a dog is searching in a field
or open area, where the natural tendency is to move in increasingly wide circles with
the nose relatively high; when the dog makes a sudden turn directly into the breeze
and goes straight to the person or concealed food it is the air borne particulate
matter and evaporated substances that he is detecting and following. While
discouraged in most sport tracking, this behavior is the foundation of the area
searches for lost persons and the effectiveness of the military scout or patrol dog in
detecting a hidden enemy as the patrol advances.
When a dog is following a ground scent he will tend to push his nose close to the
ground or in the vegetation and in general proceed slowly and deliberately. The dog
is of course not sensing particles or scent tightly bound to the vegetation, dirt or
pavement, for if it is contained at the surface he cannot by definition smell it, for the
sense of smell is dependent on drawing the airborne particles and gases into the
nose. Ground scenting or tracking works because the dissolved particles or gasses
are gradually being released into the air close to the ground or because in sniffing
the dog is actually drawing the scent off the surface of the grass or earth. By pushing
his nose into the grass the dog is gaining access to the most moist and intense
scent, because the air within the grass layer is sheltered from the sun, moister and
more concentrated. In the sniffing process moisture is produced when the dog
exhales, thus providing moisture to lift a scent off of a surface in a dry environment.
When a dog air scents a person, he is detecting among other things particles and
dead cells constantly shed from the skin or released through the breath. Substances
in the persons clothing or personal hygiene products such as deodorant or perfume
may also contribute to the aggregate odor. The more active the person and the
warmer the air the more intense the odor becomes; and the greater the distance and
age at which the dog can detect it. The shedding of cells is a fundamental part of life,
estimates are that fifty million cells in the human body die every second, and one
way or another eventually shed into the environment. The skin in particular is
continually replacing itself, which is why a cut heals so rapidly; the average life of an
individual skin cell is only about 36 hours before it is shed. (Syrotuck, 1972)
Since as the skin grows the surface layer of cells which sheds particles will
generally consist of cells which are no longer living. But bacteria which are always
present will continue to live and multiply, creating by-products and thus generate
odor as long as there is available organic material. Moisture is necessary for this
process, so sunlight can reduce odor both by drying out the raft of dead cells and by
killing the bacteria directly. Also, although the odor decreases over time, and
eventually disappears, an increase in moisture can for a time increase the odor
present and make the tracking easier for the dog. A light rain or mist on your track
might not be an entirely bad thing.

Tracking and Trailing

There are two primary modes of operation when a dog follows the path taken by
a person, such as a lost child or a crime suspect, according to the source of the odor
being followed.
Tracking is the process of a dog following a person by sniffing the ground
footstep by footstep, with his nose constantly close to the ground, pushing into the

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vegetation, sensing primarily crushed vegetation or other ground disturbances rather
than the actual odor emanating from the body of the subject. In general tracking is
not specific to a particular person, for the dog is primarily following the ground
disturbance. Some residual body odor is always present, and the dog will most likely
be aware of it; following only the vegetation or surface disturbance is a trained
response. But training never entirely eliminates the dog's tendency to act on his own
according to age old instincts in unusual circumstances.
Trailing is the process of searching with the nose carried a little higher much of
the time and sniffing the air and ground scent to detect the actual odor of the
person. The trailing dog is primarily following the intensity of the person's air and
ground odor, that is, the particles and gasses constantly emanated and drifting in the
air or clinging to the surface. Thus the dog is seeking a specific person, which is
usually identified by allowing the dog to scent an article of clothing or other personal
object at the beginning of the search. In following the trail the dog may deviate
significant distances from the path actually taken by the subject person, following
the air current dispersed scent. The Bloodhound generally works in this mode, and is
regarded by many as the quintessential trailing dog. Trailing dogs tend to move
faster than the typical tracking dog, partially because the tracking dog is carefully
trained to be slow and methodical. Because the trailing dog departs from the actual
path of the person he is more likely to miss an object inadvertently dropped by the
subject, which might be important evidence in a police application or provide useful
information in the case of a search for a lost person.
But these are in many ways artificial distinctions, end points in a continuum, for
the dog is always taking in a complex set of impressions from all of his senses and
processing them according to instinct, training and experience to guide his search.
This is a process that we cannot hope to comprehend completely because it is so
foreign to our almost exclusively visual worldview. Generally formal tracking, devoid
of air scenting or visual checking, results when the style is trained and enforced, that
is, when the dog is compelled to adapt tracking in a particular formalized style to
obtain points from a trial judge. Left to their own instincts and inclinations most dogs
proceed in an ad hoc manner, occasionally or predominantly sniffing the air higher
above the ground or visually scanning the surroundings.
When the dog is in a primarily tracking mode, that is, pushing his nose into the
vegetation or close to the ground, the question becomes precisely what is it that he
is following? Secretions from the body, lungs and clothing will not be concentrated on
the track or path, but will disperse according to air currents and temperature. Some
material from the soles of the followed person's shoes or boots may abrade onto the
ground and then give off an odor, which is a possible factor when a person is being
tracked on concrete or other artificial surfaces. But in general it is believed that what
the dog is predominantly sensing is disturbances to the vegetation and soil, the
damage being done by the footsteps. Whether a dog is ever entirely in tracking
mode, that is, absolutely ignoring residual personal odor, is something we cannot be
certain of, but if he is in this mode then the search is truly independent of the
particular person, that is, the dog would not be able to identify the person.
Although the sport dog may be trained to focus on the actual footsteps, often
reinforced with bits of food in unpredictable foot impressions, he has been trained to
ignore the usually present residual body scent on the ground in that the tiny flakes
and body odor continually emanating from the person are always falling to the
ground, with the heavier particles likely falling closest to the path. Although these
tend to end up slightly down wind the motion of the air of the walking person can
result in some body scent slightly up wind. As discussed in detail by Syrotuck, the
variation in intensity of the body odor and the odor of the disturbed vegetation can
vary independently over time and according to ground conditions, with one or the
other predominating over the course of the track. (Syrotuck, 1972) This is very

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important in training, in that those teaching formal tracking for a trial will want to
avoid track ages corresponding to the likely predominance of body odor or air scent.
(Johnson, 1975)
Because of this the dog can often discriminate, that is, often pick a particular
track or trail out of several or many with remarkable effectiveness, and usually select
the right direction when introduced to a track from the side. This is partially
according to the age of the track but probably also reflects that the dog is usually
able to detect and process the body odor to some extent.
Just as in other working attributes, dogs by their nature are not equally adept at
tracking. This reflects physical variation, the actual sensitivity of the olfactory organs
and the structure of the nasal passages, as well as the working willingness in this
venue. For this reason trial systems test the olfactory effectiveness in various ways.
The Schutzhund dog follows a track twenty minutes to several hours old, always
made up of straight segments with two or more right angle turns. There will be two
or more articles, such as a glove or block of wood, which the dog must detect and
identify to the handler. At advanced levels there will be cross tracks which the dog
must ignore.
The KNPV dog must do a search for a coin or brass bullet casing tossed in the
grass, which must be picked up and presented to the handler. He must also search
for an object or a man, with the protective suit, in a wooded area. Upon finding the
man, he must bark intensely and guard to signal the handler and the judge. The
Belgian and French Ring trials have no tests of the olfactory capability of the dog, a
serious limitation on their effectiveness for police work breeding selection and
training.
In the judging of the Schutzhund style of track the dog must proceed
systematically footstep to footstep in order to receive full points. Since this is not the
natural way a dog works it is in general taught or reinforced behavior, and also
behavior selected for in breeding since the higher scoring dogs are preferred. This
style of tracking is generally, but not universally, created by putting food in the
footstep and withholding food prior to training to make it more desirable. Sometimes
tracking is taught by extending the retrieve, that is, concealing a ball or other play
object in the grass and encouraging the dog to sniff further and further to find the
reward.
Sometimes trainers utilize fairly heavy compulsion, that is, correct the dog when
he deviates from the footstep-to-footstep style of work, sometimes using a short
tracking stick attached to the collar. The dog is trained with the lead attached to the
collar and then passing between the front legs so as to pull the head down as the
dog pulls into the track. A very short grip on the lead can be used to restrain the dog
in the beginning of the training. Dogs are in some venues, such as AKC tracking
trials, generally trained utilizing a tracking harness, where the lead is attached at a
point on the dog's back that allows him to pull into the lead without obstructing
breathing. Schutzhund style tracking puts great emphasis on methodical tracking
with a deep nose and loose lead, so the attachment point is low on the neck and the
lead passes between the front legs. In this configuration, pushing forward tends to
pull the nose down and slows the dog. The collar is usually a chain link collar, but
attached to a dead ring so that it cannot choke the dog or restrict airflow.
According to the rules, the Schutzhund dog can work off lead in the trial, but I
have never seen this being actually done. I have observed a French dog trained for
independent work, where the handler steps up to the beginning of the track and
sends the dog with a swing of the arm; the dog works the entire track, including
turns, while the handler remains as the starting point. When the dog finds an article
at the conclusion of the track, he picks it up and returns it to the handler, still at the

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beginning of the track. This is a most impressive demonstration of training and
tracking skills.
The problem with all of this is that it does not necessarily translate directly to real
life application. In police work, the building or area search is more common than a
track, in urban police work dogs seldom if ever need to track in this manner.
Furthermore, our criminals are not required to shuffle their feet, go in straight lines
and make right angle turns, they are going to run, to change direction, to go over
fences and obstacles. In many instances the dog that works according to his natural
inclinations, sometimes moving with a head up, will move faster and expend less
energy. And when something unusual happens to the track he needs to search and
perhaps air scent, things he is corrected for in the formal Schutzhund training.
Syrotuck reports instances of dogs ignoring a body or hidden person when passing
within a few feet because of such training. (Syrotuck, 1972) Dogs useful in serious
police or military work need to retain the initiative to break the rules and react
according to circumstances, and as a consequence the highest scoring sport dog is
not necessarily the best dog by any realistic criteria.
Over the years all of these sport systems have moved incessantly from the
realistic toward the formalistic; have evolved toward rote pattern training, the
performance of a sequence of exercises rather than preparation for useful police
work. This is especially true in the search work, tracking and/or trailing, where only
the KNPV has anything remotely realistic.
In America especially this has tended to perpetuate the gulf between police
procurement, training and deployment on the one hand and the increasingly stylized
sport programs on the other. In the end, the ultimate question is what is the point of
putting so much effort into establishing Schutzhund or other programs in America if
so few dogs are bred and trained within this system for actual police procurement
and deployment, if there is to be so little real interaction or mutual support between
these sport and police trainers? Increasingly sport trainers and judges alike are
devoid of any real comprehension of practical applications, any interest in the
practicality of what they are training and testing for. This gulf between sport and
police work is a primary reason for the failure of both programs to approach their full
potential in America.
My initial experience in dog training took place in the later 1970s, laying tracks
for my wife's young German Shepherd. This was AKC style tracking, and the dog was
naturally quite good, perhaps because we did not know enough to correct it out of
him, and I became more and more creative in devising means of challenging him and
keeping his interest up. Although we did not understand the significance of it at the
time, while the dog had been acquired from a show oriented breeder the sire was a
good working line German import and the other side of the pedigree was favorable.
In training I would normally hide at the end of the track and peak out to see how
it was going, but this became a problem in that the dog would occasionally take a
quick look and, if he saw me, run directly to me. I gradually became quite creative,
sometimes jumping as far to the side as possible – I was much younger and more
agile then – and then heading off at an acute angle. The more difficult you made the
track, the greater the intensity of this dog became. It was a real learning experience;
I think the dog taught us a lot more than we taught him.
Throwing a ball or Kong for a dog is a source of never ending fun, but also the
opportunity to observe how the canine sensory capabilities – scent, vision and
auditory – come into play. When I throw a ball or Kong for my dogs they will retrieve
it by sight as long as it is in motion, but if it comes to rest before they locate it they
will use their nose to search for it, even though it is in plain sight for me, at a much
greater distance.

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 As an example, I am in the habit of playing a game with my dogs, primarily at
this moment a male and his mother. We are fortunate enough to have several fenced
acres, with a lot of shrubbery, garden areas and some patches of longer grass or
weeds. The game is fairly simple, we have a number of Kongs with an 18-inch line
and a knot on the end, which can be swung underhand to produce a high arc and a
hang time that would be the envy of a football punter,1 which can be placed with
some accuracy. When the Kong is thrown so that the flight is in view the dogs can
clearly follow the motion and are generally near when it finally comes down, after
several seconds in the air, illustrating how keen their perception of moving objects
is. (They are also very sensitive to the sound when the Kong strikes the ground, and
often able to go directly to it on this basis alone.)
To begin the game, I will place the dogs down, or select a moment when they are
distracted, so that I can throw the Kong outside of their field of view. Often the Kong
winds up in the grass, clearly visible to me because of a bright orange ribbon, but at
other times I purposely throw it into an area where it will be concealed, sometimes
hanging up in a tree or bush. I often try to trick the dogs by putting the Kong in an
out of the way or concealed spot. (Swinging your arm pretending to throw the object
is considered very bad sportsmanship, and the bitch particularly will get in my face
and bark intensely.) Often the Kong placement is perfectly obvious to me because of
my upright stance. The dogs will dash out and begin circling, in a seemingly random
pattern rather than a formal grid search as a human being might use. Often they
pass very close to the object, close enough that you would expect it to be in plain
view, but continue on. Typically this continues, with the nose down until one or the
other stops abruptly a few feet away, and then raises their nose slightly and goes
directly to the object.
This illustrates the natural search and scenting process, and gives real insight. I
am not entirely certain, but my impression is that it takes time for the odor to
disperse and drift, so that part of the delay is because the initial odor is very close to
the object; as the dogs are circling the odor cone is spreading. Although the search
pattern at first seems random, if you pay close attention there is a general center of
attention where the dog expects to find the object. The overall pattern is one of
repeatedly circling at an ever-expanding distance. Since we have areas separated by
fences with open gates, the dogs will eventually go into the adjacent fenced off
sections to search. Also, if the initial search does not turn up the Kong, they will
eventually go to previous hiding places, or start to look up into the trees to see if it
has hung up. This is a lot of fun, and provides a real opportunity to see how the dogs
solve the problem in the most natural way without any influence of training or a
human conception of the "correct" approach.
The general problem with sport training exercises can be that in tracking it is the
track and the style in which it is worked that matter, but in practical service it is
often what is at the end of the track that is important. It is common practice to place
a bowl of food or an object such as a tug or Kong at the end of the track, but many
dogs will, after a couple of tracks, want to dispense with the footstep by footstep
approach and go into search mode, that is, make big circles until down wind and
then go directly to the desired reward, which is the natural and often best thing to
do. Thus much of the training is teaching the dog not to use his natural and most
effective search tactics.
In the early years of the twentieth century, as the formal police dog was coming
into use, there was a great deal of enthusiasm for the detector dog, the dog which
could solve crimes by use of his olfactory prowess. Although the enormous potential
1
American Football, where a punt is a hand held kicked ball.

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for applying canine olfactory acuity to police work was there, as in many new
ventures there was the tendency for the enthusiasm to create unrealistic claims and
expectations, things that experience has proven to be outlandish today. It was for
instance widely believed that the dog seeking a person was always following the odor
of that person and thus always capable of distinguishing the track of an individual
person from others that might be present.
Beginning in 1913 and continuing after the war Most in Germany produced
overwhelming evidence that this is not in general true. (Kaldenbach, 1998) One of
his demonstrations was to have two track laying persons start from a distance and
walk directly toward each other. Upon meeting, each would make a right angle turn,
so that they walked directly away from each other. The general belief in the era was
that a tracking dog following one of the tracks would, at the meeting point, make a
right angle turn to follow the track of the person he had been following. Most
demonstrated that when trained tracking dogs were actually put on such tracks, they
almost always proceeded straight on at the turn, shifting to follow the track of the
other person, thus demonstrating that it was the track, the damage to the
vegetation, rather than the person that they were following.
Colonel Most did extensive research with hundreds of repetitions. In order to
further demonstrate the nature of the tracking process, he constructed tracking
wheels with wood or porcelain protrusions, artificial shoes, to create tracks
absolutely devoid of human presence, which the dogs tracked perfectly well. He did
experiments where a track was laid by a person who was literally lifted away from
the ground by a cable arrangement at a certain point, with the tracking wheel going
on from there. The dogs reliably followed the track with no problems at the
transition, conclusive evidence that it is fundamentally the ground disturbance that
the dog is working, or at least that he has no difficulty continuing on when the body
scent becomes absent. This is further verified by the fact that most trainers lay the
vast majority of training tracks for themselves, for reasons of convenience and
availability, and there is no particular problem when the dog goes to his trial and
another person lays the track.
None of this should be construed to mean that dogs can not follow an individual
person, even in the presence of tracks or trails of many other people, but rather
should be understood to mean that a dog tracks or trails according to his training
and his nature, and that when trained specifically to track it is the ground
disturbance rather than the odor of the person that is being followed.
Dogs trained differently can and do follow specific persons, as in the trailing dogs
which by instinct and training are encouraged to sniff higher off the ground and focus
on the man scent. Furthermore scientific investigations demonstrate and quantify the
fact that odor can pass through substances such as the leather soles of boots and
even through rubber boots.1 These investigations verified the plausible expectation
that the longer the person wears the boots, that is the more vigorous exercise and
the hotter the temperature, the more the feet sweat, the greater the odor. This
indicates that the personal odor emanating from an old, well-worn pair of boots can
be expected to be greater than new boots. To what extent this is detectable by a dog
in specific situations is difficult to know, but the fact that dogs trained almost entirely
on training tracks laid by the handler do well in a trial with a different track layer do
just as well would indicate either that the odor coming from the boot is insignificant
or that the dog has become trained to ignore it. This research also has important
implications for the detection of illicit drugs which have been packaged in supposedly
impermeable packing material.
1
Research of Dr. W. Neuhaus as reported by Haak and Gerritsen. (Gerritsen & Haak,
2001)

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 The factors effecting odor sensing acuity and accurate indication are complex and
not always well understood. The extreme sensitivity of many dogs to handler cueing,
inadvertent or malicious, is always a legitimate concern when guilt or innocence, a
substantial prison sentence, is at stake. Thus honest criminal prosecution requires
that canine olfactory evidence should only aid in finding a suspect and provide
supporting evidence; should not be enough to produce a conviction as sole
incriminating evidence.
For training, the sensitivity of the dog's nose can be a problem in that it is
difficult for the handler to tell if he has left the track to follow a rabbit or if the track
actually does take a turn, and nothing can set back the training more than the
handler correcting a dog because he cannot perceive what is perfectly obvious to the
dog. As Tom Rose once commented, training a dog to track is sometimes a matter of
following him around until he teaches himself to track.
Today most Schutzhund or IPO tracking is trained by use of food on the ground,
sometimes starting with small pieces in an area and more often put in each foot
impression in a short track. There is great emphasis on the deep nose, the dog going
footprint to footprint.
Historically the older books often describe tracking training as an extension of the
object retrieve, with the object being thrown and further out, and eventually being
placed at the end of a track when the dog is out of sight. The older Belgian Bouvier
trainers I have talked to have usually described this sort of approach; the extensive
use of food seems to be a relatively recent innovation. In general the older training
books, such as Konrad Most, mention food only in the context of teaching the food
refusal.

Search and Patrol Work

In many applications such as broad area wilderness searches, disaster scene
recovery and military patrol the objective is the detection of any person present
rather than seeking a specific, known subject. In such applications the reliable
negative result, that is knowing that an avalanche scene is clear or the area into
which the canine led military patrol is advancing are free of human beings, is
extremely important. In such situations a false negative, failing to detect a snow
covered person or enemy sniper, is likely to have serious and perhaps tragic
consequences.
In such situations there is no specific starting point as in tracking or trailing. Thus
the handler must broadly direct the search or detection operation, as in a search for
a lost person where some sort of search grid must be established or a military patrol
where the focus of the dog is directed toward the direction of expected travel, with
the dog on the alert for a potential concealed enemy. In these search and patrol
applications it is the airborne scent that is the primary detection mechanism,
although scent close to the ground can be important to the search process. In these
situations the senses of sight and hearing also play a role in the detection process,
especially in the dark.
In the case of the military patrol dog ground scenting is generally discouraged,
because it takes the attention away from the air scent which is the primary
mechanism of enemy detection and alert; a civilian search dog can ground scent
because while time is important a few moments or even minutes with the nose down
is not likely to be of great consequence. But for the military scout dog time is of the
essence, even a few moments of delay in giving a warning can be fatal. Because of
this, it is important that the military patrol dog handler be aware of wind and air
currents, as air moving with the direction of travel will carry away the odor of a
potential adversary, greatly increasing vulnerability. The hunter must also be

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continually aware of airflow and direction for similar reasons. In training the tracking
dog, airflow from behind carries the human body odor away from the dog's nose,
thus making the ground scent in the actual footsteps more predominant. For this
reason initial tracks for the novice dog are often laid with the wind or breeze at the
track layer's back, because otherwise the odor of food in further out steps would
tend to drift toward the dog's nose, tempting him to go directly to the food rather
than pushing his nose into the intervening footsteps.
Wilderness or disaster search operations are often conducted by organized
civilian volunteers. Search and rescue, as the service is generally known, typically
involves numerous people and dogs systematically seeking out an unknown number
of persons, perhaps injured or dead. Persons lost in a wilderness area or in the
aftermath of a natural or man created disaster, such as an earthquake, are typical
situations. Perhaps the most evocative instance for Americans is the rescue efforts in
the aftermath of the September 11 attack in New York. Search and Rescue
operations often involve trailing in addition to broad area searching, that is, starting
from a known or conjectured point of presence and attempting to follow the path of a
specific search subject.
Civilian search and rescue groups typically utilize diverse breeds and individual
dogs, which are generally much less inherently aggressive than the normal police
patrol or tracking dog. Search and rescue dogs for wilderness area work generally
tend to the 50 to 90 pound range, as smaller dogs have difficulty pushing through
the vegetation and covering the terrain, and larger dogs are more difficult to
transport and unless extremely fit subject to fatigue. Disaster situations such as
earthquakes and building searches in the aftermath of an explosion favor smaller,
more agile dogs.
To provide a general idea of the breeds in use, the
Homeland Security
2011 U.S. Department of Homeland Security roster of
search dogs – 2011
Urban Search and Rescue Certified Disaster Canine
Search Teams included 251 dogs as listed in the table.
Labrador Retriever 148
There were no other breeds with more than 2
German Shepherd 26
representatives. These dogs would be for diverse
Border Collie 22
applications such as earthquake recovery, building
Golden Retriever 21
explosion, hurricane and other similar disasters where
Malinois 19
the rubble would put a premium on agility, caution and
Mixed breed 9
reliable response to handler direction. It would
certainly be interesting to know the backgrounds in
more detail, that is the percentages of the Retrievers from real hunting lines and the
traditional police breeds from working lines.
In training and selection it must generally be assumed that the objects of the
search are likely to be injured, sick or incapacitated by exposure to the elements,
often children or similarly vulnerable persons. Since the search subjects are typically
in a severely stressed emotional state it is very important that the dogs are not only
under reliable control, but that their natural reaction when encountering a person is
overtly friendly rather than threatening.
In wooded or natural areas, fear and panic are often the real problem; on one
occasion many years ago I can recall walking in the woods, preoccupied with the
vegetation and scenery and, upon looking up realizing that I had no idea where I had
wondered to, every direction looked the same. By just standing still for a moment I
was able to hear voices off in the distance and became reoriented, but even
relatively experienced people can be subject to panic and fear. But in general those
out and about in forest or wilderness terrain today often have cell phones and GPS
location units, which if used with moderate care head off many lost person scenarios.
Thus as a generality, the object of search and rescue operations is increasingly

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tending to be elderly persons, sometimes with dementia, and smaller children,
sometimes with some form of autism or other mental affliction. Sometimes such
people are frightened or do not want to be found, which can be a serious problem
because if they are passed over in a grid search another pass may be greatly
delayed. If the search subject is mobile he may purposely move into an already
searched area, which means that a completely covered grid may not actually
encounter the person. In such situations the best hope of success is in a dog
detecting and indicating a track, and the handler being alert enough to detect this
and encourage the dog.
Searches over large rural or wilderness areas tend to incorporate other resources
such as systematic horseback and all-terrain vehicle patrols. Canine searches are
mapped out and scheduled to avoid overlap with other dogs and provide complete,
systematic coverage. In general the dogs work off lead in order to quickly range over
larger areas than a handler could possibly keep up with, and to avoid entangling any
sort of lead. When the dog makes a find, he may be trained to bark continually to
lead the handler to the scene. Alternatively the dog may be trained to return to the
handler and indicate, perhaps by jumping up, then on command leads him back to
the found person. Often the dog and handler are accompanied by other search team
members to handle the radio and other logistical matters so that the handler can
focus on directing and reading his dog, which requires that he be aware of terrain
and wind currents so as to provide maximum coverage and not leave areas
unchecked because the search never passes downwind of a lost person. Search style
and range vary according to the training and propensities of the dog, with some
being wide ranging and out of sight for minutes at a time and others remaining
closer and under more handler direction. A dog will typically detect an airborne odor
of the subject and make a turn to approach him directly, following the airborne odor
to the source. If the dog is in sight, the experienced handler is likely to become
aware of the imminent find by the demeanor and behavior of his dog.
Although mostly volunteer the work of the search and rescue canine handler is
demanding, requiring maintenance of good physical fitness for the person as well as
the dog. Wilderness or rough area skills such as working with a compass and a
comprehensive knowledge of survival skills are essential; the search team must
come prepared with terrain and weather appropriate clothing, water for the dog as
needed and appropriate footwear. No search and rescue director needs a team
member becoming lost or injured themselves and becoming a consumer of search
resources rather than part of the solution.
These search and rescue volunteers sacrifice an enormous amount of time, effort
and uncompensated personal expense. Training is time consuming and often must be
done away from home in order to have access to appropriate terrain, and
deployment can involve traveling great distances on very short notice, sometimes
only to be held in reserve and ultimately be released to go home without actually
being deployed. Days away from home – traveling, waiting and routine searching –
are much more common experiences than the occasional dramatic find or a brief
moment of attention in the national press.

Substance and Object Detection

Historically canine search functions, especially involving the military or police,
focused on seeking out persons, such as those lost or suspected of criminal activity.
This did not involve especially novel training methods, but was rather a natural
transition of the genetic hunting or herding behaviors to seeking out persons rather
than game or domestic animals. More recently dogs have become enormously useful
for detecting the presence of substances such as illicit drugs, explosives or fire
accelerants. This detection capability has proven effective at finding objects, such as

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evidence in a police investigation, in a wide variety of environments such as open
fields, forests or virtually any sort of crime or incident scene. Dogs have come to be
commonly used at national entry points such as airports to detect the presence of
illicit agricultural products, the introduction of which could carry disease and pests
capable of devastating entire agricultural enterprises, thus doing serious economic
and social damage. The canine substance and object detection potential is almost
limitless, with novel applications such as disease detection or natural gas line leaks
continually being explored.
Although the canine substance detection potential was well known in principle,
the widespread utilization of drug and explosive detection dogs has taken on
enormous importance in recent years, roughly since the Vietnam War era, in
response to urgent law enforcement and military needs. Although there were WWII
era attempts,1 generally unsuccessful, to
develop mine detection dogs more
sophisticated approaches have gone on to make
such applications practical in recent years. The
essential problem was that substances such as
drugs and explosives have no natural, inherent
attraction for the dog, rendering compulsion as
the fundamental training mechanism ineffective
and counterproductive.
The traditional police and military
aggression based applications, that is guard or
patrol work, had inherent rewards in that the
motivation, the fighting drive, came from within
the dog; there is no need to reward a good dog
for engaging the decoy with food or a thrown
ball. Since drugs or explosives are of no
Young German Shepherd training the
passive drug indication. interest, it is necessary to provide a reward,
generally food or objects such as a balls or
Kongs. As late as the Vietnam era food was the primary reward introduced in the
U.S. military training documents, but in recent years the use of toys or objects has
become widespread but not exclusive.
Today, as a generality, military programs involving the traditional Shepherds and
Malinois, because of the intense prey drive, tend to focus on a tennis ball or Kong as
a reward, while the more civilian oriented specialist dogs such as the Labrador
Retriever tend to be trained using food as a primary reward. These are not hard and
fast rules, for many Labrador Retrievers and similar breeds serve admirably in the
military and non-military government agencies also have diverse programs and
methods.
In recent years drug detection has become arguably the most important and cost
justifying aspect of police canine service. While the basic training with a high
potential dog is straightforward, legal requirements to minimize damage to citizen
property and insure a legitimate indication, rather than a response to a subtle
handler cue, renders training more complex and time consuming in that the drug dog
needs to do minimal damage to a vehicle or premises, which may in fact be entirely
free of drugs. The dog is usually motivated by the search for a tennis ball or other
play object, and the very intense and driven dogs selected for this work will by
nature be inclined to become excited in the presence of the ball, or the drugs which
produce the expectation of the ball, as a reward. The dog will tend to scratch and dig
1
Details in chapter 14, The Dogs of War.

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when he senses the presence of the desired object or substance, which can do
significant damage to a vehicle or building premises, or even a person in possession
of the drugs. This scratching and digging at the drug or hiding place is referred to as
an aggressive alert and is generally easier to train because it is the natural reaction
of the dog.
An increasing number of trainers prefer the passive alert where the drug dog
indicates by going into a sit position and staring intensely where the drugs are
hidden, rather than digging at the site with his paws or becoming unruly. This is
generally regarded as more demanding in training and discipline. The passive alert is
helpful in avoiding inappropriate property damage and to provide the clear indication
of a find legally helpful in successful prosecution. This demands a great deal of
restraint on the part of the dog, that is requires a response directly contrary to his
highly driven nature and intensity.
A good comparison is the pointing style of bird dog used in upland game hunting.
The dog searches on ahead, using his nose to detect the presence of the pheasant or
other game birds and then snapping into the classic, one foot in the air pointing
posture. The dog is instantly aligned on the position of the bird and provides a
positive, unmistakable indication, allowing the hunter to step up to a safe position
with a clear shot before the bird is flushed. Similar stylized indications are very
desirable in the drug dog and especially the explosives detecting dog.
Professional trainers and handlers debate the merits of these approaches, and
like most things there are shades of grey; it is one thing to paw or nose the found
object and another to aggressively dig and, unless the handler can restrain the dog
in a timely manner, do significant damage to property or evidence. Every type of
work and individual dog presents a new situation which must be evaluated on its own
merits, and some individual trainers or institutions continue to prefer the active or
aggressive indication. The one absolute principle is that bomb and explosive dogs
must always make a passive indication, and the dog that cannot be reliably trained
to do so should to be eliminated from the training program.
Although sniffing around a vehicle or a quick tour of a building may seem like a
walk in the park, real life drug detection work is arduous and physically demanding.
The ideal dog tends to be high in energy, play object driven, agile, wiry and medium
to smaller in size.1 Agility and medium size allow the dog to search more easily in
restricted spaces such as a vehicle, the interior of a cargo plane or a warehouse with
higher shelves. The coat needs to be adapted to the predominant search weather
and climate, and while naturally rough or longer coats, which can be routinely
maintainable, are fine the elaborately groomed profuse coat fashionable in the show
lines of some breeds are counterproductive. High object or play drive is essential.
Many young dogs are willing to play fetch, but the drug dog candidate must maintain
intensely as he matures, gets older and when it is hot or at the end of a long hard
day.
In police service, simply finding the drugs is not enough. The handler and
prosecuting attorney must be able to convince the court that the dog did indeed find
the contraband on his own, rather than in response to handler prompting, either
maliciously or inadvertently. These legal niceties might perhaps be slightly flexible in
the instance of lower level drug sellers, but higher level offenders have access to
entire teams of attorneys and supposed canine experts, sometimes former police
canine trainers or handlers, who make a living convincing judges and juries that the
dog may have been subtly cued by the handler in order to provide probable cause for
1
If this sounds a whole lot like a Malinois, the rapidly increasing popularity of this breed
sort of snaps into focus.

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an otherwise illicit search, or routinely produced so many false indications that any
indication by that particular dog and trainer are unworthy as evidence or cause for a
legitimate, legal search. Detailed training records, indicating false positives as well as
failures, are the key legal requirements in order to sustain the validity of the search
and thus obtain a conviction. Many people in the field believe that certification,
where an outside agency tests the dog and handler to provide convincing evidence
that the dog can indeed accurately detect and indicate the presence of contraband,
should become a universal practice.
A complicating factor in drug traffic suppression is that there are a number of
illicit substances to be detected, including marijuana, cocaine, opium, heroin and
methamphetamines. Effective dual purpose patrol dogs or specialist drug dogs must
be able to work with most of these substances, which is not a difficult problem in
training in that once the dog grasps the concept of an expected reward for finding
one drug, others can be introduced in combination so the dog quickly associates the
new odor with the expectation of his reward.
Another very important aspect of this training is to make sure that the dog is
responding only to the actual narcotic substance, rather than associated objects and
substances such as plastic bags, filler material used to cut the drugs or the scent of
the person placing the sample to be found.
As noted, training dogs capable of searching for multiple substances is relatively
straightforward and routine, and adding a new substance is simply a matter of
incorporating it among the samples used in search. But training a dog that a
formerly forbidden substance is to be "taken off the list," that is, ignored, is much
more problematic. Until recently this was not particularly an issue, but individual
states are today taking much more lenient attitudes toward marijuana, some states
completely legalizing it. In the United States marijuana use is still against federal law
at this writing, and how all of this is going to play out is difficult to foresee. If
tolerance becomes widespread then there will no doubt be a series of court decisions
on the new legalities of search, with the possible conclusion being that an indication
on a legal substance as a basis for further search violates civil rights. If this were to
become a strict interpretation of the new legal environment, an enormous number of
dogs would need to be retrained or retired, a huge expense and a major setback in
the effort to suppress drugs such as methamphetamines which would still be illegal.
It is generally preferable for the dog to perceive the object coming from the
found substance, a primary reward, rather than from the handler, referred to as a
secondary reward. One way in which this is done is by constructing a wall with a
series of openings in which drugs may be stashed. Above each opening is a
passageway with a tennis ball or other reward object, which the handler can release
at a distance by means of fine line, such as fishing line, so that the reward ball drops
down into the opening for the dog, with the dog perceiving the reward as associated
with the drugs rather than the handler. The training room may have forty or more
lines going back to a central location, each with a numbered tag on the end to
indicate which reward is to be released.
Although they tend to be much more expensive, there are also radio-controlled
devices that can remotely release a ball at the site of the drug find. In the training I
watch, there seems to be a balance between such primary rewards and secondary
rewards where the handler throws or bounces the ball and gives verbal praise after a
correct passive alert, that is, a few moments after the dog is sitting still and
intensely focused on the hidden drugs.
Normally the alert posture, the taking of the passive sit or down position, is a
formality. In the words of Richard Dickson, well known police trainer:
"The true indication of the presence of drug or target odor is not the actual
scratch or sit, since that is the trained behavior, but the body language

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 that takes place prior to that action. I always say that the scratch or sit is
just for the tourists.
"A false indication is not the fault of the dog, it's the fault of the handler. A
dog's body language will not lie but the dog can incorrectly illicit a reaction
from the handler. If a dog gives the alert reaction (sit or scratch), without
the proper body language prior to the alert it should not be rewarded or
recognized as an indication. The indication must be made as obedience to
the odor. A well trained handler should be able to recognize the specific
odor that his dog indicates and whether it is actual or residual. Most
handlers are never trained to this level however." 1
Although there are so-called pseudo narcotics intended to approximate or
emulate the odor of actual drugs for training, most trainers prefer the use of actual
drugs. This requires a DEA2 license and very close monitoring and surprise
inspections to insure that the practice drugs are not being sampled for personal use
or sold. Licensed trainers tend to be very scrupulous in maintaining control over their
sample drugs, as their livelihood depends on maintaining their license to possess and
use the drugs in their training.
Packaging and hiding marijuana or other substances is a constant game of cat
and mouse between law enforcement and the drug distributors. The ace in the hole
for the cops is the enormous canine capacity to detect extremely minute airborne
quantities of the illicit substance in the presence of heavy concentrations of other
substances, both normally present and introduced into the packaging to cover the
drug odor. Drug traffickers are continually attempting to mask the odor of the
marijuana or other illicit substances, but even when it is enclosed with outer layers
of coffee, pepper, foodstuffs or other substances a good dog can usually make the
find. The molecules of the illicit substance are continually evaporating or separating
into the air from the illicit substance and once airborne continue to diffuse through
the available air space. Almost all packing materials, and the vast majority available
to the criminal, allow a continual, small quantity of airborne substances to escape
from the packaging, either through cracks and seals or directly through permeable
bags or containers. Police trainers and handlers are extremely reluctant to discuss
details of effective drug concealment and packaging, for the obvious reasons.
When a drug package is removed from a vehicle, the interior of a building or the
clothing of a person, residual odor lingers for a significant amount of time, because it
has already evaporated or emanated from the substance and is thus present in the
ambient air and on the surfaces. Also, small bits or flakes, not visibly apparent, may
have broken off and still be present. If marijuana has been used in a residence or
vehicle, the process of removing it from the bag, rolling it in paper or a pipe and
disposing of the remains can be quite messy and leave a lot of material on the
scene.
This is a serious practical, training and legal problem. If the drug dog makes an
indication in the presence of residual odor, should it be considered faulty? If not,
then there is no real requirement for good training and accuracy, for every false
positive indication can be explained away as "residual odor." Not only are false
indications a serious annoyance for the person whose vehicle or premises have been
searched, it is a violation of his constitutional right to freedom from arbitrary search.
This is a very difficult problem in terms of training, deployment tactics and legality, a
history of false indications is a primary reason put forth by defense attorneys to
obtain a dismissal.

1
Richard Dickson, by private communication.
2
Drug Enforcement Administration

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 Drug or explosive detection training often takes place on the premises of a
professional dog training establishment, usually involving patrol dogs as well as
substance detection dogs. Typically such facilities cover several acres in order to
provide both indoor and outdoor training, with fields for protection training, obstacle
courses and related facilities. These usually include elaborate indoor areas with
rooms containing furniture appropriate to a bedroom or kitchen and metal lockers
along a wall to provide more realistic training. A training wall with approximately 30
or 40 openings, each capable of releasing a ball as a reward from a remote location,
is usual. This is a description of the facility I am most familiar with in northern
Illinois, judging from photographs in the various magazines and web sites,
operations in more favorable climate tend to have more outside training.
A number of older cars and trucks are often provided for teaching a vehicle
search, no one wanting to use their own vehicle with the possibility of having the
interior torn up by an enthusiastic dog; the passive alert may be the end point of the
training, but there are inevitable lapses in control and restraint in the training
process. There are often kennel facilities, as these professional operations usually
are in the business of importing, breeding, training and selling service dogs.

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The Bloodhound
The hound, the dog which evolved for the
hunt, is an ancient type, extending back to the
origins of the human and canine partnership.
There are numerous breeds and varieties with
diverse roles according to the style of the hunt
and the nature of the quarry. Sometimes the
hound participates in the kill, but at other times
leaves it to other sorts of dog in the pack or the
hunter himself. Hounds often pursue their
quarry, such as a raccoon or mountain lion, until
it goes to ground or takes to the trees.
Foxhounds generally pursue until the fox seeks
shelter in a den or other hiding place.
Coonhounds were specifically bred in the
American South to run in packs, actively baying
so the hunters could follow their progress
according to the tone and intensity of the baying
and tell when the raccoon had been treed.
Hounds are broadly divided into the sight
Bloodhound
hounds such the Irish or Russian wolfhounds or
the racing Greyhounds and the scent hounds such as the Coonhound, Foxhounds and
Bloodhounds. Other than their common chase hunting function, which requires
tenacity and endurance, these two classifications have little in common. Sight
hounds tend to be larger for longer stride, more lightly built, with a decided stop to
the scull shape to provide better binocular vision and relatively low levels of olfactory
acuity. The scent hounds tend to be more massive with pendulant ears and a more
plodding gait, and have been bred over centuries for the greatest possible olfactory
acuity, their defining feature. A few breeds such as the Rhodesian Ridgeback are
considered to be intermediate types.
Prior to the advent of firearms, the terms hound and hunting dog were more or
less synonymous. In more recent times the hunter equipped with a shotgun or rifle,
especially the bird hunter, generally makes the kill himself, relegating to the dog the
task of locating and indicating the prey or retrieving downed birds. Thus pointers and
retrievers emerged as new breeds, the gun dogs. Hunting dogs, both hounds and the
gun dogs, have historically been the province of the rich and higher classes, which
employed gamekeepers to persecute the working man or tenant farmer with the
audacity to hunt for the purpose of putting food on the table. Historically hunting was
sport for the noble or rich, and poaching for those of the working or peasant class.
Although the concept of the formal breed, with the rigidly closed gene pool, is a
modern creation, over the centuries individual patrons or communities evolved
uniform types for particular hunting traditions such as packs of foxhounds. In general
there was a great deal of regional variation, and bringing in outside breeding stock
was common in the pursuit of superior performance.
The Bloodhound evolved early in the Middle Ages from relatively large deer and
boar hunting hounds as a specialist man-trailing dog. In this era the "Chien de Saint-
Hubert" or "Dog of Saint Hubert" was first bred in Belgium by the monks of the
Saint-Hubert Monastery, from ancient stock, and became emblematic of Belgian
canine affairs. Since St. Hubert is the patron saint of the hunter the Belgian national
canine organization became the Societe Royale Saint-Hubert and the St. Hubert
hound is incorporated into its emblem. The modern Bloodhound is the direct
decedent of these dogs, and when the original St. Hubert lines died out in the
nineteenth century the breed was later reconstructed from Bloodhound breeding
stock.

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 Although many tend to think of the Bloodhound in terms of a pack of savage
dogs in full cry chasing down an escaped slave, prisoner or fleeing criminal, as
portrayed in the movies, the reality is quite different. It is certainly true that such
packs of dogs were once common, and a few remain, but they were generally
different sorts of dogs, often Bloodhounds crossed with Mastiff style dogs or other
much more aggressive hound varieties. Often packs were made up of different types,
some primarily for the chase, others for the attack at the end of the trail.
The typical police or search Bloodhound today works as a single on lead dog,
which is generally relatively docile and friendly, although there are exceptions. Even
the most staunch Bloodhound enthusiasts describe the breed as gentle and
inquisitive, but not especially intelligent. Lack of intelligence is in my mind something
of a misnomer, the breed has been created to be single minded and obsessed with
the trail to the exclusion of all other things. Attempts to train other behavior run
against this grain and frustrates the misguided trainer, which is more the result of
misapplication and misunderstanding of the nature of this particular beast; the dog
simply wants to get on with his track. Generally the breed is subject to genetic
defects and very short lived, often expiring at about eight years old.
The Bloodhound, like other working breeds, has degenerated into show and
working lines. Show lines tend to be lethargic, emphasizing size and wrinkles, with
100 pounds being fairly typical and much larger dogs not unusual. Some working
trainers tend to prefer more mobile and agile dogs in the seventy to eighty pound
range, which are likely to hold up better over longer distances and be more mobile in
rough country, where sometimes the dog needs to be helped up a rough section or
over a fence. Other equally well regarded authorities indicate a preference for larger
dogs. Show breeders tend to emphasize the gentle giant persona, with some
substance, but reports of nasty Bloodhounds circulate, as with any breed. Formal
obedience competition is not their forte, and many individual dogs take serious
convincing that one must not follow the crossing deer or other animal track. Some
individuals, as in any breed, seem to have a propensity for dog aggression, which
many handlers seem to be able to deal with if the dog is good in his work. In the
words of Jerry Nichols, noted breed authority and a retired police Bloodhound
handler with many years of experience:
"The Bloodhound today is primarily used by law enforcement and Search
and Rescue. A Bloodhound can be a large and very powerful dog. Some
can reach 150 pounds while the average is around 110-120 lbs. We have
always trained handlers to work with these dogs on a long lead. The
Bloodhound is a hunting breed and once it is given the scent to follow, it
can be relentless running a man to ground even if it kills them. The lead
keeps the dog from getting to far ahead and allows the handler to keep
control of the dog. When they are on a trail these dogs can tune out what
is going on around them to the point they could run right into traffic
unaware of the dangers. I am aware of only a few prisons in the south that
may still run their Bloodhounds off lead followed on horseback after
escapees. For Law Enforcement and SAR, it is typically one dog and one
handler."1

1
Jerry Nichols, personal communication.

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 Bloodhounds, and to a lesser extent other breeds, are able
to work in difficult or unusual circumstances, such after
rainfall or snow, and can persist over asphalt and other hard
surface segments. Often this is in areas where there has been
extensive human activity; the ability to sort out the one
person's odor is perhaps the most remarkable aspect of these
dogs. They can easily follow a child when picked up and
carried by an adult, and persons using a bicycle. They are
able to detect scent hovering over a body of water and search
downstream to pick up the odor.
There is an enormous amount of Bloodhound lore out
there, and a little bit of mythology, making it difficult to cite
realistic operational expectations, what a good well trained Bloodhound in typical
service can be expected to be able to do, that is how old a trail the dog can
effectively follow over useful distances. Such things are like war and fishing stories,
tend to get better as they are told, and as the storyteller feels compelled to match
the exploits of other storytellers. Reviewing what has been written, my general
perception is that about a week is an extreme outside limit under ideal circumstances
and conditions. This means that a few exceptional, expertly trained and handled
dogs can under favorable circumstances work favorable trails that are a week old or
even somewhat older. (Schettler) These are experts with well trained dogs talking
about once or twice in an active lifetime of experience, not routine expectations.
More realistically 48 to 72 hours, under favorable circumstances, is beginning to
push what a good dog can be expected work on a routine basis, anything beyond
that being more or less a bonus.
Even when entirely enclosed, the forced air ventilation system in a modern car or
truck continually expels passenger compartment air with the scent rafts and other
components of odor, which means in principle that a dog can follow a vehicle with a
party of interest. There are of course severe limitations, the person who is able to
drive many miles at highway speeds is almost certainly beyond any dog's capability,
but in instances of lower speed, shorter delay time and shorter distance it is
sometimes possible; there are reliable reports of criminals under favorable
circumstances being located and convicted after such a search. (Stockton, 2004) In
rural areas one strategy is to traverse a highway by vehicle, stopping at each
intersection to have the dog sniff and indicate direction.
How practical is all of this? Bloodhounds are indeed sometimes capable of
following a person in a vehicle, but many authorities, including a well-known author,
portray this as of marginal utility, say that is simply not practical in the real world.
On the other hand there are well documented instances of police handlers that have
been able to indicate the path of a vehicle with an abducted person, or the body, for
a number of miles on a limited access highway, identifying the correct exit and
leading to the find. Much of this was video recorded by television reporters.
Not every Bloodhound is an excellent working candidate; just as in any other line
of work breeding must proceed according to selection for proven excellence on the
track. For police work, or any other specialty, a good dog is a good dog, and a not
good dog is just a waste of time. The Bloodhound is the ultimate specialist, created
and maintained for man trailing, that is seeking out a specific person from a known
point of presence, usually in modern police or search work as a single dog on a
harness and line. The Bloodhound is not used for man aggression, building searches,
or substance detection; these things are left to the patrol dogs such as the Malinois.
While capable of wilderness area search and rescue the Bloodhound, because of size,
bulk and working style, is not as well adapted to disaster scenes resulting from
terrorist bombings, earthquakes and similar disasters.

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 Many police searches are handled by an available patrol dog, a Malinois or
Shepherd, because he is there and because he will alert aggressively or engage
when the suspect is found. When the trail is older or the available dogs are not
suitable a good Bloodhound is often the dog of choice. Since the Bloodhound is not
man aggressive sometimes an apprehension dog, such as a Malinois, serves as a
backup to deal with a potentially aggressive suspect. Lacking an apprehension dog,
an "over watch team" can provide the cover and step in to make the apprehension.
When a person has departed from a known point a well-trained Bloodhound is
often the dog of choice, but it is not automatic. Just as the bite and aggression must
come from within a Malinois, but is only useful when the response is encouraged and
controlled through discipline and training, a Bloodhound must not only have good
working selection in the breeding, he must be schooled and trained to know that he
cannot go back to the game following instincts of his ancestors and must follow the
trail indicted by the handler through the personal scent item. One year of training
prior to useful deployment is often cited as a reasonable expectation, just as in so
many other areas of life, great Bloodhounds are born and then made through
training.
In exploring the world of search and trailing one quickly comes to appreciate why
the sport community generally sticks to tracking or area search exercises: for
tracking you can do most of the training alone and special skills are not necessary in
the decoy for the area search exercise, which involves little wait time. Trailing is
different in that as the dog advances there are hours and even days of delay
between laying the trail and sending the dog on his search. In this era of busy lives,
finding people to send out to trail and waiting for the dog, even if they come back to
the end of the trail later, is difficult.
American police agencies must work within budgets, and the primary limitation
on Bloodhound deployment is creating situations where a specialized, single purpose
dog can be provided enough work to justify the cost of maintenance, training and the
dedicated handler; the specialist must compete for budget dollars with the
multipurpose protection, search and drug detection capabilities of a Malinois or
Shepherd.
Many Bloodhounds are owned and trained by individuals devoted to the breed
and serve on a voluntary basis, both through civilian search and rescue groups and
for police agencies. Individual police officers making available personally owned and
trained Bloodhounds are not uncommon. To give a sense of how common police
Bloodhounds are, it is reported that at the time of this writing there are three
Bloodhounds in service in California handled by police officers and about another
dozen in civilian hands regularly available for volunteer service. These are relatively
small numbers when compared to the dual purpose patrol and drug dogs.
In contrast to European superiority in patrol dog breeding and training, America
is on the whole the leading nation in practical Bloodhound breeding, training and
deployment experience, with enterprising Americans touring Europe to run seminars,
in reverse of the usual flow of working canine instruction.

Perspective
Over the years research to produce technology for artificial scent detection and
discrimination has been ongoing, with periodic predictions that the technology to
produce effective scent detection instrumentation would soon make drug sniffing
dogs as obsolete as the horse and buggy in the age of the automobile. This may in
time come to pass, but for the moment ongoing research and development only
seems to push the demise of the sniffing dog further into the future; artificial scent

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discrimination devices with the sensitivity of the canine nose are proving very
difficult to create.
In conclusion, the acute sense of smell, the marvelous olfactory capability, is
among the most important factors – indeed perhaps in the modern world the most
important factor – in the usefulness of the dog to mankind. This is a general truth,
applicable to the hunting and herding dogs as well as the police applications of
interest here.

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6 The Ring and the Trial

The emergence of the dog

as a working partner in the
primitive past was based on
immediate and direct hands
on selection: those perceived
as useful were kept and fed
and others were likely to be
abandoned, pushed out to
fend for themselves or culled.
When times were good the
ineffective dog could perhaps
linger, be fed and tolerated
as some sort of pet, but hard
times would mean that only
those contributing to survival
would survive themselves. As
the human social structure
became more advanced and
complex, good dogs would
have been sought out from
neighboring bands, tribes,
farms or villages, based on
observation of the dogs at
their work and perhaps some
Malinois on French Ring Sport scaling wall. informal testing. This was
effective as long as the social
structure was simple enough
to enable meaningful observation of the dogs as they went about their work; that is
the man needing a dog would be personally familiar with the dogs available or the
parents of pending litters.
At the advent of the twentieth century the Industrial Revolution was far into the
process of changing a centuries old way of life throughout Europe, altering the very
fabric of society. The population was shifting from rural areas to rapidly expanding
industrial cities, and uniformed police forces were evolving to deal with crime in the
crowded industrial districts and to maintain order throughout the city.
Across much of northern Europe diverse groups of men came to realize that the
indigenous working dogs of the farmer, drover and stockman were in imminent
danger of being lost forever because of rapid industrialization and the mechanization
and modernization of agrarian life. Separately and in small groups they sought to
gather together and preserve these various regional working types and form them
into breeds. Their legacy to us is the German and Belgian Shepherds, the Rottweiler,
the Bouvier des Flandres and the other herding and working breeds as we know
them today.
Since the purpose of these men was the preservation of this centuries old
working heritage, it was quite natural that as they created their various
organizations and evolved formal standards of appearance and structure they also
devised a number of working trial systems. The primary reason for these trials was

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to serve as a gauge of working character so as to facilitate the selection of desirable
breeding stock. In this way, the working trial served the purification of the soul just
as the conformation show served to consolidate the desired appearance and physical
structure. The sporting aspect drew in many who enjoyed the training and then the
competitive nature of the trial itself; it would seem that the desire to go out and see
whose horse is faster or whose dog is stronger, quicker and more courageous is as
old as the domestication process itself.
In the early years this was essentially a northern European phenomenon.
Subsequent to WWI, in the 1920s, the German Shepherd especially and later some
of the other breeds became enormously popular in America, but this was primarily
for family companionship and conformation exhibition rather than dogs with a
serious working role. Actual American police dog deployment was sparse, marginal
and transient. Breeding and training according to working capability and function was
beyond our comprehension, did not exist in any meaningful way. In the 1970s this
would begin to evolve as police canine deployment began to proliferate and amateur
involvement through the emerging popularity of Schutzhund began to bring
European ways and more work capable dogs and training to the new world.

The Euro Way

Just as working class European immigrants – the Irish, Poles and Italians –
looked to America as the land of opportunity, with dreams of gold paved streets, in
the earlier years of the Schutzhund movement we, the enthralled Americans,
believed that Europe was the land of working dog opportunity, that there was at
least one training club in every village or town, easy access to working pups and
serious dog training as a way of life. And so it was. But it was also an illusion, a pot
of gold at the end of the rainbow that we could approach but never quite grasp and
bring home to America.
When I first went to the Netherlands in the 1980s it was all there: the clubs, the
dogs, and above all the people with years of breeding and training experience.
Belgium and Germany were more of the same, abundant picturesque training fields,
often with a cozy clubhouse and a friendly bar complete with old timers conversing
or playing cards over a beer, sometimes French fries on the table. Trophies, ribbons,
photos and trial posters, going back for decades, adorned the walls. These were
people of every walk of life, and the clubs provided an opportunity for the ordinary
man to participate and achieve according to his willingness to work and his luck
rather than his money. The young trainer was commonplace, and many were
aspiring decoys, anxious to put on the suit and engage the dogs. A training field on
public land, where you could perhaps have a clubhouse for your own use, seemed
easily available, just as American parks have a tennis courts and ball fields. Pups of
proven working lines were affordable, especially for those with a more experienced
trainer as a mentor. It was typical to see several young men doing the helper work,
often with a couple of older men directing in the background. The young enthusiast
would often have a father, uncle or family acquaintance who could take him along to
the club and, if the interest was there, help him find and train a first dog. Clubs were
plentiful and close by; stopping by the club in the evening was a short drive or even
a walk with the dog. It was a training life style most Americans could only dream of,
but the dream was to become increasingly elusive as the years passed.
Dog training is a way of life for many Europeans used to a selection of training
clubs in the neighborhood or just down the road. Many years ago, visiting an old
friend near Hilversum, a KNPV judge, she remarked as we were pulling out of the
driveway that it was going to be a long ride; that we were on our way to an
especially distant club. Along the way she would point out a KNPV or IPO club, often
with a comment on why it was not appropriate for this day. Finally, after an arduous

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twenty-minute drive we arrived at the desired far distant club, just in time for
training. We had gone perhaps 20 kilometers or 15 miles, a short distance most
Americans can only envy.
On another occasion, a warm late afternoon sitting outside a clubhouse in
Belgium, near the Dutch border, Turnhout if memory serves me, as we sat idly
sipping our beer a little old man with a large Malinois male appeared and began his
obedience training. In a way it was not very impressive, for the man was slow
moving and low key and not much seemed to be going on. A little while later a
helper, a very young man, casually came onto the field. After a few words, the
helper took up his position on the opposite side of a pond, probably ten to fifteen
feet across. The man and his dog moved off to the other end of the field, where the
dog was sent with a soft command. The dog burst across the field and over the
pond, but at one low key command from the handler stopped, took a regretful look
at the helper and returned. On the next go round the dog was, much to his
enthusiasm, allowed to complete his attack.
In talking to my friends, I learned that this man, while never quite a big winner,
had participated in Belgian Ring for most of his life. A little later, I noticed the man
heading out for home. He had a three-wheel cycle arrangement, homemade with two
dog crates and bicycle parts, into which he loaded his two Malinois and peddled off
home. I am sure that this is a little bit unusual, that many more Europeans load up
the Mercedes station wagon, perhaps with an expensive, high tech aluminum dog
trailer, than a homemade three-wheeled bicycle on training night. But the access of
the common man – the young man with a family or the old man on a fixed income –
to the training sports has always been a fundamental, and I believe necessary, part
of the heritage. Somehow, we have never quite been able to make this a reality in
America.
European training offers diverse opportunities, from the casual social trainer
seeking an evening out with his dog to the driven, ultra-competitive fanatic. Some
trainers traverse both worlds; I knew a Dutch IPO judge who was training director at
a local club and on another evening drove down into Belgium to work with a more
competitive, exclusive group. In this way he was able to carry on two distinct and
rewarding roles. This was viable because the distance he drove in a month was likely
less than the typical American Schutzhund trainer drives in a week; everything is so
close together in Europe that even international travel for training can often be done
in an evening!
Quality helper work is the foundation of protection training, and historically many
European trainers would take up the suit or the sleeve to one extent or another so
that the burden was distributed.1 Many clubs have several helpers with roles
according to their age, experience and physical condition. The older men tend to
serve mostly as teachers and instructors, only occasionally picking up a sleeve or
suit jacket to demonstrate a point or fill in. And, of course, there are a few older men
in denial, determined to put the callow young men – the whippersnappers as it were
– to shame. But on the whole the bulk of the work is carried on by younger men with
the knowledge and experience to work on their own. At the bottom of the pyramid
are the novice trainers, eager for opportunity and recognition. Although some
helpers prefer the role for its own sake and seldom train a dog, many are also
trainers and take for granted that their dogs will receive excellent work in return,
since the club with one exclusive helper is very unusual. Not every club has this ideal
situation, but most have several helpers, so that the serious trainer can routinely
work near to home with good helper several evenings a week.

1
Participation by women was generally unusual prior to the 1970's.

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 In Europe as in America modern technology has created a series of distractions –
radio, television, video games, the internet – increasingly occupying discretionary
time, especially among younger people, chipping away at social activities such as
soft ball leagues or dog training. The same trends exist also in Europe; generally
amateur dog training seems to be in moderate decline. Police breed registrations
have fallen in half or more around the world starting in the mid-1990s, including the
German Shepherd in Germany: the European popularity base is eroding in the face
of current social and population trends, with ominous, unforeseeable consequences.
Beginning in the 1970s the emerging American Schutzhund movement was a
time of excitement and promise, of better things to come. We had come to believe
that dog training was fundamentally different and more exciting in Europe, that an
all-pervasive working ethic predominated in working breed affairs, that the credo
that form must follow function was the universal mantra. Somehow we believed that
every European was above the venality of the AKC world; that working the dogs was
a serious matter, that what counted was what a dog could do in his work even more
than his appearance. Our faith was general, in all breeds, but above all else was in
the German Shepherd mythology, so effectively nurtured by von Stephanitz: that
form must follow function, that every German Shepherd must pass a rigorous
Schutzhund trial as a prerequisite to breeding, each an incipient police patrol dog.
But the reality proved to be disillusioning: not only were insipid show people the
norm, not all Schutzhund trials were honest, and what was worse this was known
and condoned at the highest levels of the SV. Except for the Malinois community, a
significant majority of Europeans involved in the police style breeds were and
increasingly are primarily show oriented, just as in America, paying little more than
lip service to work. The SV, the legacy of von Stephanitz, was perhaps the greatest
disappointment, for in time we were to come to see that the Schutzhund trial was
being prostituted, that judges were too often pimps and that titles were increasingly
being given to show dogs void of serious police level character through emasculated
trials, lenient judges and outright fraud. Most of us had come to accept that
American bred German Shepherds were evolving into a deviant breed, but it was
almost inconceivable to us that these German show lines were being allowed to
degenerate in the same way, just as in America.
Although our expectations – in hindsight grossly unrealistic – led to disillusion, all
was not lost, for outside of the SV establishment and the all-breed show dog world
there remained diverse pockets of old style working German Shepherds and true
guardians of some of the other breeds. Rather than focused on Germany itself, today
many of the better dogs are in neighboring nations, that is places such as the Czech
Republic, the Netherlands or Belgium. The good dogs from within Germany are
coming from lines outside of the establishment mainstream, such as remnants of the
old East German breeding or those maintained by the older hard-core German
trainers and breeders. Thirty or forty years ago one could look at the four or five
generation pedigrees of the winning show and working dogs and see a bit of
commonality, dogs which in extended pedigrees were producing both working and
conformation winners. In recent years, this has become almost unknown; only a fool
tries to cross the lines.
Beyond the German Shepherd the other breeds, often with a scattering of really
excellent individual dogs, existed only as fragile communities. In 1984 I saw some
excellent Rottweilers, a wonderful Beauceron or two and some of the Bouviers I was
looking for, but in a broad sense these were breeds in decline. Although my younger
readers will no doubt suspect that I exaggerate, the Malinois was simply not on our
radar screens, very few of us, even those of us venturing out to the new Schutzhund
clubs, were even aware of the breed.

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 In America today, some forty or more years after our initial wave of enthusiasm,
Schutzhund is still marginal: our vision of prospering amateur clubs available to large
segments of the population, with the ambiance of Europe, remains unfulfilled. Among
the reasons is our inability to achieve critical mass, to have enough clubs close
enough together to bring in the young trainers which carry the bulk of the helper
work burden. The sport is increasingly commercialized; with the purchased titled dog
still predominant on the field, and helper work more and more a commercial service
rather than amateurs working together in a club environment. Young people
especially are finding Schutzhund increasingly out of their reach in terms of both
time and money.
Our personal experience is an illustration of these trends, for our first Bouvier des
Flandres came from the du Clos des Cerberes kennel of Edmee Bowles, driven from
Belgium as WWII commenced and living just outside Philadelphia, the founder of the
breed in America. We were able to train this male to the Schutzhund III and the FH,
the advanced tracking title, in relatively short order. The dog was an excellent
natural tracker and strong in protection. The obedience was marginal, mostly
because of my inexperience as a trainer and because there was no one with
experience to help; I often wonder what the dog could have become had I been
better trainer, or if there had been a mentor.
But there was a serious down side to this, for we came to believe that in general
the European Bouviers were serious working dogs, that all of their lines were
fundamentally sound, that belief in working character could be taken for granted. As
a consequence we acquired a few dogs of the then very fashionable Dutch show
lines, with the expectation that a little selection would enable us to insure the
appropriate character. This turned out not to be true at all, the dogs were in general
lacking in sufficient drive for the protection work and difficult in obedience and
tracking, exhibiting passive resistance rather than enthusiasm. These lines were
eliminated and we went on to establish relationships with people in Holland who were
active trainers with police line Bouviers, which provided us a reliable source of
excellent dogs. But it was a major detour, a loss of time and a waste of money.
Some might perhaps comment that we should have known better, and there is a
grain of truth to it. But this was before the internet and the advent of European
travel for the typical American training enthusiast. These were difficult lessons to
learn, and even today many spend too much money and time to understand that
dogs coming out of mainstream European show lines, of all breeds, fall far short of
serious police service potential, are in reality no better than the typical American
breeding.

Dog Sports
Why do men engage in violent sport, a ritualistic, limited form of aggression?
Today there are enormous amounts of money involved, but this was not the purpose
in the beginning. Men engage in boxing or football primarily as condoned and
controlled outlets for aggression. Since society at large has generally endorsed,
glorified and rewarded this, it is a reasonable premise that maintenance of a certain
level of aggressive and competitive drive has always been necessary for the vigor of
the social fabric, necessary to enhance and maintain a population with physical
fitness and potential for combat prowess. Throughout history the male warrior role,
to defend the hunting band or the crops in the fields, has been fundamental to every
viable social structure, from the age of hunting and gathering through the military
and police service of today. Success in the hunt or an abundant crop meant nothing
if outsiders could take by force what time, labor and skill had produced. The
fundamental dilemma of mankind is that while war and conflict bring only suffering
and deprivation, we glorify the warrior and the implements of war, from the knight
with sword and lance to the military aviator. In a similar way, men admire and desire

151
aggressive dogs, even when there is no social justification, as witness the age-old
practices of bear or bull baiting or the fighting pit. Uncontrolled aggression becomes
tyranny and oppression, but eradication of the manifestations of aggression through
social emasculation and political correctness creates vulnerability at every level.
Just as young men have since antiquity been encouraged in aggressive outlets,
pups and young dogs by their nature routinely engage in mock fights and
roughhouse play, and much of this propensity carries over into the adult. Just as
sport in the ideal teaches the young man to engage and compete within the context
of a set of rules and limits, sport training instills in the dog the sense of appropriate,
proportionate reaction to specific provocations or simulations, making the dog
controllable when the threat is not imminent and thus useful in police service and
similar related roles.
Sport, ritualistic aggression, is much more than game playing. In human society,
in the era of the Greeks and Romans, and indeed most primitive societies, sport
evolved as preparation for war; and reflects these original purposes even today.
Although modern working dog training has become increasingly ritualistic and
obedience oriented – seriously detracting from the original purposes of breeding
selection and service preparation – the training is still essentially sport in this
fundamental sense. In the protection work particularly we play out ritualistic
aggression without the intent of actual injury for purposes of developing physical
fitness and skill in adversarial engagements, to solidify and enhance the instinctive
confidence and tactics to prevail in meaningful confrontation.
From the beginning of the modern police dog era the breed founders and police
canine pioneers devised functional tests or trials to provide the screening process for
breed worthiness and as practical prerequisites for service. Examples include the
Belgian Ring Sport, the Schutzhund trial in Germany, extended to all FCI nations as
IPO, and the Dutch police or KNPV trials. All of these trials became popular as civilian
training, social and competitive venues, a way of life for thousands of amateurs.
Every police breed and line has been based on such trials. In the homeland of the
German Shepherd a dog needed to prove his mettle on the Schutzhund field in order
to produce progeny worthy of carrying on the heritage, to be members of this noble
breed. In the Netherlands the KNPV trial was created to be a police service
qualification, primarily a test of readiness for patrol duty, but also emerged as the de
facto breeding requirement for the Malinois and the working Bouviers. The Ring
Sports of Belgium and France are suit based programs similar to KNPV but somewhat
more civilian oriented, but with little practical emphasis on the scenting or olfactory
capability.
Schutzhund, and to a lesser extent the Ring Sports, were primarily created as
breeding certifications and sport rather than to produce dogs ready for immediate
deployment in a police patrol role. Thus in some ways these exercises, relative to
KNPV, can be seen as less practical and less directly related to service. In the older
days this was of relatively minor practical significance, since innumerable
Schutzhund titled dogs historically went on to exemplary police service with minimal
additional training; a good Schutzhund dog was indeed usually transformable into an
exemplary on the street patrol dog. When the trial was sufficient to challenge the
dog, to reveal and discard the insecure, unwilling and unstable, the details of the
exercises were relatively minor issues, the resulting dogs easily adaptable to street
service.
But in more recent years the lowering of standards in the IPO program, and the
emphasis on style and rote obedience rather than challenging the dog physically and
in character attributes, has diminished the credibility for police service. Much of the
rising popularity of the Malinois in police and military applications is related to this
degeneration in IPO and the consequent diminished confidence in German Shepherd

152
working lines; a good German Shepherd is still a remarkable police patrol candidate,
but the proliferation of show line Shepherds with suspect IPO titles has debased the
currency. The IPO title is no longer a serious universal indication of police potential,
and police level German Shepherds are today virtually unknown in these show lines,
virtually a different breed from the heritage of von Stephanitz.
Schutzhund as we came to know it after WWII did not exist in the early years.
Prior to the WWI there was a police dog certificate which predated the Schutzhund
title, held by a significant number of the influential breeding males of the era. But
this was mostly a matter of evolving programs and terminology, the expectation of
actual proof of performance as a prerequisite, although not always honored, was an
objective from the beginning.
Thus it is to be understood that in the early years the process was imperfect and
sporadic, not all or even most German Shepherds actually held a Schutzhund, police
or herding title and the tension between emerging show breeders and the police
oriented trainers intensified in the 1920s as explored further in the chapter covering
German Shepherd history. Toward the end of his life von Stephanitz implored:
"Take this trouble for me; Make sure my shepherd dog remains
a working dog, for I have struggled all my life long for that
aim."
The real concern was not so much the external societal influences but rather the
enemy within, the show and commercial elements this man struggled against
throughout his leadership tenure. This internal struggle for the soul of the German
Shepherd is not novel, was incipient in the beginning, even prior to the SV in the
days of the Phylax Society, and is ongoing today.
The working trial in the ideal serves to set a minimum level of physical prowess
and inborn character attributes – intensity, trainability, stability – for breeding. But
even when honestly and diligently conducted this is an inherently flawed process, for
no matter how severe the written requirements and diligent the judge and decoy it is
still artificial and contrived, cannot recreate the reality and stress of street
engagement. As a consequence, trainers have always been ahead of the curve in
their ability to prepare a marginal dog to pass the trial, even if with indifferent
scores. Thus even the KNPV certificate or an impressive Schutzhund score does not
guarantee that a dog will succeed in actual service, and every serious working
breeder and police trainer knows this.
But for purposes of breeding selection this does not negate the essential validity
of the ongoing process. Training and certifying marginal dogs is arduous and
unpleasant work, and does not enhance one’s standing in the esteem of his peers.
Knowing that one’s reputation is based on the actual serviceability of the dogs
produced, and that the breeder will most likely need to train the progeny in their
turn, provides a strong incentive to select for breeding the strongest and most
trainable dogs.
Thus in the beginning, and for many years thereafter, even today, it was and is
the selection through the training process itself rather than the actual titles, or the
relative scores, that were of paramount importance. Dogs had value not only
because of a working title, but because they and their line were known and acquired
locally by those who had seen them work, or had friends and associates who could
provide first-hand knowledge. The fact that the dog had a lucky day and barely made
it through, or was a particularly strong dog losing points through enthusiasm, was
available knowledge that had its own influence on the value of the dog. The point of
the trial was not so much that bad dogs will fail and be eliminated but rather that the
breeder and trainer, since he must title each dog, will make a strong effort to
improve his lines so that the training takes a reasonable amount of time and effort,
and is a much more pleasant and rewarding experience.

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 This natural competitiveness played out on the trial field is a fundamental aspect
of the process. When I take my dog on the field in a club trial or when a European
trainer takes his dog into the stadium for the most important and prestigious
European event, scores, diplomas, titles and who is first or second are of secondary
importance. What is most desired is the ongoing respect of one’s peers, the people
who have shared the struggle on the training field over the years. These people are
not fooled, see through the points and the pieces of inscribed paper and know and
respect the good dogs and programs, the trainers who have struggled to produce
them. This is the mechanism by which the trial system maintains and enhances the
working breed, this is why the individual breeders and trainers struggle each year to
come back with a better dog and earn the ongoing respect of the community.
In the 1970s and 80s Americans in increasing numbers became aware of these
titled dogs and were willing to spend ever increasing amounts of money to obtain
one. Acquisitions for individual need and desire quickly evolved into the concept of
brokering dogs, of buying dogs on speculation with the idea of a substantial profit
through eventual resale in America and other remote nations lacking an indigenous
working dog heritage.
This was a critical juncture, for it profoundly changed the dynamics of the
European training community. When the dogs remained within the local community
it was knowledge of the work of the dog and the reputation of the lines, the trainer
and the training club, that established the value of the dog. The advent of brokering
dogs, selling them into distant and unknown environments, tended to change the
titled dog into a commodity. In these new circumstances, a piece of paper denoting a
working title took on new and unreasonable value. A dog with such a certificate had
significant foreign sale value even if the title was earned in a marginal way, on a
lucky day, under a lenient judge or simply fabricated, an untitled dog fraudulently
sold with falsified papers.
For the European trainer with one eye on the dollar this meant that the quickest
route to the title, regardless of the actual quality of the dog or his training, became a
primary consideration. Why put extra work into a dog which is going to disappear
into the broker’s hands the day after the trial, never to be seen again? Rather than
training the dog with the objective of laying a foundation for ongoing training and
serviceability the remainder of his life, training just to get through the trial, by any
means, becomes the profitable approach for the quasi-commercial trainer.
Thus the trial based training and breeding system is a fragile process, susceptible
to outside influence, primarily in the form of money. When ignorant Americans will
buy a dog based on the title alone, for what are seen as incredible prices in a largely
working class training community, the system is corrupted and weakened at its very
core. The desire for the quick title and the money from the consequent export sale
rather than excellence and personal satisfaction can quickly become the primary
motivation. When the Americans are joined in ignorant enthusiasm by the newly rich
Japanese, Chinese and others willing to expend enormous amounts of cash the
heritage is prostituted, in danger of collapse.
In summary, the reality is that a title is a piece of paper, that the presence of a
title does not in and of itself guarantee that the dog is capable of effective service.
Aside from the fact that the title might be fraudulent at some level, which does
happen, the dog may have been slid through under a lenient judge or just had a
lucky day. Every person buying a dog needs to regard the title as an indication that
the dog is potentially worthwhile, but base the actual purchasing decision on more
comprehensive testing and confidence in the seller of the dog. In buying a dog,
especially an ongoing series of dogs as in a police program, knowledge of and
confidence in the seller is even more important than the evaluation of any individual
dog.

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 For the person new to the working dog world it can be quite difficult to grasp that
while the working trial is the foundation of every successful working line the title on
the individual dog is of only limited value, is not and should not be taken to be a
credible guarantee of working potential. This is always a paradox for the novice, and
we all begin as a novice. This paradox can only be mastered gradually through
experience and observation over time. The tendency is to make one of two errors:
either believing that the title is literal proof of working functionality, or the more
treacherous converse, that since the title does not always correlate with working
excellence in the individual dog, it is not of fundamental importance in the ongoing
breeding process.
This fundamental principle, the absolute necessity of testing working stock
through training, has at times been an enormous difficulty for those in what have
come to be known as the alternative breeds, that is, breeds other than the German
Shepherd and the Malinois. Since it is very unusual, almost impossible, to find lines
in these breeds generally based on the title as a breeding prerequisite, overly
credulous enthusiasts come to believe that these breeds and these lines are or can
be viable sources of reliable working stock. Sometimes, depending on the integrity,
dedication and skill of the individual breeder solid, reliable lines do exist. But all too
often this is not true, the program is based on emotional appeal and clever
promotional schemes, as many have learned through personal disappointment. Thus
many enthusiasts for these breeds are in a perpetual state of denial, choose to
believe things that common sense, the evidence available through observation and
accumulated wisdom, have made obviously untrue. But widespread denial of
objective reality has only tended to accelerate rather than retarded the demise of
these unfortunate breeds, as I know too well.

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Schutzhund and IPO
In America, Schutzhund was
the big new thing in the latter
1970s, an exciting alternative
to the dreary obedience
programs of the era, where
passive compliance was the
preordained role of the dog.
This was a venue where the
protection dogs were called
upon to fulfill their age-old
heritage, to protect, to engage
human adversaries in simulated
attack scenarios. The dogs, the
good ones, came alive, and
their handlers were right there
behind them. The AKC
establishment was appalled,
biting dogs were simply not the
American way, and dire
predictions, by establishment
icons such as Carmine
Battaglia, of action by the civil
authorities to suppress this
Doberman Pincher Buster Wimmerhaus German perversion were shrill
Decoy Rolando Salvador and widespread, which only
added to the aura of
excitement.
Throughout most of the twentieth century, Schutzhund was the predominant
European working dog venue, created by the founders of the German Shepherd as a
character and working evaluation for their incipient breed. Beyond these origins this
program quickly evolved to become the predominant all breed police style working
dog trial system, first in Germany, and then through the international popularity of
the German police breeds increasingly prominent in various national venues in other
European nations and the rest of the world, particularly North America. Most
Americans, including the dog people, had never heard of strange things such as ring
sports, bite suits or breeds with funny sounding names such as "Malinois."
Schutzhund specifically evolved as a German national sport under the VDH, that
is, the German national organization comparable in scope to the AKC. In other FCI
nations a similar bite sleeve style international program under FCI auspices, the IPO
program (Internationale Prufungsordnung). Over the years there had been
substantial differences in rules, philosophy and judging expectations, but beginning
at the turn of the twenty-first century the programs converged, became more and
more similar. International annual championships under the IPO banner gradually
became the most prestigious venues in the world.
Finally, on January 1, 2012 IPO became the universal FCI protection dog working
trial and Schutzhund as a distinct entity passed into history, although the term is still
widely used in the colloquial sense.
The primary purposes of Schutzhund are:
 Identification of those dogs suitable to be bred, that is, of sound
temperament, willing to work and of correct structure.
 Preparation of the individual dog to serve the purpose of its breed in police or
military service or civilian protection of family and property.

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  Provision of sport and recreation for man and beast that brings out the best
qualities of both.

The use of the separate, removable, padded arm in the protection work, rather
than the full body suit, and the fact that the dogs are trained to bite the forearm
exclusively, distinguishes Schutzhund from other protection dog venues. The
Schutzhund trial consists of three separate phases or distinct sequences of exercises,
focused on tracking, formal obedience and protection. These individual testing
phases normally take place in a single day at a small or local trial, but are spread
over two or more days at major regional, national or international championship
events. All of the dogs are sequenced through the individual phases individually, so a
particular dog will typically have an hour or more between phases in a single day
trial. In a larger trial, each dog's work will normally be spread over two or more
days. The local trial employs a single judge, while the larger event uses three judges
so that the phases can go on concurrently, that is, while one group of dogs is out in
the field tracking, another group, with a different judge, will be sequencing through
their obedience routine. In any situation, all of the dogs see the same judge for any
particular phase, that is, one judge does all of the tracking or protection evaluations.
Although there have been historical references which describe Schutzhund as
originating as early as 1900 as a foundation on which the German Shepherd was
built, this must not be taken too literally, especially in light of the fact that there is
no explicit use of this term as late as 1925 in the seminal von Stephanitz book.
Schutzhund is the German word for protection, and in this generic sense they were
evolving a variety of tests and trials under varying rules and procedures. Thus
although police trials and certifications began well before 1910, Schutzhund titles as
such did not begin to become common in German Shepherd pedigrees until the
1920s, and the program as we know it today would not entirely emerge until the
post WWII era.
Veterans of the sport tend to regard the transformation of Schutzhund into IPO
as part of an ongoing watering down, a popularization based on political correctness
in an increasingly pet oriented European canine environment. In such minds IPO is
Schutzhund reduced to Schutzhund light, mere sport in the pejorative sense,
stripped of much of the potential to guide breeding in the way of strong, serious
police patrol level dogs.
Since the Schutzhund program is for dogs of the protective heritage, its emphasis
is on those qualities necessary in such dogs, such as initiative, courage and
trainability. The three phases of the program are tracking, obedience and protection:
 Tracking tests the olfactory capability, the ability to follow the path and find
objects dropped by the tracklayer, as a dog would be called upon to do in
police or civilian search and rescue service.
 Obedience demonstrates heeling, retrieval of objects, jumps and other
exercises that demonstrate agility, compliance and handler control. The
presence of another competing dog on the field during the obedience exercise
verifies impartiality to such distractions.
 Protection involves a search and hold of an adversary, close in defense of the
leader and a remote pursuit and engagement of an adversary.

The performance in each phase is evaluated by the judge and awarded up to 100
points according to the correctness of the exercise, with a resulting 300 points for a
hypothetical perfect performance. The dog must receive a minimum of 70 points in
each phase in order to achieve a new title or pass. Titled dogs which fail a trial do
not revert to a lower level or give up the title as is customary in some other sports
such as French Ring or KNPV.

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 There are three progressively more difficult levels of competition that lead to the
IPO titles I through III. Many dogs go on to compete repetitively at the IPO III level
in order to achieve the highest possible score and thus to qualify for participation in
various regional, national or international championship events. There are also
advanced tracking programs and a number of other specialized titles; it has more
recently become possible to compete in a single phase such as tracking or obedience
although no actual titles are awarded.
Among the factors contributing to the usefulness of the dog is the remarkably
sensitive nose, which makes the sense of smell so superior to that of a human being
that a dog virtually lives in another world. The olfactory sensitivity adds another
dimension, a further capability, to the human-canine team. In service dogs locate
lost children, detect the presence of narcotics or warn of and perhaps engage a
concealed adversary, as in a criminal hiding in a commercial warehouse, store or
factory.
Tracking is thus an integral facet of the program in order to verify and enhance
this most useful faculty. The test is conducted in an open field where a person, the
tracklayer, walks a prescribed route several hundred yards long and drops a number
of articles, such as a glove, which the dog must locate. Elementary level tracks are
laid by the handler himself; more advanced competition uses a different person as
tracklayer. The IPO three track incorporates four ninety degree turns, three objects
such as small blocks of wood to find and is an hour old. The track is sometimes laid
in a plowed field rather than on grass or in a pasture, but there are no transitions in
cover.
The track is aged for a period according to the title being sought (20 minutes to
an hour) after which the dog is taken to the marked starting point and sent out,
usually on a ten meter line attached to the collar. (The handler has the option of
sending his dog off lead, but I have never seen this done in an actual IPO trial.) It is
necessary for the handler to stay ten meters behind the dog, at the end of the line,
except when the dog picks up a dropped article or indicates its presence by laying
down or sitting. The difficulty of a particular track is dependent on the nature of the
vegetation and the weather. Damp, cool, still conditions are generally the most
favorable. Early in the morning is often the best time of day, and most local trials
begin with tracking as early as practical. Tracking dogs goes on regardless of
weather, my dog has passed tracking after an inch or two of snow or enough rain to
cover the articles occurred between the laying of the track and the actual exercise.
Freshly plowed or disked fields are sometimes used for tracking.
The rules, procedures and judging expectations require that the dog track
footstep by footstep, that is, according to the disturbance in vegetation or soil at the
surface rather than the air borne odor of the person which dissipates over a wider
area. Even the slightest deviation from the track is penalized by point deductions.
During the obedience exercises the dog heels at the handler's side in a pattern
with turns, changes of pace and distractions such as gunshots and a group of milling
persons. The dog must be left in the down, sitting and standing positions and come
when called. Objects thrown by the handler are to be retrieved on command. This is
done on the flat and over a one-meter barrier and over an A frame shaped scaling
wall. The dog must go out away from the handler and then down on command. The
gun sure AKC obedience competitor at the CDX level will find the Schutzhund I
obedience routine familiar, the only additional exercise being the go out which is
introduced at the Utility level under the AKC system. There are always two dogs on
the field during the obedience exercises, one doing the active routine and the other
on a long down away from the handler; this demonstrates control and the willingness
to tolerate the presence of a neutral dog, often important in actual working
situations.

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 The protection exercises involve a number of simulated attack and guarding
scenarios where the dog engages a human adversary wearing padded pants and a
padded sleeve which the dog bites or grips. Schutzhund training, in contrast to most
other systems, requires that the dog bite only the arm with the sleeve. Once on the
sleeve, the decoy will strike the dog twice with a padded stick across the rib cage to
establish the willingness to persist in the face of a counter attack. The dog is trained
to respond to an active aggressor and that when the helper ceases active opposition
and the release command is given he must remain attentive and guard but must not
bite unless the decoy renews physical aggression, in which case the dog must firmly
grip the sleeve. Control and discipline are recognized as essential attributes of the
well-trained dog.
In the IPO III protection routine, the dog begins at the end of a long field, often a
football or soccer field, and searches six blinds, often portable, triangular fabric
covered frames looking like small tents, and then intensively guards and barks at the
decoy standing still and silent in the last blind. After a time the judge will indicate to
the handler to call the dog back to his side, and the decoy leaves the blind and takes
a stationary position. The handler places the dog on a down about six yards from the
decoy. The decoy runs away, and the dog pursues and bites the decoy on the arm.
The decoy turns and drives the dog several yards and locks up in a stationary
posture facing the dog. On handler command the dog releases and goes into the
bark and guard posture. The decoy lunges and the dog bites a second time, followed
by two sharp stick hits to the rib cage, and the locks up again. The handler gives the
release command and steps up behind his dog calls him to his side. Finally the
handler takes the stick from the decoy and the handler and dog escort him to the
judge.
The final exercise is the long bite, formerly known as the courage test, which
involves the handler sending the dog against a distant helper running toward the dog
in a threatening manner, with the helper slowing as the dog engages for a safe grip
or bite. Once the dog engages the helper drives the dog, that is, steps into him in an
intense way and strikes two measured, constant stick hits. When I became involved
in the late 1970s the Schutzhund III courage test began with the decoy walking to
the center of the field, about 40 yards from the dog and handler at the end of the
field, and then running away from the dog. When the decoy was about 50 yards out,
the judge would signal the handler to send the dog. As the dog approached the
decoy would suddenly turn and aggressively run at the dog, waving the stick and
presenting a very threatening picture. The turn was serious psychological pressure,
for the fleeing prey suddenly became the aggressive adversary. For reasons of
political correctness and to reduce the pressure on the show line German Shepherds,
the flee and turn aspect was eliminated and the distances, which test confidence and
drive, were greatly reduced.
Advocates of other systems, usually enthusiastic novices, sometimes contend
that this is an artificial restriction and renders the Schutzhund trained dog less well
prepared for actual police or civilian guard service; but the fact is that for a century
such dogs in Germany have been the wellspring of police service canines and
provided much of the foundation for the advent of American police dog service.
Other trial systems use a suit providing full body protection and provide much more
latitude in bite location. (All of this is discussed in great detail in the chapter on
protection training.)
In the early years of the American Schutzhund experience, in the 1980s, most of
us came from an AKC obedience competition background, seeking out greater
challenges and a more fulfilling experience for our dogs. For us the immediately
striking difference was that the Schutzhund obedience exercises are conducted
outside on a relatively large open field rather than the cramped AKC ring with its
confining fence, important considerations with the larger, more robust dog. In the

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earlier years there was less emphasis on precision – the handler had some latitude in
the precise location of turns in the healing pattern. The fact that the dog might be a
couple of inches ahead of or behind or sit slightly crooked was not of Earth shaking
consequence, for the purpose was to demonstrate control, cooperation and working
willingness rather than to turn the dog into an ultra-precise heeling machine.
Unfortunately in recent years Schutzhund has increasingly focused on the details of
precise obedience, becoming much more obedience and style oriented in the
process. This trend has been greatly exacerbated by the metamorphosis into IPO,
where subservience is increasingly important relative to the aggression, initiative and
robust character fundamental in real police dogs.
Although tracking, obedience and protection are the three phrases of the
program, the divisions are in a certain way more apparent than real, for each facet
of the training must contribute in harmony to the balanced whole, result in a
fundamentally sound dog, or they mean nothing. In a properly run program there is
synergism, the lessons of one phase positively reinforcing those of the others. The
tracking builds confidence and initiative that carries over as an alert, positive attitude
in the obedience. Obedience teaches discipline and responsiveness to the handler,
which reinforces the precision necessary for high tracking scores and paves the way
for the control aspects of the protection work. And the enthusiasm of most dogs for
the protection work carries them through the long haul, provides the spark that
makes training day the best part of their lives The proper Schutzhund program does
not train tracking, obedience and protection, it does not even consider the dog as a
whole and train him, rather it trains the team, the dog and his leader together.
The club level trial generally starts with the tracking early in the morning, since
that is the most favorable time for this work, and because there is a long day's work
ahead if there is a full slate of ten or twelve dogs. The judge begins by assigning
tracklayers and supervising the laying of the tracks. Each team in turn reports and is
sent out to attempt their track.
The judge does a cursory temperament evaluation in which he will purposely
pressure the dog, perhaps by walking between dog and handler, perhaps pushing
him with his knee; the dog showing a fearful or inappropriately aggressive reaction
can be excused.1 It is the judge's prerogative to devise whatever tests he believes to
be necessary to establish the stability of each dog as they progress through the day.
It is entirely appropriate that the Schutzhund judge have sufficient latitude in
conducting the trial in that his duties are by far the most difficult and serious one can
take on in the entire scope of canine affairs. In the larger view, it is much more
important that the best dogs, according to real life utility, be favored for breeding
than who takes home the biggest tin cup that particular day, for in thirty or forty
years the cup will most likely have been left on the curb for the trash man by the
descendants of the handler, but the dogs selected will still be contributing through
their progeny.
At the completion of the track the judge will give a brief critique of the
performance and announce the scores. At the local trial, especially in newer clubs
with less experienced members and competitors, a primary purpose of the critique is
education; the judge will often not only point why he has taken points away, but go
on to suggest improvements in training approach to correct the problems. Teaching
at the club level, especially where the sport is relatively new as in America, is an
important part of the judge's role, and a trial conducted by a good judge can be an
1
Increasingly stringent screening in the preliminary BH examination, and diligence in
training and selection, has severely limited the problem of inappropriate or poorly
prepared dogs entering trials.

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effective educational opportunity as well. There are similar critiques after the
obedience and protection exercises.
The judge's critique can greatly enhance the spirit of fair play and sportsmanship,
for those present may come to understand what he has seen that was not apparent
from their vantage point or within the scope of their experience. They will
occasionally find out that they noted a detail that he in fact missed, for no man can
see everything when there are two dogs and two handlers on the field, often widely
separated. Many years ago the noted judge Jean-Claude Balu made a point that
bears repeating: it is the judge's responsibility to score according to what he actually
sees and hears, that while he will on occasion know or suspect that something has
occurred when his vision was blocked or his attention diverted he must not deduct
points. It is important that those in the audience be aware of this distinction. (God
forbid that in this day of instant replay anyone suggest that we interrupt the flow of
the trial for a review of the judge's decision, especially one initiated by a disgruntled
handler.) The necessity of giving a critique and announcing scores immediately after
the exercise puts an element of pressure on a judge, as there is no such thing as
having a ring steward post the scores and being long gone before anyone knows
what went down.

Temperament or Character Testing

Ongoing training and testing of each generation, in which aggregate working
effectiveness is enhanced as dogs found wanting are discarded from breeding, is the
engine which drives the working dog world. In the police dog trainability, the
willingness to cooperate, to take pleasure in working with his leader, is essential, as
important as aggression, fighting drive and olfactory prowess. Initial and ongoing
training is a substantial component of overall deployment cost, and the willing dog
who takes joy in his training rather than rendering only sullen, passive compliance
requires less training effort and time and thus less ongoing cost. More willing dogs
are by their nature under better handler control and thus less inclined to
inappropriate aggression, with the associated liability vulnerability.
Furthermore, the inherently willing dog, with sufficient drive, is much less likely
to be discarded from a training program, with a substantial waste of time and
money, than the aggressive but difficult dog which ultimately has to be dropped after
extensive training. These are serious considerations for the amateur trainer, but are
even more critical issues for police and military agencies where cost effectiveness is
the prerequisite for long-term viability of canine deployment programs. This does not
imply soft dogs for marginal handlers, but rather hard, aggressive dogs which can be
effectively molded through training for reliability as well as effective work in capable
hands. On the other hand, many police handler candidates will not be easily capable
of dealing with extremely aggressive and difficult dogs that the exceptional
experienced trainer might be able to deal with; there is a fundamental need for
mainstream dogs in the sweet spot of the balance among aggression, trainability and
willingness.
Training dogs, especially breeding and show stock which will never actually work,
is time consuming. Training good dogs is generally pleasant and rewarding, but
training mediocre, reluctant dogs soon becomes drudgery, and sometimes reveals
what you do not want to know, inadequacies in the dog which should eliminate him
from a breeding program. The obvious solution, and the way the system is supposed
to work, is to breed stronger and more willing dogs. But conformation oriented
breeders tend to keep many dogs and do not want to put forth the effort to train
them, or to eliminate for character defects revealed under training dogs which
otherwise have the potential to be show winners. Conformation exhibition is
extremely competitive, and breeders which attempt to have balanced programs,

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under slogans such as "the golden middle," are often unable to compete with
breeders with large operations which simply ignore character unless it interferes with
show ring performance. Even character flaws such as spookiness which would be a
detriment in a simple companion home are brushed aside because most of these
dogs spend a dreary life in a kennel run.
Essentially it comes down to a marketing problem: people in general buy a
Doberman or Rottweiler based on the police or protection dog image, imagining that
their families will become more secure and especially that they will feel, and be
perceived as, more virile and manly as the proud owner of a police breed dog.
In response to these needs and desires many conformation oriented
organizations, in Europe as well as America, devise and promote so called character
or temperament tests intended to certify totally untrained dogs. As we shall see,
there are several reasons why such tests are patently absurd, not the least of which
is that trainability, in and of itself, is an important component of correct character,
and trainability obviously cannot be demonstrated without actually training the dog
and demonstrating the results in a credible public forum.
Almost from the beginning breeders of the police breeds, particularly the German
Shepherds, began to split into those primarily focused on producing dogs actually
capable of police, military and high level civilian and sport work and those interested
in success as conformation show breeders, selling most of their pups, increasingly
weak in character, to the indiscriminate companion market. Those focused on the
commercial companion market, the pet sellers, know very well that what they are
selling is the image of the robust police dog, the aura of working character, just as
those seeking an automobile sometimes desire the aura of racetrack excitement
even though they drive only on mundane local errands. They further know that
selecting and training real police level dogs interferes with selection for the
conformation win, a problem that only becomes more difficult as show fashions
require increasingly grotesque physical form and gait, as witness current German
Shepherd show lines in Europe as well as America.
Thus over time the show breeders found that their weaker and less trainable
dogs were less and less in demand by deploying agencies and serious amateur
trainers, with the result that the breeder's customer base became increasingly tilted
to companion owners that could not really tell the difference and were less able to
manage the more intense dogs. Training unwilling breeding stock for the trial field
became more onerous and time consuming, and being competitive in the show ring
increasingly required retaining dogs in the program which are inadequate for work,
and pass this on in their progeny.
It is thus the natural desire of the show breeder for a simple certification process,
not involving any real work or effort, and not likely to disqualify their breeding and
show stock, sort of a mass production universal verification process. The SV solution
has been the subversion of the trial itself through less stringent rules, more lenient
judges and home field or quasi-private special trials. This was possible because the
conformation elite of the SV was in real control of the Schutzhund trial, that is able
to established the rules, designate judges and condone ever increasing leniency. This
was an option not as easily available in other nations or other breeds.
As an alternative the so-called character test has been extensively promoted and
deployed. Such tests are based on the premise that training is actually unnecessary,
and is in fact an impediment to effective breeding selection. The thesis is that by
devising clever tests for the natural or untrained response we can see the true
nature and potential, unhindered by human manipulation, thus gaining a more
accurate insight as well as avoiding the time, cost and effort of training. In this view
of the canine world, training serves to unnaturally conceal and cover over the
essence of the dog. Various temperament or character tests have been proposed and

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implemented for these purposes, often under the auspices of conformation oriented
national breed clubs.
There is a tiny grain of truth here, for all trials are and always will be imperfect, it
is possible that a combination of clever training, a cozy home trial field, a less than
ruthlessly diligent judge and a simple lucky day can get a dog – sometimes a very
seriously inadequate dog – through the trial, perhaps even with an impressive score.
It cannot be said too many times, a title is not an absolute proof of inherent quality.
But there are larger and more pertinent truths. It is impossible to create a
system for testing untrained dogs because they will not be untrained, owners will
extensively prepare for the tests, know the weaknesses of their dogs and the
expectations of the testers, and acclimate them. Rather than a test for untrained
dogs it will become an emasculated pseudo trial, a self-defeating charade. This is
precisely what the currently implemented systems have become.
At the heart of the matter, dogs are useful because they are trainable, that is,
willing to respond to the needs and commands of the handler and thus bring the
physical and moral aspects of the dog – his power, his quickness, his olfactory
prowess – into harmonious partnership and service. The responsiveness to command
and training is especially important to the police canine team, where any break down
in discipline can result in injury or the loss of life to innocent civilians as well as
criminals and police personnel.
Much of this cooperation and control is the consequence of environment, a sound
upbringing with appropriate socialization and effective, timely training. But working
willingness is in fundamental ways genetic, inherent in the dog, the consequence of
generations of selective breeding. This underlying genetic predisposition to
cooperation and trainability is fundamental, and can only be verified through the
actual training and testing process.
The idea that it is possible to evaluate a dog for breeding or service without
hands on validation of his trainability, his inherent willingness to be a partner, is an
absurdity only the most naïve or disingenuous could put forth. Unfortunately, people
profoundly ignorant of the real process of canine deployment and training become
conformation oriented breeders, officers in canine organizations, conformation
judges and in general those in control of the canine establishment.
If the canine working trials are imperfect, as they are and always will be, the
solution is not to contrive superficial tests for untrained dogs, but rather to
incessantly work to improve trial procedures, require more advanced titles at
regional trial fields and move the selection of judges into the hands of regional
officials rather than local club officers. No baseball team, after all, expects to select,
hire and pay their own umpires. No football team – in the European meaning –
expects to bring their own referee to issue yellow cards to irksome opponents.
Furthermore, because it imposes compulsion the training process exerts
psychological pressure on the dog. Since this pressure is likely to be greater under
the stress of deployment, where the consequences of a breakdown in discipline can
be very serious, the resilience of the dog during training pressure is in and of itself
an important factor in service worthiness. The decision to continue or discard the dog
under training is an ongoing process; every trainer will dismiss candidates because
of observation and contrived tests in order to make as good a selection as possible
before investing further time and effort. And it is true that mistakes are made, for it
is not uncommon to select a dog and yet in the future discard him when he is
revealed as inadequate under the pressure of training. Indeed, for this reason, the
trainer will typically give the benefit of the doubt to the questionable dog for this
very reason, so as not to make a mistake and bypass a good dog. And no doubt dogs
who under some trainer, some place, sometime could have evolved into excellent
workers are discarded and lost; such is the nature of life.

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 But the fundamental fact remains that canine excellence is proven only in the
crucible of training, and that projections or evaluations of untrained dogs are mere
speculation. The most courageous and hard dog in the world, capable of the most
impressive olfactory feats in search and tracking, agile, swift and powerful, is useless
if that dog cannot be molded into an effective, obedient working partner.
The unwilling dog is a useless dog, and no dog who has not demonstrated
cooperation in training is of fundamental use. Making breeding decisions on
untrained dogs, to speculate that they have the potential for police style service, is
akin to having untrained people picked at random on the street operate to see if they
are potential surgeons.
An intrinsic problem with these character tests is that they inevitably wind up
being conducted by the show-oriented breeders who control the national clubs and
others under their direct influence and control. Inexorably, standards are lowered
and ongoing weaknesses in the show lines are dealt with not by selection in breeding
but by lowered expectations and ever more lenient evaluation criteria. The
weaknesses are simply swept under the rug and ignored.
As an example, in such tests the dog is generally required to engage the helper
wearing the padded bite suit as a verification of courage and defensive potential. But
it is often a sham. On one occasion I was present in Belgium when the well-known
Bouvier des Flandres breeder Felix Grulois presented a bitch which exhibited marked
avoidance of the helper, even though he averted his gaze and showed great
weakness so as to encourage a response. Finally, Grulois just picked her up, touched
her to the suit and she was passed, became certified. Nobody seemed to notice, it
was just more business as usual. These tests degenerate because when you strip
away the pretense and propaganda they are just taking turns certifying each other’s
dogs. None of them have any real concern about character, they just want show ring
glory and to quickly sell puppies for the best possible price.
Temperament testing has not been limited to Europe. In America Alfons Ertelt
founded the American Temperament Test Society in 1977. Within a very few years,
Ertelt was estranged from the organization, which was converted by the new officers
into a closely held for profit organization of much diminished stature and reputation.
As a private organization there is very little public information or transparency, no
listing of officers, temperament testers with their qualifications or any other pertinent
information. I was briefly involved in the early years and believe that Ertelt was an
honest and sincere man who viewed temperament testing as a means to an end, the
evolution of Schutzhund or other more serious, performance based tests. At any
rate, the organization has long outlived its validity and usefulness and the world
would be a better place if the ATTS just faded away. Unfortunately, Mr. Ertelt was
killed in an industrial accident in 1983.

Schutzhund Commentaries
In the beginning, the advent of our Schutzhund enthusiasm, we had the perfectly
natural tendency to idealize all things European, especially German, and even more
especially the German Shepherd establishment, the SV, the legacy of von
Stephanitz. In time familiarity began to breed a more realistic view of the Euro
scene, one with bad people as well as good, those with the normal human failings of
greed, sloth and false pride as well as inspiring breeders and trainers faithfully
carrying on the heritage one dog at a time. That there are all sorts breeding working
dogs for money, pet sales and dog show trinkets as well as the perpetuation and
evolution of the working legacy.
All of this could be attributed to a certain natural element of naiveté, except for
one thing: the realization that the Schutzhund trial itself was systematically being

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compromised by the SV, that there are private trials, outside of the public purview,
available only to favored people, where titles are routinely awarded to unworthy
dogs, usually those destined for the conformation ring or export.
My first inkling of this surfaced in the 1980s when reliable people, primarily
involved in American GSD conformation competition, were reporting supposedly
Schutzhund titled Shepherds which failed to respond to a thrown dumbbell, were gun
shy or otherwise obviously seriously deficient, incapable of passing an honest trial.
The American show mentality has always been willing to embrace any dog which
could win, regarded the soft or gun insecure German import as an opportunity to
acquire a dog otherwise unavailable or much more expensive. It became apparent
that there were Germans willing and able to accommodate them, but at the time it
seemed likely that this was an aberration, a few people who had somehow
discovered a crack in the system, that the export process could somehow be made to
conceal the ruse, that in time it would be discovered and corrected. Little did we
know.
Denial was for most of us the natural response, a deep seated reluctance to see
the truth. But in time it could no longer be denied, there really were and are trials
provided for the insiders as a means of titling weak or inadequate dogs, or simply to
save the time and effort of training, and as a means of enhancing the value of dogs
being exported as breeding and show stock. Americans and conformation oriented
people in other nations also routinely send dogs to Germany to obtain a title, likely in
many instances through these special trials. Sometimes the dog does not even need
to step on the field, the paper work somehow working its way through the system
without a trial actually having taken place, as if by magic. (Sometimes it is difficult to
tell magic from money.)
It must be noted that deception and deceit are not unique to the Germans or the
world of conformation, are melancholy but ubiquitous elements of the human
condition. As examples, registration papers for "undocumented" KNPV dogs can
routinely be conjured out of thin air and a tinge of favoritism sometimes touches
high level working trials. What is unique about these special trials is that the
corruption is systemic, that the senior SV leadership abets, condones and profits
from this, and has for at least thirty years.
Although motivations are complex and obscure, the copious flow of foreign
money, especially American money, has clearly played its part in all of this. The
rationale is apparently that one should be free to falsify titles or records on dogs for
export, that Americans are vulgar and clueless and thus undeserving, that when they
are unable to tell a good dog from a bad dog it is a waste to send them a good dog,
which would just disappear into the morass.
Part of the problem is structural, in that other than championship events IPO
trials are generally run by a local club, even a private club, as a virtually closed affair
where they can and do select their own judge and the trial takes place on the home
training field with decoys selected by the club rather than assigned by a higher
authority. Where else in life can one select, pay and reward his own judge? Often
there have been obscure and unpublished times and locations, making these
essentially private trials rather than transparent events, open to scrutiny by the
community at large. DVG judges were routinely doing this in the 1980s, particularly
in Florida. At the local trial, the judge is all-powerful in his small world. Particularly in
the 1980s and early 90s, prior to the common use of video recording, the judge at
an American trial was beyond scrutiny, could do whatever he wanted to do. It turned
out that some of them wanted to do some remarkable things.
Although the social and sporting aspects of the Schutzhund program became
enormously popular, a pleasant way of life for many, the fundamental rationale was
always that the dogs doing the best in the trials, and thus preferred for breeding,

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should be those with the highest potential as actual police or military dogs. Over
time this has been seriously compromised, and more so in Schutzhund than the
other European venues.
Many regard the Schutzhund style of tracking as done today to be artificial and
contrived; more of an obedience exercise than a demonstration of the dog's olfactory
prowess. In actual service the dog is permitted and expected to apply his aggregate
search capability adaptively – using sight, sound and air scent as well as ground
disturbance – according to his instincts and experience and the opportunities of the
actual search. The object in reality is to find persons and objects or other evidence,
and stepping off the track to inspect a possibly dropped object is part of the process
rather than a defect to be penalized. But any deviation from the formal nose in each
footprint track is penalized in the Schutzhund trial. In similar ways, the obedience
and protection phases have evolved with less and less relevance to actual work, with
emphasis on style in obedience and increasingly less real pressure in the protection.
This tension between fostering effective and adaptive application of the potential
of the dog, according to his natural way of working, and the increasingly stylized and
artificial requirements of sport competition is among the most serious and important
issues in the working dog community today. Dogs are increasingly bred according to
artificial, unnatural tracking styles and for rote obedience in exercises that less and
less reflect real world working scenarios such as a police dog would face in his work.
Under the pressure of the German show breeders and other elements the protection
work has been watered down both in the formal rules, where the old reed stick, the
attack on the handler and the original courage test are gone, and in the double
standard of judging where special, less rigorous, trials for the show dogs are not only
permitted but encouraged and condoned. The most slavishly obedient dog, or the
most stylishly prancing dog, is not necessarily the best dog.
Although my history has been in Schutzhund for more than thirty years, and I
still believe in the old style program, it must be reported that it has become
incessantly less rigorous and demanding. The rules have been continually relaxed in
a number of ways: the substitution of the A frame for the scaling wall, the
introduction of the padded stick, the elimination of the attack on the handler and the
severe shortening of the long pursuit, formerly the test of courage. Over these years,
no feature to prove the mettle of better dogs and training, such as a call off in the
long pursuit or variations in the order and details of the obedience routines on a trial
by trial basis, have been introduced or seriously considered. Popularity and
accommodations for increasingly marginal dogs always win out over innovations for
more stringent breeding and service selection. Most importantly the incessantly
weakening rules and especially the lenient trials for show line German Shepherds
have greatly reduced the credibility of the Schutzhund title, which after all can be no
greater than the weakest performance by the most docile IPO titled show dog, a very
low standard indeed.
The Schutzhund program, and the vitality of many police breeds, has been in
serious decline over the past twenty years, as evidenced by European and American
yearly puppy registrations, which have declined by half or more. The essence of the
problem is that most of these dogs are destined for civilian homes, and most of the
money has come from these sales and services rather than police or military
applications. The Belgian Malinois is the noteworthy exception.
Military and police procurement is increasingly going to programs and breeds
outside of the historical Schutzhund world, such as Malinois from KNPV or NVBK
backgrounds. Watering down Schutzhund and transforming it to the more politically
correct IPO ultimately depreciates the value of these dogs in the public mind, for the
whole point for many civilian owners has always been the enhancement of their
personal sense of vitality and masculinity through the ownership of a "real" police

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dog. You can famously fool all of the people some of the time and some of the
people all of the time, but increasingly the public at large is coming to see the IPO
breeding lines as counterfeit police dogs and taking their money elsewhere.
In the earlier years in America, when the AKC establishment became hysterical at
the mere thought of biting dogs, there were reservations in many minds about
protection training of dogs by private individuals. Although this has dissipated with
the acceptance of Schutzhund and similar sports, and the demonstrated usefulness
of police canine teams, these questions are relevant even today, for enhancing a
dog's willingness and ability to perform an effective attack on a human being is very
serious business. The prominent and well publicized service of our military dogs
throughout the long and difficult Middle East engagements subsequent to the 9/11
atrocity, the increasing success and publicity of police patrol dogs, especially in drug
and explosive detection, and a strong history of responsibility and good public
relations by protection sport trainers have largely put such concerns behind us.

The Ringers
Although it was German dogs and the Schutzhund trial that became the focus of
American attention in the 1970s, in the early years the Belgians were pioneers:
arguably training and deploying the first police dogs and then holding the earlier Ring
trials. The Dutch and French were not far behind. Well before Schutzhund titles
began appearing in German pedigrees like-minded Belgians and Dutchmen were
busy creating their own trial systems, including KNPV and the various national Ring
Sport venues.
Their distinctive feature of these venues was the use of the full body suit, with
the bite surfaces integral to the jacket and pants, as opposed to the separate
forearm sleeve. But there were also significant differences in equipment, philosophy,
trial procedures and training methodology. The reasons for these distinct national
programs, rather than unity, was separation due to language and culture, the
difficulty of travel, especially with dogs prior to the common ownership of
automobiles and other modern means of transportation and communication. As
regional and national cultural barriers diminished in the 1970s there was an
emerging interest in international competition and a German movement to promote
their programs and breeds elsewhere in Europe and overseas, which tended to
create some push back and conflict, as does all change. These conflicts are ongoing,
even if often below the surface.
The Dutch police trials (KNPV), which commenced in 1907, are an arduous,
comprehensive daylong sequence of exercises, beginning with water retrieval and
obedience in the morning and a sequence of protection exercises in the afternoon.
The Dutch suit was historically relatively bulky and heavy, rendering the helper less
mobile than in other programs. Newer, innovative suit materials and fabrication
methods have enhanced the flexibility and utility of the Dutch suits, but this program
has never emphasized decoy mobility the way the French Ring has in the modern
era. The Dutch police trainers have tended to be traditional and conservative, which
has done much to maintain hard-core, old style demands on dogs and trainers. Their
protection exercises emphasize long-distance engagements, and hard impacts in the
bites, but modest mobility or evasiveness on the part of the helper. The KNPV trial
typically uses a large area, with the water work in the morning at a separate
location. With three judges, the obedience and search exercises can go on
concurrently, each judge handling the various separate exercises such as the coin
search, guard of object and bicycle exercises.
The Belgian Ring suit is similar to the Dutch suit, that is, relatively bulky with a
separate bite jacket and maintaining the original configuration. But the trial itself is
significantly different from KNPV in that it is conducted on a small, compact field

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using a single judge and decoy. Although the Belgians emphasize the full grip in the
bite their rules and procedures allow the judge and decoy a certain amount of
latitude in adjusting the details of the various exercises so that the dog and his
handler will see variations on trial day. In the protection and object guard exercises,
there are different distractions such as rolling barrels or thrown buckets of water to
test the reaction of the dog to the unexpected in order to verify confidence and
stability.
The French Ring Sport was originally more similar to the Belgian, and their suits
were also relatively bulky, stiff and heavy because of available materials and the
evolution of training methods. Beginning in the 1970s the French began the
aggressive utilization of modern materials such as ballistic nylon to produce light,
flexible suits allowing greater speed and elusiveness in the decoy. This revolutionized
training and especially the trials, where the decoys employ lighter trial suits to
become even more agile and elusive.
While the KNPV helper is engaged from great distance and is very aggressive
with the stick, and the Belgian helper presents unexpected challenges at each trial,
today the French decoy is expected to, within rigid rules, evade the dog and take
away as many points as possible, again within specific limitations. Where the
Schutzhund decoy is expected to make a consistent sleeve presentation to all dogs
the French Ring decoy is expected to do the exact opposite, evade the dog and trick
him into missing his bite. This puts the emphasis on quick, agile, confident dogs and
enhances the trial as an entertainment event for the spectators. Trainers adapted to
evading decoys by teaching their dogs to go exclusively to the lower body, the legs
and thighs, creating a virtually new trial format.
Debate about the practical relevance of these systems is ongoing, one point of
view being that real world criminals generally do not approach the dog directly and
offer their arm in a stylized manner, and on the other hand a dog missing a bite but
persisting is especially effective, allowing the police handler to approach casually,
perhaps enjoy a cigarette while the dog and suspect dance, and simply apprehend
the man when he becomes exhausted. No actual bite? Less likelihood of a court
seeing inappropriate force in the apprehension.
The German Shepherd had historically, before the 1970s, been the predominant
competitor in French Ring, but this new style was ideal for the smaller, quicker, more
agile Belgian Malinois, which by the 1980s was becoming the predominant
championship level competitor. Malinois domination is today so complete that at the
Cup of France the thirty or so finalists, almost always all Malinois, are joined by a
token dog of another breed, selected on a competitive basis but not competing
directly with the Malinois.
Although Schutzhund and IPO have been discussed in detail here, the details of
the KNPV trial and French and Belgian Ring are covered in corresponding detail in the
chapters on Holland, Belgium and France.

War, Politics, Commerce and History

From the middle 1800s through WWII European history focused on the ongoing
conflict between the German peoples, merging into nationhood, and the more
established national cultures to the west, especially the French. The armed conflicts
of this era – with technical innovations such as the repeating rifle, the machine gun,
trench warfare and widespread use of poison gas – took war to new levels of
devastation and brutality, decimating civilian populations as never before. Although
Germany lost these wars in the formal sense – no German soil was ever actually
occupied during or immediately after WWI – Belgium and northern France were

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subjected to brutal occupation, with enormous devastation inflicted on all aspects of
civilian and economic life.
This is relevant in a book about police dogs for several reasons. First the Belgian
police canine service and breeding program, of worldwide influence prior to WWI,
was decimated as part of the general destruction of the Belgian social fabric and
governmental infrastructure. Decades old breeding programs evaporated; full
recovery would take most of a century.
In a more general sense the police canine evolved at the epicenter of incessant
European conflict. Although the two major world wars are the focus for this, most of
the twentieth century, through the 1950s, was a period of intense conflict and often
hardship, with enormous consequences for canine affairs. My older readers,
especially the Europeans, having lived through it, are fully aware of this; but younger
readers need this general context in order to understand the evolution of these
police breeds, the service heritage and especially current ongoing conflicts, with deep
roots in this tumultuous history.
In WWII the German occupation of France, the Netherlands and Belgium was
brutal beyond any purpose of war, focused on inflicting social change by eradicating
Jews and other minority groups and making the rest of Europe permanently servile
to the Third Reich, establishing a new order in Europe with the Germans established
as the master race.1 Although Germany surrendered and was occupied at the end –
and the Soviet Union devastated eastern areas and held them captive for two
generations – combat operations on German soil took place only in the final months.
Allied post war occupation in western Germany was remarkably benevolent relative
to that which had been inflicted on Holland, Belgium and northern France, where
brutally enforced labor in German war industries and widespread civilian starvation
had gone on for five devastating years, rending the social fabric.
Long lasting and deeply entrenched antagonisms were the preordained
consequence of this tragic history, and became factors in canine affairs as well as
other aspects of social intercourse, such as economics, politics and commerce.
Although much of the angst and anger has been swept under the carpet in the push
for European economic and political unity, the smoldering anger of the victims was
not so easily abated. Several of the older Bouvier pioneers I came to know carried
deep, bitter resentment of all things German to their grave. Today these wounds are
healing, are passing from the realm of personal experience into history; but it
remains essential to grasp this wretched history in order to fully comprehend
working dog evolution and ongoing realities and conflicts.
While Schutzhund was emerging as the predominant working program for the
police style breeds in Germany – and increasingly on the international scene – the
suit or ring sports of Belgium, France and the Netherlands gained little or no
influence beyond national borders. This has been the source of some residual
resentment of German domination and success, particularly in nations with historical
animosity toward Germany, such as France and especially Belgium, as a
consequence of the two world wars. Some of this resentment was based on the
ongoing popularity of German breeds in these countries among the general
population, especially in France where indigenous national breeds withered on the
vine. While the German police breeds were conquering the world, the Beaucerons
1
Any American retaining a sense of moral superiority need only to reflect on our struggles
to ameliorate the ongoing consequences of slavery and the fate of the American Indians,
especially the Cherokee Nation, to know that all cultures, nations and races have things
meriting shame; this is the human condition.

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and Picardy Shepherds were much less popular than these German breeds even in
France itself.
Significant factors in this German predominance most certainly included general
German economic vitality and emerging national dominance in the critical time
period and most especially the effective promotional and publicity program of the
GSD establishment. Max von Stephanitz was a public relations genius, an
enormously effective leader and marketing strategist.
But the primary reasons that the Belgian, French and Dutch working canine
communities failed to establish a presence beyond their homelands were internal,
had to do with inherently more inward looking cultures. KNPV in particular
maintained its Dutch identity, and attempts to create programs in other nations,
especially America, were primarily driven by external enthusiasts, with only reluctant
and halfhearted Dutch support. Belgian NVBK efforts were on the whole much too
little and too late, and being outside of the FCI establishment much more difficult to
implement.
France had always been a relatively prosperous nation, with less economic and
cultural incentive for her citizens to seek emigration or foreign economic opportunity;
thus there was no large American base of recent French immigrants to promote the
interests of homeland canine communities. As a nation the French, more agricultural
than Germany, never seemed to be especially interested in propagating their culture
or commercial interests beyond their borders, and this mind set carried over into
canine affairs. As mentioned, the lack of popular indigenous police oriented national
breeds, such as the German or Belgian Shepherds, to promote and exploit
contributed to this general lack of French enthusiasm for foreign engagement.
The emergence of IPO under FCI auspices as the predominant international
working venue, diminishing the formal German dominance through the Schutzhund
program, has profound implications. The pussification of the SV, with real control
increasingly in the commercial hands of GSD show breeders, had in later years
diminished the rigor and credibility of the Schutzhund trial as a realistic gauge of
police patrol dog potential. But in spite of these negative aspects of German
dominance, FCI control has not been in any sense an improvement, for it has
resulted in an incessant further lessening of the physical and psychological challenge
to the dog and increasing emphasis on civilian sensitivities, political correctness and
fine points of obedience style irrelevant to real world police work. Control of serious
working dog affairs by a pet and show establishment is never destined to end well.
Max von Stephanitz, the master of promotion and public relations, was without
doubt the driving force behind the German Shepherd expansion on every front. This
was primarily within Germany in the early years, prior to WWI, but became an
international juggernaut after the war, continuing until his passing in the middle
1930s. Shortly thereafter the juggernaut faltered badly as the lead up to war under
the Nazi regime brought German canine expansion to an abrupt halt. In America
German Shepherd popularity plummeted.
The 1940s, WWII and the aftermath, were a time of general stagnation in canine
affairs. Since international travel had been by ship, slow and expensive, until well
into the 1960s the primary emphasis had been on exporting dogs for conformation
competition and breeding. Serious efforts to promote German control in foreign lands
through the introduction of their training and evaluation systems had not been a
realistic option; difficulty in communications and time-consuming travel prevented
serious efforts at meddling in foreign canine internal affairs. Relatively low levels of
English proficiency in that era, especially among the working class men who were the
typical trainers, had also impeded international intercourse.
This began to change in the 1970s. The Germans, particularly the SV, began to
expand their horizons, sought to promote not only their dogs but also their

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administrative structures – their political and economic power – and trial venues in
other nations, especially America. The advent of ever more affordable international
air travel meant that they could more easily extend their influence beyond their
European neighbors, to America and other more distant regions. The primary formal
mechanism for this was the evolution of the World Union (WUSV), where national
German Shepherd clubs throughout the world were encouraged to look to the
Germans for leadership, guidance and competitive venues. Directly or indirectly they
encouraged trainers in neighboring nations to forgo their national venues, such as
the ring sports, to take up the practice of Schutzhund or IPO as the preferred sport
and trial system, with the intention of making it the standard throughout the world.
This has to a significant extent been successful, but has also created a certain
amount of push back, particularly among more senior trainers and breeders, in
nations where prior German invasions had been military rather than economic and
political.
This new sell was a package deal, promoting the Shepherd and German financial
interests went hand in hand with promoting Schutzhund – from the 1970s forward
an ever-increasing army of SV judges marched out of Germany each year to do just
that. Each judge and trainer was also a salesman and missionary for the German
way. As a consequence today most European and North American nations – including
the Netherlands, Belgium and even France, the bastions of the suit sports – have
significant communities of IPO trainers and high-level representation at the various
international IPO championship events.
A decade after the advent of the American Schutzhund movement, in the 1980s,
there was a serious effort to introduce the French Ring Sport to America. There was
a lot of enthusiasm – and an unfortunate bit of Schutzhund bashing, mostly by those
floundering in that venue. After the initial wave of enthusiasm, and the usual political
bickering, French Ring settled down to about a hundred national enthusiasts, two per
state on average, and perhaps ten or twenty different teams competing yearly.
The intervening years have seen the attempted introduction, successful and
mostly otherwise, of Mondio Ring, Belgian Ring, KNPV and a series of American
invented venues, most of which have drawn away French Ring enthusiasts looking
for yet another brave and exciting new world rather than bringing in new people.
Thus this has not generally been growth but rather the same small band of
enthusiasts, perpetually splintering into diverging clans; after thirty years these suit
venues still only involve a few dozen resilient advocates while Schutzhund is an order
of magnitude or even more larger in terms of clubs, trials and participation. On a
positive note, the earlier tendency of the suit sport advocates to incessantly
disparage Schutzhund or sleeve style training has for the most part abated,
reflecting more maturity as people tend to focus on their own training programs.
Visions of involving breeds beyond the Malinois has faded, as sooner or later the vast
majority of those who persist in the long term go to the right sports equipment and
acquire a Malinois with a ring background, either a French import or a young dog out
of import stock. (Dutch Shepherds have also had increasing popularity.)
While the Germans have relentlessly promoted their breeds and their sports, the
French, with no numerically significant breeds of their own, have been ambivalent,
made sporadic and only halfhearted attempts at some sort of International Ring but
with no real commitment. Even in the Euro canine political arena the French have
faltered, where at one time French Ring was internationally recognized and allowed
ring titled dogs access to the working class at FCI conformation shows, this is no
longer the case. Because of its strong ties to the Dutch police services, KNPV has
never really aspired to any sort of international expansion beyond the selling of dogs.
Several groups of Americans have attempted to create some sort of KNPV
organization, but these have all faltered. The Belgian NVBK efforts have been
halfhearted and markedly amateurish.

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 The only real fly in this German ointment has been the success of the Malinois,
which in the 1990s began sneaking in and enjoying a nice German lunch at more and
more international Schutzhund and IPO competitions. The emerging predominance of
Schutzhund, being converted to IPO on the fly, has highlighted the underlying flaws.
The fundamental problem with this Schutzhund surge is that it has fallen under the
control of the pet and show oriented establishment, especially the hierarchy of the
SV, and thus become enmeshed in their corrupt and increasingly commercialized
world.
The primary marketing strategy has always been to use the police dog aura to
provide dogs artificially enhancing the sense of personal vigor and manliness. The
problem has been that generally these shallow, status-seeking customers tend to be
inadequate to deal with the real thing, quite naturally leading to emasculated
breeding lines and trial procedures. Thus the trend has been to compromise trial
rules, procedures and judging to favor the weaker, more compliant dog. This has put
breeding and selection increasingly under the control of show dog dilettantes with
little commitment to serious police style dogs. The most egregious offender in all of
this has been the SV.

The American Experience

Across northern Europe the emergence of the formal police breeds went hand in
hand with the evolution of the police dog trial, which was essential for ongoing
breeding selection and as a means of evolving and perfecting training doctrine and
practice. The police dog role emerged in the social mainstream, and vigorous
protection components to these trials were accepted as a matter of course, as
generally necessary and unremarkable.
American culture – under British influence – was fundamentally hostile to actual
working dogs: protection applications especially were disparaged as low class and of
questionable propriety, most certainly not something the respectable person would
want to become associated with. Thus even though the European police breeds such
as the German Shepherd and the Malinois were created and maintained through
working trials, including vigorous protection exercises, in America the AKC never
allowed performance requirements for breeding or the conduct of such trials by their
breed clubs, nationally or locally, either as sporting events or as the prerequisite for
breeding and registration.1 Yet, in the spirit of the forbidden fruit, police style dogs
were enormously attractive to a wide and diverse segment of the American
population, as illustrated in the enormous surge in popularity of the German
Shepherd following WWI.
As a consequence of this dichotomy the typical American breeder, marketing his
dogs on the basis of their implied robust police persona, of necessity became the
consummate salesman: when questioned as to whether their Shepherds or
Dobermans had the potential for protection or police work they were somehow able
to calmly and with a straight face claim that of course their dogs could be fearless
defenders or exemplary police dogs, it was just a matter of a little training; which, of
course, they never did quite get around to actually doing. The truth is that most of
them had little or no idea what the original working dogs behind their watered down
lines were capable of, for breeding such dogs without selection based on
performance rapidly degenerates into passive, soft dogs, particularly when they
1
Shortly after the year 2000 the AKC began to realize that police style working trials and
breeding were becoming well established, and began to relent, to seek to control and
profit from what they could not prevent.

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discard breeding stock a little difficult to manage or which produced pups coming
back as too much to handle.
For many years there was a small cadre engaged in informal protection work and
self-styled guard dog training, often with a drop off junkyard style protection dog
service, and sporadic police department programs quite often dying out within a few
years. But there were among us those with a sense of something missing, the desire
for better understanding and a more sophisticated approach. Thus a serious interest
in the training, trialing and breeding began to gain critical mass in America in the
1970’s, largely because of a growing interest in the Schutzhund trial. The Germans
stood ready to help, for the enormous popularity of their protective breeds provided
a natural outlet for the desire of individuals and breed communities in expanding
influence and sales overseas. In addition there were significant numbers of Germans
and people with a German heritage from neighboring lands, such as Czechoslovakia,
in America, many having emigrated in the years after WWII, with personal
knowledge of European ways, European contacts and the desire to recreate elements
of this working culture in America.
Gernot Riedel (1931-1991) was the self-proclaimed father of American
Schutzhund, and there is little doubt that he was correct, or that he was a man of
very little false modesty. Mr. Riedel was born in Karlsbad, Czechoslovakia where he
began training Bavarian border police dogs in 1946 for the American military. He was
an active German Shepherd breeder and trainer, emigrating to the United States in
1955, settling in San Jose, California. (Riedel, 1982) By all accounts, including his
own, he was an outspoken and aggressive man who seldom bothered to look before
making a leap, characteristics not especially unusual in a founder.
In 1958 Riedel was instrumental in the
founding of the Peninsula Police Canine Corps,
which was a group of bay area police trainers
destined to become the oldest still existent
American Schutzhund club. Riedel, who had
family in Germany involved in German
Shepherd affairs, was active in procuring
European dogs and the introduction of their
training methods. From the beginning the focus
had been on police training, but in 1971 there
was a transition as Riedel put the emphasis on
Schutzhund, bringing over the first German
judge. Most of the police department trainers
wanted to go on in the old way, and there was a
split, with the word police being dropped from
the name to reflect the new reality. In a 1982
Dog Sports magazine interview, Riedel was
sharply critical of the departing police trainers,
Gernot Riedel. characterizing them as not interested in control,
reliable outs, tracking or the other aspects of
police service, but only in biting dogs. (Riedel, 1982)
In retrospect, this split in a seemingly minor training group was of enormous
symbolic importance, for the separation of police canine activities from Schutzhund
and other civilian training into two worlds more than anything else has retarded
progress in America, predestined us to be second rate in breeding, training and
especially police deployment even to this day.
Dr. Herbert Preiser in the Chicago area founded the Northern Illinois Schutzhund
Club about 1969 and also a short-lived National Schutzhund Association. Preiser was
instrumental in calling a meeting in Illinois in 1970 with the purpose of exploring

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national level organizations, which bore fruit in the next year. We, my wife Kathy
and I, were members at Northern Illinois in the early 1980s, although by that time
Preiser had become estranged from the group. We have fond memories of working
with people such as Betty Sagen and Mike Lichtwalt, true pioneers in the sport,
before the commercialization of recent years. I suppose everybody thinks in terms of
the good old days as they become older, but I wish there were still places where
young people with limited financial resources could be introduced into the working
sports in such a congenial environment.
In 1971 Alfons Ertelt, Kurt Marti and a few others launched the North American
Schutzhund Association. Although they almost immediately changed the name to the
North American Working Dog Association, the NASA abbreviation was maintained.1
NASA’s goal from the beginning was to differentiate themselves from the Europeans
and work toward mainstream acceptance, with AKC affiliation a goal of many. The
American Doberman Pincher Club was a charter NASA member and held out to
become last-ditch supporters in the end. NASA was a purely American organization
with no links to or affiliation with any European entity. They created their own set of
rules and certified their own judges. Many felt that this was not real German
Schutzhund and that no one speaking English without a German accent could
possibly be a real working dog authority. (Schellenberg, 1985)
The real sticking point was of course commercial, for there was a strong desire by
potential German and American dog brokers to sell European titled dogs, many of
them decidedly second rate, to Americans who could thus become players and
overnight Schutzhund authorities. Ultimately the appeal of being really German was
hard to resist, and NASA withered and eventually disappeared in the 1980's.
In 1975 the German DVG established a relationship with a group led by Dr.
Dietmar Schellenberg in the New York area known as the Working Dogs of America
or WDA, not to be confused with the WDA founded as a subservient organization to
the American German Shepherd club a few years later. After a flurry of activity, this
organization also experienced difficulty and its association with the DVG authorities
in Germany came to an acrimonious end in 1979, closing another transient chapter
in American Schutzhund history. (Schellenberg, 1985)
In the early to middle 1970s, the German Shepherd Dog Club of America
(GSDCA) had begun some tentative Schutzhund activity under the leadership of
Gernot Riedel. Several clubs, including the above-mentioned Peninsula Police Canine
Corps, had become active. In 1975 the American Kennel Club cracked down hard on
such activities, forcing the GSDCA to abandon its fledgling Schutzhund program. This
precipitated a crisis, for there was growing activity and enthusiasm but a total lack of
organization or supporting infrastructure. Shortly thereafter, the people involved in
this aborted effort joined together with similar minded people in some other breeds
and struck out on their own.

USCA, the Early Years

As a direct consequence of AKC repudiation of Schutzhund, there were meetings
in California beginning in late 1975 that led to the foundation of the United
Schutzhund Clubs of America (USCA) as a specifically German Shepherd entity with
formal links to the SV, the mother club in Germany, thus providing access to German
Schutzhund judges and Schutzhund titles with international recognition.

1
Ertelt was also the founder of the American Temperament Test Society in 1977. He was
killed in an industrial accident in 1983, and both organizations subsequently floundered.

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 The fact that the words German Shepherd did not appear in the name and people
with other breeds made up a substantial portion of the membership created
confusion and strife that continues to this day. Although USCA conformation events
and breed surveys, introduced a number of years later, are for German Shepherds
only, other breeds have always participated in local training clubs, often self-styled
as all breed, and Schutzhund trials. USCA quickly became the predominant working
dog sport organization in America and within a few years was larger, and certainly
more influential, than the AKC shackled GSDCA.
For the Germans, there was the good news and then there was the bad news.
The good news was that they had become major players in American canine affairs.
Though the focus in the beginning was on the Schutzhund trials, this connection was
to be used as a wedge for German Shepherd conformation guidance in America, a
way to bring in substantial numbers of German conformation judges to provide
guidance and help, and of course to sell dogs and make money.
The bad news was that while the SV had become mother to a new organization,
they already had a petulant child in the GSDCA through their world union link with
that organization. This set the stage for struggle and strife that would go on well into
the next century as each entity, that is, the SV, USCA and the GSDCA, played one
against the other in a struggle for influence, control, power and of course money.
Overall the American Schutzhund movement has been marginally successful, but
with a decline in numbers and cohesiveness beginning as we moved into the twenty-
first century. USCA, which formally came into existence in November of 1979,
peaked out at about 5000 members about 2003 or 4, but fell of significantly to about
3500 members by 2013. (This was not uniquely a USCA phenomenon, as
organizational vigor and numbers, amateur training activity and most significantly
national puppy registrations have been falling off in Europe and America since the
mid-1990s.) The good years featured an elaborate magazine, upwards of 150 clubs
and a very strong judges program; the magazine came out on time, in a consistent
format for many years and the judging program produced excellent American judges
and an ever-increasing curve of better quality work and more consistent scoring.
Although USCA is a German Shepherd organization, all breeds were allowed to
participate in Schutzhund trials, but not breed surveys or conformation shows.
Historically about a third of the USCA membership primarily trained a breed other
than the German Shepherd, but they were living on borrowed time.
Beginning about 2005 serious problems began to emerge, with increasing SV
commercial interference, declining membership and the overhead of an increasingly
costly and overbearing bureaucracy, mostly created by the expense of the SV
mandated support of their commercial breeders. The organization was forced by the
conformation oriented SV establishment to become overtly hostile to other breeds,
which was entirely in line with their commercial marketing strategy. After a period of
relatively benign indulgence, life as a subservient German colony was becoming
increasingly onerous.
The other Schutzhund organization active in America today was a result of
political strife and a split from USCA in the early 1980s, resulting in the
establishment of LV/DVG America as an American affiliated geographic region
(Landesverband) of the DVG in Germany. Key players in the DVG foundation were
Tom Rose and Phil Hoelcher. The first DVG American championship was in the Fall of
1981. DVG America was very strong in Florida, with virtually all USCA clubs going
with the new DVG organization, loyal to a group of popular trainers and leaders,
notably Phil Hoelcher, experiencing severe differences with the USCA leadership. The
organizational support tended to be regional, with strength in St. Louis and the Los
Angeles areas in addition to Florida among other places. As of 2014 total American
DVG membership was 872.

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 This second coming of DVG operations in America, the result of a quarrel and
split among Americans, turned out in many ways to be the opportunity to be under
the thumb of a heavy handed German bureaucracy with well-established priorities:
the interests of commercially oriented German judges, the most conspicuous carpet
baggers of the era, German breeders and their own bureaucrats.
In the early years of the Schutzhund movement in America, in the 1970s and
80s, everything was new and exciting. Most of us had our beginnings in obedience of
some sort, and protection training on the part of ordinary dog owners was virtually
unknown, but an enticing prospect. The biting dogs of the era were mostly those in
nightly drop off services of area protection dogs for commercial operations such as
car dealerships and some personal protection training by commercial operations,
often run by a German. In the AKC scheme of things man aggressive dogs were
unmentionable, the forbidden fruit. Police dogs were few and far between, and their
association in the public eye was in many ways with the fire hoses and riots in the
south splashed across the evening news on national television. People expressing
interest in biting dogs were admonished, told stories of evil dogs out of control like
the scare stories used to make children behave. Even the European police style
breeds were suspect, the German Shepherd people to a large extent staying in their
own little world of specialty shows, with their own elite group of judges and handlers,
rather than the mainstream all-breed AKC shows. Within the AKC power structure
care was taken to minimize evil influences, the Rottweiler was for instance denied a
national club with its single delegate vote for years, even as it became one of the
most popular and numerous breeds in America. When the German Shepherd Dog
Club of America (GSDCA) began tentative, exploratory steps into the world of
Schutzhund, the AKC power structure cracked down hard and formalized rules
against even the most indirect link with protective dogs. In the early 1990s they
became even more adamant and explicit in their opposition to any sort of protection
activity.
In this environment, exploring the world of Schutzhund, even in the most
tentative way, was like opening a door into the sunlight. Instead of the protective
capability being the skeleton in the family closet, the original sin, it was openly an
intrinsic and necessary aspect of the canine nature and strongly aggressive dogs
were not only accepted but greatly admired.
Americans taking tentative steps into this training found that their obedience
background provided a basis for their new sport, that there were no particularly
mysterious skills to master. Those with tracking experience needed to deal with a
new and controlled style of training, where details of the dog's performance rather
than the simple finding of the object were scored; but that existing skill sets
provided a solid foundation.
The protection work, however, was a new ball game. Security style training with
the negative socialization, heavy reliance on pure defense and the pillow suit were of
no use at all, and some of the military sentry style training of the era was equally
inappropriate. Instead of fear based, non-discriminating aggression the Schutzhund
dog was required to demonstrate control and restraint as well as aggression.
Moving on up into the new era meant adapting European ways and methods, and
in that context this meant German Schutzhund style work, since the suit style work
of KNPV and the various ring flavors was virtually unknown in America. Doing
Schutzhund meant working with a few Germans resident in this country, spending
time in Germany to learn or bringing over German judges and trainers. A few
American service men took the opportunity of a tour of duty in Germany to develop
some useful dog training skills.
Many Germans, and a little later Dutchmen and Belgians, were enormously
helpful, supportive and sportsmanlike in the best meaning of the term. Most of us

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who achieved any level of success received enormous help from new European
friends. Sure, there was the occasional judge or itinerant trainer on an ego trip, a
few arrogant buffoons, and a few more who were and are primarily financially
motivated. But in the big picture most of these European trainers and judges have
been what they seemed to be, good people motivated to share their working dog
culture and training in a truly sportsmanlike way.

American Ringers
American interest in French Ring Sport began to emerge in the early 1980s, with
a wave of excitement and enthusiasm. For several years there were growing pains as
local groups conducted seminars, founded clubs, commenced training and gathered
together to form several incipient – sometimes competing – national organizations.
After several years of jockeying and maneuvering for allegiance and influence, in
1987 the various groups merged to create the North American Ring Association
(NARA), which established a formal relationship with the French authorities, provided
stable and effective administration and conducted national level affairs such as
providing a magazine, maintaining a web presence and conducting annual national
championships. In the early years most trials were conducted by French judges, and
often featured French decoys. In the same time period small but serious Mexican and
Canadian communities of French Ring enthusiasts emerged, with a generally
cooperative relationship. Programs to develop certified American helpers, and a little
later judges, as steps toward independence and cost containment were carried
forward.
French Ring in America has always been small and fragile, critical mass in terms
of widespread access to good training remaining elusive. In the early years there was
a pit jump, meaning that you had to dig a large hole in the ground, making a
dedicated trial and training field a necessity. Later the pit was replaced by an on the
flat broad jump, meaning that any open field could serve for training or a trial.
Requirements for a complete fence around the field and a high jump more elaborate,
and much less portable, than the Schutzhund "A" frame meant that equipment was
still an issue, but not as serious. The suits were and are expensive, and many
helpers use one for much of the training and another for trial purposes, adding to the
expense. The fact that the suits provide the actual bite areas rather than just
protection against inadvertent bites, and the requirement for maximum mobility,
highlights the necessity of good fit and tailoring to the individual. This has generally
minimized the practicality of suit sharing and contributed to the expense.
In 2012 there were 23 NARA member clubs and various forming clubs, some of
them perpetually in the "forming club" category somewhat overstating the actual
activity. These are United States numbers; both Mexico and Canada have their own
French Ring organizations. As a point of reference, in 2011 there were a total of 23
club level trials, all but one with an American NARA judge. Many of these trials were
back to back on consecutive days, inflating the perceived activity level. Thus many
clubs exist, sometimes for years, without actually holding a trial. There were three
championship events: a Western Regional, an Eastern Regional and a National, each
presided over by a French judge.
At the National Championship there were seven Ring III entries; the winner of
the trial was the Dutch Shepherd Sniper vom Kelterhoff handled by Jason Davis.1 The
remaining entries, all passing, were Belgian Malinois. There were seven Ring II
entries, all Malinois, and 12 Ring I entries including two German Shepherds, two
1
By winning this event, Davis became the Cup winner; the yearly domestic champion was
Richard Bonilla based on average scores in the three championship trials.

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Dutch Shepherds, the remainder being Malinois. Although in the early years there
was a great deal emphasis on all breed participation, as an effort to gather support
and numbers, the Malinois has become the standard French Ring sports equipment.
A few Dutch Shepherds, essentially a variety of the Malinois when you look at the
actual pedigrees, and an occasional German Shepherd compete. Other breeds are
only occasional, and seldom go beyond Ring I. Most people coming from another
breed either lose enthusiasm and fall away or go the Malinois. Most of the competing
dogs are French imports or first or second-generation progeny.
In 2010 a group of dissident NARA members led by Richard Rutt, Robert Solimini
and Frankie Cowen – all prominent NARA names – broke off to form the American
Ringsport Federation (ARF). This has been mostly a shell organization which has
never really gotten off the ground: in 2011 there were about 15 member clubs listed
on the web site, all in the eastern United States, but only one actual club trial, with
no results listed. There were a total of three Ring III entries at the so-called
"National Championship" in 2011.
None of this would really matter except for one thing: this dissident ARF
organization was able to obtain immediate recognition from the French authorities on
an equal footing with NARA, which for 23 years had proudly claimed to be "The
governing body for French Ringsport in the US since 1987." The French casually
throwing NARA under the bus would seem to indicate either that their NARA
relationship was extremely strained or, perhaps more likely, nobody in France has
any real interest in or commitment to Ring Sport in foreign nations. The fact that
NARA is using homegrown judges for all trials – other than the championships – and
the lack of French decoys or seminar appearances, would seem to be further
indication of the estrangement.
In the early years French Ring was logistically difficult because of the small
number of trials, the lack of judges and training venues and, the complex and
expensive equipment, that is the open pits and high scaling walls, rendered actual
trial opportunities sparse. In addition, the French Ring suits are expensive and,
because of size and other considerations, generally require each helper to have his
own equipment. In contrast, a Schutzhund style sleeve and a pair of pants are less
expensive and can be used in the short term by several helpers.
In looking back over a quarter century of French Ring in America, there has been
a lot of dogged enthusiasm by a hard core of advocates but a failure to flourish.
There seem to be perhaps 50 to 100 people nationally seriously involved in training,
trialing and supporting the organization, but very little real in depth enthusiasm or
growth.
While the immense popularity of the German Shepherd provided a wellspring of
potential Schutzhund interest, the Malinois was to a large extent unknown and much
less numerous in America as a whole. Promotion of the Malinois among the general
public has consequently been difficult because rather than the novel and exotic aura
that drove the popularity spikes of the Doberman or Rottweiler it had the appearance
of a smaller, more frail cousin of the German Shepherd, hardly the stuff of a
popularity surge. Promotion of Ring Sport among those with other breeds can create
interest, but also the inevitable realization that the real choice is to go to the right
sports equipment, the Malinois, or being perpetually on the fringe.
This desire for something novel and exciting has fostered a number of other
attempts to establish various trial systems, both European based and home grown.
Thus there have been sporadic attempts to establish KNPV, Belgian Ring and Mondio
Ring in North America, none gaining much real traction. Quite often these are the
same suit oriented or "not Schutzhund" people playing at a flavor of the month dog
sport, popping up in every new venue.

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 Over the years there have been a series of American based protection style
competition systems, from Pro Sports K-9 Rodeo and American Street Ring to the
currently popular Protection Sports Association (PSA), but they have mostly come
and gone without ever gaining any real traction. All of these programs have used the
bite suit, and dismissive, condescending remarks about Schutzhund as some sort of
play sport have been common, as among some of the early French Ringers. Part of
the problem is that many of the people involved have been motivated by business
and personal promotion, for the founders can assume office and the aura of
expertise and appoint themselves judges without any real demonstration of training
and breeding credentials. Since importers and dog brokers have been prominent in
these incipient programs, many of the competing dogs have been trained European
imports, often KNPV. These incipient trial systems have not generally been
comprehensive and balanced enough to support long term breeding selection. In
particular they have not emphasized essential skills such as the olfactory capability
and the distance attack that characterize complete systems devised by those with
more mature and sophisticated experience focused on police level service.
These domestic systems have tended to be one dimensional, with emphasis on
protection rather than a more complete program reflecting the overall requirements
of a police level canine, including tests of olfactory capability such as search or
tracking tests. The question thus becomes what precisely is the purpose of these
trials and organizations, if they are not intended to be police dog certifications and
they are not comprehensive breeding tests because of a lack of search, tracking and
long attacks, exactly what is their purpose? There is a streak of pseudo machismo
running through all of this, a propensity to be little more than back yard protection
play trainers on a larger and more formal scale.
Currently the predominant American originated program is that of the Protection
Sports Association (PSA), which, as indicated by the name, is protection only without
any scent, tracking or search work. The focus is on two main points, the first being
the introduction of randomness and novel situations for the dog rather than the rote
execution of a series of fixed exercises, in some ways reminiscent of the Belgian Ring
program. The second mantra is rigid control of the dog in the presence of one or
more decoys, increasingly taunting the dog, which must ignore their antics under
handler control. Both of these things are in and of themselves potentially good ideas,
but taken to extremes that detract from the overall usefulness in terms of a
character and physical evaluation of the dog and preparation for practical service.
Much of the program is focused on the multiple decoy helper harassment and
tempting of the dog, which must remain under handler control, which goes way over
the top. As an example, one exercise involves a decoy with the body suit standing
over the dog and shouting about a distant decoy. The dog must ignore the
immediate threat and on command leave to attack the distant decoy. Stepping back,
I find this scenario contrived, unrealistic and counter to the principle that the dog
should primarily protect the handler under the direct threat. Requiring the dog to
abandon his partner in the presence of a serious threat is contrary to canine nature,
common sense and practical deployment strategy. In particular, there is no getting
around the fact that the suit is an inherent provocation, and to be realistic, to avoid
the contrivance of an arbitrary and unrealistic scenario, it would be necessary to
have the close in adversary in ordinary dress. This would have the obvious practical
safety problems, but the underlying logic is in my mind compelling.
In the real world a good dog needs to respond to an immediate threat without
handler intervention, in that a handler may be disabled or the attack may come so
fast that there is not enough time for a decision and command. A direct, close in
attack must call on the dog’s immediate, instinctive reflexive action. French Ring
exercises for instance demand that the dog initiate defense on his own in response to
the attack on the handler, more or less the opposite of the desired PSA response.

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Much of this is drawn from Belgian Ring practice, but tends to a circus atmosphere
rather than the subtle testing probing for weakness in the dog or fault in the training
by a deeply experienced Belgian judge. Also, beyond control under decoy distraction,
a new and better sport needs to challenge the dog in more fundamental ways, as in
the striking the dog before engagement in the KNPV long attack. The PSA people
would do well to revisit the KNPV and NVBK programs with a more sophisticated view
and incorporate a little bit more of their approach.
A serious draw back of the multi decoy scenarios is that in America the
predominant obstacle to viable ongoing training is finding a good decoy to work with,
and the need for at least two decoys at many or most training sessions, particularly
when they charge a fee, is an enormous handicap that serves very little practical
purpose. Indeed, the people most likely to have multiple decoys routinely available
are those engaged in some sort of dog training business, and this is only one of
several ways the PSA program is set up to either exclude the amateur or require
training primarily as clients of professional trainers rather than in a more open
amateur environment. This is to some extent true of Schutzhund and French Ring,
but this is due to circumstances peculiar to America rather than designed into the
program for the benefit of the professionals who run the organization from the
ground up.
In evaluating any working or sport venue, it is essential to establish the actual
purpose, the objectives of the program. As an example, KNPV is an evaluation of
readiness for police service, which has two components, that is that the dog on a
genetic basis is inherently sound and capable and that the training is adequate to
bring out this potential. Schutzhund was originally intended as a breeding
certification, proof that the dog was capable of scent work, obedience and protection
and thus suitable for breeding, which by implication also means that with some
additional training has the potential to be a police patrol dog. French Ring is less
clear cut in that it primarily emphasizes the game between the dog and the decoy;
seems to be more of a pure sport which pits the cleverness of the trainer against
that of the decoy, with the dog more or less relegated to the role of sports
equipment. The French have embraced technology, as in the adaption of modern
materials for suits which have revolutionized their sport, and it would seem that in
their hearts many enthusiasts would prefer identical cloned dogs with the sport
quickly evolving into a game purely between trainer and decoy. Perhaps this spirit
evolves from the fact that the French do not have a serious indigenous breed to
promote and take pride in, as in the Belgian and German Shepherds in their
respective nations.
The essential problem with PSA seems to be discerning the purpose of the
program, and then evaluating it in terms of an evolving, viable American working
dog heritage. In an era where the value of the police and military dog is increasingly
in substance detection, primarily drugs and in the case of military dogs explosives, a
one dimensional protection venue would seem to be out of step with the times in
terms of evaluation for breeding or service selection.
My view is that America needs a comprehensive venue which can appeal to and
attract the police community, which would also emphasize search and scent work.
PSA does of course not claim to be comprehensive, is in this sense one-dimensional.
Also, PSA is essentially owned and controlled by one man with no provision for any
real control or influence by the membership as a whole, which has already
contributed to one group of former PSA members, prominent and well regarded men,
separating in order to provide an alternative venue. It seems unlikely that an
organization without a broader base in terms of leadership and control will ever be
able to appeal to a significant segment of the working community.

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 While the domestic working trial programs have lacked depth and sophistication,
and tended to wither on the vine, this does not belie the need for American
independence and self-sufficiency – just because we have yet to do it well does not
mean that we need not do it at all. Schutzhund and the Ring sports of today are
open to criticism on many grounds, have drifted from their original rigor. Many
believe that an effective American heritage will ultimately demand the evolution of
American organizations by and for Americans, free of the yoke of European control
and manipulation. But in order to be successful such organizations would need the
support of a broad base of existing trainers, something very difficult to bring to
reality. For these reasons – because of the absolute control of one man, the multi
decoy requirement, a narrow focus with no scent work and the general circus
atmosphere – PSA, while bringing some interesting concepts to the table, is not the
answer.
In the broader perspective, the primary limitation on independence and vigor in
American police dog programs is the deeply seated separation between the police
community, hamstrung by dependence on European breeding and broker
domination, and the American sport and breeding communities, rendered sterile and
directionless because they are afraid to break free of European domination and thus
produce nothing of real long term value. We are in imminent danger of evolving into
the Shakespearian tale "Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Creeping Commercialism
Taking a pup and training him to the Schutzhund III level, and then perhaps
competing in regional and national events, is an arduous task even where the sport
is well established and there are experienced mentors and capable training helpers
readily available. In America there has from the beginning been a lack of such
resources – most of us struggle, learning by trial and error and working with helpers
learning their skills as best they can, lacking experienced coaching and guidance.
Many young dogs, even those carefully selected from strong lines, prove to be
inadequate in one way or another while undergoing training, often making it
necessary to start over with a new pup or young dog.
Very early in the game it became apparent that there was an alternative to
training your dog, a way for the novice to become a player, an immediate
competitor. In Germany and other European nations there were innumerable titled
dogs, retired because they had gone as far as they were capable of going, unlikely to
be successful in higher-level competition or in demand for breeding purposes. Many
such dogs remain as beloved family companions or go on to police service; but
European homes are often compact and having several older dogs can be a problem
with young dogs on the way up. A supply on one side of the ocean and a demand on
the other inevitably awakens the entrepreneurial spirit: dogs purchased in Germany
for a few hundred dollars could through a simple airline shipment become a
commodity, worth serious money for service in North American police departments
or for a would be Schutzhund competitor looking for the short cut to the trial field.
The working dog world was rapidly shrinking, and becoming much more commercial:
the dog broker’s day had come and many, European and American, were quick to
seize the opportunity.
In a certain sense these imported competition dogs were the forbidden fruit,
represented our loss of innocence. Instead of an idealized level playing field, where
every sort of person, man or woman, young or old, could gather together as a
community to learn through shared experience and come to know the satisfaction of
adversity overcome through a first Schutzhund title, the sporting aspect was
compromised by blatant commercialism. As we abandoned the Garden of Eden we
came to accept that money was the legitimate substitute for personal striving and

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persistent work, that at the last moment a stranger could appear and purchase the
place on the podium.
Thus early in the game trainers were able to become prominent by purchasing
and competing with dogs which had been trained, titled and successful at high-level
competition in Europe, commercializing the sport almost before it gained traction.
Relative novices were sometimes able to buy a high-level titled import one year,
participating in a few trials, collecting some tin cups and conducting seminars the
next year, the blind leading the blind. Others, such as Tom and Holly Rose, were
successful the old-fashioned way, by purchasing German line pups in America and
training them from the ground up for success at the highest levels of American
Schutzhund competition.
A contributing factor to these trends is that any local club can run a trial,
selecting their own judge, trial helper and field. Sometimes this has been blatant,
with unannounced, essentially secret, mid-week trials. In America we have had
instances of Schutzhund judges showing dogs owned by others in Schutzhund trials
for payment, an obvious and blatant conflict of interest. (These were German DVG
judges and trials; USCA has always had more strict nonprofessional rules for their
judges and in general been much more diligent in this area.) Shopping for the lenient
judge became more accepted, and judges not going along did not get along, found
their engagements evaporating.
In contrast to this SV way of doing things, the Dutch police trials are region or
province wide public events with three certified judges and two certified trial helpers,
usually from outside of the local province. In order to certify a dog there are one or
two yearly opportunities to do so; there is no option of a home trial or shopping for a
lenient judge.
In the ideal the sporting aspects of Schutzhund focus on the club, the local
community of trainers and competitors. Here younger people get a beginning,
acquire a dog, perhaps from a relative or family friend in the sport, and within the
training community learn the skills necessary for beginning titles. Older participants
provide instruction and leadership, while training and competing with their own dogs,
and take pride in the accomplishments of the newer members. In Europe it is still
quite common to see the club name listed along with that of the owner and dog in a
trial catalog and the club was a center of social and family life. As the dogs advance
toward Schutzhund III some are retired to become family companions or the
housedog while the new candidates lived in the kennel and others went on to
compete at a regional and eventually national level championships.
In the early years we had the vision of recreating this idealized way of life for
ourselves, of creating clubs where one could take a short ride in the evening for
training, or perhaps even walk as some of my Dutch friends were able to do. We
envisioned pleasant evenings of dog training and conversation over a beer, the club
as a social as well as training center. This was to be every man's sport, open to
those of modest means, for promising pups were reasonably priced in Europe, clubs
were close together and the cost was moderate, as most training fields, with a small
clubhouse, were on public facilities of one sort or another. European trials are
inexpensive as local judges are the norm; the cost for a trial being perhaps lodging
for a night, a couple of meals and a moderate fee.
In the 1980s some of this seemed to be coming to pass. Clubs were slow to
evolve and widely separated making travel time and expense for training sessions
the primary obstacle to success. Many of us had AKC style obedience or tracking
backgrounds, most of it applicable to the new training regimen. Obedience was very
similar, while tracking was a bit different in that the dog was expected to adapt a
specific style of working. The protection work was the real challenge, for typically it
was a matter of starting from the beginning, seeking help and knowledge wherever it

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could be found. The work of the helper, the man that wears the protective pants and
padded sleeve for the dog to bite, is demanding and complex, difficult to master
even with good instruction. But mostly we were on our own, picking up knowledge
and coaching from trial judges and occasional seminars or visits to other clubs with
more experience, but also a lot of improvisation. Looking back, it is amazing that we
were able to evolve as well as we did.
From the beginning access to good training was the limiting factor and a suitable
place to train where biting dogs did not bring the wrong kind of attention was
sometimes a difficulty. The trial generally tended to be expensive because of the
necessity of bringing in a judge from a great distance, very often Europe. This could
be ameliorated by neighboring clubs sharing a judge, with trials on subsequent
weekends, and by revenue generating seminars in conjunction with the trial. Early on
many of these judges, including many of the Germans, were extraordinarily
generous in providing help and minimizing expenses. There was a general pioneering
spirit, confidence that as the sport grew clubs would become more numerous and
thus less expensive, thus drawing in more people. The early difficulties were seen as
priming the pump, getting the process started.
Within a few years, commercialization began to creep in. While amateur pioneers,
brimming with enthusiasm and the spirit of sportsmanship, were struggling to learn
training and become proficient within the club structure, a few more pragmatic men
had found the short cut, were purchasing increasingly expensive titled dogs in
Europe, often quite good, and making a name for themselves by placing or winning
at the various regional and national trials. Based on their newly purchased
reputations these men sometimes created Schutzhund clubs that were adjuncts of
their expanding business ventures, with clients rather than voting members. Since
USCA elections were based on one vote per club these professionals became
increasingly influential in national affairs. Sometimes the commercialism was overt,
with behind the scenes sponsors putting up substantial sums of money. Training
increasingly became a professional service, with fees, often substantial, for every
training session in addition to annual or semiannual club dues, which went into the
pockets of the club "owners." Protection work helpers, even in the amateur clubs,
increasingly expected to be paid, became less and less willing to provide for free
what was evolving as a lucrative commercial service. Extended business relationships
evolved, often involving European trainers and brokers who supplied dogs to
American business associates, and often were featured at training seminars which
promoted both partners. Once the beginner became engaged it was often discovered
that his dog was not up to his goals, and that, by fortunate coincidence, they could
sell him an expensive new dog to get out there on the trial field.
This commercialism was not limited to Americans, for German Schutzhund
judges, such as Gottfried Dildei and Paul Thiessen, came to America to profit on their
status and German contacts by establishing commercial training operations. Serious
ethical lapses such as quasi-secret mid-week trials at which judges took turns titling
each other's client dogs compromised the integrity of the entire sport. Regional and
especially national trials became competitions among European trained and titled
dogs, sometimes owned and supported by sponsors in the background, just like
racehorse owners. The expectation that the winning dogs would be owned and
trained from a puppy, by hard work and diligence within an amateur club faded.
Commercialism has been endemic in the conformation world as well as the
Schutzhund trial. At the beginning of a German style conformation show there is a
brief protection test, an attack on the handler out of the blind and long bite, to
demonstrate the character of the dog. In principle a good thing, but in practice
generally so emasculated as to be essentially meaningless. At a local German
Shepherd conformation show, presided over by a German SV judge, I witnessed the
American helper doing the attack on the handler test in a professional, normal and

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entirely fair way. After the second bitch showed marked insecurity there were
exhibitor complaints, resulting in a quick conference with the judge and then an
admonition to the helper to go easy on the dogs, that these were show dogs that
needed to pass. This is not an aberration or an unusual occurrence but rather just
business as usual. We never saw the helper again.
There were in Germany in the eighties well documented cases of breakfast table
trials, where all of the paper work was made out and sent in, producing Schutzhund
titles for dogs never stepping foot on the field. Much of this was for exported dogs as
well as the conformation breeders, the Americans being seen as too ignorant to know
the difference, which was only partially true in that some knew but just did not care.
In the early 1980s I witnessed a German SV Schutzhund judge pass two dogs
bred by his host, the German born owner of an American kennel, who was also the
trial helper, which did not receive stick hits. One perhaps could have given the
benefit of the doubt on the first dog, perhaps the helper really did forget and the
judge did not notice, but on the second dog bred by the helper given a pass by the
judge and all of the others were tested it became quite obvious. At the time I was
new and naive enough to be astonished by all of this.
On another occasion I witnessed another well-known big name German dog
importer beat a bitch unmercifully in full view of an American judge and then walk
the thirty feet that separated them to report for the obedience exercises. The judge
pretended that he just did not see, for the man's place in the Schutzhund world was
such that he was afraid to challenge him. The Schutzhund "club" run by this German
as a commercial adjunct of a business enterprise was relatively unusual in that era
but has become unfortunately the norm today.
Although expense had always been an issue, the decade after the turn of the
twenty-first century was particularly difficult. The fundamental problem of
Schutzhund in America had always been the failure to attain critical mass, clubs
close enough together to provide convenient, economical access. As petroleum prices
increased every aspect of the sport became increasingly expensive. Trainers tend to
have larger vehicles such as trucks or SUVs which, while convenient for dogs and
equipment, consume increasingly expensive fuel. Airline travel became more
expensive, affecting the cost of travel for trial judges, competition and transporting
dogs. The overall incomes of Middle Americans were stagnating and young people
especially found good jobs very difficult to obtain and keep. As Schutzhund became
more elite and expensive enthusiastic newcomers, especially young people with
family obligations, increasingly found that they simply could not afford to participate.
Administrative costs, such as USCA dues, saw dramatic increases as entrenched
officers sought to solidify their privileged status. Over the years club members
became noticeably older because of the disproportionate burden of a poor economy
on the younger generation. But athletic young men, increasingly in short supply,
have always been the primary protection training helpers.
Amateur police style dog training programs grew up in Europe along with the
breeds and service cultures as a low cost activity that combined camaraderie, family
social centers and sport beginning in an era before television, electronic games and
the internet. Many clubs are centered on property acquired fifty or a hundred years
ago which would be difficult to purchase today. Americans in the same era evolved
their own after work social and sport activities such as softball and bowling, and to a
lesser extent canine obedience training. Most of the Schutzhund pioneers in America
were focused on recreating this training infrastructure and social tradition here, but
tradition building has turned out to be a very difficult task. In most areas of
Germany, the Netherlands or Belgium, the potential trainer has grown up with the
sport all around him, seen active training fields his entire life, as or more common
than ball diamonds in America. He likely has a family member or acquaintance that

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can make an introduction, or he can just show up and show an interest. These
resources are there because they grew up with the working breeds, acquired a little
bit of land for a field and clubhouse and gained membership before television let
alone cars, video games and the internet provided competition. In Holland it is quite
common for municipalities or other agencies to provide parkland for training fields
and clubhouses just like little league baseball fields are a standard feature of every
American town. These recreational activities usually commence early in life, and
society, through park districts and schools, provide facilities and services that make
them attractive and affordable. Very few things in life have a comprehensive, one
line explanation, but the failure of Schutzhund, and the Ring Sports, to prosper in
America is largely due to the fact that they have become increasingly expensive and
difficult for young people to get started in.

A Dog of Your Own

When acquiring an automobile or higher end camera there is an enormous
amount of information available on which to base a selection. Life teaches most of us
a number of lessons which carry over into dogs, such as that dealing with an
established business is a hedge against problems down the road and what seems too
good to be true may not be true – there is usually no free lunch.
Nikon cameras and Volkswagen automobiles are well-established brands with
strong corporate track records, you can generally purchase from an established
dealer with confidence that if things go wrong they will be made good, if not by the
dealer then by the manufacturer. But if you buy your Nikon from an unknown
internet source with an unusually low price you are likely to find out that it is not
really new, that not all of the normal and necessary accessories are included and
most importantly that if something goes wrong you are in real trouble: not only will
Nikon not fix it under warranty, they may not even supply parts or repair it because
you bought from an unauthorized source. In making your purchase you are not just
buying a camera; you are committing to a system and establishing a business
relationship in that future accessories, such as lenses and flash units, must be
compatible.
Think of a dog in the same terms. When looking for a pup you are making a
decision as to breed, a particular breeding line and establishing a business and
personal relationship with a breeder. Although all of these common sense principles
apply to dogs, the situation is much more complex because reliable sources of
information are more difficult to identify and dogs are living beings; no matter how
careful you are you can reduce but not eliminate risk. Ultimately buying a puppy is
always a gamble: one cannot be certain of success, but can stack the odds in his
favor.
In general the best approach when seeking a dog for serious purposes is to seek
a mentor, a personal relationship with an established breeder, preferably one
actively training and titling his own dogs. The closer to home the better, because an
in person visit can often help resolve a problem or provide guidance and no breeder
wants dissatisfied customers in his back yard. Such a person will have been through
the unforeseen consequences of training decisions and have real appreciation for the
subtleties of breeding selection.
The European import is seen as desirable and sophisticated, but generally this is
not practical for the novice because of the difficulty of evaluating breeders in a
distant nation speaking a different language. Some American "breeders" focus on
European imports for resale and as breeding stock, and although their advertising is
often elaborate, slick and extensive their real knowledge too often is superficial if it
has not been established and verified through real long term hands on experience.
Such people are better described as brokers rather than breeders, and although they

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can sometimes provide the right dog at a fair price to a knowledgeable customer one
must always keep in mind that the broker is primarily a businessman motivated by
money rather than a deep personal commitment to the heritage or a breed. Multi
breed importers merit especial suspicion and scrutiny, for here there is little doubt of
the overweening profit motivation.
Many of us eventually go to Europe with the idea of acquiring a dog, and find the
process daunting in that language and culture can be an impediment and there are
many people – who cannot easily be sorted out as to reputation and quality –
anxious to sell to the bumbling American. Buying a dog is not the right reason for a
first European visit, is putting the cart before the horse. Go to Europe to learn, to
come to understand the heritage, the Euro lines and over time to build an experience
and knowledge base on which to sort out the people. Focus on establishing
relationships with those likely to help you learn and mature rather than just shopping
for a dog, when the relationships become established the right dog is much more
likely to be found. I do not mean this in a phony or calculating way, that you should
make friends just to save money or get a dog, but rather that in order to become
successful in any endeavor one must be able to fit in and establish personal
relationships with compatible people currently successful and respected in the field.
Even when you are interested in something from a stranger your European friend
can be enormously helpful. Generally the price of a pup to an American is much
more than to a resident of the country. I recall years ago looking at litters of
Bouviers in Holland with Ria Klep, a very successful trainer and working breeder. My
instructions were to be absolutely silent, as one word of English would automatically
double the price; apparently my dress and appearance did not shout American. In
this instance Ria just went ahead and bought the pup and explained later that if I did
not want it she did, which of course only increased my enthusiasm.
People tend to think of the breed as the starting place in the dog acquisition, and
for those with a deep emotional attachment to a particular breed this is of course
perfectly valid. But breed selection has serious implications that can make an
emotional decision irrational and likely to lead to disappointment. If you live for
French Ring and love Rottweilers you have a serious problem, and if the problem is
not obvious to you then you have an especially serious problem. Breeds come with
history, purpose and an established community, and a good Rottweiler is a massive,
headstrong, powerful dog but not a quick dog, agile dog or easily trainable dog.
French Ring is an elaborate, sophisticated sport that favors the prey driven, agile,
trainable dog; everything that the Rottie is not. If you buy a Rottweiler for
Schutzhund after serious research you will in the process have identified people that
can provide the emotional and informational support that are so important in
training; when problems arise, and they will, there will be people to go to who have
been through it. But if you buy a Rottweiler for ring training you will pretty much be
on your own; people will think you are crazy, even those polite enough not say it to
your face. The Malinois out of ring lines is the right sports equipment for that venue,
and going with anything else is like taking your baseball catcher’s mitt to the
basketball try out.
The first step in the dog acquisition should be to recognize these general
categories, so as to base the selection on a realistic set of expectations:
Companion dog owner: One with no particular interest in training beyond practical
obedience to make the dog safe and pleasant to live with and perhaps an
introductory level of watchdog training. Breed selection is purely a matter of personal
preference and practical considerations. Depending on breed, the individual dog
needs to be moderate or less in intensity or aggression; the intense young Malinois
out of KNPV lines is probably going to be unhappy living with you, and in turn make
you unhappy and frustrated. You need to go to a local breeder who selects for

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generally moderate and stable character and diversity in his lines, which translates
into a serious breeder minimally involved in conformation. The show breeder is often
a poor choice, not only because of a lack of performance potential but because the
close breeding for champions becomes associated with health problems and dull,
stupid dogs. There is generally nothing wrong with a carefully selected mixed breed,
and going through one of the all-breed or breed specific rescue organizations can be
a viable option. In selecting an older dog one must of course realize that it is one
someone does not want and carefully evaluate temperament, and have a complete
veterinary evaluation before a final commitment. But in the broad scheme of things
many good dogs are acquired in this way. In general it is best to avoid the show-
oriented breeder as paying their exorbitant prices is basically just rewarding
stupidity.
Casual trainer: You enjoy dog training and the social aspects of a dog club, but
titles are of secondary importance. The breed should be generally appropriate, that is
if you are drawn to Schutzhund big enough for the jumps and historically aggressive
enough to be interested in engaging the helper; even if you do not aspire to trophies
a dog who likes the work is a lot more fun and you will fit in much better. You need
to start your search with local working line breeder, perhaps a member of the club
you are interested in, and select a middle of the road pup.
Serious trainer: You really do want titles and trophies, and tend to be impatient
with the casual trainers and pet owners. Your dog should be from a breed historically
successful in your preferred sport and specifically from strong working lines within
that breed. Good dogs from the alternate breeds, that is other than the Malinois or
German Shepherd, are difficult but not entirely impossible to find.
Competition trainer: The reality here is that today only the Malinois and German
Shepherd are consistently successful in the top levels of IPO or Schutzhund and that
the Malinois predominates in all of the suit sports, that is, ring and KNPV. Going with
another breed is in the big picture irrational, inevitably leading to frustration. Sorry, I
wish this were not true, but it is.

Once requirements and goals are established, an appropriate breed and sound
working lines are the right starting point, but success requires diligence and a
generous portion of luck. Many once promising pups fall by the wayside even in the
hands of experienced trainers, who sometimes wind up placing a prospect because
he did not seem to be fulfilling his promise as he matured. Sometimes this is a
mismatch between the man and the dog; a dog that could perhaps have achieved
excellence in other hands. This is why many trainers are willing to pay a premium
price for a promising young dog which has passed relevant health, stamina and
character tests.
The novice with hopes for serious training in a sport or professional arenas, but
not diligent and persistently skeptical enough in his search, is likely to wind up with a
poor or marginal prospect out of ignorance and gullibility. By definition such a person
makes a selection not sufficiently aware of the reputation of the various working
lines and the various people and thus becomes a prime candidate for a dog with a
questionable background or concealed flaws of temperament, character, structure or
health. Like the empty place in the game of musical chairs, someone always winds
up with the marginal pups.
Assuming an established breed preference, the initial phase should be attaining
familiarity with the relevant people by reputation and through personal contact and
attending trials and seminars. If there are breed specific organizations it is good to
become a member or subscribe to the magazine, and study the web site. If the
preference is the German Shepherd then there may be a number of local options,
generally preferable to out of town sources. The advantage of the local breeder,

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especially one in your preferred club, is the enhanced chance of an appropriate dog,
a good match, and local support. Every breeder wants to have people training his
dogs in his club, and will generally do everything possible to support his customers.
If you, as a novice, go on the internet or pick a breeder out of a magazine (I
know I am dating myself here) you put yourself at risk of winding up with the lesser
dog because preference is going to go to those with an established relationship and
those with a serious competitive record. Experience teaches that most such queries
are from people who are not going to turn out to be serious, and most of the dogs
are going to ship and never be heard of again. The novice has a much better chance
to sell himself as serious to the local or regional breeder and obtain a high
expectation candidate and the support to back it up.
Those interested in a breed other than the German Shepherd will likely find it
necessary to go out of the local area to obtain a suitable dog, as most of the local
offerings are likely going to be discards from a conformation oriented kennel. Show
breeders are similar to used car salesmen in not letting ignorance of the facts
interfere with their sales pitch. Even though profoundly ignorant of working breeding,
selection and training they will go on and on with all sorts of blatant lies about the
working potential of their dogs, and how with a little training they are just as good as
those actually working and achieving titles.
The problem is that beyond the Malinois and the German Shepherd all of the
traditional alternative breeds are in decline, a spiral to oblivion, in terms of numbers
and overall quality. As a result finding a viable candidate becomes more and more
difficult, and many self-styled working kennels are really half-baked back yard
breeding businesses selling mediocre and less pups to the gullible.
Thus in summary those looking for a high potential pup or a good young dog
must first do their research and get to know the bloodlines and most especially the
people. You get good dogs from good people, breeders and trainers who have paid
their dues, built a real reputation based on accomplishment. So go to the trials and
seminars, for that is where you meet the real trainers and breeders rather than the
posers and salesmen. When the opportunity presents itself, visit their kennel and
seek their knowledge. The novice, especially one without a mentor, should usually
buy a dog in America, based on this knowledge, because the closer you are to the
breeder the more help and guidance you can expect, and the more interest he will
have in your success as a reflection of his breeding.
Early on I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time in Europe, under the
guidance and support of an experienced Dutchman, Erik Houttuin, in my breed
residing in America. The internet as a basis of initial research and more affordable
flights to Europe have made it much easier go and see for yourself. But do not go
with the idea of buying the wonder dog on your first trip, go to extend your first-
hand knowledge of trials and kennels, the history and culture. Wherever you go,
focus on identifying and getting to know the serious and helpful people, in time the
right dog will be the natural consequence of your diligence and patience.
Eventually most of us at some point wind up importing a dog or pup, often
because of a need for a specific breeding line. When done with foresight and caution
the shipping process is generally safe and reliable, if sometimes expensive. Although
we imported many dogs and pups over the years, and shipped many others, we
never had any real problem. A primary consideration is a direct flight without a
stopover, which is much less stressful. When airline personal directly interact with
the dog there is always the potential for an escape, and a dog on his own in an
airport, which does happen, sometimes with tragic consequences. Taking the dog
directly to the airport immediately prior to the flight and having him picked up
immediately on arrival avoids many potential problems. When the dog arrives it is
preferable to resist the temptation to let him out of the crate (unless he is in obvious

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distress); just load up the vehicle, head for home, put the crate in a run or other
confined area and let the dog out cautiously where he can be approached on his own
terms. Adult dogs shipped to an unknown person are under significant stress and
may become aggressive or bolt and run; you do not want your expensive new dog
loose in an airport or beside a highway.
In conclusion, let me say it again, because it cannot be emphasized enough: in
finding a good dog, particularly for sport training, the first and most important step
is to identify a breeder or mentor willing to help you, not only in finding a dog but in
seeking out training resources and knowledge that will enable you some day in turn
mentor others and thus repay your obligation to the heritage.

Only in America
In America we have a robust hunting dog culture, families breeding and training
such dogs into a third or fourth generation are not especially unusual, and there is
no need to go to Europe or anywhere else for dogs or guidance. So it would seem
that Americans are not inherently dog stupid, that there is nothing in the culture or
water to require it.
But police and protection dogs somehow are different; after forty and more years
of playing at the game we remain insecure, dependent on Europe for dogs, guidance
and validation. Although our military is, commendably, breeding a portion of their
own Malinois at Lackland, most police dogs today still come out of Europe, either
directly as imports, largely through brokers, or indirectly, through commercial
operations in America which breed for police service, but which rely on Europeans for
breeding stock, guidance and reflected credibility, are little more than offshore
extensions of European enterprise. They cannot be more, are not breeders and
trainers in the deeper, longer term sense of ongoing generations of their own lines
because they lack the European resources and culture, the synergy of an ongoing
tradition of cooperation with civilian breeders, trainers and sport competitors, as best
exemplified by the Dutch KNPV program.
In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is king, and as a consequence of
our European dependence all sorts of one eyed experts with a thin veneer of
credibility pose as canine authorities in much of America, including police canine
circles. The proliferation of police programs, driven largely by our war on drugs, and
our ongoing dependence on European dogs has created a lucrative opportunity to
provide for profit civilian brokerage and training services. Where the police
administration is savvy, experienced and honest the free enterprise system tends to
work, to drive out the dishonest and incompetent suppliers to the ultimate benefit of
police canine units, tax payers and the civilian working dog community alike. But
rapid expansion and ongoing creation of incipient canine programs, lacking a
foundation of experience and knowledge, provides an opportunity for the pretender,
an entire new world of blind men for the one eyed opportunists to exploit.
Successful, ongoing businesses are routinely based on this sort of thing.
American police canine operations exist in profound isolation from our civilian
training and sport culture, such as it is, so separate that there is virtually no
communication, not even enough awareness for animosity or competitiveness. The
consequence is the aggregate emasculation of the American police dog
establishment, rendering both service and sport more costly and less robust than
they could and should be, in a perpetual juvenile state, unable to step into adulthood
and independence. Canine political and commercial interests in Europe, like grasping
parents unable to let go, enable, encourage and abet this dependence. Our police
agencies look to Europe for dogs, directly or indirectly, because these European sport
and certification programs provide the guidance and validation that are the
foundation of long-term police dog breeding, training and deployment. In America

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we seem unable to break this circle: are so much less cost effective and robust than
our inherent potential because we are so insecure and dependent, but at the same
time we are unable to grow up and stand on our own because of these divisions and
insecurities. This network of commercial operations – brokers, breeders and
consultants – which have evolved to provide these services tend to discourage and
impede initiative and independence for the obvious reasons, the preservation of their
own status, security and income. Even if it is not widely perceived in the world at
large, they know well that real progress in America can only diminish their status,
influence and profit.
The fundamental problem is that real decision making authority in the civilian
working dog establishment is much too often in the hands of canine politicians and
bureaucrats, too often in Germany, motivated to promote themselves, their
commercial interests or their breed, as measured by increasing puppy registrations
and broad popularity or perception of vigor and quality by the public at large. This
tends to foster ongoing slackening of performance requirements and the propensity
of conformation oriented bureaucrats to allow or encourage working judges and trial
decoys to be more and more lenient in order to promote participation or, more
maliciously, to enable weak dogs to pass and thus gain in commercial value or win in
the conformation ring.
Although all trial venues are vulnerable to dishonesty and corruption there are
systemic differences that render some inherently more credible than others. As
discussed previously, Schutzhund or IPO titles are especially vulnerable because
there is a single judge selected by the local club, the people actually trialing their
dogs, and because some trials are run for conformation line German Shepherds
featuring extremely lenient judging and decoy work, essentially giving away IPO
titles.
The KNPV certificate, if the dog to be acquired is actually the one awarded the
certificate, is somewhat more reliable. KNPV trials are not conducted on the local
club level but rather offered by one of the provincial governing bodies at specific
dates and places, with three judges and two certified helpers, usually from other
provinces. These are very public affairs with large, knowledgeable audiences;
trickery and favoritism are of course possible, but much more difficult to conceal and
thus less common. Furthermore, KNPV leadership for more than a century has been
focused solely on police dog service. While there is the need to be ever vigilant
against individual acts of dishonesty, over the years the integrity of the system, the
commitment to the validity of the trial, has remained intact. Although the KNPV
imports and the example provided by their program in the Netherlands have had
profound influence on American police canine evolution, there has never been any
evident interest in meddling in internal American working dog affairs.
German control of Schutzhund and German Shepherd affairs in America has
always been the overweening priority of the SV and other German entities. The DVG
in America was from the beginning under tight German control, by and for the
benefit of Germans, with the American officers subservient and functioning as
administrative assistants to carry out German executive policy and decisions, and of
course collect the money to send to Germany.
USCA was through the Maloy years, roughly through the mid to late 1990s, a
strong and substantially independent organization, still then working dog oriented,
charting their own course and conducting internal affairs according to working dog
principles and priorities. Roughly coinciding with the turn of the twenty-first century
there has been a concerted SV effort to evolve USCA into a subservient German
Shepherd breed club, essentially SV Distribution America GmbH, primarily serving
German show dog interests, that is SV breeders, conformation judges and other
insiders in exploiting the lucrative American market. Under the Lyle Roetemeyer

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tenure as USCA president the situation deteriorated as the SV increasingly dictated
policy and restructured the organization to support the interests of their
conformation breeders.
At the end of the day, the question remains: Why can a people capable of
shaking of the British Empire as it approached its zenith not break free of grasping
German dog politicians?

What are Obedience Trials Really?

In the normal course of events things tend to evolve, to have original good
reasons and then gradually accumulate some real reasons as baggage. The
obedience trial, and the obedience aspects or phases of the more comprehensive
trials such as Schutzhund and Ring, were originally conceived as serving two
purposes, that is, as a demonstration of the necessary character attributes for
breeding eligibility and for practical service as a patrol dog or companion dog. But as
these practical trials evolved into sport venues competition and especially scoring
had an inexorable tendency to evolve according to conventions of style and
procedure more and more remote from practical life and service. The role of judge,
referee or umpire is critical. In sports such as gymnastics and figure skating, the
judge's numerical opinion of the style of presentation is the determining factor in
who stands on the podium and who goes home empty handed. The football referee
may make a bad call and in the extreme affect the outcome of a close game, but he
does not have the opportunity to announce that a particular touchdown will only be
allocated 4 rather than 6 points because he personally did not like the style of the
quarterback. As refinement and competition increased the dog sports tended to
devolve to opinion judging, as in gymnastics, rather than objective performance
evaluation relatable to real life service expectations.
Part of obedience is the ability and willingness of the dog to heel, that is, stay at
your left side as you walk or run, change direction when you do and go to a sit
position when you come to a stop. In the spirit of the original purposes the more
advanced dog would be expected to maintain discipline in the presence of real world,
practical distractions such as walking on the street, the presence of other dogs,
bicycles and so forth. And, indeed, these kinds of things are to some degree
incorporated into programs such as the Dutch Police and Schutzhund trials.
But in some systems, and all systems to some degree, flash and style for points
tended to emerge and predominate. Rather than staying alertly at your side, for the
big points the dog must prance and twist his body into a big U so he can stare in
your eyes and slap his rear end down as you do the contrived and unnatural stop
required. The problem with this is that increasingly drifts from the original purposes
and favors the subservient, hyper dog rather than the confident, obedient dog. There
are significant differences here, with the KNPV dog expected to just do real world
heeling and the AKC and Schutzhund folks gradually evolving obedience heeling into
dancing with the dogs. This is in general not a good thing, as it makes tends to
emphasize subservience over confidence and aggressiveness.
As another example, consider the guard of object. The premise is quite simple,
the police officer will often need for his dog to remain in place and take care of an
object such as a bicycle while the officer goes out of sight, perhaps into a building on
a police matter. In the Dutch Police trial this is pretty much how it is played out, the
handler puts down his jacket or a bike and leaves the dog to take care of it. The
helper appears and calmly walks toward the dog, who is expected to respond with
aggression when he comes within perhaps ten feet and to break off the engagement
when the helper retreats. Takes thirty seconds or so and is a practical exercise.

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 But the French Ring people have expanded this into an esoteric several minute
exercise, requiring a great deal of time in training and interesting to watch, but with
questionable relevance to the real world. French Ring has gradually evolved into a
sport with less and less practical relevance and more and more contrived exercises.
This is of course a tendency to be guarded against in all situations, but it seems to
be human nature to tend to the elaborate ritual over the practical. The consequence
is that French Ring has evolved as a competitive sport only for their specific line of
Malinois. There is a certain irony in the fact that the French have driven all of their
native breeds such as the Beauceron, Briard and Picardy Shepherd out of their
national sport in favor of one developed in the Flemish or Dutch region of Belgium.
For all of their historic animosity to the Germans, the Malinois they promote is in
reality the product of the German culture and heritage rather than their own.
Schutzhund and IPO have no guard of object, food refusal or call off in the attack
exercises, which from a practical point of view are very serious deficiencies. On the
other hand, this is to an extent understandable in that Schutzhund evolved as a
breeding eligibility test rather than a full test to certify a dog ready for police patrol
service as in KNPV.

Social and Political Context

The training of dogs, especially large, powerful biting dogs, does not take place in
isolation but rather in a broad social and political context. Legislators and
administrative authorities come under pressure, often intense, to intervene in canine
affairs, as in the banning of specific breeds or styles of dog, as in the banning or
discouragement of specific activities such as dog fighting or civilian participation in
protection training. Even the equipment comes under scrutiny as in the prohibition of
prong or electric collars or the use of the stick in the protection exercises.
In general these issues are at the moment much more intense in Europe than
America, with incessant pressure for bans on ear cropping and tail docking,
eradication of fighting breeds and the elimination of prong and electric collars.
America in general has a much stronger heritage of individual freedom, less intrusion
on personal rights, as exemplified by the widespread ownership and use of diverse
firearms. But the alcohol prohibition fiasco of the 1920s serves as a reminder that
pressure groups always have the potential to prevail and change a way of life, even
in America.
Every society must of course establish legal boundaries and enforcement
processes in order to maintain social order, community security and individual civil
rights and self-determination, the pursuit of happiness; and this need for regulation
and order quite properly extends to canine affairs. Bear and bull baiting, dog fighting
and other grotesque amusement venues – long accepted and practiced by those of
every social stratum – have today become illegal in most civilized nations. English
and American culture historically has been averse to civilian protection training,
which has been largely overcome or at least suppressed in recent decades, largely
due to the diligence of the Schutzhund community in maintaining standards of
responsibility. This is exemplified by increasing emphasis on the BH examination as a
prerequisite to the Schutzhund trial, requiring a demonstration of control and
stability before protection competition.
The underlying problem is that the vast majority of legislators, and the pressure
groups with adverse agendas, are profoundly ignorant of serious police level dogs
and training. Many, such as PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals), are now
more than the ever present lunatic fringe, opposed to companion animal ownership
in principle, while others seek to limit breeding or training involving protection
applications. While few openly oppose actual police deployment, there is an

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undercurrent of opposition to civilian involvement, largely ignoring the issue of where
police dogs would come from with no civilian participation in breeding and selection.
While no reasonable person can doubt that society must set boundaries and limit
specific behavior and practice, such as dog fighting, many of these elements will not
be satisfied short of the emasculation of all dogs and an end to breeding or training
of overtly aggressive dogs. Much of this is akin to bullying, the attraction being the
sense of power, of controlling and subjugating others; and success does not bring
satisfaction but only generates the desire for more.
These trends are reminiscent of our ongoing national gun conflict: while most will
agree that there must be limits, that civilians should not be able to wander into a
store and buy machine guns or military style recoilless rifles, gun control advocates
will never be satisfied short of comprehensive firearm confiscation, as has played out
in Australia for instance.
Many of us tend to ignore politics in our daily lives, canine or otherwise, and
focus on our personal training and breeding, simply want to engage in a private
avocation as a diversion from the cares and responsibilities of life. We are largely
content to live in our own private world, wanting little more than to go to the club a
couple of times a week, train our dog, enjoy the camaraderie and a couple of beers
after the protection equipment is stored and eventually trial the dog. To a large
extent we live in blissful avoidance, oblivious to potential legal and social hazards
looming on the horizon. This is naive, for politicians – governmental and canine –
can be pressured to enact widespread, ill-considered measures just as the prohibition
of alcohol consumption was inflicted on an unwary nation.
In addition to regulation and legal restrictions on canine affairs by governmental
agencies on the national, state and local level, various national administrative and
registration bodies, such as the AKC and the national FCI entities in most European
nations, have enormous power over every aspect of canine affairs, especially
breeding and sport. These registration bodies do not generally directly dictate or limit
behavior but do wield enormous economic and practical power through the potential
denial of registration, which is generally crucial in order to sell or export puppies and
older dogs. Many European nations have national kennel clubs with government
recognition and thus some legal standing, but in America these are independent
entities; the AKC has no special legal standing and in fact there are several other,
competing, registration organizations. Over most of its existence the AKC was
profoundly opposed to any association with canine protection activity, only recently
softening this stance under the pressure of falling revenue from plummeting
registrations.
Although falling registrations, and thus revenue, has trimmed their sails in recent
years, the AKC has historically focused on clever and generally successful
promotional schemes, routinely obtaining fawning press and television coverage for
their events and social agendas. A great deal of effort goes into congressional
lobbying and influence peddling at state and local levels, much of it to good ends,
but generally prioritizing the interests of show and pet breeders over the interests of
canine working functionality. Some of the European national organizations, for
instance, played a role in the banning of cropping and docking. In general the AKC
and the FCI, and their affiliated national and breed entities, do not represent the
interests of the police or other working dogs. They will routinely betray us as a
matter of expediency whenever under any sort of social pressure, as in the banning
of prong and electric collars and other training practices and equipment usage in
Europe. One may choose to ignore canine politics, but no one can escape living with
the consequences.
The working canine community needs to become more engaged politically and
socially, employ good public relations principles and discipline ourselves, apply peer

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pressure to encourage ethical, legal and moral behavior. When videos of in uniform
police handlers appear on the internet or television kicking a Malinois hung up by his
collar without mercy in the name of training and discipline we are all diminished, and
at risk. When our sport systems become subverted to the gods of profit and money,
when Schutzhund becomes a pastime for older, more financially able people because
the young cannot afford thirty thousand dollar dogs, long distances to training and
several hundred dollars monthly for professional helper work we will remain
marginalized.
This American estrangement of the police canine community and the civilian
protection sport movement seriously impairs all of us, renders sport essentially
meaningless and service dependent on foreign sources and commercial vendors, and
thus more expensive and less effective. In this context we become especially
susceptible to intrusive interference from government bureaucrats, political pressure
groups with adverse agendas and the show and pet oriented registry bodies.
Cooperation between civilian and police breeders and trainers would have many
and diverse benefits for both, would foster understanding and enhance the aura of
legitimacy and responsibility of civilian participation in protection training. In America
today our working organizations, such as USCA (United Schutzhund Clubs of
America) or the ring clubs, contribute essentially nothing to society in terms of
supporting police and military canine deployment; the police dogs are generally
imports or commercially bred from imported stock rather than coming from sport
participants. The fact that USCA is dominated by and run for the benefit of Germany
and Germans rather than America and Americans is the essence of this problem, a
primary reason for the feeble state of our dog sport community, why we continue to
wallow in mediocrity and contribute so little to the public good.

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7 The Belgian Heritage
Although the modern Belgian
state came into existence only
recently, in 1830, generations of
students were introduced to the
ancient indigenous people, the
Belgae, in the Commentaries of
Julius Caesar:
"All Gaul is divided into three
parts, one of which the Belgae
inhabit, the Aquitani another,
those who in their own language
are called Celts, in ours Gauls,
the third."
Caesar goes on to note that
these Belgae were the bravest
because "merchants least
frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the
mind," certainly politically incorrect by the standards of today, where effeminization
of the mind underlies many agendas, particularly in Europe.
The central thread in the history of these peoples has been the conflicting Latin
and Germanic cultures, often descending into warfare involving powerful neighboring
adversaries, from the campaigns of Caesar to twentieth century atrocities. Even
today this cultural conflict severs Belgium in two, with the Flemish, whose Germanic
roots go back to the ancient Belgae to the north and west and the culturally and
ethnically Latin Walloons to the south and east, spiritual descendants of Caesar
himself. Twice in the twentieth century Belgium was at the epicenter of a new kind of
war, driven by the technology of the Industrial Revolution, unprecedented in terms
of overt military violence, collateral civilian damage and long term rending of the
social fabric. The evocative poetry of the era cast the soldier's graves on Flandres
fields into the common memory of mankind,
foreshadowing the horrors to commence in In Flanders fields the poppies grow
1939. The emergence of the Belgian police Between the crosses, row on row,
dog heritage took place under the That mark our place; and in the sky
oppression of these conflagrations, The larks, still bravely singing, fly
subverting worldwide Belgian influence for Scarce heard amid the guns below.
two generations.
Belgium is central to police dog We are the Dead. Short days ago
evolution and history in that modern police We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
service evolved in the Flemish homeland, Loved and were loved, and now we lie
important breeds and varieties of police dog In Flanders fields.
are Flemish in origin and because even Take up our quarrel with the foe:
today Belgium is a vital and important To you from failing hands we throw
center of service orientated sport and police The torch; be yours to hold it high.
dog breeding and training. If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McCrae

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In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The Belgian Enigma
In discussing things Belgian eventually one must confront the underlying enigma:
there is not now, never has been and never will in any fundamental and realistic
sense be a nation of Belgium or a person who is a Belgian. Rather there are two
separate regions and peoples locked in an unholy union differing in ethnic
background, culture, language and world view with deep historical animosities. This
absurd construct, this bad marriage, was conjured up in 1830 by Machiavellian
politicians for the perverse agendas of the major powers and consummated at the
end of a shotgun for their own ends, with little concern for the wishes or welfare of
the people involved. The only unifying factor and justification was that the regions
making up Belgium were at the creation predominantly Roman Catholic in an era
when common religious affinity meant much more to the social fabric than it does in
the more secular Europe of today.
To the casual tourist these differences are not overt; communication for one
fluent in neither national language is by its nature labored and subtleties are
obscure. Outward appearances are normal: everybody drives on the right in an
assortment of foreign made vehicles, there are no burned out cars on the streets or
routine photos and reports of violence in the press, as has been so prevalent in
Northern Ireland. It would seem that the lack of overt religious strife has rendered
the conflicts nonviolent. But these are profound differences and conflicts
nevertheless, even if just below the surface.
It is perhaps something of an inconvenience to impose this little historical detour
in a book about police dogs, but there is simply no alternative; until one grasps
these historical circumstances the Belgian canine world makes little sense. But it is
well worth the trouble, for Belgium is the homeland of some of the best working
lines, breeding and training in the world. No French or Dutch breed is of comparable
stature to the Belgian Malinois, which is the foundation of today’s KNPV lines in the
Netherlands and the French Ring Sport in addition to Belgian national venues.
The people of Flanders, the more northern and western portion of the nation, are
the Flemings, of Teutonic or German cultural origin and speaking Flemish, which is
today virtually the same as Dutch. Wallonia in the more southern and eastern region,
home of the Walloons, is French in language, culture and ethnic makeup. In addition,
there is a small German speaking community in the east, in the vicinity of the city of
Liege, annexed after WWI.
Individual persons living in the country known to the outside world as Belgium
are thus either a Fleming or a Walloon, and there is no more anything in between
than there are creatures part dog and part cat. There are no national political
parties, no national newspapers, no real national culture – everything in Belgium
centers in the one sphere or the other.
Subsequent to the 1830 creation of Belgium the official language for government
and commerce – even in the Flemish region – was French, which was to a certain
extent adopted by the Flemish higher classes and the upwardly mobile mercantile
class, especially in the region of Brussels. In that era French was the language of
diplomacy, commerce and culture worldwide; French use was ubiquitous as the
hallmark of sophistication and culture. Belgian periodicals and magazines, such as
canine journals, were in French, which was by default the language of science,
culture and higher education. Today the vicinity of Brussels is the only region with a
national character, has emerged as cosmopolitan and multilingual; the remainder of
the people tend to think of themselves as essentially Flemish or French in terms of
culture and personal identity.
The fact that the French language was imposed by outside political and military
authority as the language of state, commerce and government from the beginning
created an undercurrent of Flemish resentment, just as the Irish have residual

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Note Mechelen, Terveren, Groenendaal and Laken in the vicinity of Brussels, which were the regions
associated with the currently recognized varieties are associated.

The cities of Roulers and Courtrai further to the west are associated with the evolution of the Bouvier de
Roulers, later the Bouvier des Flandres.

animosity for the British even to this day. As Flandres became more modern,
prosperous and democratic the imposition of a foreign language became increasingly
onerous, and Dutch was gradually adapted as a second official language, a slow
process in that there was no official Dutch version of the national constitution until
1967. Flemish resentment has been a driving force in the ongoing desire for
separation, which is intense for a minority but seems unlikely to come to fruition; the
Belgians are perhaps just too prosperous and comfortable for real revolution.
Relationships between the Flemings and the Walloons have always been tense, as
in any troubled marriage, and in recent years the regions have become increasingly
separate in term of government. In 1993 Belgium became a federal state with three
regions – Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels – virtually independent in everything
other than military and foreign affairs. As mentioned above, there is a fringe element
favoring outright separation, with the Walloon region perhaps becoming part of
France; some say that this would be the case today if the problem of where Brussels

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Sketch of early Belgian Shepherds in conjunction with initial standard.
Artist: Alexandre Clarys (Belgian, 1857-1920)
Duc, with long, dark gray brindle hair, Born about 1890 Owner: Arthur Meule, of Saint-
Gilles-Bruxelles.
Charlot, with short smooth hair, fawn coloured, charcoaled on the back and the head,
white breast. Born about 1890 Owner: Jean Verbruggen, of Cureghem.
Dick, with gray wire hair. Owner Aug. Dagnelie,of Brussels.

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itself would fit in could be resolved. On the day by day basis the Belgian population is
on the whole pragmatic, peaceful and prosperous, with the physical separation of
Flemings and Walloons, and increasing separation of governmental functions along
regional, ethnic and cultural lines, facilitating peaceful coexistence; separate but
equal does in these circumstances seem to be a viable, pragmatic social structure. If
Belgium is a bad marriage, it seems to be one where separate bedrooms provide the
basis for ongoing stability if not contentment.
The current Belgian population is a little over ten million people, approximately
sixty percent of whom are Flemish. Belgium was at the forefront of the Industrial
Revolution and today 97 percent of the people are urban. This does much to explain
why there are virtually no actual herding dogs serving in Belgium; and why the
Belgian Ring Sport has no large area tracking tests. I know of a Belgian Ring club in
Antwerp entirely contained on a small city lot, including a clubhouse.
In everyday life the Flemish and Walloons have always lived in their own lands,
conversing in their own language, reading their own newspapers. In a general way
the Flemish have much more intercourse with their Dutch neighbors to the north, the
primary difference being that the Flemish remain predominantly Catholic and the
Dutch much more Protestant, and the Walloons in a similar way relate to their
French neighbors to the south. Indeed, the internal divide between Wallonia and
Flanders marks more real cultural difference – and even animosity – than the
national borders with France or the Netherlands. In the national government the
Belgians must come together, make laws and conduct business, but even here they
are segregated, there have never been national political parties in parliament, but
only expedient alliances to form fragile coalition governments. In recent times, there
have been long periods – years – where it was impossible to form a government in
parliament.
The problem with all of this is that internationally the Belgians somehow have to
send one Olympic team, one United Nations delegation and one unified team to
international events such as the FCI IPO championships, since the rest of the world
insists on dealing with them as one nation. This makes national level canine
organizations complex and unwieldy. Since there can only be one FCI member,
Societe Royale Saint-Hubert in this instance, all of the St. Hubert national breed
clubs encompass both regions. Apparently the Belgians have as much difficulty
designating an IPO team for the FCI or WUSV international IPO championships as do
the conflicting American organizations.
These ongoing conflicts of culture and language played a ubiquitous role in the
evolution of Belgian breeds, service and influence. In earlier years most written
material –books, magazines and pamphlets – was in French, but the incipient
working breeds or varieties – most especially the Malinois – emerged primarily in the
Flemish regions of Flanders and Brabant. It must be remembered that the four
Belgian Shepherd varieties recognized today, after a century of strife and infighting,
physically differ in coat color and texture but also in character and history. The long
coated Groenendael, so prominent in working trials in the early years, emerged
largely in the Walloon region south of Brussels while the short coated Malinois
emerged in regions north of Brussels, deep in the Flemish provinces of Brabant and
Antwerp. The demise of the Groenendael and the emergence of the Malinois in
working and sport prominence correspond in time as well as place with the
increasing prosperity and self-determination of the Flemish people.
Concerning an illustrated brochure about the Belgian Shepherd Dog published by
the Club of Malines in 1898 Louis Huyghebaert, godfather of the Malinois, wrote "It
was also the first time that something official was written about this Flemish breed in
the Flemish language." These founders of the Malinois, the working dog of the
Belgian Shepherd varieties, in the city of Malines, deep in the Flemish countryside

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and closer in spirit and geography to the Netherlands than Wallonia, nurtured an
underlying resentment of French domination destined to fester, under the surface if
not overtly.
From an American perspective, the Belgian police breeds were in the German
shadow through most of the twentieth century. While the Malinois became the
predominant police dog in the Netherlands and Belgium, in America it was exotic and
not widely recognized, with most of us thinking of the Malinois as funny looking
German Shepherds, if we were aware of them at all. As Malinois began to become
more common in police service television and radio announcers tended to have a
difficult time pronouncing the name. In the twenty-first century, and especially since
the taking out of Bin Laden, this aura of strangeness has to some extent abated.
Even in Belgium, the Netherlands and France the German Shepherd is today
numerically much more popular with the general public than any of the other police
style breeds.

National Canine Organizations

In a nation with such deep ethnic, lingual and cultural divisions it cannot come as
a surprise that Belgian canine organizations have a history of strife, competition and
shifting allegiance. There have historically been three major national clubs with
separate studbooks and conducting Ring trials, two of which are ongoing and one of
which, Kennel Club Belge, is today for practical purposes irrelevant but historically
significant. These are:
 Societe Royale Saint-Hubert (SRSH) 1882
 Kennel Club Belge (KCB) 1908
 Nationaal Verbond der Belgische Kynologen (NVBK) 1963

Among other things these divisions make the work of the canine student and
historian, and those looking for information for breeding or selection purposes, much
more difficult as many dogs have been registered with multiple organizations,
sometimes with differing names.1 Another complication is that much the literature is
written as if the FCI affiliated Societe Royale Saint-Hubertus is the only worthy
organization, being perceived as "official." This is particularly important in a police
dog book, where historically many dogs come from outside of establishment lines
and where formal registration is increasingly irrelevant. Thus much of what has been
written has been according to personal ideas of what is important, valid and
legitimate, often downplaying or ignoring crucial elements of this history.
But for working oriented breeders and trainers especially this focus on
establishment FCI affiliated organizations is increasingly irrelevant, for the FCI
historically and increasingly denigrates working character and promotes show line
interests and advantage. Several decades ago the Schutzhund title was often taken
at face value, indicative of police service readiness, and this was broadly valid if
common sense and appropriate testing was factored into the selection process. But
in recent years, IPO, Schutzhund rebranded, is increasingly out of the mainstream of
police dog acquisition, which has gone hand in with increasing Malinois predominance
over the German Shepherd.
Today most of the best of Malinois breeding in Belgium is under the auspices of
the working oriented alternative organization, NVBK, which makes exporting to other
nations for breeding and sport purposes problematic and creates the temptation to
1
Tjop, a famous stud dog, had four registrations: LOSH 6132, LOF 10538, NHSB 2740
and FCSB 116. FCSB was a short lived registry discussed in the history sections.

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falsify documents and other maneuvers to work around the system. But in exporting
dogs for police service or breeding for direct police sale in America this is less and
less a factor as registration becomes less and less important. A consequence of these
complexities is that many more Dutch Malinois out of KNPV lines are exported than
come from Belgium.
Historically this ongoing internal strife was a major factor in the slow emergence
of the Malinois as an important international working dog beyond the Low Countries
and France, holding these dogs, among the finest in the world, in relative obscurity
for most of the twentieth century. This also contributes to the fact that most
prominent and influential Malinois lines, from the perspective of the world at large,
particularly America, are those of France, the Netherlands or even Germany rather
than the Flemish homeland.

Societe Royale Saint-Hubert

The Belgian national all breed canine organization, Societe Saint-Hubert was
founded on Feb. 18, 1882. King Leopold II gave his blessing in 1886 making it
officially the Societe Royale Saint-Hubert (SRSH).1 In practice the organization is
often colloquially referred to as St. Hubert, and often with the abbreviation SRSH.
SRSH in that era, as with most national formal organizations such as the Kennel Club
in Britain, after which it was modeled, was principally concerned with the dogs of the
upper middle and elite classes and emerging conformation hobbyists, an organization
by and for hunters and their hunting dogs, especially their hounds. The working and
farming class Flemish people with their herding and guardian dogs, later to evolve
into the Malinois and the Laeken, and a generation after that the Bouvier, would
have tended to regard SRSH as haughty, upper class and entirely too French.
The weekly magazine Chasse et Pêche (Hunting and Fishing), founded in Brussels
November 5, 1882, persisting until 1970, was the official publication of Societe
Royale Saint-Hubert. Louis Vander Snickt was the long time editor and in this role,
and as a judge and general commentator, wielded significant influence over canine
affairs, playing a role in the evolution of the Belgian Shepherds and Schipperkes.
Interestingly enough, St. Hubert is the patron saint of the hunter rather than the
herdsman or dog owner. Perhaps more appropriate for the herding dogs would have
been the patron of the shepherds: Saint Druon, often shown with a staff, his sheep
and his dog. But of course common working dogs and men counted for little in the
upscale, show dog oriented canine establishments of the era.
With the establishment of the International Cynological Federation (FCI) in 1911
the member national organizations gained enormous prestige and power, since only
their registration papers, judges and breed standards were recognized by other
nations. SRSH was a charter member of FCI, thus gaining an enormous upper hand
in canine power politics.

1
In Flemish or Dutch this becomes Koninklijke Maatschappij Sint-Hubertus.

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 Kennel Club Belge
In general a predominant
national canine authority or kennel
club emerges in each nation, as in
the American AKC, the British
Kennel Club and the national FCI
affiliated club in most of continental
Europe and much of the rest of the
world. Thus although there are
often alternate or dissenting
entities, often with specific
interests, in most nations a single
national kennel club, usually the
first one established, becomes
predominant. In America there is in
addition to the AKC a large and
prospering United Kennel Club
(UKC) mostly focusing on
registration of functioning hunting
dogs, as opposed to the
My old friend Jean Du Mont with Flack de l'Assa ornamental and companion
1958. Photo C.Greving versions in the AKC ring. Another
example is the KNPV in Holland,
with focus strictly on police trials
and training. In such situations, with is relatively little overlap in interest and
breeding lines, there is relatively little conflict.
Belgium is an exception to this. The separate cultures and languages, Flemish
resentment of French domination in government, the press and civic intuitions and
the fact that Belgium was created relatively recently with little realistic expectation of
national spirit or cohesion has meant that truly national institutions of any sort have
been difficult or impossible to establish and maintain. Because of this history, it is
quite natural that Societe Royale Saint-Hubert would be elite and French dominated,
in this instance initially primarily run by and for hunting dog enthusiasts. Gaining
acceptance and recognition, and especially formal registration privileges, for the
herding and working dogs of the farmers, herdsmen and tradesmen, was a long and
arduous process involving much conflict.
As will be outlined in detail in the historical sections, Kennel Club Belge (KCB)
emerged from these conflicts in 1908, overtly as a consequence of ongoing strife
over the coat color and texture in the varieties of the Belgian shepherd, but more
fundamentally in response to the broader issues of who should control Belgian canine
affairs, and involving issues such as whether the emerging breeds, especially the
Belgian Shepherds, should be functional as serious police level working dogs or
ornamental as in the English Kennel Club style.
Although Kennel Club Belge was to be a major factor in the Belgian canine world
for many decades, and from the working dog advocate's perspective one of the more
supportive, the creation of the FCI in 1911 with St. Hubert as a charter member,
lending the aura of international respectability and presence, made prospects for
long term viability problematic. Reviewing early pedigrees, many of the most
significant Belgian Shepherds of the era were duel registered, often with Dutch or
French registration in addition. In a time of trouble, the man in the street was
hedging his bets.
In the early years KCB was supportive of working dog training and competition,
holding their first Belgian national Ring Sport championship in 1913, thirteen years
prior to SRSH. It seems likely that St. Hubert insiders, in common with the British

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Kennel Club which they admired and emulated, regarded working trials, especially
those involving dogs biting men, and performance oriented breeding as obsolete in
the new era, expecting it to naturally fade away as it did in England. But when it
became evident that the interest was deep seated and persistent, and when Kennel
Club Belge emerged as serious competition, they belatedly created their own working
programs in order to regain control.
Through 1932 there had been no publication of the Kennel Club Belge breeding
records, that is, the Livre des Origines Belges (LOB). The preface to the records for
that year provides insight into the spirit and purpose of the organization:
"This is the list of registrations made during 1933 in the L.O.B. being the
Studbook (Livre d'Origines) of the Belgian Kennel Club.
"One might ask why this studbook was not published in previous years and
why, after twenty-six years of activity, our highest registration number is
only 18,785.
"The late M.G. Oortmeyer, our dear chairman and founder of the Belgian
Kennel Club, was not an enthusiast about the publishing of our studbook.
He kept his L.O.B. carefully and held it at the disposal of serious fanciers,
but at that moment there were so many false pedigree makers, that M.
Oortmeyer wished to avoid putting in their hands a booklet which would
give them the material for their falsifications. Besides, we never cared
much for having a high number of registrations. During twenty years there
did not exist any registration fee at the Belgian Kennel Club and we asked
our friends only to apply for the registration of mature and worthy dogs.
Up to June 1933 we did not even register litters. We thought it superfluous
to register thousands of puppies from which a third never became mature
dogs, and from which another third is lost for dogdom, as they come in
hands of people who are not interested in pedigree dogs.
"But years elapsed and minds changed. There are still false pedigree
makers but they know their business and need no studbook to have the
necessary material. The Registration of litters has its good and bad side
and, furthermore, we were compelled to give satisfaction to our members
asking for a publication of our studbook. In June 1933 we started
registering litters."
Publication of breeding records was to be short lived, persisting only from 1933
through 1937. Thus KCB was in fundamental ways different from registries as we
think of them today; rather than an effort to record every pup and every litter, they
regarded such things as secondary and in general only encouraged registration of
dogs actually involved in breeding or working trials.
Kennel Club Belge was perhaps in a sense more comparable to the KNPV or
NVBK, organizations with emphasis on maintaining and enhancing police and military
functional potential, through demanding performance tests for breeding qualification,
rather than conformation competition based on artificial style and fashion, creating
breeding lines popular with diverse companion homes but of increasingly diminished
service utility. This performance orientation is clearly evidenced by leadership roles
of men such as Joseph Couplet, famous as trainers and advocates of police canine
service.
KCB has been in decline for many years, and today is on the brink of irrelevance.
There are a number of reasons for this, the primary one being the inability to
compete and maintain relevance sans FCI affiliation. They are not recognized
internationally, by FCI nations or nations with an FCI understanding, such as the
United States, and thus no one affiliated can easily sell pups or compete in national
or international working trials. Also, KCB was primarily in the French or Walloon

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region, which has had difficult times economically, especially in comparison to the
Flemish region, in recent decades. The web site in 2007 showed about 23 clubs,
almost all in the southern or French speaking region, and a schedule of about 25
total ring trials. There were at this time seven Kennel Club Belge Ring judges. But
more recent internet inquiries fail to bring up more than a front page of a site, with
empty Flemish and French versions, shown last updated 2003. Like a derelict ship at
sea, drifting off into nothingness.
Although now in decline, Kennel Club Belge played an important role in keeping
the working dog flame alive in the hard years after WWI, certainly a noble service.
Perhaps there is reincarnation for canine organizations pure in spirit, perhaps the
NVBK, introduced directly below, is the spiritual heir of Kennel Club Belge and men
such as Couplet who began this struggle so many decades before. In a certain place
in my heart I would like to believe.
Breaking Out, the NVBK
The founding of the Nationaal Verbond der Belgische Kynologen was an act of
revolution and a declaration of independence on the part of the Belgian Ring Sport
community and the advocates of the Malinois. This new organization arose because
serious trainers and Malinois breeders chaffed under the restrictions, control and
manipulation of the conformation orientated, FCI affiliated SRSH organization. Not
only did NVBK take control of their Ring trials, they began their own registration
book, making independence complete.
NVBK was founded in the province of Antwerp 1963 and began competition in
1964. It is today the most important and significant of Belgian Ring national
organizations, both in terms of numbers and support, but most importantly it is a
working dog entity conducted by working dog people for working dog people.
Approximately 100 dogs receive level III certification each year, compared, for
instance, to 800 to 1000 yearly KNPV titles. While numerically relatively small this is
enough for a viable, ongoing breeding and training community. There are
approximately 50 NVBK ring judges, in contrast to the half dozen, mostly older,
listed for Societe Royale Saint-Hubert. St. Hubert continues to conduct annual
Category I Ring championships with an entry of twelve or fifteen, but aggregate
activity and participation is small compared to the NVBK.
Today, all dogs participating in NVBK ring trials are Malinois. Other breeds are
theoretically permitted but do not participate. Malinois from other registries must
obtain NVBK papers in order to enter an NVBK trial, which is relatively easy to do.
NVBK puppy registrations were 359 in 2006, 430 in 2007 and 454 in 2008.
Historically NVBK is primarily a Flemish organization, which in Belgium, deeply
divided between the Flemish and culturally French regions, is a deeply significant
fact. Currently the administrative districts are: Antwerp, Brabant, Limburg, East-Flanders
and West-Flanders, all in the Flemish region to the north and west. As of 2007 there were
more than 100 NVBK clubs in Belgium and more than 1600 members. By 2013
membership had risen to 2600 Belgian members. Current reality is that the practical
demise of St. Hubert and Club Belge Ring Sport activity and credibility has compelled
serious Ring enthusiasts to gravitate to the NVBK.
More recently the NVBK seems to have become interested in building bridges to
the French speaking Belgians, is gradually including use of the French language
version of the name: Fédération Nationale des Cynophiles Belges (FNCB)

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 Work and Sport
The emergence of the Belgian
Shepherd as a formal breed created
an ongoing need of an outlet for the
energy and working drive of these
newly urbanized herding dogs, just as
there was a need of a social and sport
outlet for the people in the more
prosperous and leisure oriented world
created by the Industrial Revolution.
In America these needs were often
met by after work softball, bowling
and similar social activities. In
Belgium and other northern European
countries a burgeoning interest in
amateur dog training and trial
competition emerged. Eventually this
would lead to the Belgian Ring Sport
as we know it today, but in these
early days as clubs and breeds were
evolving there was significant
opposition to the emphasis on overt
aggression, especially amateur
participation in programs involving
dogs biting people. This concern is
thus not specifically American or
recent, but rather has been present
The father of Belgian Ring Sport Edmond from the beginning.
Moucheron, who also bred Groenendaels
under the kennel name "Chenil Dax" after his In the 1880's men such as
most famous dog Edmond Moucheron began giving
police dog demonstrations in France,
Belgium and Holland. These would
normally take place in a fenced off area, that is a ring of sorts, and included
obedience, agility as in dogs jumping over bicycles and dramatic protection
scenarios. This was very much entertainment in popular venues for the common
man, comparable to our American county or state fairs, and intended to excite and
entertain. The scaling wall, at ten feet or more, was a highlight of these dramatic
performances and the subject of numerous photos of the era. These police style
demonstrations caught the imagination of much of the public, became the forerunner
to the Ring Sport. Moucheron is regarded by many as the father of Ring Sport, and if
not the father he was certainly the precursor, in the mold of John the Baptist.
Those involved in formalizing the breed, Dr. Reul and his associates, were
thinking in a different direction; were emulating the evolution of the English Collie
through conformation shows and sheep dog trials. Thus the motivation was emerging
from the top down, that is, was promoted by club founders who were not especially
hands on dog men interested in a sport for themselves, but rather motivated by
promotional and social agendas. Emulation of the Brits turned out to be a shaky
foundation on which to build sport herding, for continental circumstances varied in
fundamental ways. Scotland and England were different because of climate, terrain
and commercial context; in large regions there was still viable ongoing sheep raising,
and thus herdsmen interested in competing with their dogs. Such things did not
prevail in the Low Countries, although in the more eastern areas of Germany a viable
herding community, and sheepdog trials, would exist well into the twentieth century.

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 The first sheep herding trial for the Belgian dogs took place on the 1st and 2nd of
May 1892 in Brussels, sponsored by the Club du Chien de Berger Belge (to be
discussed later) in conjunction with the Belgian Collie club, in emulation of similar
British trials for their Collie dogs. Although Reul and others were supportive,
apparently preferring this to the enthusiasm for the emerging police applications as
more acceptable to the better social classes, the trials turned out to be expensive
and unpopular and thus fell out of favor.
The failure of herding trials to thrive is not in retrospect the least bit surprising,
as the plain fact is that sheep were disappearing from Belgium. The survey in 1836
counted 969,000 which by 1880 had fallen to 365,000 and continued to drop in a
precipitous way. Rapidly expanding sheep production in Argentina, Australia and
other places was gutting the Belgian market. The advent of the steam powered
ocean going vessel played an important role in this, bringing forth the age of
international trade in bulk commodities in addition to high value luxury goods such
as tea and spices.
In 1897 Louis Huyghebaert, living in Mechelen (Malines) north of Brussels, deep
in Flemish country, took notice of the fact that sheep and shepherd's work was
disappearing and advocated that different sorts of trials be created to "bring forward
the three fundamental characteristics that a shepherd dog should possess:
intelligence, obedience and loyalty." Huyghebaert would evolve as a very important
man on the Belgian canine scene, active as a breeder, writer and in canine politics, in
the better sense, for another half century.
But for the moment what is telling is what he did not mention, promote or
approve of in the place of herding, that is, protection or police training and amateur
competition involving biting dogs. In reality this was seriously out of step with the
times, as a worldwide police dog movement was about to emerge in the city of Ghent
further west in Belgian Flandres; and civilians across north central Europe – the Low
Countries, Germany and much of France – were evolving enormous interest in hands
on participation in police canine affairs. Nevertheless, Huyghebaert at this time
believed that amateur protection training was the wrong trend to encourage, and
was an advocate of tracking, writing a book on the subject and encouraging sport
activity. He was also an advocate of dressage (obedience) trials, with individual
exercises testing a dog’s ability to leap over high and long obstacles and swimming
exercises.
It is said that to praise or blame a man it is necessary to walk a mile in his shoes,
and this reluctance to encourage civilian protection sport played out well over a
century ago in a social context remote from today's world. It is entirely possible,
even likely, that civilians, perhaps enthusiastic young men in back yards, were
emulating the stunts of Moucheron and creating dangerous dogs that posed an
ongoing threat to the credibility of the breed. God knows that sort of thing goes on
even today. Ernest van Wesemael, founder of Belgian police service (to be discussed
in the Police Dog chapter), also expressed opposition to civilian involvement in such
training.
Thus a common thread among those seeking to promote the breed as a
fashionable dog for the better classes was discomfort with the protection work,
perceiving it as appealing to the wrong sort of people rather than the upward social
mobility they saw as desirable for an incipient breed. Those opposed to such training
thus expressed plausible concerns; and there was without doubt the need to evolve
safe as well as effective training methods and trial procedures that demanded the
demonstration of control and responsibility rather than raw aggression. Both
Huyghebaert and van Wesemael seem to have believed that the demonstrations of
Moucheron, with their emphasis on dramatic attack scenarios, like a carnival side
shows, which to an extent they were, projected a low class image unlikely to appeal

206
to the more upwardly mobile and urban enthusiasts they envisioned as the future
fanciers, with visions of gentile dog show popularity. It is not clear if the opposition
was to any sort of amateur training involving biting dogs or simply a reaction to the
overly dramatic aspects of the demonstrations.
Perhaps van Wesemael felt that the dogs were by nature aggressive enough, and
long-term acquisition was simply a matter of selection and training for manageable
dogs, in which case he was mistaken. This was perhaps possible, as he does not
seem to have been an especially astute, hands on dog man.
In time Huyghebaert relented, reluctantly or not, as he played an active role for
another half century while the Belgian Ring flourished. Real history is never simple
and neat; men respond to complex emotions and motivations which evolve over
time. But neither of these men is plausible as "Father to the Belgian Ring," for they
were akin to reluctant, upwardly mobile, protective fathers of delicate daughters,
aspiring to gentile class status, fending of aggressive young men of questionable
repute, with the well-known propensities of all young men.
But at the end of the day the era of police dog and amateur police style training
was imminent, and it was not a matter of allowing it or not allowing it but one of
developing programs that demanded reliability and control. In this era the common
man, the men working in the fields and emerging industry, increasingly had a mind
of their own, and their collective mind was increasingly focusing on police style
training as an amateur activity, which would expand enormously with the turn of the
twentieth century, in Belgium, in Germany and then in much of the rest of the world.
Belgian Ring Sport
Although somewhat informal in the beginning, Ring style demonstrations were
being held as early as 1903 in Malines (Dutch: Mechelen). By 1908 more formal
trials with better established rules were underway. These early trials included water
exercises similar to the KNPV water exercises of today. The prototype trial took place
in June of 1903, won by a bitch called Cora, who would play a prominent role in early
breeding lines, indeed would become a foundation of the breed. This trial is best
thought of as a demonstration, an experiment, in that there was a minimum of
formality and rules, the dogs more or less doing what they had been trained for
rather than a pre-determined program.
Until well into the 1960s, when Belgians and Dutchmen began to become
involved in the German style of sleeve oriented sport, the suit sports, Ring in
Belgium and France, KNPV in the Netherlands, drove the evolution of the Belgian
working breeds, in particular the Malinois and somewhat later the Bouviers.
Protection work featured a decoy or helper in the protective body suit, in principle
allowing the dog great latitude in where and how to bite, favored as more natural
and realistic than the separate bite sleeve then emerging in Germany. While French
Ring has been widely publicized in America for several decades, the Belgian variety
has had much less notice here
Although French and Belgian Ring are superficially similar and share common
roots, in that the decoy wears the full body bite suit rather than the padded arm of
Schutzhund, today the differences in philosophy, practice, and even breeding
selection are significant if sometimes subtle. Although the French Ring varies the
order of some of the exercises, the Belgian Ring judge has a great deal more latitude
to alter the exercises, so that the handler is never certain what he and his dog will
face on a particular day. At one trial near Liege, in the middle 1980s, the object
presented for the retrieve was a large sponge in a bucket of water. The handler was
required to take it out, toss it without wringing it out, and send this dog to bring it
back. In the protection exercise that day, the decoy had a rope attached to the lower
of two stacked plastic barrels. As the dog came in to engage the decoy he tugged on
the line so that the dog was distracted by the two barrels bouncing behind him.

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 Although Belgian Ring is a lesser-known
European sport, it is, from the more
sophisticated spectator's point of view, one
of the more interesting. The trial fields tend
to be small and intimate, and the judge’s
discretion in arranging the details of the
exercises adds to the general interest.
The Groenendael Jules du Moulin (LOB
2884), owned and trained by Charles
Tedesco, proprietor at the kennel du Moulin
at the village of Auderghem, just south east
of Brussels, became a very prominent
working dog. In 1908 Jules and Tedesco won
the first World Champion title at the defense
dog Championships in Paris. The detailed
nature of this Paris competition is not clear;
perhaps it was of French origin and a
precursor for the French Ring sport, or
perhaps Paris was just so strong as the
center of the French speaking world that it
seemed natural for the culturally French
Belgians to go there for major events. Jules
went on to win many other championship
competitions through 1914. An interesting
sidelight is that Jules was out of a female of
undocumented origins, not the least bit
Jules du Moulin (Couplet, 1931) unusual in that era.1 As noted above,
championships prior to 1913 were in Paris
under the auspices of Club National des
Chiens de Defense et de Police.
The inaugural Kennel Club Belge Ring Championship was in Brussels on June 21
& 22 1913. Jules du Moulin and Charles Tedesco were in first place, followed by Top
de la Joliette, Groenendael; Karl de la Mare, Tervueren; and Tom des Crosnes,
Malinois. Jules was also the winner in 1914, on the eve of the deluge.
It is characteristic of the era that Groenendael activity centered on Kennel Club
Belge and in the predominantly French regions. There was an early surge of working
Groenendael enthusiasm, but as activity resumed following the war the Malinois was
in the spotlight, the Groenendael to fade into oblivion as a serious working dog.
Following WWI forward the winners were Malinois with exceptions in 1927 Torry de
l'Ombrelle LOB 11172 - rough-haired and 1960/1961 John (LOB 76361) - rough-
haired. The best result for another breed was the second place of the Bouvier Sicky
der Begijntjes (LOB 56425) in 1950.
Although Kennel Club Belge provided the primary arena in the early years of Ring
competition, in accordance with the usual Belgian way there have always been
multiple, conflicting organizations. The primary organizations with Ring programs,
with year of first championship:

1
I am coming to prefer the term undocumented over the customary unknown, because in
many if not most instances the people involved knew the background, often for several
generations, perfectly well. Not being written down does not mean that knowledge does
not exist, dogs were bred on oral tradition and community knowledge for centuries
before formal registries came into existence.

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  Kennel Club Belge (KCB) 1913
 Societe Royale Saint-Hubert (SRSH) 1926
 Nationaal Verbond der Belgische Kynologen (NVBK) 1964

This is slightly misleading in that although there were very successful Club Belge
championships in 1913 and 1914, with 21 and 22 participants respectively, the late
summer and fall of 1914 brought Belgium under the heel of the German Army.
Although there are references to an event in 1916, likely very small scale in the time
of war, it would be ten years before recovery was sufficient to make a full scale
championship possible.
The first post war Club Belge Ring Championship was in Brussels in September of
1924. There were 33 participants, mostly male Malinois, but with four Bouviers des
Flandres and six females. Interestingly enough, the first three places went to a bitch,
with first place going to Ledy du Plateau with S. Van de Bossche of Brussels. There
were seven Groenendaels, with the female Diane du Fonds des Eaux with V. Menier
in third place.
The inaugural Societe Royale Saint-Hubert Ring Sport National Championship
took place on October 3, 1926. The entry was relatively small: there were nine
competitors: 5 Mechelaar, 2 Groenendael and 2 Bouviers de Flandres.
The lack of Belgian national unity and strife among trial sanctioning entities have
been factors limiting Belgian Ring sport visibility in the world at large. Perhaps this is
not all bad, as there is something to be said for having a dog sport somewhere in the
world that really is about local men training their own dogs, devoid of overweening
commercialism. If you visit Europe, it is well worth the trouble to seek out a local
trial and spend the afternoon drinking beer and leaning on the fence that usually
surrounds the field. It will be like stepping backwards in time to an older, slower
paced, simpler world.
My initial experience with the Belgian way of work was at a club near the ancient
city of Liege in far eastern Belgium, in the middle 1980s. Like it was yesterday I can
recall standing by the ring watching a marvelous Malinois perform in perhaps the
most fascinating ritual of the working dog world, the Belgian Ring trial. Schutzhund is
precise, demanding and dramatic. KNPV is practical, down to earth and powerful.
French Ring is spectacular, athletic and impressive. But Belgian Ring is akin to a
chess game between the handler and the dog on one side and the judge and decoy
on the other. The rules and traditions are subtle and elusive, and perhaps to the
novice it would seem that not all that much is going on. But for those with even a
little bit of insight it is an intricate drama, almost a trial field morality play.
The dog on the field, called Clip, with his handler Alfons Bastiaens of Westerlo,
was the reigning Societe Royale Saint-Hubert champion, and five times winner
between 1981 and 1986, so we had the privilege of observing the sport at the very
highest level. Later I was to learn from Malinois friends that this Clip is quite famous,
having been St. Hubert Belgian champion several years. Perhaps there was a tiny
edge of envy in their voice, but for me he was an excellent dog enjoying his work on
a warm, sunny afternoon on the tiny Belgian trial field. (If only we could go back
after all of these years and live again such memories with the hard earned
knowledge of experience and research, and with a modern camera!)
But what I carried forward from that day was a few words exchanged with a little
old man standing with us by the ring. I do not remember all of the details, I suppose
one of my friends, perhaps Alfons Verheyen, translated a few words, but what he
said was that he remembered when there were Bouviers in Belgium, remembered
Edmund Moreaux and Francoeur de Liege. This would have been half a century in the
past, but it seemed like we were talking about the previous week. And of course, in
this context, for this man, if a dog was not in the ring, did not work, it did not exist. I

209
 am sure that old man, if he is
somehow still alive after all of these
years, has no recollection of a
strange American, but for me it is
one of those moments locked in
time, like the days when Kennedy
or King were assassinated. The
Bouvier des Flandres of this culture
is, sadly, almost gone but the
Belgian Ring carries on.
On reflection after all of these
years one of the attractions of the
Belgian Ring is that it is – or seems
to be for an American who wants to
believe – a truly amateur world
where the advancement of the
breed, sportsmanship and
camaraderie are still fundamental.
Schutzhund and KNPV today are
today largely driven by money and
greed, to the detriment of
sportsmanship, the breeds and too
often the welfare of individual dogs.
Schutzhund has become almost
wholly commercial, and the
burgeoning export market has
wrought change on KNPV fields,
brought forth commercialism and
greed.
Although generalizations can be
Decoy equipment of the early era. (Couplet, 1931) treacherous, my perception is that
Belgian Ring dogs tend to be larger
and more robust while French Ring
dogs tend to be quicker and more agile. The Belgians emphasize the full grip in the
bite while the French emphasis is on precision in the face of a quicker and more agile
adversary. The Belgian Ring trial area is in general much smaller than that used in
the French Ring. (I have visited a Belgian Ring training club on a small city lot in
Antwerp, perhaps 35 or 40 meters by 90 meters.)
The Belgians believe that their emphasis on the full bite is a fundamental
verification of the dog, while the French would contend that the dog’s effort to
overcome the evasive efforts of the decoy are more important, and that a less full
grip is of secondary importance. The Belgian Ring helpers can be less mobile than
the French, and use bulkier equipment. The French Ring helper evades the dog while
the Belgian Ring helper utilizes variations in the trial procedures and unexpected
obstacles and distractions to test the dog. This is not to judge one or the other
superior, but merely to point out differences produced by rules and tradition.
Belgian Ring dogs compete at three levels or categories: 1
Category III: Young dogs competing for the first year.
1
Note that this is the opposite of Schutzhund or IPO, where the IPO III is the most
advanced title.

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Category II: Dogs who had in their first competition year sufficient points to
advance to this class. (5 times 300 points)
Category I: Elite dogs which have sufficient Cat II success to advance (3 times
340 points)
During week end competitions from March through August trials are held where
dogs seek to qualify for the championships in September. What this means is that
each weekend there are trials for the three categories in different cities. Sometimes
there are only one or two trials, but over the season there are about 20 trials for
each category. On three subsequent September Sundays, beginning with the
Category III dogs, the 20 dogs with the best qualifying scores compete to become
champion.
Historically the Belgian trainers in general have been the least commercial, the
least interested in Americans as customers or promoting their national breeds as
working dogs or their own trial systems. On my first visit to a Belgian Ring trial in
the mid-eighties, Americans present and speaking English attracted no particular
attention, at a time when a few words of English at a KNPV trial would draw people
out of the woodwork looking for the opportunity to sell dogs.
In addition to the Ring, there has been a great deal of high level IPO activity in
Belgium, perhaps those Belgians with international interests and commercial
ambitions have tended to go in this direction. Many Belgian IPO trainers have
become world class competitors, and Belgian training has been innovative and
influential far beyond national borders.

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 The Belgian Shepherd
The Belgian Shepherd is a canine
breed derived from the indigenous
sheep herding dogs of Belgium, built
for quickness, agility and endurance
rather than the fleetness of the sight
hounds or the mass and power of the
Mastiff style guardians. In the Belgian
homeland, and all FCI countries, the
Belgian Shepherd, or Berger Belge, is a
single breed with four varieties
according to coat texture and color.1
Non-FCI nations, such as Britain and
the United States, have their own
arrangements, recognizing some
varieties as separate breeds and not
recognizing others at all. In
appearance these dogs have erect ears
and full tails, are somewhat similar to
the German Shepherd, generally being
Belgian Shepherd, Malinois variety a bit lighter, a bit quicker and in the
Malinois and Laeken perhaps a bit
sharper.
In Belgium the Shepherd varieties today are as follows:
Dutch French Coat Color
Mechelaar Malinois Short red-brown with dark mask
Groenendael Groenendael Long black
Tervuurse Tervueren Long mahogany with dark mask & overlay
Lackense Laeken Rough mahogany or fawn in varying shades

Mahogany is more or less interchangeable with red-brown as a color description.

Fawn as used in describing coat color denotes a light yellowish brown, with a slight
reddish tint, sometimes likened to the color of a young lion. The modern Belgian
standard also provides for Other Colored long coated dogs, which includes the sables
(sand colored), beiges and grays. These are classified with the Tervuerens.
There is some variation in the terminology, for instance with the Malinois we have:
Belgian studbook: Belgische Herdershonden (Mechelse)
Dutch studbook: Belgische Mechelse Herder
Dutch informal: Mechelaar

With the exception of the Laeken each of the varieties is associated with a
Flemish town clustered in the vicinity of Brussels. The Laeken name is derived from a
prominent royal park now within the city limits of Brussels, where the founding
family of this variety were shepherds.
The emergence of the Belgian Shepherds is a complex and convoluted history,
and an organized presentation is difficult. Since men such as Reul and the
1
The word berger is simply the French for shepherd, just as bouvier translates as cowherd
or cattleman, which is one who takes care of the cattle. There are Flemish equivalents,
for instance Vlaamse Koehond is the Flemish or Dutch for the Bouvier des Flandres and
Belgische Herdershonden would be the Dutch for Belgian Herding Dog. The word chien is
French for dog, and the American spelling for Tervueren is Tervuren.

212
Huyghebaert brothers played such important roles, and are referred to constantly, it
seemed best to begin with a brief biography, the reader being encouraged to go back
for a deeper understanding as he proceeds through subsequent material.
Adolphe Reul
The most prominent figure in the formalization of the Berger Belge was Professor
Adolphe Reul (1849–1907) of the Cureghem Veterinary Medical School in Brussels.
Dr. Reul was a prolific and influential author (on draught dogs and horses as well as
the Belgian Shepherd), prominent conformation judge and tireless promoter and
founder of Belgian canine and equine breeds. Reul was born at Braives in Wallonian
Belgium June 7, 1849 and deceased in Brussels on January 10, 1907 at only 57
years, after an extended period of illness.
In addition to innumerable articles in professional journals and the general canine
magazines, he produced these books:
 Les Races de Chiens (The Breeds of Dog) 1893
 Le Chien de trait Belge (The Belgian Draught Dog) 1899
 Precis du Cours d'Exterieur du Cheval (on the Brabantine horse) 1902.

Les Races de Chiens, at over 400 pages, was comprehensive and influential in
the establishment of the Belgian Shepherd. Although Dr. Reul is rightly regarded as a
founder of the breed he was not at all hands on,
not a breeder and likely never actually owned
such a dog.1 As can be seen from his books, he
was a very busy man, also involved in Belgian
Mastiff affairs and the preservation of the Belgian
draft horse, being instrumental in the creation of
the national stud book for this equine breed.
In stark contrast to von Stephanitz, who ten
years later was to be the driving force behind the
German Shepherd dog, and was profoundly
concerned with practical working application of
his incipient breed, Reul and his associates were
primarily focused on the appearance, especially
coat texture and color, that is the conformation.
In this they were emulating the emerging British
show dog fancy, especially the English Collie, and
the rapidly rising popularity of conformation
exhibition in middle and upper class Europe.
Reul was a man of his times, and must be
Dr. Adolphe Reul
understood in this context; more rigid class
structures prevailed, and it was quite normal that
such men took little note of the aspirations of the Flemish speaking farmers,
herdsmen and working class, among which these incipient Belgian Shepherd's dogs
had been nurtured in the pastures and fields for a millennium.

1
There was a minor breeder by the name of Auguste Reul active shortly after the passing
of Dr. Reul, which can cause confusion.

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 Louis Vander Snickt
Louis Vander Snickt, born in
Geraardsbergen on February 24, 1837 and
passing in 1911, was a prominent man on the
Belgian canine scene: he wrote extensively on
diverse agricultural subjects as well as canine
affairs, was long time chief editor of Chasse et
Pêche, an influential conformation judge and
prominent in Schipperke affairs. In addition to
his magazine work, he produced the book L'
Aquiculture and Belgique in 1894. Vander
Snickt was an accomplished illustrator,
providing many exceptional drawings and
sketches in Chasse et Pêche. Earlier he had
served as the manager of the zoological
gardens of Ghent and Dusseldorf. His written
commentary and personal involvement
contributed to the emergence and evolution of
our Belgian Shepherds and other Belgian
breeds.
As editor of Chasse et Pêche, the official
organ of St. Hubert, Vander Snickt was
Louis Vander Snickt circa 1906
certainly privy to internal information, but
being Flemish it is unclear how much of an
actual insider he was in terms of influence and
power.
The Huyghebaert Brothers
Louis Huyghebaert (1868 – 1952) was
prominent among the founders of the
Malinois, a well-known canine authority and
for many years a prolific contributor to the
canine publications Chase et Peche, L'Aboi and
others. Located in the city Mechelen (Malines)
in the province of Antwerp, he was proprietor
of the kennel Ter Heide, founded in 1894 and
eventually sold in 1911.
Frans Huyghebaert, brother of Louis, was
Louis Huyghebaert also prominent among Malinois founders in
the 1890's and later, even more active as a
breeder and trial competitor. He also was a
judge.
Although Louis Huyghebaert was a very prominent and influential conformation
judge and a promoter of dressage (obedience) and tracking, he was, at least in the
early years, markedly unenthusiastic about amateur protection training and thus not
a promoter of Ring sport, putting him out of step with the rising tide of Ring training.
In addition to his contributions to the various magazines, he also produced a well-
known book promoting tracking.
Huyghebaert had diverse canine interests; much of what we know of the history
of the Bouvier des Flandres and earlier related contending bouvier varieties comes
from his work, most especially a long article making up the entire content of the
magazine L’Aboi in March of 1948. Although Huyghebaert never uses the term
Laeken in his famous Bouvier article, he does comment that the Bouvier des

214
 Ardennes, also with naturally upright ears and long tails, was not sufficiently distinct
from the rough coated shepherd's dogs to form the basis of a separate breed.

Joseph Couplet
Joseph Couplet was a very important man in the
early Belgian police or ring dog movement, perhaps
best known today for his book Chien de Garde, de
Défense et de Police, with many editions beginning in
July of 1908. Well known as a trainer and breeder of
the Groenendael, such as Sultan de la Loggia, he was
also a prominent judge.
In addition to his better known police dog book,
Couplet also wrote Le Chien Ambulancier ou Sanitaire,
Son utailite et son dressage (Dog of Ambulance or
Health, His usage and training) Brusseles, 1911.
Couplet was the chairman of the Club du Chien de
Berger Belge from 1911 and chairman of the Kennel
Club Belge from January 1929 to his death in 1937.
Unfortunately, the small photo of Couplet shown
here is the only one I have been able to find; he was
a much bigger man deserving of a more prominent
photo.

Felix Verbanck
Felix Verbanck (1885 – 1973) was
an enormously influential figure on the
Belgian canine scene after the First
World War through the 1960s. His de
l'Ecaillon Malinois line placed him
among the elite breeders of the pre
WWII era. From 1909 through 1934
he resided in northern France for
professional or business reasons, in
the village of Thiant, near the larger
city of Valenciennes. Although for
many years he was justly famous as a
Malinois breeder, in a certain way
perhaps carrying on the work of Dr.
Reul, he also served as secretary of
the parent club and served as a senior
figure and a mentor to many breeders
of Groenendaels and the Bouvier des
Justin Chastel, prominent Belgian Bouvier Breeder, Flandres as well as the Malinois.
on the left and Felix Verbanck on the right.
Photo 1967.
Verbanck was also a key figure in
the history of the Bouvier des
Flandres, serving as the president of the Belgian club for many years and serving as
an advisor and mentor. Although never a Bouvier breeder, his brother and nephew
bred important Bouviers under his influence. I have in my possession letters in his
own hand, or from his typewriter, from the archives of Edmee Bowles, founding
Bouvier breeder in the United States. Mr. Verbanck was truly a remarkable and well-
loved man.

215
 Throughout this era the Belgian Shepherd and Bouvier des Flandres were
strongly intertwined communities, with men such as Felix Verbanck and Louis
Huyghebaert playing major roles in both breeds. In research for my Bouvier book
yielded stories of deprivation during the two wars, a prized dog traded for a sack of
wheat so that the family could eat. A Dutchman of my acquaintance mentioned that
sometimes a family pet became a meal in WWII Holland.

Foundations
From antiquity through the Middle Ages and into the modern era in the region
that is now Belgium wolves and other predators posed a serious threat to the sheep,
to the extent that guarding was the essential function of the Shepherd’s dog. Thus in
this era the dogs were usually larger and more aggressive, often equipped with
collars studded with metal spikes, in order to repel the wolves and other predators.
These dogs tended to be more the heavier mastiff type, the style or type which
persists even today as the guardian dogs, often white in color, in the Pyrenees, Italy,
Turkey and even on to the Himalayas. To some extent the threat from the wolf and
other predators carried over into relatively recent times; the last wolf known in
Belgium was killed in the Ardennes in 1847. Even after this era stray or feral dogs
continued to be a potential threat. Many of these livestock guarding dogs were
cropped and docked because the shepherds noticed that the wolves could otherwise
get hold of tails or ears and thus gain an advantage.
Beginning with the French Revolution, about 1792, larger estates were gradually
dispersed and crop cultivation increased, that is, more and more land came into the
possession of the common man. The concurrent demise of the wolf and the need to
keep the sheep out of neighboring fields, and convey them along roads, seeking
greener pastures, necessitated the evolution of the tending style shepherd dog of
more recent history. Barbed wire did not yet exist, and it was the shepherd’s dogs
which allowed him to control and move his flocks in the ongoing quest for suitable
forage. Ear cropping and tail docking gradually went out of practice, although these
customs persist for the cattleman’s dog, that is, the Bouviers.
So many years later it is difficult to see through the eyes of the founders, men
such as Reul and Huyghebaert, but it would seem evident that the primary
motivation in breed creation was national and cultural pride; in their view the British
had the winning game, were making great strides in creating and promoting their
breeds, their Collies, pointers, hounds and retrievers. It would be almost another
decade before the Germans would bring forth their Dobermans, Rottweilers and
above all the ubiquitous German Shepherd, and, in the aftermath of the oncoming
war, in the 1920s, sweep the attention of the world. These Belgian founders felt
compelled to preserve and protect their native dogs, enshrine them in books of
origins, form them into world recognized national breeds; and English style
conformation competition seemed to be the way of the future.
In a certain way some of these men never quite seemed to engage with the
actual flesh and blood dogs, which served as props or pawns on the chessboard of
elite posturing, created and propagated in the cause of national, cultural and class
pride and personal importance. If so then the show breeder of today is their natural
heir, the ultimate recipient of their patrimony. The problem with this is of course that
it was and is the world of ornamental dogs, with ever changing, ever more grotesque
style and structure, driven by never satisfied fashion rather than functional utility, of
real value to mankind.
The first international open dog show in Belgium took place in Brussels in July of
1880. The sheep and cattle herding dogs were not formed into breeds at that time,
and only seven such dogs were entered in a general continental class, including dogs
from places outside of Belgium, including Germany and France. For perspective one

216
must remember that dog shows were by and for the upper classes, primarily with
their hunting dogs; the Industrial Revolution was just beginning to break down these
historical societal barriers. Of the 965 entries most were hounds, with 10 British
shepherd dogs, Collies and Bobtails, in addition to the seven continental shepherds
mentioned above. Thus the herding dogs as we know them today were an obscure
sideshow on the edge of this glittering canine world, not yet formed into formal
breeds with names and numbers inscribed in a book of records.
The formal advent of the Belgian Shepherd breed commenced with the
foundation of the Club du Chien de Berger Belge on September 29, 1891, in
Brussels. Two weeks later, on November 15, 1891 in Cureghem, on the outskirts of
Brussels, Professor Reul organized a gathering of 117 dogs, which allowed a panel of
judges, including Reul and Vander Snickt, to carry out a survey or evaluation and
select the most typical specimens as the ideal for this incipient breed. In organizing
this pivotal event Reul had sent circulars to the veterinary community seeking
cooperation, information and publicity in gathering together the 117 above
mentioned candidates. The veterinarians, which would have been the among the
more sophisticated, literate and influential elements of the rural communities, played
a major role in breed creation; recall that von Stephanitz in Germany had been
primarily educated in the veterinary and biological sciences, quite the normal
situation in a military culture with large cavalry elements and relying on the horse as
a primary mode of transportation.
Some four months later, on April 2, 1892, again under the direction of Professor
Reul, and modeled after England’s Collie standard, the first Belgian Shepherd
standard, in the French language, was issued by the Club du Chien de Berger Belge.
The standard first appeared in Flemish six years later, in 1898. In this era, if you did
not speak French you were not important among the people that mattered. This
breed standard recognized three varieties: the long coated, the short coated and the
rough coated, without regard to color, exactly as the English Collies were classified.
These divisions were to persist until March of 1898.
Going forward they proceeded according to selection for uniform structure and
coat texture through inbreeding on a few carefully selected dogs, the traditional
process of breed creation. Working character did not seem to be an important part of
the process, as effective working trials were a number of years in the future.
Attempts to secure St. Huber registration for individual dogs had been brushed
aside; apparently these Belgian shepherd's dogs, emanating from among farmers
and herdsmen, were not nearly uniform enough in appearance or noble enough in
form and bearing to merit recognition and registration. There was validity in these
objections, and throughout the 1890's primary focus was on establishing the
uniformity of appearance, structure and type so as to secure a place in the book of
records.
But there was a terrible price paid for this policy, particularly among the
Groenendael. The breeding records of the era demonstrate the exclusion from
fashionable show breeding in the performance spot light because of perceived
physical faults and also because of disdain for working dogs and the working class
men who were their primary advocates. A prime example was Jules du Moulin,
whose white chest patch was considered a fault, apparently overriding his working
success, and the dogs of men such as Edmond Moucheron. As we see in the history
of the German Shepherd, the split between working and show lines came very early
in the breed creation process. The Malinois working oriented breeders were able to
prevail over this tendency and establish the variety as a worldwide standard for
police level breeding.

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Belgian Shepherd Time Line
1880, July First Belgian international conformation show in Brussels
1882, Feb 18 Societe Royale Saint-Hubert founded.
1882, Nov 5 Chasse et Pêche magazine founded.
1888, Mar 10 Belgian Schipperke Club founded.
1891, Sep 29 Club du Chien de Berger Belge founded in Brussels
1891, Nov 15 Dr. Reul and associates evaluate 117 dogs in Cureghem
1892, April 2 Initial standard issued, in French.
1898 Standard translated to Flemish
1898 Dr. Reul is exclusive Belgian conformation judge for
a term of 2 years. (Later extended through 1900)
1898 Section of Malines founded by Dr. G. Geudens and Louis
Huyghebaert
1898, July 18 Berger Belge Club foundation in Laeken
1898, Aug 14 Letter published from V. Du Pre, general secretary of St.
Hubert, "suggesting" a standard with specific, mandatory colors
for each variety.
1901 First Belgian Shepherd, Vos, number 5847, registered with St.
Hubert.
1903 Louis Huyghebaert resigns from Club du Chien de Berger Belge
1905, June 18 Federation des Societes Canines de Belgique founded, with
Club du Chien de Berger Belge among founding members.
1905, Nov 11 Section of Malines resigns from Club du Chien de Berger Belge
in order to maintain affiliation with Societe Royale Saint-Hubert.
Dr. Reul, resigning from Club du Chien de Berger becomes
Chairman of Honor of Section of Malines, renamed as Societe
du Chien de Berger Belge.
1906 Berger Belge Club affiliates with Societe Royale Saint-Hubert
1907, Jan Death of Dr. Reul
1908, Jan 8 Federation des Societes Canines de Belgique agrees to
integrate back into Societe Royale Saint-Hubert
1908, May 27 Federation des Societes Canines de Belgique dissolved
1908, June 14 Kennel Club Belge created by factions unwilling to reunite with
St. Hubert.
Club du Chien de Berger Belge remains aloof as a standalone
entity.
1910, Mar 11 Groenendael Club founded, affiliated with St. Hubert.
1913 Inaugural Kennel Club Belge Ring Championship
1914 – 1919 War.
1926 Inaugural Societe Royale Saint-Hubert Ring Championship

Much more detail and explanation can be found in the Vanbutsele book, which all serious
students of the breed should be familiar with. (Vanbutsele, 1988)

218
 But the split in the Belgian Shepherd world was more complex than work and
show. There was a profound difference in the world view prevailing in Germany with
the creation of the German Shepherd dog, with primary emphasis on establishing
modern working roles as the basis and reason for the breed, and the English Kennel
Club model of the ornamental dog, where artificial, uniform style was to be the
predominant measure of quality. While Reul and his associates were emulating the
British fashion of creating ornamental breeds and preoccupied with the ongoing strife
over coat color and texture, those who saw the future in terms of new work rather
than retirement to ornamental status also had differences among themselves, with
initial top down encouragement of herding and obedience trials in an era when the
man in the street was increasingly inspired by the exciting ring demonstrations of
men such as Edmond Moucheron. Pretense of the preservation of herding
functionality quickly withered under the reality that there was essentially nothing to
herd, and obedience without a protection aspect proved uninteresting to the people
at large.
The journals of the era, such as Chasse et Pêche, were in French and thus largely
unavailable to the Malinois community, primarily Flemish speaking, in particular and
working oriented people in general. Thus what has come down to us, the stuff of
history, is focused on these dog show results rather than the activities of the working
trainers, much less formal in this era. Since there was no registration process in
place before 1901, and little pressure to register working dogs thereafter, those
focused on the work of their dogs had little motivation to be involved with these
formalities, and thus leave little in the journals of the era. But they were there, were
the real foundation of the breed.
In the mid-1890s ongoing confusion and strife evolved among conformation
participants because judges were selecting different, contradictory types. A perceived
need evolved, or was encouraged from on high, to establish a consistent, clearly
defined structure and appearance in the core breeding stock.
As a consequence, Dr. Reul was designated as the exclusive judge of the Berger
Belge, serving in this role from 1898 through 1900. This focus of authority was
similar to that of the German Shepherd evolution, where von Stephanitz played a
corresponding role; a dominant personality seems to be quite common, perhaps in a
way even necessary, in the foundation of a breed. But the differences are as
compelling as the similarities; Reul was much more the one dimensional figure,
focused on style and appearance, and his influence was less long lasting; he
apparently was of diminishing influence, ongoing for several years, likely
exacerbated by illness, by the time of his death, in 1907 at only 57 years.
In 1898 Dr. G. Geudens and Louis Huyghebaert founded a competing club in
Malines, with a focus on the working character of the breed and Flemish interests.
Although founded, at least in part, in response to dissatisfaction with the original
club, this new club, Section of Malines, was technically a branch of the Club du Chien
de Berger Belge in Brussels. As mentioned below, another dissident club, focused on
the Laeken but destined for much wider influence, was also created in 1898.
In these tumultuous years the overriding reality was to be ongoing strife
concerning coat color, texture and length, with coat colors in each variety acceptable
in the show ring changing at a bewildering rate; and the losers becoming resentful
and sometimes going off to create their own clubs.
Early in 1898 a voice was heard from on high when a letter from V. Du Pre,
general secretary of Societe Royale Saint-Hubert, was read in a meeting of the Club
du Chien de Berger Belge advocating specific colors for each of the three varieties.
(Vanbutsele, 1988) In the words of Verbanck:

219
 There was a selection based primarily on color, recommended by L. Vander
Snick1 and inflicted upon the breeders by Dr. Veterinary van Hertsen, the then
president of the Club du Chien de Berger Belge, under the slogan, "Each variety has
only one coat of only one color." (Verbanck, 1972)
Since the beginning of Reul's term as exclusive judge and this pronouncement
concerning coat color came at virtually the same time, early 1898, there is the
obvious question: What was the role of Dr. Reul in all of this? Was he the convinced
advocate of rigid single color varieties, encouraging St. Hubert behind the scenes to
provide the muscle to push the new standard through and enforce it in the show
ring? Was he in his heart favorable to a more inclusive policy, one which would
accommodate the reddish brown rough coats of Jan-Baptist Jansen, the reddish
brown long coats to be known as the Tervueren and other variations, yielding to St.
Hubert pressure as the price of a place in the sacred book? Or was he simply without
the power at this point in time to directly control events? It is very difficult to know,
and like all men his motivations and actions, private and public, were no doubt
complex and evolving over time under pressure to bring his personal Belgian
Shepherd saga to fruition. At any rate, in retrospect 1898 would prove to be the
pivotal year in the evolution of the Belgian Shepherd.
Although the dogs had been shown according to coat texture – the long, the
short and the rough – from 1892 without regard to color, these dictates from St.
Hubert could hardly be ignored, for the simple reason that since the founding the
Belgian Shepherds had been denied entry into the registration book on the grounds
of lack of uniformity. Thus beginning in March of 1898 the long coated variety was
shown with one class for the blacks, referred to as Groenendaels, and a class for the
other colors.2 Shortly thereafter it was decided by Club du Chien de Berger Belge,
under St. Hubert pressure, that each coat type was to be of a single color. The
revised standard dictated:
 Black for the smooth long coated.
 Reddish brown with overlay and mask of black for the short coated.
 Gray for the rough coated.

This created immediate strife and controversy. Excluded by Club du Chien de

Berger Belge were the reddish brown long coated (later to be called Tervueren), the
short coated blacks and especially the reddish brown rough coated dogs, to become
the Laekens, which had been very prominent. The breeders of the now to be
excluded colors, who had been written off with a flick of the pen, the dogs which
they had struggled to breed and consolidate as to type and character casually
discarded by the French speaking elite in their committee meetings, had great
resentment.
Particularly egregious was the rejection of the reddish brown, rough coated lines
of the Flemish shepherd Jan-Baptist Jansen, who spoke no French and thus was at a
disadvantage in the world of canine political manipulation. Instead the rough coated
dogs were henceforth to be grey only, an arbitrary decision in favor of the well-
connected insider Ad Claessens, proprietor of the Brussels cafe Le messager de
Louvain. His dogs Bassoef and Mira were in reality the only greys prominent at the
time, disparaged as weak in character. The prominent son of this pair, Boer-Sus,
1
Whether Vander Snick acted from personal conviction or in deference to St. Hubert is an
interesting but difficult to answer question.
2
It was about a decade later, in 1909, that the terms Laeken and Malinois came into
general use.

220
whelped in 1901, sired a few notable grey rough coats, but these lines quickly
expired.
Regardless of motivation, the Club du Chien de Berger Belge leadership and St.
Hubert bureaucrats were apparently convinced that the power to set the standard
and determine the direction of the breed was in their grasp, that the wishes of the
people in the fields and villages, actually breeding, training and promoting the dogs,
did not matter. In retrospect, this was to be a turning point, for they had overplayed
their hand, creating significant backlash, particularly within the Flemish community.
In response to these onerous color restrictions, a new, competing Belgian
Shepherd club was founded on July 18, 1898 in Laeken. Berger Belge Club, as it
came to be called, would in the long term predominate, and later became affiliated
with St. Huber, in the place of the original club, CCBB, which in time faded into
obscurity. The rough-haired reddish brown Belgian Shepherds, for which the club had
been formed to support, would become known as the Laeken. Joseph Demulder was
founding president and would serve until 1931.
These festering dissatisfactions came to a head in 1905 when Club du Chien de
Berger Belge, Club du Chien Pratique (for training working dogs) and others joined
together in Brussels on June 18, 1905 to found Federation des Societes Canines de
Belgique, directly in competition with St. Hubert. Even today, a few dogs in the
published data base records show FSCB registration numbers from the brief tenure of
this organization. An important consequence of this split was that Chasse et Pêche
would no longer serve as the official organ of the separated clubs.
In 1906 Berger Belge Club became affiliated with St. Hubert in place of Club du
Chien de Berger Belge but under the condition that the rough and long reddish
brown coats be included, thus abating the onerous color restrictions that had been
the cause of so much of this conflict.
This new national organization was fragile and short lived. In 1907 there were
discussions between the two organizations, resulting in an agreement formalized on
January 8, 1908 to fold Federation des Societes Canines de Belgique back into St.
Hubert. There was a meeting on May 27, 1908 for the dissolution of Federation des
Societes canines de Belgique, but important elements of the dissident organization
remained unwilling to be affiliated with St. Hubert.
These elements held a dog show in Brussels June 13 through 15 of 1908, with
377 dogs participating. This became the occasion for the creation of Kennel Club
Belge, on the part of those unwilling to rejoin St. Hubert.
Club du Chien de Berger Belge was thus left in limbo, separated from St. Hubert,
which had a new affiliate club in Berger Belge Club, yet not choosing to affiliate with
Kennel Club Belge, a decision formalized on December 27, 1909. Club du Chien de
Berger Belge, the original founding club, was thus isolated. It became increasingly
irrelevant but persisted beyond WWII before finally fading away.
A separate, standalone Groenendael Club, affiliated with St. Hubert, came into
existence on March 11, 1910 under the leadership of Vital Tenret, declared "Royal" in
1935, thus becoming the Royal Groenendael Club.1 The primary reason for this was
to enforce breeding the black longhairs as an entirely separate gene pool, without
crossbreeding, to solidify purity of type and color. This club created a tightly
controlled stud book of their own to insure genetic purity, and especially the pure
black coat. A consequence of this was the exclusion from breeding of working dogs
such as Jules du Moulin, at this moment winning fame in Paris working trials, with
white patches on his chest and light forepaws, for the sake of the Holy Grail, the
1
The Berger Belge Club became "Royal" 25 years after it was founded.

221
pure black coat. This marked the beginning of the end of the Groenendael as a
serious working dog.
Thus from this time forward there were two Societe Royale Saint-Hubert clubs for
the Belgian Shepherd, the Royal Berger Belge Club and the Royal Groenendael Club.
These two clubs eventually merged in the 1990s. Thus on the eve of the war,
advocates of the Belgian Shepherd were estranged, standing in four groups:
 Groenendael Club, affiliated with St. Hubert
 Berger Belge Club, affiliated with St. Hubert
 Kennel Club Belge
 Club du Chien de Berger Belge

In order to understand how fragile this incipient breed was, consider that the
total LOSH registrations from 1901 through 1914 were only 306. Of these, 117 were
short hair fawn, 31 rough coated and 127 long coated of various colors. This is not
quite as sparse as it might seem at a glance, as registration was not mandatory in
this era, and total populations were likely somewhat larger. Although many dogs
were duel registered with Kennel Club Belge an unknown number were likely only
registered with this organization. Regardless of the details, in the big picture these
numbers are a drop in the bucket compared to the 100,000 German Shepherds
registered in Germany in this same time period.
In order to understand the emergence of these Belgian Shepherds and Bouviers,
it is essential to perceive that there were two ongoing, interrelated revolutions, the
Industrial Revolution moving much of the population to the cities for commerce and
industry and a social revolution bringing real political power to these resultant
emerging middle and working class people. Just as the AKC was a last bastion of
elite white, Anglo Saxon, protestant power in America, the advantaged Belgian
classes resisted, and canine affairs was an arena where they retained substantial
control. For these reasons, as we have seen, although the process began in the
1880s, it was a relatively long time, not until 1901, before the first Belgian
Shepherds were registered with the Societe Royale Saint-Hubert Studbook (LOSH).
It is important to notice that when the Germans, led by von Stephanitz,
established their shepherd breed and club they founded their own stud book without
seeking the acceptance or permission of another organization with differing values,
thus avoiding a decade of bureaucratic bickering and staking out their own turf on
the canine playing field. Perhaps well connected military men, from prominent
families, were simply better equipped for breed founding in that era.
This long delay before registration seems to have been deeply resented by many
of the Belgians struggling to establish this incipient breed. There was a long standing
attitude among the elite that mere working dogs were not nearly noble enough to be
taken notice of by a royal society, that familiarity would breed contempt. The
concern was that registration of working dogs would lead to an association with
working class men, something that the elite was not especially ready to accept. This
ongoing strife, on the surface concerning coat texture and color but also reflecting
underlying social stress – the estrangement between the Flemish and Wallonians –
has greatly limited the national and international acceptance and popularity of these
dogs of the Belgian shepherds and cattlemen. Popularity and prominence has
primarily come through enlistment in police and military programs and on the sport
fields of the Low Countries, especially Holland, expanding into France in the 1950s
and 60s and America and Germany tentatively commencing in the 1980s.
Americans in general are unaware of how all pervasive the European class
structure was, with enormous social privilege for the upper classes, and what a
struggle it was for the working, mercantile and entrepreneurial classes to gain social
and political leverage along with expanding financial prosperity. The American

222
Revolution eliminated inherited titles of nobility, and served as a precursor for the
French revolution. The French became a bit more stringent; it quickly evolved into a
matter of guillotining sufficient numbers of the nobility, including the king and queen,
for the attitude of the remainder to become sufficiently egalitarian.
On the eve of the First World War the organizational structure, the estranged
clubs and breed standards that would persist for most of the century, were more or
less in place. Even coat color requirements were stabilizing. At this moment the
Groenendael was at his zenith as a police or working dog, with the dogs of Edmond
Moucheron often in the spotlight and Jules du Moulin becoming champion year after
year in major venues such as Paris and Brussels. But the end was near, for although
a few Groenendaels placed in Ring championships immediately after the war, under
the selection policies of the new Groenendael Club the lights flickered out, the
Groenendael disappeared from trial fields and police service across Europe and
around the world. The Malinois was waiting in the wings, to emerge as the only
variety with serious working service and credentials as the twentieth century
unfolded after the war.
The War Years
Although the allies would prevail over Germany, the German homeland was not
occupied and in the aftermath, in the 1920s, the German working breeds, the
Dobermans and especially the German Shepherds, would prosper worldwide, leaving
these noble Belgian dogs in obscurity. The First World War was a time of enormous
deprivation and struggle, for Belgium was at the epicenter of this tragedy and
suffered in every aspect of life. Formal canine activity, such as registration, went into
abeyance and the keeping and feeding the dogs became the primary struggle for
many. The FCI essentially went out of existence, to be reconstructed in the 1920s.
By November of 1914 the German Army had in a few late summer and autumn
weeks overrun most of Belgium, establishing a line across the southern portion of
the country which for the duration would be the scene of trench warfare the like of
which would be cruel and brutal beyond precedent and comprehension. Historically,
great wars had been settled by great battles, often bloody, cruel and brutal, but
decided within a few hours, days or months. This war to end all wars, like the
American Civil War, would because of modern technology such as repeating rifles,
machine guns, effective artillery and aerial reconnaissance go on for four long years.
Unfortunately, the epicenter was the cradle of these incipient Flemish breeds, these
Malinois, Bouviers and Laekens, striking a blow which would take the rest of the
century to recover from. That this is not an exaggeration we know from the words of
von Stephanitz himself, a German Calvary officer as well as founder of the German
Shepherd:
"In 1915 I saw no dogs in Belgium with the stock, for which the War was
probably responsible." Later on the same page: "This experience I had nearly every
day in West Flandres with the service dog of my regiment who accompanied me all
over my area. Among the Walloons, South of the Mass, where the terrible closing
stages of the War led me, the dogs had already been appropriated throughout the
district for training in the Intelligence Service." (von Stephanitz, 1925)p186.
The Germans were well prepared to employ war dogs, sending some 6000
immediately into service. This was the fruition of a strong, formal ongoing working
arrangement for war preparation between military authorities and the SV, the
national German Shepherd club. Von Stephanitz, SV leader, was a retired German
Calvary officer who would quite naturally have retained his military associations and
viewed preparation for war and promotion of the German Shepherd as entirely
compatible, desirable and natural ends, serving the expansionist German national
cause. (Richardson, British War Dogs, Their Training and Psychology, 1920)p151

223
 The Germans routinely sought out and confiscated all suitable dogs as they rolled
over the Belgian countryside. In particular, the famous police training facility in
Ghent, to be discussed in detail in the police dog chapter, was taken by the Germans
for their own benefit, including existing dogs. Ghent would not resume police canine
patrols until 1979, and went through a period of using German Shepherds and then
dogs from animal shelters before the reappearance of Belgian Shepherds. It is not
without irony that the typical Belgian Police dog through at least the 1980s was a
German Shepherd, just as in the rest of the world. (I have a photo of an in uniform
Ghent police dog handler in 1985 with his German Shepherd, and this was
apparently quite normal for the times.)
In contrast to these strong links with police and military authorities in the
Netherlands and Germany, what emerges is the general perception that the Belgian
Shepherd working community was from the beginning an isolated world onto itself,
with little contact with police or military agencies or the public at large. Generalities,
extending isolated instances to general conclusion, are of course treacherous, but
the contrast of Belgian isolation with the close police involvement through the KNPV
in Holland and ongoing cooperation with the military in Germany is compelling. Much
of this may have to do with the fact that the civil administration was conducted
primarily in the French language while most of the trainers and breeders were
Flemish, it can be little wonder that they did not communicate well since they
literally in many circumstances did not speak the same language.
WWII was a second German atrocity in a generation, and another severe struggle
for survival for the Belgian canine community. In the spring of 1941 the Nazi
blitzkrieg smashed through the Ardennes and swept through the Netherlands and
France as well as Belgium, bringing terrorism and oppression on an unprecedented
scale in the name of Arian supremacy. Whereas WWI had in some sense been a
"normal" European conflict with a newly united German nation seeking territory they
perceived as a rightful share of European colonial expansion, and with some Belgians
and dogs able to seek shelter in neutral Holland or French regions behind the lines,
Hitler at his peak held most of Europe in his grasp, with the exception of the Iberian
peninsula.
Much of the of the actual fighting had again taken place in Belgium, first with the
invasion of 1940 and then especially in the fall and winter of 1944 during the Battle
of the Bulge and other action as Hitler made a final, desperate attempt to avoid
occupation of the homeland. Widespread allied air strikes had been concentrated
here, focusing on German held military infrastructure such as air fields. But even
advancing allied armies did not end the destruction, for Belgium was targeted for
massive German V1 and V2 rocket attacks, beginning in October of 1944 after the
Normandy Invasion.

224
Post War Years
The post WWII years were difficult throughout most of Europe, but especially in
Belgium. Through much of the 1950s, when the rest of Europe was recovering,
Belgium was still experiencing very difficult economic times. Canine registrations
were in many instances much lower in the 1950s than during the late 1940s. (A table
of annual Bouvier des Flandres registrations for Belgium and the Netherlands in the
appendices graphically illustrates these general trends.)
Although a certain amount of
Belgian St. Hubert yearly registrations
1939 1949 1959 1965
care
2009
is necessary in interpretation,
Malinois 460 800 420 415 the
977 table quantifies twentieth
Groenendael 175 374 138 238 century
112 registration trends. In
Tervuern 30 84 20 79 1959,
243 for instance, there were also
6 short coated non Malinois (3
Note that Kennel Club Belge and NHSB numbers, blacks and 3 blacks with red-
often substantial, are not included. brown) and 9 Laeken registrations.
Three of the Tervueren were long
coats born in Malinois litters. (More complete statistics are included in the
appendices.)
The 2009 Malinois numbers need to be understood in the context of the times,
that is, the emergence of the Malinois as a major factor in national and international
Schutzhund and later IPO competition. In order to participate, registration with an
FCI national organization is necessary, which for the first time made registration an
issue for many elements of the working community. Over this time period there was
extensive registration of working line Malinois, in the Netherlands as well as Belgium,
in order to be able to compete and to sell dogs for
2010 Belgian (SRSH)
export, with "creative" methods of producing the
Registrations
proper documentation, typically using registered
German Shepherd 1608 dogs already in the records in the place of the actual
Berger Belge Malinois 1108 parents of desirable working litters.
Border Collie 943 Although the Malinois predominates in working
Golden Retriever 854 circles, for the Belgians at large, that is the
Berner Sennenhund 708
companion owning population, the popularity of the
Labrador Retriever 656
Bulldog 487
various breeds is similar to the rest of the world,
French Bulldog 486 that is, volatile, driven by fashion and often
Rottweiler 455 preferring the exotic foreign breed. This can be seen
Great Dane 415 in the table to the left, where ten of the eleven most
American Staf Terrier 332 popular breeds are foreign. These are of course the
Bouvier des Flandres 296 numbers that the world sees, but there are many
Chihuahua largo 292 working line Malinois registered in the independent
Berger Belge Tervueren 291 ring organizations NVBK and perhaps Kennel Club
Chihuahua corto 264
Belge and some perhaps not registered at all.
Whippet 261
NS Duck Tolling Ret 249
Although NVBK annual registrations are not
Cav King Char Spaniel 249 currently published, in 2008 there were 454, which
Australian She Dog 243 would mean that there are similar numbers of
Boxer 237 German and Belgian Shepherds.
Dachshund 230
Through the 1960s sport competition in Belgium,
Beauceron 223
Newfoundland 210
and the Netherlands and France as well, was Ring
Leonberger 202 Sport or KNPV. As Schutzhund/IPO training
Shar Pei 201 emerged and became more international in
Berger Blanc Suisse 195 character, many Belgian participants gravitated to
Dobermann 186 the German Shepherd, primarily to become involved
Berger de Brie 179 in international canine affairs. Over the past thirty
years or slightly longer, there has been an active
community of Belgian GSD trainers and breeders,

225
often quite successful in international competition.
Looking back over the post WWI twentieth century there was an enormous wave
of German police style dogs and influence across the world. Actually, there were
three waves, the German Shepherds in the 1920s, the Doberman a few years later
and then the Rottweiler in the 1980s. Throughout this era, enormous sums of money
were paid by enthusiastic if slightly gullible Americans, a pattern broken by WWII but
continued after this war until today, when hundreds of thousands of dollars are
routinely paid for major German show winners. The Belgian Shepherds, who had a
spark of international notoriety after the emergence of the Flemish police dogs in
Ghent in 1899 through the beginning of WWI, faded back into obscurity.
To lend a bit of perspective to the Belgian numbers, in Germany there were
40,000 German Shepherd registrations in 1948 including East Germany, probably
including a buildup of unregistered dogs during the war. This became 17,000 puppy
registrations in 1961 and then 23,000 in 1965. These numbers have been fairly
typical over the entire twentieth century, with fluctuations due to war, difficult
economic times and political circumstance.
Much of the success of the German Shepherd is due to the size, prosperity and
aggressiveness of the German nation in that era. In addition, there was from the
beginning one club, one standard and for almost 40 years one predominant leader,
who was as relentless in publicity and promotion as in defining the type and
character of his breed. In contrast, the Belgian shepherd people were a small,
divided, incessantly quarrelling community much more focused on canine politics and
differences in coat color structure and appropriate working venues.
Historically the Belgian Shepherd varieties could be interbred, but in a broad
general view the Malinois and Laekens had common roots, but the Groenendael was
largely separate from the beginning, and held rigidly separate after the formation of
the Groenendael club in 1910. Early Tervuren lines died out; modern breeding being
reestablished after each of the two wars. Formal restrictions imposed by the breed
clubs and St. Hubert were gradually tightened. Today breeding the different varieties
of the Belgian Shepherd together is unusual and only possible with permission from
breed club authorities. Inter variety breeding today is extensive between the long
hairs in France and Italy, permissible in Australia and Canada.
For our purposes, the fundamental fact is that the Malinois and Laeken are
Flemish or Dutch in origin rather than French, which is also true of the Bouvier des
Flandres. (There were several French Bouvier varieties in the 1920s, but in Belgium
they were never numerous in the studbooks and died out, with a few stragglers
being incorporated into the Flemish lines.) Although the village of Groenendael lies in
Flemish Brabant, the variety became more predominant in the French regions south
of Brussels. The Tervueren of today is a post WWI recreation, with no direct lines to
purported foundation stock. Cross breeding among the Belgian Shepherd varieties
was allowed until 1973 and even afterwards in exceptional circumstances with the
permission of the breed council in Belgium.
So the crux of this is that these Belgian herders emerged in a very small region,
about six million in today’s population, less at the time, which suffered grievous
deprivations under two German atrocities during the crucial forming years. German
working dog prominence was promoted, aided and abetted by the Wehrmacht,
occupying and devastating the homelands of the potential competition, often
confiscating or killing the dogs.
Personally I tend more and more to the opinion that it would have been much
better to have created two entirely separate breeds, the Laekens and Malinois on the
one hand and the long coats on the other, perhaps emerging as the Flemish
Shepherd and the Wallonian Shepherd. Enormous amounts of strife and distraction
could have been avoided, enabling much more effective promotion, especially

226
internationally. Life as the distressed child of a bad marriage, with parents
alternatively negligent or seeking to mold the offspring according to separate
cultures, has been difficult.
The Malinois is the premier working dog in the Netherlands, Belgium and France.
Yet a relatively small number, a few hundred in the Netherlands and Belgium per
year, are actually registered. There are also a number of secondary registries, the
best known historically being Kennel Club Belge, which has a history going back to
1908 but has for all practical purposes died out today. NVBK, however, is a viable,
flourishing alternative registry for the Belgian Ring Malinois. In addition there are
large numbers of Dutch dogs without papers, whose working trial oriented owners
are unconcerned in that they know enough about the background to satisfy
themselves, their peers and potential customers for their puppies. (This is very
similar to the attitude of the Border Collie people, if it works, and especially if it
produces good working pups, then it is a Border Collie regardless of the Kennel Club
paper empire.)

227
The Laeken
Historically there is a great deal of commonality in the cultural and genetic roots
of the Laeken, the rough-coated variety of the Belgian Shepherd, and the short
coated Malinois in that both emerged from indigenous herding stock in the vicinity of
Antwerp and Boom on the broad Flemish plain north of Brussels. The Laeken,
virtually unknown in America and uncommon in most of Europe, is similar in
appearance to the other varieties, the distinguishing feature being the rough or wiry
coat. Because of this coat texture
and color there is a superficial
resemblance to the Bouvier des
Flandres, although the ears are
naturally upright rather than being
cropped, and the overall body type is
much more that of the sheepdog
rather than the bouvier. If you go
back far enough there are no doubt
common ancestors, for all of these
lines and breeds were drawn from
the indigenous working dogs of the
farms and fields of the broad Flemish
plain. The Laeken and Malinois
origins centered in the area north of
Brussels toward Antwerp, while the
Bouvier des Flandres origins had
focus further to the west, on the flat
plain of the Rivers Lys and Schelde in
the region of the cities Ghent,
Roulers and Courtrai.
The name most associated with the foundation of the Laeken is that of the
shepherd Jan-Baptist Jansen, whose sheep grazed in the royal park of Laeken, site of
the royal palace, residence of the king and queen, from which the name of the
variety is derived. Jansen was born February 26, 1859 in Moll (Mol in Flemish) and
deceased in Brussels January 16, 1927. His father Adrian Jansen, also a shepherd,
participated in these origins, and is mentioned
as participating in the herding trial of 1892 in
Cureghem with Vos. In general Jansen's best
dogs were rough-haired fawns, and these
became the basis of the Laeken variety as well
as providing a Malinois foundation.
In about 1888 Jansen purchased a dog from
a cattle dealer out of a line of shepherd dogs
used to guard the Belgian flax fields in the
vicinity of the village of Boom, well north of
Brussels in Flemish Brabant. This dog was Vos
(fox in Dutch), rough-haired fawn or yellow in
color, born in 1885, destined to become
prominent in the foundations of both the
Malinois and the Laeken. Vos is also referred to
as Vos I to distinguish him from a later,
significant ancestral dog of the same name.
This dog Vos placed in the first (1892) herding
trial, held in Cureghem, Belgium.
Also in the possession of Jansen was the
Jan-Baptist Jansen
shorthaired brown/grey/brindle female, of

228
undocumented origins, Lise de Laeken, sometimes known as Lieske. Bred to Vos
Lieske produced Diane, the dam of Tomy, another very important founding resource
and other dogs prominent in the originating lines. (The sire of Tomy was Samlo, also
a dog of unknown origins.) Vos and Lieske also produced Tom de Vilvorde, one of the
most famous rough-haired grey dogs. (Pedigrees in the next section.) As can be seen
in the listing of the progeny, Vos produced diverse coat texture and colors, which
would be characteristic of the breed and the source of never ending conflict
throughout the years.
The Laeken was from the beginning the
Progeny of Vos I: most problematic of the varieties, and has
Dam: Lieske (Lise de Laeken) flirted with extinction, for there have been
Spits (Jansen) F rough hair
time periods when no Laekens were registered
Diane (E Joubert) F short hair
with SRSH. Today the Laeken is making slow
Tom (de Vilvorde) M grey rough
Mouche (Duchenoy) F short hair but steady progress with Belgian breeders. A
few more kennels have started up, and
Dam: Moor (Jan Baptist Jansen) although there are still less than a dozen,
Dick(Dagnelie) M that's more than at any time in their history in
Poets(Pouts) F Belgium. The Laeken was for many years the
most popular variety in the Netherlands and
Dam: Spits (Jan Baptist Jansen) this has always been the stronghold. There is
Moor (Jansen) F
the speculation – or accusation, depending on
where you stand – that in the Netherlands
some early Bouvier lines were blended in.
Since there were to be almost thirty more years before the formal establishment
of the Bouvier des Flandres, which for practical purposes took place in the 1920s, I
am not aware of documented common ancestry. In the early years, there were many
diverse styles and types promoted as bouviers in this generic sense, just as there
was diversity in physical type among the sheep herders prior to breed establishment
and selection for uniform type and coat.
There is a great deal of similarity and overlap in history among the rough coated
dogs, in the Netherlands as well as Belgium. In the early years the term "bouvier"
simply meant cattle dog and there was enormous diversity. It could be very difficult
to tell from an unidentified photo, or even standing in the presence of the dog if we
could go back in time, if a particular dog should be identified as a Laeken, a rough
coated Dutch shepherd or one of the various bouvier styles, such as the Bouvier des
Roulers, the Bouvier des Flandres or the Bouvier
des Ardennes. Or even perhaps a Picardie
Shepherd. (In a similar way, groupings of early
Dutch and German shepherds and Malinois would
be difficult to sort out.)
Controversy and strife over coat color,
perhaps really between Flemish advocates,
supporters of Jansen with his reddish brown rough
coats, against the French oriented establishment
favoring greys for political reasons, would greatly
diminish the prospects for this variety, and the
Laeken has had a very minor role in Belgian
Shepherd history even on to this day. In general,
the Laeken tends to be a very sharp dog, not
always easily adapted to casual homes.

229
The Malinois
The Malinois, the short coated variety of
the Belgian Shepherd, is similar in
appearance to a less angulated, lighter boned
and more square German Shepherd. Photos
from the early years show much more
similarity among these German, Dutch and
Belgian Shepherds, particularly the Malinois
variety, than exists today. This is the natural
order of things, for specialist varieties of dogs
did not evolve according to lines on a map but
rather by the nature of their work, their
weather and climate and the people and
agricultural traditions among which they
arose. The age old shepherds of this region of
Europe tended their flocks and spoke dialects
which would evolve into modern German or
Dutch in an era long before the states of the
Netherlands, Belgium and Germany came into
existence.
This Malinois is a Flemish dog, for the primitive foundation stock was found
generally in the modern Flemish province of Antwerp and extending north into the
Dutch province of Noord-Brabant. Mechelen (Malines in French), the city from which
the variety derives its name, lies twenty kilometers north of Brussels in the direction
of Antwerp. In this region national boundaries are an artificial construct; for even
today in driving the rural roads it is difficult to know which side of the twisting border
you are on. Indeed, the ancient region of Brabant spans the border. So if the
Malinois is an international dog, he is a Belgian-Dutch dog, not a Belgian-French dog.
In the words of Louis Huyghebaert:
"Since the bicycle has made traveling easier, I have amused myself by
researching the most beautiful types of shepherd dogs in the areas around Malines
and the north of the province of Antwerp. During the operations of the new
cadastral1 revisions, I had to visit every farm of many parishes in the province, and
each time I came to the same conclusion. Everywhere, I have found the type of
shepherd dog described by Reul in the following way:
"It is in the Antwerp Campine, towards the Dutch border and beyond it, in Noord-
Brabant (Netherlands), that the short-haired type has maintained its uniformity. Big
was our astonishment to meet last year (7th of September 1892), while visiting an
agricultural exhibition in Oosterhout, not far from the Antwerp border, a dozen of
well-built shepherd dogs of the Belgian type with short hair, owned by the local
farmers. These dogs have the size of a fox or a wolf, they have short hair, with a
red-brown brindle coat; their ears are remarkably fine and well-pricked, open at the
front.
"Other characteristics: triangular and long muzzle, pitch-black nose; the tail in
the shape of a spike, well-carried and slightly bent backwards at the end. The first
prize was awarded to a dog with rare intelligence and such a good nose to discover
underneath a basket the handkerchief that its master had given it to smell and that
it did not see hidden." (Vanbutsele, 1988)

1
A public record, survey, or map of the value, extent, and ownership of land as a basis of
taxation.

230
 Although use of the term
Malinois would not come into
widespread usage for another two
decades, the formalization of the
variety began in the region of the
Flemish city of Malines, south of
Antwerp, about 1890. Here a group
of dedicated breeders, trainers and
enthusiasts – centering on the
Huyghebaert brothers – began to
gather the primitive breeding stock
and promote the Malinois.
In 1898 this more or less
informal movement led to the
founding of a formal club in
Malines, with a focus on working
character and Flemish interests,
under the leadership of Dr. G.
Geudens and Louis Huyghebaert. Although it would in many ways act independently
in the years to come, this new club, known as the Section of Malines, was technically
a branch of Club du Chien de Berger Belge in Brussels. They became active in
producing literature and holding informal working gatherings in promotion of the
variety.
In these years, prior to 1901, none of the Belgian Shepherds were eligible for
enrolment in the records of Societe Royale Saint-Hubert, which makes historical
research more reliant on the
various written commentaries
and publications which have
come down to us.
The first Belgian
Shepherd inscribed in the
records was the male Vos des
Polders, a short hair of
unknown origin, born in 1897
and given the number LOSH
5847.1 The records indicate
that this dog was bred and
owned by J van Haesendonck
and was also was registered
with Kennel Club Belge. (Not
to be confused with the
famous Vos I or Vos de
Laeken.) Vos des Polders,
bred to a daughter of Vos de
Laeken, produced Dewet,
who is regarded a
cornerstone of the Malinois,
and about ten others prominent in the breeding records:

1
These registration numbers were assigned in the all-breed order of entry rather than
sequentially according to breed.

231
 Vos des Polders LOSH.5847, 1897 (van Haesendonck)

Dewet (Duchenoy, 1901)

Vos I (Jansen, 1885)
Mouche (Duchenoy)
Lise de Laeken (Lieske)

Both Dewet and Tjop, shown below, were relentlessly inbred to establish type
and thus emerged as a large part of the genetic foundation of both the Malinois and
the Laeken. Notice that both dogs feature Jansen's Vos prominently in their
background.1
Samlo (Beernaert, 1892)

Tomy (Joubert, 1895)

Vos I (Jansen, 1885)
Diane (Joubert)
Lise de Laeken (Lieske)
Tjop (Opdebeeck, 1899)

Cora (Opdebeeck, 1897)

Salmo, in the above pedigree, was a shorthaired, brown/brindle Belgian

Shepherd, born in 1892 of undocumented parents, among the most prominent of the
early Malinois. He was particularly well known for his outstanding color and build. He
was described as an excellent worker as well as a winner at the dog shows, and was
the first shorthaired shepherd with a charcoal fawn coat and a black mask, which
would become characteristic of the modern lines.
Louis Opdebeeck bred his bitch Cora2 (LOSH 6134), a shorthaired brindle with a
mask, of undocumented origins, to Tomy to produce Tjop, a shorthaired fawn
without a mask. (LOSH 6132, born November 1, 1899) Opdebeeck was a very good
dog trainer, and Cora later became the winner of the first informal Ring Sport trial
held in 1903.
The first owner of Tjop was Frantz Huyghebaert, brother of Louis and an active
breeder, a circumstance that would encourage wide use as a stud dog. Tjop would
emerge as the first Belgian Malinois Champion and the most influential Malinois sire
in the early twentieth century, truly a pillar of the breed.

1
In these pedigrees, dogs with no ancestors shown are of undocumented origin, that is
Samlo, Vos I, Lieske, Cora and Vos des Polders. The name in parenthesis is generally
the name of the breeder or owner, and the number is the year of birth.
2
Sometimes known as Cora van Optwel

232
Notice the intense inbreeding (in red) on Tjop and Dewet :
Unknown
Samlo (Beernaert, 1892)
Unknown
Tomy (Joubert, 1895) LOB.138
Vos (Jansen, 1885)
Diane (Joubert)
Lise de Laeken (Lieske)
Tjop (Opdebeeck, 1899)

Unknown

Cora (Opdebeeck) '97

Unknown

Sips Ter Heide 1906

Samlo (Beernaert, 1892)
Tomy (Joubert, 1895) LOB.138
Diane (Joubert)
Tjop (Opdebeeck, 1899)
Unknown
Cora (Opdebeeck) '97
Unknown
Zet 1903 LOSH.8210
Tomy (Joubert, 1895) LOB.138
Tjop (Opdebeeck, 1899) NHSB.2740
Cora (Opdebeeck) '97
Pretty 1901 LOSH.6474
Max (Huske) '94
Lady '99 LOSH.6135
Lise (Buelens )
Margot de Jolimont 1917
Unknown
Vos des Polders LOSH.5847
Unknown
Dewet (Duchenoy, 1901) LOSH.6466
Vos (Jansen, 1885)
Mouche (Duchenoy)
Lise de Laeken (Lieske)
Ducassor (Hanappe)
Tjop (Opdebeeck, 1899)
Wip du Trianon '04 LOB.117
Mirza
Tititte (Dupuis)
Tjop (Opdebeeck, 1899)
Beth (Dupuis) '04
Tjip '02
Margot I de Jolimont
Vos des Polders
Dewet (Duchenoy, 1901)
Mouche (Duchenoy)
Titi des Templiers 1907
Dewet (Duchenoy, 1901)
Martha des Templiers '06
Diana des Templiers '05
Dhora du Trianon LOB.1145
Tjop (Opdebeeck, 1899)
Wip du Trianon '04 LOB.117
Mirza
Mouche du Trianon LOB.118
Tjop (Opdebeeck, 1899)
Beth (Dupuis) '04
Tjip '02

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 Tjop and Dewet, although very
different in type, thus became
Malinois pillars. Dewet, a powerful
and coarse dog, had light fawn
coloring with an overlay of black
patches.
From the beginnings in the
nineteenth century the Malinois was
especially prominent as a working
dog. With the precipitous decline of
the Groenendael in work and sport
competition in the years after WWI,
the Malinois became the only true
working variety, the others, sadly,
descending into ornamental and show
dog status.
At the turn of the twenty-first
century, there was an ongoing,
worldwide surge in Malinois
prominence and success in police service, military service and working sport
competition at the highest levels.
The Malinois predominates numerically and competitively in the Dutch Police
Trials and the Belgian Ring. In the French Ring the Malinois has predominated since
the 1980s, typically representing as much as ninety percent or even more of the
entries, with the German Shepherds a distant second in prominence.
In Schutzhund and IPO international competition, especially in Europe, the
Malinois has become more and more dominant. Even when Germany wins the FCI
team completion, she is represented primarily by the Malinois rather than the
German Shepherd. The Malinois is increasingly prominent in military service; today
the breeding program of the American military at Lackland Air Force base is
exclusively Malinois.

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The Groenendael
The Groenendael1 variety, the long haired blacks, trace back to two long-haired
blacks, Picard D’Uccle and Petite, owned by Nicholas Rose, proprietor of the
restaurant Chateau Groenendael about 5 km south east of Brussels.
In contrast to the other varieties, the
Groenendael has significant roots in the Walloon
(French) sections of Belgium. Picard d'Uccle was
born outside Nivelles and Petite came from the
Foret Soignes south of the Chateau
Groenendael. Picard was given to Rose by a
man named Prosper Beernaert from Uccle.
Many of the Groenendael kennels through the
1950s were located in the Walloon region.
Picard and Petite were exhibited several
times and at the first show for Belgian Shepherd
Dogs, Petite won first prize in the longhair class.
The first known litter of Picard and Petite,
whelped May 1, 1893 and this litter produced,
among others, Duc de Groenendael. Duc was
Amitie vom Ludwigsbrunnen 1973 bred to the longhaired Fawn Miss in 1896 and
sired Milsart, the first Tervueren Champion of
the breed. The Groenendael appeared on the
sport field and in police service in the early
years, but sadly today has been relegated to
the show ring.
Nicholas Rose was actually
only one of a number of founding
breeders involved in the creation
of the long haired black variety,
whether the attachment of the
name of his restaurant to the
variety was due to the unique
quality of his particular stock or
his skill and luck at promotion is
hard to know today so many
years later.
In the early years, the
Groenendael was very prominent
as a working dog; Jules du Moulin
and his trainer, Charles Tedesco,
demonstrated this versatility by
earning his World Championship
at the defense trials at Paris in
1908, repeating this victory in
Duc de Groenendael 1909, 1910, and 1912. In 1913
and 1914 they won the inaugural
Belgian Ring championships under the auspices of Kennel Club Belge. A Groenendael
club was formed in 1910 which existed until about 1990, at which time it merged
with the existing Belgian Shepherd club under Societe Royale Saint-Hubert. Vital
Tenret was founding president.

1
Groenendael is green valley in Dutch.

235
The Tervuren
Unlike other genetically determined attributes, such as size or other structural
features, and particularly working character, which are complex and difficult or
impossible to predict consequences of many genetic factors, coat color, texture and
length are the consequence of a small number of genes with the probable
distribution of results predictable by Mendelian principles. As an example, the black
coat is dominant over other colors, which means that when a homozygotic black,
that is one in which both copies of the specific gene are for black, is bred to a
homozygotic reddish dog, all of the progeny will be black. Statistically, some of these
first generation black dogs will carry the recessive gene for the other color, and such
breedings will produce 25 percent reddish brown dogs. The problem is that it is
impossible to know if a black dog has the potential to produce the other color without
actually doing the breedings.
For these reasons, the Groenendael, among which there are some with a
recessive potential to produce a reddish pup, has played an important role in the
creation of the original Tervuerens and in reestablishing the variety after the two
world wars. For similar genetic reasons, the short coated Malinois have a part of the
population with a long coat recessive, and thus on occasion a breeding will produce a
long coat with the Malinois color patterns. (There is a similar long coat recessive in
German Shepherd lines.)
There is a lot more detail and subtlety to coat genetics, and there are people
continually writing articles and exploring details, devoting a big part of their lives to
it. But this is a book about police dogs, and in this realm a dog is what he does on
the field or street, and if he is excellent in his work there is no such thing as
incorrect coat length, color or texture.
The original long coated reddish browns, to become known as Tervurens,
emerged in the village of that name, an outlaying eastern suburb of Brussels, where
M.F. Corbeel, owner of the Corbeel Brewery, was an early enthusiast and breeder.
Corbeel bred the fawn colored Tom and Poes, regarded as the foundation couple, to
produce Miss, also a fawn. Tom was owned by the brother of Corbeel, but was not
bred by him. Miss, who may have been bred by Corbeel, was bred in turn to Duc de
Groenendael, a black, to produce the famous fawn Milsart in 1897, which ten years
later, in 1907, after the variety was finally recognized, became the first Tervuren
Belgian champion.
The Tervueren virtually disappeared during both world wars and each time was
reconstructed by breeding and selecting from the other varieties. For these reasons
the Tervueren of today can be traced back in the records to Malinois and
Groenendaels such as Vos, Liske or Picard d'Uccle but not the dogs Tom, Poes and
Milsart mentioned above. In the reconstructions, the few which did survive were bred
with reddish colored long hairs, the result of recessive genes for the long coat or
reddish color in these lines, born in Malinois and Groenendael litters to reconstitute
this variety.
On occasion a successful Tervueren appears on the sport field, a reddish long
coat born in a Malinois litter. Although such dogs are Tervueren according to their
coat, their working excellence derives from the long term breeding of the Malinois for
working character. Tervueren show people sometimes like to take credit for such
dogs, pretend that it demonstrates inherent Tervueren working character, but this is
just shallow propaganda, only influencing the thinking of the most gullible.

236
 America
There were a few Malinois, or
unregistered dogs with a distinct
Malinois appearance, imported from
Flandres by American Police agencies in
the first decade of the twentieth century
in conjunction with the tentative
beginnings of American police dog
service. A hand full of American
pioneers had gone to see the inaugural
Ghent police program, and returned
with dogs.1 But these tentative
beginnings evaporated with the WWI
invasion of the German Army, resulting
in the collapse of the Belgian social
structure and the subsequent post war
worldwide wave of German Shepherd
popularity.
When the Belgian Sheepdog Club of
America, BSCA, was incorporated in
1949 all or most of the dogs in this
country were Groenendaels. In the
1950s a few Tervuren and Malinois
imports made an appearance and the
desire for AKC recognition emerged.
Ivan Balabanov with Ebor of Vitosha. Since there were very few Malinois at
The most influential Malinois breeder, trainer the time, a group of Tervuren
and teacher in America. enthusiasts successfully petitioned the
AKC for recognition, promising a
functional club and conformation participation in order to be recognized as the breed
Belgian Tervuren.
With the creation of the AKC Tervuren club in 1958, and an AKC Malinois club in
1992, instead of one breed with four varieties, as in Belgium and other FCI nations,
we have a Belgian Sheepdog club for black long hair dogs, known as Groenendaels in
Europe, and separate Tervuren and Malinois clubs for these newly coined "breeds."
There is no recognition of the Laeken in the AKC scheme of things.
As a fine point of the nomenclature, the word Sheepdog appears only in the
name of the American club for the variety that the rest of the world knows as the
Groenendael. Elsewhere, as in the name of the breed in Belgium, it is Belgian
Shepherd rather than Belgian Sheepdog.2 Although at the turn of the twenty-first
century the Malinois emerged as a significant factor in sport and police service, none
of the varieties have been especially popular in the civilian population. In 1995 for
instance there were 631 Malinois registrations, 617 for the Groenendael and 527 for
the Tervueren. 2006 numbers are Malinois 716, Tervuren 434 Belgian Sheepdogs
266. As a comparison, 1996 AKC registrations for German Shepherds were 79,076
and for Rottweilers 89,867.
A little caution in interpreting these numbers is in order, since worldwide
registrations are trending severely down and it is not clear to what extent this
represents actual decline or whether alternatively people are simply breeding and
selling dogs without the expense of registration. Malinois imported for police service
1
Details in the police dog chapter.
2
As a note on nomenclature, the American spelling for Tervueren is Tervuren.

237
are often not registered, and sometimes not registrable because of the lack of
European papers.
From 1959 until about 1980 the Tervuren, because of the small numbers, was
exempt from the requirement that imported dogs must show a three generation
pedigree of the same variety in order to be AKC registered. At that time it was
decided there were sufficient Tervuren registered that the dispensation from the rule
was no longer appropriate, and the exemption was thus rescinded. This was a
significant limitation, for a long coated, reddish dog which occurs in European
Malinois or Groenendael litters can be registered as a Tervueren.
Lee Jiles (Personal communication) comments:
"It has historically not been so much inter-variety breeding, but rather the
use of Tervuren, that is pups with a long and reddish coat, that appear in
Groenendael and Malinois litters that has had a major impact. Today in
Europe with a few minor exceptions very little inter variety breeding is
done."
In Europe elbow dysplasia and shrinking size in Laekens led to a more permissive
policy for breeding with the Malinois, but there were only a handful of such
combinations. The FCI policy of registering the Belgian Shepherds by the variety they
are, not the variety of their parents (as has been the AKC policy since 1959) has
made the difference in Europe and proved beneficial to the breed.
On June 13 of 1995 the AKC rescinded the three generation same variety rule.
Now any Belgian import (or any other breed) need only have a legitimate three-
generation pedigree from any AKC recognized foreign kennel club, which includes all
FCI nations, in order to be registered.1
From a police dog perspective, this American history is more or less irrelevant, as
with minuscule exceptions only the Malinois serve, and these are almost entirely
imports or pups out of recently imported breeding stock, often sans registration.

1
Much of the information in this section is from Lee Jiles, whose generosity is greatly
appreciated.

238
The Bouvier des Flandres
The Bouvier des Flandres was a
relatively massive, athletic, short
coupled, rough coated dog
consolidated into a formal breed for
police, guard and military service in
the Flemish region of Belgium in the
early years of the twentieth century.
The name derives from the age old
agrarian foundations, for bouvier is
simply French for things having to do
with the cattle or the cowherd, and
the founding stock was indeed the
gruff canine guardians of these
Flemish meadows of the coastal
region adjacent to the North Sea.
The essential function was that of
the drover and guardian, sharing a
heritage with dogs such as the
Rottweiler in the various regions of
Germany and other droving and
cattle guarding stock which had
served in obscurity for a thousand
years in the pastoral regions of
Europe, all dominant, short coupled
dogs with a unique blending of
power and agility, in contrast to the
fleetness and endurance of the
herding dogs of the shepherd.
Centauri's Gambit The creation of the Bouvier as a
breed must be understood in the
context of these Flemish people from which he emerged, following some twenty to
thirty years in the footsteps of another famous Flemish working dog, the Malinois
variety of the Belgian Shepherd. The formal emergence of the Malinois as the
prototype police dog from very roughly 1885 through 1905 was the foundation for a
century of increasingly sophisticated and refined police dog service, and set the
stage for the emergence of the Bouvier des Flandres.
Thus this rustic Bouvier served in obscurity for almost another generation in the
remote northwestern regions of Flanders, adjacent to the sea, as the shepherd
breeds commenced, prospered and gained worldwide prominence. Although growing
interest and a hand full of registrations occurred before WWI this great conflict,
fought with such devastation in this entire region, delayed the real emergence until
the early 1920s.
Many of the key personalities behind these two Flemish breeds were the same
men, and the social and historical forces driving the process were similar. Felix
Verbanck, for many years president of the Belgian Bouvier des Flandres club, mentor
to many, including Edmee Bowles in America, was not a Bouvier breeder at all but a
famous breeder of a principal Malinois foundation line. Men such as Louis
Huyghebaert, who was the author of the principle existent history of the Bouvier des
Flandres, will be famous as the father of the Malinois as long as men value such
dogs. Both of these breeds emerged from among the agrarian dogs of the Flemish
people, were ushered into the twentieth century driven by the same societal,
agricultural and economic changes and created for the same purpose as guard and
police breeds, leaving an obsolete but honored herding heritage in the past.

239
 Beginning in the middle 1800s the sheep in the Low Countries, Belgium and
Holland, were disappearing from the fields as wool and mutton was coming for very
low prices from places such as Argentina and Australia, where they were evolving
their own herding dogs for their own conditions. The sheep dog was on the brink of
obsolesce in Belgium, and the cattle dog was not far behind.
Beginning about 1890 in Germany and Belgium men were gathering these native
shepherd's dogs, often literally from the fields, with the purpose of preserving this
patrimony as the herding style of agriculture was driven from these regions of
Europe by the Industrial Revolution the general movement of the people to the
cities. By 1905 there were well-established national Belgian Shepherd breed clubs
and police style training was ongoing in local clubs in several nations. The Germans
were preparing for war on a scale which would define the history of the twentieth
century, and as a footnote also the fortunes of these emerging working breeds.
The first modern, formal police dog program had been established in Ghent,
Belgium in 1900, and men from Britain, Germany, France and even the United States
were coming to learn and seek out these famous Belgian police dogs. This was in the
very heart of Bouvier country, and indeed many of the photos of these Ghent police
dogs are obviously of the primitive Bouvier type in spite of the fact that another
twenty years, and a devastating war, would pass before Bouvier registration began
in earnest.
The Germans, led by Most, were right behind, and German Shepherds and a few
Airedales, Rottweilers and Dobermans were being established in police units across
Germany and then into neighboring nations such as Austria. The police dog had
arrived, and was enormously popular both in service and as a civilian companion
dog.
In the 1890's an attempt to establish Belgian sheep herding trials in imitation of
the British had been promoted, but quickly faded because of a lack of interest in an
obsolete function; these men were looking to the future rather than grasping at the
past.
The first decade of the twentieth century saw the establishment of national police
dog working trial systems across continental Europe, including the Ring program in
Belgium, the Dutch Police (KNPV) trials and the Schutzhund or protection dog
program in Germany. These became immensely popular and influential, and each
has prospered until this day.
As the Belgian Shepherd, especially the Malinois, was evolving into a breed in the
modern sense from the herding and farming dogs in the Flemish region north of
Brussels, further to the East, in the region of Ghent and Roulers, another agrarian
dog was serving in obscurity. In the lush meadows from the rivers Lys and Schlde to
the coast of the North Sea there was a larger, more rugged, more rough coated
native working dog adapted to the cattle predominating in the region. This rustic
Bouvier also had his advocates, men unwilling to let him fade into history with a
passing way of life, men who would preserve these dogs for a few brief years, extend
the twilight before another generation would dissipate this heritage in the false glory
of the show ring and allow it finally to pass, to their everlasting shame.
Although there were in Belgium several competing registries and several styles of
bouvier were being promoted, amid a great deal of impassioned rhetoric in the
various popular magazines, the Bouvier as the breed which came down to modern
times was first registered in Belgium with Societe Royale Saint-Hubert as the
Bouviers des Roulers, after one of the principle cities of the region. To give a sense
of the area involved, other cities in the midst of this Bouvier emergence include
Courtrai and Ypres. Later the breed was registered by SRSH as Bouvier Belge des
Flandres, and then about 1930 as simply the Bouvier des Flandres. The other
varieties, a small number of which were registered in both Belgium and France,

240
faded away, a few individuals being incorporated into the Belgian Bouvier des
Flandres breeding records.
Although there was written mention of primitive bouviers in the various books
and magazines commencing about 1890, it was the twentieth century before
Bouviers were exhibited in dog shows in meaningful numbers, in the Netherlands as
well as Belgium, and 1914 before a written standard and registry was established in
Belgium. A few dogs, less than twenty, were registered before the war, and then
nothing until the Germans had been driven back. In 1922 the Belgian national club
was established and very soon thereafter the Dutch club came into existence.
Although the Dutch began with Belgian breeding stock and had contact with the
Belgians through the 1920s, thereafter the center of Bouvier activity moved from the
Flemish speaking land of creation in Flandres to the French speaking areas of
Belgium, resulting in a gradual loss of contact between Belgian and Dutch
enthusiasts which continued during the second world war and through the 1950s.
To comprehend the Bouvier soul, we must look into the minds and hearts of
these men who, in the time period roughly from 1910 through 1915, the eve of the
war, were gathering together to preserve their native cattle dogs. Just as in the
creation of every breed, a concept of type, physical form, and character emerged
and foundation stock was sought out according to these principles and ideals.
How were these foundation dogs to be selected? For their new breed to prosper,
it needed to attract advocates, and the police dog was the dog in demand for service
and which roused the passion of the common man, the dog which had captured
imaginations across continental Europe. The prototype was to be the larger, more
aggressive, more gruff dogs guarding the fields, and this is from whence the
founding lines emerged.
The draft dog function was ubiquitous in this era, and the fate of these dogs was
the subject of the book and subsequent movie A Dog of Flandres which had to do
with the Flemish or Belgian mastiff or draft dogs, entirely different dogs from the
Bouvier in spite of what is portrayed in the movies. Any available dog was under
duress no doubt pressed into service to turn a churn or pull a cart, but the
preference was quite naturally the native draft dogs, destined to fade into oblivion.
These larger mastiff and draft dog types are mentioned in the foundation selections
but were incorporated primarily to produce a larger and more muscular breed rather
than one with an ongoing draft or carting functionality.
Farms worldwide have their yard dogs, thirty or forty pounds, of no particular
breed similar to the old fashioned farm collie dog in Britain. Some would claim that
these yard dogs are progenitors of the Bouvier too, but this is absurd, makes no
sense at all. These men creating the Bouvier were looking for the foundations of a
police dog breed, and would have paid no notice to these nondescript yard dogs, but
passed them by without a glance on the way to the fields and pastures in search of
the guardian prototypes.
The creation of the Bouvier as a police and guard dog is without doubt; it is what
was novel and popular, it is what was in demand for service, it is what they said they
were about, it is indeed what they declared in their standard for the world to see.
Modern dilettantes seeking to portray herding, draft work or other functions as the
purpose of the breed, or as sufficient basis for breeding selection, are profoundly
ignorant or purposefully disingenuous; there is no other way to say it. This Bouvier
des Flandres was not a random gathering of the local farm dogs, but a rigorous
selection from among the elite canine guardians of the region, as bred and passed
down from generation to generation.
The emerging new world was that of the police dog, the training and trialing
organizations were in place and prospering mightily; and these Bouvier advocates
knew they were late to the party and needed to catch up, to put dogs on the police

241
and ring trial fields. And by the middle 1920s men such as Edmond Moreaux were
winning trial field fame with dogs such as the immortal Francoeur de Liege. In this
era, the Bouvier soon had presence in the Belgian Ring championships and on the
KNPV trial fields, was earning his place in this new canine police dog world.
Bouvier popularity grew steadily in Belgium, approaching a thousand in yearly
registrations in the 1930s with many active and vigorous breeding programs. (A
mere drop in the bucket of German Shepherd registrations.) Bouviers appear
regularly in the records of the Belgian Ring working championships in this era.
Although the numbers were somewhat less in the Netherlands, growth was steady
there also.
France is often mentioned as a nation of Bouvier origins. But it is well
documented fact that the vast majority of dogs known as Bouviers today spring from
the breeding of the Dutch speaking herdsmen of Flandres, which spread first to
French speaking Belgium and the Netherlands. French records are very sparse, but
where they can be traced back French roots of the Bouviers of today invariably go
back to these founding Flemish dogs, first registered as the Bouviers des Roulers.
The old, informal French "bouvier" lines – with the small "b" – simply died out,
vanished into the morass of time.
The Second World War devastated the Bouvier, not so much by the direct loss of
dogs – which was of course tragic – as by the damage done to the basic social fabric
of Belgium by the second German atrocity in a generation. For five long years in the
early 1950s fewer than 100 Bouviers were registered in Belgium with similar dismal
numbers in the Netherlands and France. The breed did indeed come very near to
flickering out. Justin Chastel and Felix Verbanck were the pillars in this era, and
without their iron willed perseverance the Bouvier indeed might well not exist today.
Although a few odd dogs came to the Americas in the twenties and thirties, the
arrival of Edmee Bowles from Belgium early in the war, fleeing the advancing
German greed and plundering, began her American saga and the growth of the
breed in this country. Beginning in the middle fifties and extending into the early
eighties her du Clos des Cerberes line was not only the American fountainhead, it
was recognized as among the best in the world by men such as Justin Chastel,
modern founder of the breed in Belgium.
The work of the Bouvier des Flandres, the reason for which he was created, is
police style search and protection work. In his creation, the founders melded the
native cattle dogs with the larger native regional guard dogs, a natural response to
the population shift to cities and industrial work that the agricultural revolution of the
last century was causing all over Europe, and in which Belgium was among the
earliest and most strongly affected. The words of the founders and guardians testify
to this fact. As Felix Verbanck, primary leader of the Belgian club through the early
1960s, said:
"The breeders do not forget that the Bouvier is first of all a working dog, and
although they try to standardize its type, they do not want it to lose the early
qualities which first called attention to its desirability. For that reason, in Belgium a
Bouvier cannot win the title of Champion unless he has also won a prize in a working
competition as a police dog, as a defense dog or as an army dog."
Herding is not mentioned for the simple reason that there was no longer any
herding to do in Belgium, that along with draft work, it was rapidly becoming
obsolete when the Bouvier was being established in the formal sense.
When our first book was being written in the middle 1980s the Bouvier des
Flandres, as it existed in America, was relatively close to the old style European roots
and on the whole still a credible working breed. My perception is no doubt colored by
our own dogs, primarily coming from the du Clos des Cerberes line of Edmee Bowles

242
and a little later from Dutch working lines – in retrospect sound choices. But in the
intervening years the vast majority of Bouviers being produced in America have
become diluted show dogs with little remaining of the original working character, or
robust physique for that matter. This has been discussed extensively elsewhere; for
the purposes of this commentary I refer to Bouviers des Flandres still according to
the original working character, a very small and rapidly diminishing population.
Those with so-called Bouviers out of contemporary popular lines will likely need to
think in terms of a new dog, very difficult to find, if thoughts of serious competition
are aroused.
As late as the 1980s there were significant numbers of Bouviers on Dutch KNPV
fields and serving as police dogs, but today only one or two earn a KNPV certificate
yearly, and they have virtually disappeared from police service. As recently as 1978
10 out of 30 police dogs in the central district of Brussels, Belgium were Bouviers,
but today they are but a sad memory.
On the whole the Bouvier tends to be slow maturing, strong willed sometimes to
the point of stubbornness and tends to defensiveness in the protection work. We
have experienced very little handler aggression in our own Bouviers, and this seems
to be a general tendency. (We of course have always been close to our dogs, many
born on our kitchen floor or in our whelping room.) As with most of these breeds, the
potential for dog aggression, especially among the males, is an ever-present
concern, good management and training are necessary to keep this in check.
There has been a certain amount of variation in sociability among my better
dogs, and this tends to correlate to some extent with early socialization. One dog
which for various reasons had little interaction with strangers before eighteen
months old was decidedly unfriendly when approached closely. In preparation for the
introduction to the judge part of the trial extensive acclimation was required, much
of it involving walking up to a stranger, shaking hands and then having the stranger
throw a Kong. My other dogs with extensive early public exposure have tended from
slight enthusiasm to disinterested neutrality to the passive stranger, entirely
satisfactory for me. In general the stronger working line Bouviers should be
extensively socialized as young pups and then brought into regular contact with
strangers in varying situations. The concept of limiting socialization for fear of the
dog becoming too friendly and thus not sufficiently aggressive is in my experience
and opinion not supported by actual experience. All Bouviers should be socialized as
pups and young dogs and be exposed to strangers and groups of strangers as they
mature; lack of sufficient aggression will generally be the result of insufficient innate
potential, possible in all breeds and all lines, the luck of the draw in puppy
acquisition.
It is well known that individual Bouviers in European working lines have been
very sharp and sometimes less than social; how much of this relates to the
preference of the handler is a valid question. In that environment the control for a
good score in the trial was sufficient; some of these dogs were primarily kennel dogs
with outside contact limited to training and trial days. Those with such dogs take on
a great deal of responsibility, but on the other hand every serious working breed
needs a reservoir of hard, sharp and aggressive dogs as a breeding resource.
There are aspects of the Bouvier character that can render dealing with him
difficult. He can be quite stubborn; there is simply no other way to say it. The correct
way to manage this is not to attempt to break him of the characteristic but to use it
to your own ends. Once you start something and fail, the Bouvier has the upper
hand; the next time around the situation is likely to be more difficult. You must
proceed with deliberate caution, one step at a time. Never give a command unless
you are prepared to do whatever is necessary to insure compliance if you are sure he
understands what is required.

243
 Our earlier dogs had very little interest in thrown objects such as balls or Kongs;
when I threw a Frisbee for our first Bouvier, a good dog who went on to Schutzhund
III, he brought it back a couple of times without enthusiasm, and eventually just
carried it out into the bushes and buried it. In the early 1990s we purchased Iron
Xandra van Caya's Home in the Netherlands specifically because he was a very
strong dog with extraordinary drive to retrieve the Frisbee or Kong, and this carried
down well into his progeny. This can greatly enhance trial preparation, be an aid in
creating the animated obedience; but the question remains whether this really
relates to the ultimate potential in actual police style service or is a driving factor in
the ongoing separation between sport field success and suitability to real world police
service.
There is a strong emotional tendency to believe that one's dog is a one-man dog
loving you above all others, a belief that your absence would be a great blow, but
this often has more to do with the emotional needs of the man than the dog. The
reality is that most good dogs can adapt to a new handler or home if sufficient time
and patience are provided, and if the new trainer is supportive. While generalities are
always treacherous, my observation is that the Bouviers need of a real bond with the
handler, tend to strong ties and that while transition is always possible it tends to
take a little longer and require a little more effort from the new handler. Thus as a
generalization these dogs take significantly longer than some other breeds to
acclimate to a new owner or a new training situation; the training process tends to
be longer and to require a patient yet resolute and evenhanded partner.
These are not only my opinions, for in the 1980s we were told by administrators
of Dutch Police programs and Dutch KNPV club instructors that roughly about twice
the training time goes into a Bouvier as a Malinois, an especially quick dog to train.
When asked why, if this is the case, they included a good number of Bouviers in their
program, his reply translated as roughly "we have a need for some especially serious
dogs in our work, and like the Bouvier for these applications." In general, the Dutch
police Bouviers have had over the years the reputation of being especially strong and
aggressive, and apparently there is even to this day a need and desire for such dogs.
Unfortunately, over the quarter century since these words were written, such dogs
have diminished to a few remnants, a tragedy for all of us for whom the Bouvier of
old has a special place in our hearts.
The origins of the Bouvier des Flandres as a cattle guardian and herder, as
opposed to the Belgian and German shepherd's dogs for instance, have played a role
in the creation of the modern breed. The shepherd's dogs were continually in motion,
putting great emphasis on fleetness, endurance and efficiency but not generally in
direct physical jeopardy, not likely to have a life or working career ended by a kick
from a truculent sheep. While the demands for speed and fleetness were perhaps not
as extreme for the Bouvier he did need to be quick, cautious and agile in order to
avoid injury from a kick. For these reasons, relative to the shepherd's dog, the
Bouvier is slightly shorter in back, more square and less angulated. He is thus agile
and capable of great acceleration as compared with the German Shepherd grace and
efficiency. The rough all weather coat was a requirement of day and night service in
the damp cool or cold conditions in the lands of origin, directly adjacent to the North
Sea.
There are also consequences of the cattle-herding heritage for the sport dog. The
Bouvier learned, no doubt by harsh lesson, to be wary, to respond to a threat with a
quick jab of the foot or blow by the shoulder and then duck quickly out of range and
decide on a next move. The bite might tend to be inhibited, reserved for serious
provocation. This is well and good but a factor to deal with in training for the
Schutzhund trial where the correct response to a threat is to take the offered sleeve
and then hang on. Thus one must sometimes to some extent overcome by training
the natural reactions in order to succeed in the sport.

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 Unfortunately, the Bouvier des Flandres is rapidly disappearing as a serious
working dog in the homelands and the rest of the world. From personal experience I
know that the three primary Bouvier des Flandres clubs in Europe – the Belgian,
Dutch and French – were under the control of conformation breeders and were never
really serious about the working heritage. The Dutch club is in a way the most
honest and straightforward; although they pay a little bit of lip service, the typical
breeder is oblivious to character or work, and would rather sweep it all under the
carpet as an impediment to pet puppy sales. In the middle 1980s and a little later
the Bouvier was the fashionable dog in the Netherlands, for several years registering
10,000 pups, often more than 15 percent of the total for all breeds. But this was
entirely a show dog and pet bubble, although there was a moderate amount of KNPV
activity at the beginning of this wave of show dog popularity, and some growing IPO
or Schutzhund activity, by the turn of the twenty-first century this had fallen off to a
very low level, a trend which continues unabated today. The Belgians and the French
would spout noble words, but it was nothing more than lip service.
End Game
Over the past several decades breeds other than the German Shepherd and the
Malinois have been diminishing in terms of service, sport participation and the overall
vigor of working lines and culture, to the point of irrelevance in the real world. To be
viable, a working breed must have critical mass; that is ongoing lines or breeding
programs consistently placing young dogs in service and achieving working titles
rather than sporadic instances of marginal dogs. Just as nature will inexorably tend
to one species in a specific ecological niche, others gradually diminishing in
competition for sustenance and space, modern police patrol dogs gravitate to
successful lines and breeds. (Advocates of the German Shepherd would do well to
take note of this while time remains.)
Today the US military accepts only German Shepherds, Malinois and a few Dutch
Shepherds; typical of the policy of other modern nations worldwide as well. American
police dogs are primarily imports, predominantly Malinois, or first or second
generation pups out of imports. Over the years isolated individuals of other breeds
have been in police service, but this is in decline and most of these are in programs
out of the mainstream; all sorts of dogs become "police dogs" in obscure situations.
Individual departments are free to patronize local breeders or accept donations, but
there is no ongoing continuity, nothing beyond isolated instances. Sometimes dogs
are highlighted for promotional purpose with little more than a photo of the dog with
a man in uniform, the dog not purchased or supported with police funds or routinely
engaging in patrol.
The decline of second tier breeds, such as the Bouviers and Dobermans, was the
consequence of diverse social and historical factors. The popularity of the German
and Belgian Shepherds was self-reinforcing, driven by the natural tendency to
gravitate to the successful breeds. The enforcement of European bans on ear
cropping and tail docking put nails in the coffin, but the coffin had been under
construction for decades; the decline had been well under way when these bans took
full effect in the middle 1990s.
Reliance on character tests for show dogs, designed and implemented by
conformation breeders, incessantly watered down to accommodate the declining
character of the breeding stock of the 'elite' breeders, played a substantial role in the
decline of the Bouvier des Flandres in the latter years of the twentieth century. In
France and Belgium, where after the Second World War seriously working titled
breeding stock became ever diminishing exceptions, the credentials of the Bouvier as
a working dog deteriorated to the point where the breed could no longer be taken
seriously. The French and Belgian temperament tests – generally conducted by show
breeders with no real working commitment – exacerbated the situation. Ultimately

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the shame must primarily descend on the show breeders and national club office
holders, but there is more than enough to go around.
In the second half of the twentieth century the only significant reservoir of
serious working Bouviers were the KNPV lines in the Netherlands; increasingly
isolated in terms of appearance, character and blood lines, on the verge of being a
separate breed. It is true that a few Belgians and Frenchmen, such as Edmond
Moreaux and Gerard Gelineau, with lines from Moreaux, swam against the tide and
maintained working stock in their own kennels. Gelineau took his Bouviers to the
French Ring Cup Final several times in the early 1970s. For the true Bouvier
advocates these men will forever be heroes, for their struggle was against the sloth
and greed of the mainstream Bouvier community as well as for excellence in their
dogs. These men were exceptions; largely estranged from the overall breeding
communities, to the everlasting shame of the pretenders in Belgium and France.
Without exception police style working dog lines are maintained only where a
significant portion of the breeding stock obtains a working title as a breeding
prerequisite. It might have been possible as late as the early 1980s to recover and
preserve working Bouvier lines, but the people to do the job were just not there. But
it would have meant earning recognized titles in established systems rather than the
invention of special tests pretending to "take account of the special Bouvier
character," which always turn out to be a thinly disguised farce, diluted to
accommodate the weaknesses of the stock on hand. In particular, credibility would
preclude the appointment of special judges specific to the testing programs, usually
show breeders essentially ignorant of and uninterested in actual working character.
There is a tendency to focus on the degeneration of the Bouvier in terms of the
lack of drive, aggression and confidence. These are of course fundamental
components of a useful police style working dog, but only part of the picture. The
dog who is strong, brave and confident, but has not demonstrated the willingness to
be a cooperative, obedient partner is just as much a detriment to the heritage, and
the gene pool, as the dog that is willing but not sufficient to perform under the stress
of a serious confrontation. The real problem with the Dutch show lines in particular is
the tendency for stubbornness, insolence and a lack of trainability as much as the
lack of true fighting spirit.
Much more can be said, and has been in our previous book, to which you are
referred. (Engel, 1991)

Retrospect and Prognosis

The Ghent police program commencing in 1899 provided a brief spark of
prominence worldwide. Pre WWI American police imports were primarily Belgian, but
we are talking about a mere hand full of dogs in programs that were marginal and –
with the exception of the city of New York – short lived. WWI cast the Belgian canine
world, especially their shepherds and bouviers, into a backwater that would persist
for most of the twentieth century. In the post WWI era international prominence and
profit were in the show and companion market, which the Germans predominated,
even in Belgium itself, and because the German Shepherd especially was under
strong, unified leadership with a commitment to international promotion and
dominance. For most of a century the Germans were able to play both sides of the
game, predominance in police and military service as well as enormous civilian
popularity.
But over the past three decades the Malinois has been the dog on the move. In
the 1980s most Americans, and Europeans outside of France and the Low Countries,
were largely unaware of the existence of such dogs. A few of the long coats, the
Groenendaels and Tervuren, had achieved minor presence internationally as

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companion and show dogs, but the Malinois, unspectacular in appearance in a world
of larger, more muscular, more heavily coated German Shepherds, was almost
unknown to the public at large. This was about to change, for the Malinois was on
the verge of coming into widespread American police and military service. Dog
brokers and police departments were becoming aware that it was possible to
purchase a KNPV titled dog, virtually street ready, for very reasonable prices. The
police Malinois beginning to come from the Netherlands and the emerging
enthusiasm for the French Ring Sport, predominantly Malinois, provided a two
pronged popularity boost in the 1980s. In this era a few Germans, such as Peter
Engel (no relation) through his von Lowenfels kennel, began to produce dogs
competitive in Schutzhund and IPO, both in Europe and in America. The raw
numbers are not impressive anywhere, one primary reason being that there has
never been any real popularity among pet and companion owners, which are by far
the largest market segment for breeds such as the German Shepherd or Doberman.
But on the trial fields in every protection sport venue worldwide the Malinois is a dog
to be reckoned with when the podium places are at stake.
Compared to the German Shepherd the Malinois tends to be smaller, more agile,
more intense, volatile, very quick and often quite sharp. The better specimens in the
hands of an experienced Malinois handler are second to none in any sport or service
venue. But there is another edge to this sword, the over matched handler or the dog
further down the quality scale can become a liability in terms of handler aggression
and control, with the potential for inappropriate damage to civilians in police
engagements. Potential for good is potential for evil, and an over the edge dog or
inadequate trainer or handler can create serious problems of performance and
especially liability. There can be little doubt that a few dogs which would have been
disposed of in Europe wound up being sold to American police departments, at one
time we really were gullible enough to buy almost anything. The consequence can be
serious money for lawyers and legal judgments – capable of generating newspaper
stories striking fear in the hearts of police administrators and politicians who
eventually have to deal with the public reaction.
Earlier there were sporadic reports, often from wishful thinking German Shepherd
enthusiasts but also from more neutral sources, of police departments shying away
from the Malinois for these reasons; and there was no doubt some backlash. More
recently these have faded as selection, of dogs and perhaps also handlers, has
improved and training has adapted to the new reality. The real value added by the
police dog today is in the olfactory capability, the man search and substance
detection functions, and legal consequences and public relations considerations exert
strong pressure for reliable control. The reality is that the breed coming up short in
terms of control has a limited future no matter how remarkable other performance
aspects may be, and Malinois breeders, importers and police trainers and handlers
have generally adapted.
My expectation is that the Malinois is going to be a strong and increasing factor in
police and especially military service worldwide, and that the German Shepherd
community is going to have to become much more work oriented and competitive in
order to remain a factor. In the end this is a good thing for both breeds, a monopoly
tends to result in stagnation and a lack of improvement in every walk of life.
Although the Eastern European and other non-German Shepherd lines have
produced an ever increasing portion of the better working Shepherds over the last
thirty to forty years, there is a general continuity in that most registrations are under
FCI auspices and Shepherd breeders throughout the world maintain some sort of
relationship with the mother land. Historically Schutzhund has provided a common
competitive venue; if your German Shepherds worked well then people could take
them to most any other nation and expect comparable success on the IPO fields.

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 The Malinois, not so much. Indeed, the Belgian motherland was characterized by
incessant strife and lack of unity from the beginning, with none of the ongoing
national promotion which so effectively projected the German Shepherd, and later
the Doberman and Rottweiler, into international prominence. The popularity of the
Malinois worldwide has not emerged so much from Belgium as from the Dutch,
French and even Germans. And these dogs are not interchangeable in a sport field
sense, that is, if you buy a KNPV titled dog or a Belgian Ring dog and take it to
France there is no place to trial or showcase the dog. There are no international
championships, other than IPO, with the opportunity for creating a coherent
international community and culture, because there is no common working venue. As
a result, the Malinois is much less of a worldwide community, and there is much
more variation in physical type and character attributes. Although it is of course an
over simplification, there are basically three predominant populations of serious
European working Malinois:
 The Belgian Ring dogs under the NVBK in Belgium.
 The Dutch police or KNPV dogs in the Netherlands.
 The French Ring dogs in that nation.

The Belgian Ring dogs tend to be more massive and robust, due to the nature of
Belgian Ring, that is, the heavy suits, the small ring area, the emphasis on the full
bite and the training of the helpers, who typically are able to work to an older age.
The French dogs tend to be more refined and elegant, quick rather than powerful,
high in prey drive. This is of course because the French suits are very light and the
decoys young men who pride themselves on speed, quickness and cleverness in
deceiving the dog. The KNPV dogs have enormous variation in physical appearance
and structure, making it difficult to generalize. Many of these dogs have other breeds
and mixes in their immediate background such as GSD, Great Dane, or something in
the neighborhood that looked interesting. Overall the tendency is larger rather than
smaller, robust rather than elegant, motivated by fighting drive rather than simple
prey drive.
The Belgians have always been animal trainers, and at the forefront of the
protective heritage working dog movement. They led the way in the police dog
application and the Belgian Shepherds, particularly the Malinois, were on the trial
fields and police forces as soon or sooner than the German Shepherds. The Flemish
created the Malinois which became the basis of the French working dog world and
the KNPV and the Bouvier des Flandres with a population base of approximately six
million compared to a German population over eighty million, and twice in the
twentieth century were subjected to a German occupation which severely damaged
all aspects of Belgian society, the fabric of the canine community especially as the
German authorities sought out good dogs for their own use.
In a certain way the Belgians have been lost in the shuffle. The Malinois has gone
on to stardom in the French Ring and on Dutch KNPV fields, but the Belgian Ring trial
has fractured into three organizations, none with any serious international visibility.
The NVBK people are belatedly beginning to seek an international presence,
particularly in America, but the Belgians have always been a day late and a dollar
short in the publicity and promotional sense, even as the Malinois almost without
notice emerges as the premier working dog worldwide.
In an era when eager Americans stood by to overwhelm the winners with
proffered cash at the annual GSD conformation shows, ignoring the working lines,
these Belgians breeds remained in obscurity. Even in Belgium, France and Holland
they have always been much less visible and popular among the public at large than
the German breeds; Americans are not alone in their preference for the exotic
imports. When in attendance at major Dutch conformation shows in the 1980s I can

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recall seeing Belgian shepherd entries of a mere hand full of dogs, as compared to
more than a hundred Bouviers. The breed clubs were there of course, you could look
up names and address on the internet, but they just did not seem to matter very
much.
The Malinois base was always a full order of magnitude smaller numerically
because Belgium and Holland are so much smaller than Germany, and because the
brunt of the two German atrocities fell on these small, virtually helpless nations.
Until almost the end, the Second World War was not fought in Germany but rather in
the invaded nations, and Hitler’s policy was to keep the German standard of living as
high as possible in order to maintain support during what he believed was going to
be a quick and easy victory. It is true that events such as the air raids on Dresden
were great hardships, and from 1943 onward the Russian front for the German
infantryman emerged as a living hell, but the civilian population was substantially
protected until relatively near the end. In occupied Belgium and Holland the Germans
were actively looking for Jews and taking whatever they wanted for their war efforts,
including dogs in large numbers. In Belgium particularly the post war recovery was
slow and difficult, with canine activity, as reflected in registrations and trial records,
greatly suppressed through the 1950s.

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8 The Netherlands

During the seventeenth century

the Netherlands emerged as a major
seafaring and economic power,
establishing a colonial empire in
southern Africa, the Far East and the
Americas. Although there has been
the inevitable ebb and flow of
fortune, on the whole the Dutch have
avoided much of Europe's religious
strife and are well characterized as
pragmatic, tolerant, secular and
prosperous, attributes which have
served them well. Subsequent to
their seventeenth century fling at
empire building, the Dutch, being a
relatively small Nation compared to
neighboring Germany, Spain and
France, have with some success
tended to a policy peace and
neutrality.
European religious strife drove
many peoples to seek shelter in the
Netherlands, including Jews and
Huguenots, French Protestants
fleeing Catholic oppression. The
Bouvier des Flandres Duko v Mereveld, accepting Dutch social structure
born 1969. KNPV helper Rein Beumkes provided a haven where on the whole
they prospered, integrated and
contributed. Holland today can be characterized as sophisticated, prosperous,
cosmopolitan and tolerant, as exemplified in their attitude toward soft drugs and well
controlled commercialized sex.1 As an American, I must admit that I am inclined to
believe that we would be a little bit better off if we were a little bit more like the
Dutch.
Even today when you drive the back roads of the broad central Brabant plain
common to the south of the Netherlands and Flemish Belgium it can be difficult to
know which nation you are in, and the history of these people and their working dogs
is in a similar way intertwined. The Belgian herders, especially the Malinois,
originated in the Flemish region adjacent to Holland; the Bouvier a little further west,
toward the region adjacent to the North Sea. The people, language, culture and way
of farming and life was much the same across this lush plain; it is an accident of
history that these people, of such a common culture, are not united in a single
1
Technically the nation is the Netherlands, of which North and South Holland are two
principal provinces; but along with much of the world I cannot seem to break the habit
of using the two expressions more or less interchangeably.

250
nation. The rough coated version of the Belgian Shepherd, the Laeken, was always
more popular in Holland than in his nominal homeland.
After the First World war, the Bouvier des Flandres also gained popularity in the
Netherlands, and for a five or ten year period commencing in the middle 1980's the
Bouvier was by far the most popular dog in Holland, peaking out at over 10,000
annual puppy registrations or fifteen percent of the Dutch total. In the big picture
this grass fire of popularity turned out to be an enormously mixed blessing for the
Bouvier as a working dog, for the decline on KNPV trial fields took place in the same
time period, perhaps providing an object lesson for others to contemplate.
The administration of general canine affairs in the Netherlands is in the hands of
the Raad van Beheer, which translates very roughly as board or council of
management or directors. The Raad van Beheer is FCI affiliated and is directly
comparable in scope and function to the AKC in the United States or the Kennel Club
in Great Britain. This organization maintains canine registrations through its stud
book, the Nederlands Hondenstamboek, abbreviated NHSB. Police dog affairs are
administrated through the Royal Dutch Police organization, KNPV. Since the KNPV
does not require registration for participation, a dog being what he does on the trial
field rather than what is scribbled in registry books, there is ongoing, underlying
tension between the two organizations.
The Netherlands remained neutral in WWI, thus avoiding much of the tragic
devastation of their Belgian neighbors to the south. The German blockade and the
suspension of international economic intercourse led to widespread hardship for the
population, particularly since much of the
Dutch 2011 Registrations food supply was normally imported. The
Labrador Retriever 3529 Dutch were overrun by the brutal Nazi
German Shepherd 2131 juggernaut in WWII and suffered
Golden Retriever 1806 grievously.
Berner Sennenhond 1518
Chihuahua 1365 As in other nations, the indigenous
Staffordshire Bull Terrier 1325 police style working breeds are not
Franse Bulldog 988 especially popular in the population as a
Border Collie 898 whole. This is indicated in the brief table
Boxer 877 to the left, where the first set of entries,
Dachshund 805 through the Dachshund, are rank ordered
in popularity, while the following entries
Selective entries below here are selected to highlight the working
Belgische Herder, Mechelse 463
breeds of interest. (Much more complete
Rottweiler 454
Bouvier des Flandres 420 tabular data is included in the
Belgische Herder, Tervuerense 271 appendices.)
Belgische Herder, Groenendaeler 181 It must be understood that the vast
Airedale Terrier 156 majority of the Belgian and Dutch
Hovawart 155
(Hollandse) herders are unregistered KNPV
Shiba 154
Dobermann 152 breeding lines. Dogs competing in IPO
Briard 144 must be registered with an FCI
Hollandse Herder, korthaar 144 organization, so most of the working
Belgische Herder, Laekense 98 breeds primarily oriented to IPO, such as
Beauceron 85 the German Shepherd or Rottweiler would
Hollandse Herder, langhaar 85 be included in these registration numbers.
Riesenschnauzer 71

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The Dutch Shepherd
Just as there was national pride in the Shepherds of Germany and Belgium, the
Dutch have had a natural desire to create their own Shepherd breed. In the early
days there was a lot of variation in appearance of the dogs on the farms, and if one
could have gathered together samples from Germany, Belgium, Holland and perhaps
regions of France it would have been difficult for an observer to label them according
to country of origin; distinct, uniform appearance, for better or worse, was to come
with the establishment of the conformation show as the driving force of breed
creation and differentiation. But the Dutch and the Flemish, which largely created the
Belgian Shepherd, especially the Malinois, have always been especially close in
geography, language and culture.
Whether the Dutch
Shepherd is in reality a
separate breed or just a
label for Malinois which
are a little larger, a little
less over the edge and
tend toward the brindle in
coat is an open question;
ultimately it is what the
dog is capable of on the
field that matters to the
serious people.
As in Belgium, the
Dutch conformation
community spent an
inordinate amount of time
squabbling about coat
color and texture, which
resulted in the loss of
Dutch Shepherd Spendow KNPV PH 1 410 pt much of the original
Owner Wilma Vogelaar, photo Michiel Schaak indigenous breeding
population. Working
character was generally
neglected by the show oriented elements. In the years prior to WWI there was
mixing in of German Shepherd and Belgian Shepherd stock. WWI created huge
animosity toward all things German, and German Shepherd interbreeding, to
whatever extent it actually occurred, was deemphasized, with the breeds going
separate ways ever since.
After the Second World War the Dutch Shepherd had been greatly reduced in
numbers and was gradually reestablished, utilizing significant Belgian Shepherd
breeding stock, primarily Malinois. Today, the Dutch Shepherd is sharply divided into
a relatively small show dog segment and a much larger and more prosperous and
vital working or KNPV population, with many unregistered dogs and ongoing mixing
with the Malinois.
NHSB registrations for the year 2011 were as follows:
Hollandse Herder, Korthaar (Short Coat) 144
Hollandse Herder, Langhaar (Long Coat) 85
Hollandse Herder, Ruwhaar (Rough coat) 18

Indeed, the KNPV dogs can be thought of as an open breeding pool of Malinois
and Dutch Shepherd, with the individual dog assigned a breed according to
appearance rather than immediate ancestors. Thus it is an open question as to

252
whether the Dutch Shepherd should best be thought of as a breed or as simply a
color and coat variety within the overall breeding population.
Within the KNPV community, where mixed or cross bred competitors are not
unusual or remarkable, unregistered dogs accepted as Dutch shepherds are trained
and titled, as is the case with the Malinois. As usual, unregistered in this context
does not mean bad, irresponsible or of unknown breeding, for the working people
understand genetic principles perfectly well and know the backgrounds of the
animals they are breeding as far back as they consider it relevant.
It is important to understand that while lack of a pedigree and formal registration
papers is not a problem for the KNPV trainer, those who wish to compete in
international sports such as IPO or on an international level must have a dog with
registration with an FCI affiliated national registry, in this instance the Raad van
Beheer. Since most of the best working stock is from the KNPV lines, there is a
substantial amount of falsification of papers. In general, unless you really know the
people well and they are well connected and of long standing, having the official
pedigree of a good working dog before your eyes is likely a matter of reading fiction.
Thirty or forty years ago I would have been disturbed by this, but for me today this
is just the way of the world, it is about dogs, not about papers. A good dog with false
papers or no papers is enormously preferable to a mediocre dog with an
"impeccable" and accurate pedigree.

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 The Dutch Police Dog Trials
Throughout much of the world today the dogs most in demand for
actual police service are those with a Dutch Police or KNPV certificate.
There are a number of reasons for this, but ultimately they go back to
the steadfast Dutch character, for the Dutch are above all else practical,
tolerant and pragmatic; if a dog is to have a police dog certificate it
should be under the influence of the police handlers and leadership in the
spirit of real world police dog service rather than trial systems under
conformation establishment control with more emphasis on political correctness and
accommodating the less intensive demeanor compatible with companion homes.
Prancing obedience, ultra precise sits and ever less demanding protection are left to
the increasingly hobbyist oriented sports; Dutch police trials are about things that
matter for real world police dogs, about control and restraint as well as power and
aggression. Largely unknown to the rest of the world until the 1980s, this steadfast
Dutch heritage has become influential and respected throughout much of the world,
with the dogs themselves in enormous demand.
The Dutch were a little bit late to the party, for although there had been previous
training, formal trials did not commence until 1907 under the auspices of the
Nederlandse Politiehond Vereniging or NPV. In 1912 royal sanction was obtained to
bring forth the Koninklijke Nederlandse Politiehond Vereniging or in English the Royal
Dutch Police Dog Association. The KNPV designation, or the even more elite "KNPV
met lof" (with honors) appearing on a pedigree or certificate are among the most
coveted in the world today.
In the early years the numbers were small, with for instance 12 certificates in the
year 1921 and 60 in 1925. In that era the German breeds such as the Boxer and the
German Shepherd were much more predominant, much better represented than
today. Prior to 1924 the Dutch Shepherd was the most numerous breed, but political
machinations in the show dog community, causing many successful Dutch Shepherd
breeding lines to be excluded from registration because of coat color, texture and
pattern resulted in a decline in this breed.
Perhaps as a consequence of
these early struggles, the KNPV
community tends to hold formal
registration and the foibles of the
show community in disdain, for such
people a dog is what he can do on
the field rather than what is scribbled
in registration books.
Today the vast majority of KNPV
competitors are Malinois, mostly
without registration papers, and a
few Dutch Shepherds. But this was
not always the case, prior to WWII
the German Shepherd and a few
Dobermans were represented. The
Bouvier was reasonably popular after
Note that these are aggregate numbers, which the war through the 1970s and even
means that the figures for 1932 on the right are into the early eighties, but by that
totals, adding up to 822 total KNPV titles for the time was in serious decline.
first 25 years.
In addition were 5 Airedales, 8 Briards, This KNPV trial demands a dog of
15 Beauceron, 9 Rottweilers, 1 Giant Schnauzer, great character, physical strength,
the remainder cross bred dogs. agility and stamina. These trials
From KNPV Web Site emphasize protection work, involving

254
distant attacks on an adversary who strikes the dog with a stick before he actually
bites and realistic gun tests. The dog is required to take a man down off a bicycle,
the desired procedure being for the dog to take a leg or to leap high and grab the
man's upper arm, so as to avoid entanglement in the wheels. There is a search for
dropped objects (typically 2 or 3 coins or bolts). Overall, the KNPV trial demands
resilient, tough dogs.
The best-known program is the Politiehond One, or PH-1; which is generally what
is meant by a reference to a KNPV certificate. There is also a more advanced PH-2
certificate, but this is relatively speaking less popular.
For the Police Dog I examination today, there are a possible 440 points. 352
points are required for the certificate. The dog with 402 or more points is awarded
the coveted Certificate met Lof (with honors). 1
At one time there was a "PH-I Certificate A" obtained for only 305 points, which was
a provisional title valid for one year. Although this is no longer offered, it should be
kept in mind for historical purposes.
The basic KNPV certificates include:
 Police Dog I Politiehond I
 Police Dog II Politiehond II
 Object Guard Dog Objectbewakingshoud
 Tracking Dog Speurhond
 Basic Certificate Search Dogs Basiscertificaat Zoekhonden

Although numbers have fallen recently, in the mid 1990's the KNPV had about
10,000 members. The Netherlands is divided in eleven provinces, and the KNPV is
also divided into these same provinces. Each province has its own governing
structure, and the boards of all the provinces represent all the members of the KNPV
in the meetings of the national governing body.
As of April 1994 there were 509 KNPV clubs in the Netherlands, 140 certified
decoys and 64 certified judges. By 2011 the list of judges had grown to 74. In 2013
there were 82 judges and 65 helpers listed on the KNPV web site.
Yearly KNPV statistics are as follows:
2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 1993
Police Dog I 429 439 425 545 507 473 607 581 580 695
Police Dog II 25 30 36 43 47 55 54 40 82 62
OGD 44 29 24 26 51 90 73 66 97 117
Members 5864 6052 6146 6189 6293 6348 10,000

OGD Object Guard Dog

Judging by the more rapid fall of in PH 2 and Object Guard numbers, it would
seem plausible that the motivation for the PH I is increasingly commercial rather
than simply personal sport and recreation. KNPV is most popular, and the
competition the most intense, in the southern provinces of the Netherlands, such as
Limburg and Brabant. 2010 membership figures were 1,718 in North Brabant, 868 in
Limburg, 859 in Gelderland and 524 in South Holland.

1
Historically there have been minor variations in these point schedules.

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 The KNPV trial is an
arduous, comprehensive
daylong sequence of
exercises, typically beginning
with water retrieval and
obedience in the morning and
a sequence of protection
exercises in the afternoon.
The protection exercises are
generally held on a large field
to accommodate the
extremely long distances and
relatively large audiences.
Three judges are used, so the
obedience and search
exercises go on concurrently,
each judge handling the
separate exercises such as the
coin search, guard of object,
bicycle exercises and so forth.
In the protection phase all
dogs perform sequentially on the same field, that is, all dogs do the first exercise,
then the second and so forth until the trial is complete. All three judges are on the
field for this work, as there is a lot going on and the large distances would make it
impossible for a single judge to adequately direct and observe the performance.
The Police Dog I examination has a water exercise where the dog must swim
across a canal on command and return on command. There is also a large object
retrieve. Obedience is much less precise but more demanding than other venues.
The dog must heel on and off leash and beside a bicycle, and in both instances
switch sides on command. There is a food refusal, an exercise where a dog must
remain quiet during gunfire, and a one meter (39 inch) hedge jump, a 2.25 meter
ditch jump and a 1.75 meter wooden wall.
The protection exercises include a guard of object, object search in the woods, a
person search in the woods and transport of prisoners, including a simulation of an
intoxicated prisoner. There is a long attack in which the dog is struck with a long
stick before the bite, a call back from the long attack, an attack against the gun and
a long attack to stop a person fleeing on a bicycle. The distance attacks are so long
that I have seen a handicapped handler use a bicycle to move up into position to
give the out command at the required time.
Historically the protective suit of the KNPV trial was relatively heavy and bulky
and the helper, as also in the Belgian Ring, tended to be less mobile that in the
French Ring, where modern materials have been utilized to produce much lighter and
more flexible suits. In spite of these heavy suits, and ancillary padding and wrapping
under the jacket, bruises, abrasions and more serious injuries to the helper were not
uncommon.
The modern KNPV suit is a fully padded leather suit and a separate jute suit. The
firm Dog Sport Holland was the first to manufacturer these lighter, more supple tailor
made KNPV suits. Today all top level decoys use such suits weighing 10 to 13
kilograms (22 to 28 pounds). These suits are lighter, have better protection in the
bite areas, are more flexible and have more effective ventilation for better cooling.
In 2007 the KNPV introduced a new program for scent work, that is searching
and tracking. This program had two primary motivations, one being the recognition
of the increasing importance of olfactory or scent work in real world police

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applications and the second a means of bringing new, younger people into the KNPV
family to reverse the loss of membership in recent years. The basic certificate, the
Basiscertificaat Zoekhonden is preliminary, that is a requirement or prerequisite for
all of the other programs.
The Sorteerhond or Sorting Dog is a scent discrimination program, in which a
number of articles with the scent of different people and placed in a rack for the dog
to select. In each instance the object is a tube or pipe 20 x 20 mm x 10 cm long.
Sorteerhond 1:The dog must 3 consecutive times indicate the object with the scent
of a person indicated to the dog.
Sorteerhond 2: The dog must indicate first the scent of an indicated person and from
2 different rows of 7, and after the first indication is successful, the scent of the
suspected person out of the same rows
The tracking dog is similar to advanced IPO tracks.
Tracking dog 1:The dog must follow a 2 hour old track approximately 700 meters
long on agricultural fields, with 8 90 degree corners, 3 small objects and one large
object. The field can be sand/soil or grass
Tracking dog 2 :The dog must follow a 3 hour old track of approximately 1400
meters on different soils (also ditches and roads) with 10 corners (with a sharp 45
degree corner, a 135 degree corner and an omega).There are 4 small objects and a
large object such as a rifle. The track must have both areas of sand or soil and grass.
One half hour before the track is followed a person walks over an area of the track to
provide a distraction.
Search dog 1:Find 2 persons in a 10 to 15,000 square meter wooded area. (A square
120 meters on a side)
Search dog 2. Find 2 times 3 different persons in a 20 to 30,000 square meters area.
(A square 173 meters on a side.)
Rescue dog 1: Find 2 persons in ruins of buildings/trash in a 1000 square meter
area.
Rescue dog 2: Twice find 3 persons in ruins of buildings/trash in a 3000 square
meter area. (A square 55 meters on a side.)
Each year in the months of May, July and October, the KNPV holds certification
trials in each province with enough candidates, organized by the national and
provincial officers. Normally each dog certifies in his own province. The decoys and
the judges for each provincial trial are designated by the national KNPV office and
come from another province rather than being local.
Each year in the first weekend in September a national KNPV championship is
held in the soccer stadium of FC Eindhoven in the city of Eindhoven.
Championship events include:
 A PH-I championship open to the ten highest scoring dogs obtaining the PH-I
certificate that year.
 A PH-II championship open to the highest scoring PH-II dogs from each of the
11 provinces and the National Champion from the previous year.
 An Object Guard championship for the 8 highest scoring dogs that year.

This means that a dog can compete for the coveted PH-I national championship
only once in his life. For this reason, sometimes a high potential dog will be held
back a year or even two to have a better chance at every KNPV trainers dream, the
national championship. From this we can see that the KNPV is much less of a sport
than for instance, Schutzhund, where a dog can compete many times. This also
means that a titled dog has value only as a police dog, commercial guard dog or

257
 personal protection dog and as a breeding resource; there is no "used dog market"
for trained and titled animals to be taken back into KNPV competition. (Some dogs
are converted for Schutzhund, but given the age of the dogs and the differences in
training and trial procedures they seldom become championship level competitors in
a new sport.)
A dog may repeat an examination, but must relinquish in his current certificate. If
he fails, he again becomes an uncertified dog. Repeat certification attempts are
unusual, but sometimes a handler feels that his dog is better than the first score and
is willing to take the risk.
Becoming a KNPV judge is a very
difficult process, with a long series of
challenging written and practical
examinations. Each trial requires the
services of three judges and two decoys.
One of the problems with all trial
systems is that judges must differentiate
among increasingly better dogs in order
to produce winners, to know who to
hand the trophies to. The best way to do
this, to adapt to increasingly better dogs
brought to a sharper edge by clever and
persistent training, would be to
introduce more complex and demanding
exercises; higher jumps, longer call offs,
Sjors, Alex van Nimwegen, Decoy J. Aarts. searches in larger and more varied
areas. Unfortunately in practice there is
resistance to higher standards and judges thus tend to rely increasingly on irrelevant
trivialities to differentiate. If all dogs heel correctly, then perhaps the edge should go
to the dog with a quicker or straighter sit or a stylish three-legged hop with the nose
in the crotch of the handler. (Not to mention dogs between the legs of the waddling
helper in contemporary French Ring trials.) The KNPV community has done a much
better job of resisting this, and retained reasonable proximity and responsiveness in
heeling, as an example, and relied on the overall length and difficulty of the program
to sort the dogs out.
The typical KNPV dog only goes to one trial to achieve the certification, after
which he is typically sold for police service. Prior to the 1980s most of these dogs
were sold to local Dutch police agencies, but subsequently more and more dogs have
gone to an increasingly lucrative export market. Most dogs succeed in their trial
because the training process is long and arduous, and inadequate or marginal dogs
are discarded because trainers are generally unwilling to put in the time and effort
unless success is highly probable. The best dogs, particularly females, tend to be
retained for breeding purposes.
A small – but elite – group of dogs go on to the annual police dog championship,
but beyond this there is no such thing as a trial career, coming back to defend a
championship, or multiple championships. Thus one cannot buy the winner to be a
big shot next year because the dog will not be eligible to compete.
The key to the KNPV success is the ongoing relationship with the Dutch police
entities. This close association has important advantages; KNPV clubs often have
access to training grounds and facilities not otherwise available. Because of this
official relationship certain criminal convictions preclude participation.

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The Politiehond I Examination
This description of the complete Police dog one examination will give an overview of
the scope and difficulty of the program:1
Morning Program
1 Swimming
a. Swim across a canal.
On command, swim 15 meters to 30 meters across canal or
open water, wait & return on command.
b. Retrieve object.
Object is stick or float about 1 meter long by 20 mm or 7/8 inch.
Distance is 80 meters.
2 Jumping Exercise
a. Scaling wall – 1.75 meter or 5.7 ft. (1 meter = 3.25 ft. )
This is a vertical wall on the front, with a platform on back side.
Dog climbs wall.
b. One Meter jump – 1 meter or 39 inch.
Dog must clear the jump without touching.
c. Broad jump – 2.25 meter or 7.3 ft.
Jump and return over an open pit.
d. Refusal of found food.
Food is placed next to jumps.
3 Small object search
Search for 3 objects one of which must be a bullet
casing of 9mm diameter & 19 mm length. Other
2 objects are such things as coins or machine screws.
Search area is 14 meters square of grass, all dogs
using same area. The dog may have 7 minutes to
search, but only 3 minutes for full points.
4 Heeling exercise
Dog must switch sides on command in each phase.
a. On leash heeling.
b. Off leash heeling.
c. Heeling next to bicycle.
5 Large object search
Dog must search for a large object, such as a chair or
wooden box, in the woods. Upon finding object, the dog
must remain at object, bark and not bite.
6 Man search
Dog searches in the woods for a man, a helper wearing the suit.
Upon finding the man, the dog must guard him and bark, but
not bite. Decoy remains motionless. Decoy shouts commands
that the dog is to disregard. Dog may bite during the commands,
but must release with no commands when he becomes silent
7 Down/Stay exercise
Dog must remain down for 3 minutes while handler goes out of sight.

1
These rules as of April, 2013. Alice Bezemer provided information and review in this
compilation.

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8 Food refusal
Dog must refuse food offered by decoy and thrown on ground.
9 Prisoner Transport
Handler escorts a prisoner with a hand on his shoulder; "prisoner"
pretends to be drunk and staggers. Prisoner drops object, such
as a set of keys, which the dog must pick up and return to handler.
10 Object guard
Handler leaves dog to guard an object such as a blanket
and stays out of sight. Helper approaches and tries
to take object, dog must bite, but release and remain by
object as helper retreats.
11 Silence exercise.
Dog & handler in woods must be silent during 9mm gun fire,
dog must not bark.

Afternoon Program
1 Stick / Face attack
The dog is sent from a distance of 110 meters or 357 feet, the
helper strikes the dog with a stick about 1.5 meter or 5 ft. long
before the dog engages. "Stick" is a sapling about 1 inch at base,
tapering down. After the pursuit handler and dog transport the
helper over a distance of approximately 25 meters, helper then flees
in the opposite direction until the dog stops him.
2 Gun attack.
In response to gun shots by helper, the dog is sent the
long distance. The helper flees and is apprehended by
the dog biting. After the out the helper strikes the dog
three times with objects that have been placed on the ground,
usually a length of rubber hose about 10 inches long. Strikes means
he throws the hose at the back of the dog while on the bite,
the hose remains on the ground.
3 Recall
The dog is sent from 110 meters against the helper as in
the Stick/Face attack described above. When the pursuing dog is
60 meters from the starting point, he is recalled and must
return to the handler.
4 Bicycle pursuit.
Dog is sent after a man fleeing on a bicycle, and must stop
him. Dog either goes high to bite the arm or low to
bite a leg. The leg bite is preferred; arm bite will cost one
point. Almost all dogs today bite the arm. Bicycle wheel spokes
& chain covered to prevent injury. After the pursuit and the out,
the handler searches the helper and transports the dog, during
which the helper attacks the handler. The dog must bite the
helper, and release on command when he becomes still.
5 False attack
Same as Stick/Face attack above, but this time at when the dog
is about 40 yards away the decoy turns around, drops stick
and stands still. Dog is not allowed to bite, should pass decoy
in short turn and sit or stand behind decoy to guard. Followed
by transport at 2 meter distance from decoy by handler and dog.

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In the afternoon protection program, the exercises are done sequentially, that is,
each dog does the face attack, then each dog does the gun attack and so forth until
each dog has done all five exercises. There are two judges on the field at all times in
these exercises, one at the starting point and one down field.

Scoring
There are 3 separate blocks of exercises:
Block 1: 65 points.
All heeling exercises, all jumping exercises, long stay/down exercise, refusal of food
found/offered, being silent and the small article search.
Block 2: 20 points
The two swimming exercises.
Block 3: 335 points
Object guard, large article search, man search, transport of prisoner, refusal to
follow commands from a stranger, endurance of being hit with 3 objects during the
bite, stick/face attack, throw/gun attack, recall, bike attack and false attack.
In addition to the points for these exercises, there are 10 discretionary points the
judges may award for general obedience and 10 points for style and presentation of
dog and handler.
Total possible points: 440
Minimum points for KNPV certificate: 352
Minimum points for honors, the met lof: 402

Current Trends
In the Netherlands the KNPV program has seen a significant reduction in
members in recent years, similar to trends in other nations. Actual annual certificates
are down only moderately since the 1990s, apparently the KNPV trainers, while
fewer in number, are attaining more titles on an individual basis. The dominance of
the Malinois on the trial fields is ongoing. The Schutzhund style IPO training has
taking root and has been expanding in popularity since the 1970s and much of the
training and competition is world-class. On the other hand, the FCI affiliated Raad
van Beheer and the Dutch conformation community is every bit as oblivious to
working character as the AKC in America.
Beginning in the 1980s dogs with the Dutch police certificate were increasingly
purchased for export to America and many other nations, fundamentally changing
the dynamics of the system, eroding the amateur character. Sad to say, in the spirit
of quick training for the money, it is a fact that dogs have been killed on KNPV
training fields through unrelenting pressure in training. I know this directly and
personally from two unrelated KNPV judges. This situation evolved in the 1990s just
as economical video recording was becoming widely available, and there was
enormous concern in the KNPV establishment that sooner or later such things would
appear on the evening television news. It would seem likely that the general
European trend to ban useful and benign training devices such as prong and radio
controlled collars reflects some general awareness of such things.
The Dutch police program has always been different from the German model –
not really a sport program in the Schutzhund sense – for once a dog obtains his PH-I
certificate he can compete once more, that year, in the national championship. He
can also compete once in a PH-II championship. But an ongoing competition career
is an unknown concept.

261
 Many KNPV trainers are working class people in a crowded nation, where many
can only keep one or two dogs in their home. Many dogs achieving a title are sold
into police service. Although in the pre WWII era German Shepherds and Dobermans
had a presence, in the post war era the Malinois and the Bouvier des Flandres
became predominant. For a number of reasons, which I have discussed elsewhere,
by the 1980s the Bouviers were fading and the Malinois, often without papers, was
strongly predominant. When American police departments and dog brokers began to
import these dogs to America they became very popular very quickly, aided by the
fact that in general they were similar in appearance to the German Shepherd and
thus looked like a police dog to the American eye.

Dutch soldiers with their dogs, circa 1914.

Probably rough coated Dutch Shepherd on the left, short coated on the right.

262
9 France

France is a nation with an ancient history, a

culture that was the foundation of western
civilization when the Normans invaded England
and French became the language of the English
court for several centuries. The French language
is melodic and resonant, a foundation of western
literature and for many centuries the
international standard of diplomacy, science and
culture; if you could not say it in French it did not
really matter, for you were not worth hearing. In
the countryside today this is a nation of physical
beauty and tranquility, in so many ways the
French really do know how to live. The rest us
may not always love the French, but it is very
difficult not to admire them, perhaps even with a
touch of envy.
The French Herding Breeds
The popular media tends to lend the
impression that elaborately groomed Poodles are
typical of the French, but in reality such dogs are
Léon Destailleur with not especially popular. The registration statistics
Vass du Faubourg des Postes. reveal that the French generally tend to prefer
the bigger and more robust breeds, especially
German or American as represented by the
German Shepherd (Berger Allemand) and Golden Retriever, in first and second place
respectively in terms of French popularity.1
Just as in every other nation, the farmers and herdsmen of the French
countryside evolved their own indigenous herding breeds such as the Picardy
Shepherd, Beauceron and Briard. But among the broad population the popularity
early on went to the German dogs – the Shepherds, Rottweilers and Dobermans –
while the native French herding breeds withered on the vine. Even in sport the
import has predominated, been the preference of the Ring Sport trainers; first the
German Shepherd early on and since the 1970s the Malinois.
The Beauceron or Berger de Beauce is a herding breed of the north central region
and the best represented French breed in Ring sport. It is a relatively large, muscular
dog of short coat, reportedly part of the foundation stock of the Doberman Pincher.
It is the only French breed with any noticeable representation in French Ring. 3222
Beauceron were registered in France in 2012, ranking it twenty first in popularity.
The Picardy Shepherd or Berger de Picardie is a medium sized, rough coated
shepherd's dog of Northern France, similar in size structure and function to the more
1
2012 registrations for the German Shepherd were 11,205 and for the Golden Retriever
8,877. The most popular French breed is the French Bull Dog, eighth in popularity at
6189 annual registrations.

263
well-known native Belgian Shepherds. In 2012 there were 250 Picardy Shepherd
registrations, corresponding to the rank of 111 among French breeds.
The Briard or Berger de Brie is a relatively large native sheep herding and
guarding dog with a long and rough coat suitable for year round service with the
flock, often working without supervision as with many of the flock guarding dogs of
the more mountainous and rougher regions of southern Europe. There were 434
registered in 2012, corresponding to a relative popularity ranking of 90.

French Ring Sport

Everything French eventually evolves a unique flair and character, and their
national protection dog sport is no exception. French Ringsport emphasizes exquisite
control, quickness, finesse and speed; and favors dogs with the same attributes, the
Belgian Malinois. And not just any Malinois, but their own lines, evolving for their
demanding sport with relentless, driven selection.
The men who stand in as adversaries to the dog, the Hommes d'Attaque, use full
body suits, allowing the dog to bite anyplace but favoring the leg bites because of
the tactics and quickness of the decoys, who take pride in their skill, agility and
ability to finesse or deceive the dog into missing a bite and thus losing points. To this
end the suits are light and flexible in the extreme. Larger and more powerful dogs
are at a distinct disadvantage, and those who favor such breeds need to look
elsewhere or accept being on the sidelines each June when the elite men and their
dogs vie for the Cup of France.
My introduction to serious French Ring was in 1987 in France, first at a local club
trial and then on to Lorient for the famous cup final, on the Atlantic coast where
many of the German submarines were based in WWII. Each dog coming to compete
had been through a demanding series of regional selection trials, the sélectifs, and
thus represented the best the sport and the nation had to offer. This culminating
event is known as the Coupe de France du Chien d'Utilité, that is, the French Ring
Cup. This Cup, as it is known for short, is among the most demanding and respected
canine events in the world today, every man and dog that walk onto the field
become forever part of the elite of canine sport.
My recollection is of two warm, sunny days late in June, with moderation in
temperature insured by the nearness of the ocean. As is typical of such events, the
trial was in a medium size sports arena, a soccer stadium in this instance. In my
catalog are 17 Malinois, 7 German Shepherds and 2 Terveruren, all male and with
male handlers. Finally, to represent France among these dogs of Flemish and
German origin, there was a remarkable Beauceron, Saphir du Grand Maurian in the
25th place of honor in the Cup final.
Scanning the entries in my catalog, certain things snapped into focus, for
instance the kennel de la Virginie was represented in first place by Tino, fourth place
by Titus and 14th place by Torck.
The kennel de la Virginie was the life work of Daniel Debonduwe, by far the most
successful Ring Sport breeder and trainer of all time, author of the famous book L'art
du ring. On this day, Tino and Mr. Debonduwe went on to win both the Cup and the
Championship. (The Cup goes to the dog with the most points on this day, while the
Championship goes to the dog with the highest combined total from the sélectifs and
the Cup trial.)
I am told that the German Shepherd in the thirteenth place, a certain Sorbonne
trained by M. Gorse, is regarded by many as the greatest of his breed, nearing the
end of a long career in the Ring and at the Cup, but on that day I do not remember
him specifically among so many exceptional dogs and their trainers. A first

264
attendance at such an event, if you understand even in a small way the significance,
flows together in your recollection, with so many extraordinary people and dogs.
Unlike Schutzhund, where the dog is taught to only bite the padded arm, the
complete body suit is used, and the dog may bite anywhere. In practice, most dogs
are trained to go for the legs and thighs. On command, dogs must instantly release
their hold, explode off the suit. Simultaneously the decoy ceases aggressive
behavior. According to command, dogs must then either return or stay and guard.
Handlers must also, for the attaque arrêtée exercise (stopped attack), call the dogs
off before they quite reach the decoy, certainly a most remarkable demonstration of
control and discipline.
Perhaps the most fascinating of the exercises is the guard of object. The handler
places an object, such as a wicker basket, in the center of a ring of perhaps eight or
ten feet diameter on the ground. The handler then goes away, out of sight, no doubt
to quietly worry. The decoy then approaches from the distance, making no overtly
aggressive move. The dog more than anything wants to attack, but knows he must
stay at his station. The decoy circles, shows disinterest, but moves continually
closer. Finally, when he detects a moment's lack of attention, he will reach for the
basket, at which point the dog must bite. When he does, the decoy must freeze and
instantly put the basket on the ground. If the dog leaves the basket, or allows the
man to remove it from the circle, substantial points are lost.
It is a fascinating battle of wits between man and dog, between decoy and
trainer, played out mostly in slow motion with an occasional flash of action.
Among the elite names, the most revered in France, are those of Leon Destailleur
and his kennel du Mouscronnais. Born in 1920 in Mouscron in the Walloon region of
Belgium, he is generally regarded as the father of modern French Ring Sport and the
introduction of the Malinois to the French working dog world.
The location of the small brick house, where this man Destailleur lived his long
life, was to have a profound influence on the evolution of this sport and this breed.
The French border, with the French village of Wattrelos, was literally a stone throw
away.
Furthermore, Mouscron is at the very tip of the intrusion of the Walloon province
of Hainaut where this province, Nord France and the Belgian province of West
Flandres meet. Destailleur could literally walk out of his door to the next street and
be in France. But he could also take a short walk to the North and cross another kind
of border, into West Flandres and be in the same nation but where the language and
culture were fundamentally different. In many ways the separation of peoples across
this boundary between the Flemish and the culturally and linguistically French
portion of Belgium is greater than the national boundary where one could walk
across and share a drink or meal among those of his own language, perhaps his own
relatives and friends. (Hilliard, 1986)
This story is deep in irony, for his early training was in the Belgian way, and until
about 1960 Destailleur was among the very few men training the German Shepherd
for the Belgian Ring.
But it was a different kind of dog that would lead to fame, for after the war, in
1946, he began with a bitch of the kind in those days known as Le Petit Berger
Flamand or the little Flemish Shepherd, somewhat better known today as the
Malinois. The war had decimated the canine population, and recovery was a matter
of taking what could be found to begin again. This bitch, acquired literally from
between the rails of a cart, was the foundation of what would establish the Malinois
in France and redefine French Ring sport.
In the earlier days, French Ring was for the German Shepherd, and all the dogs
went to the arm for the bite, for the Belgian Ring in that era was the only venue

265
where the dogs went to the leg. Training for the Belgian Ring, Destailleur, who
believed that biting to the leg was founded in a genetic predisposition, selected and
trained his dogs in this way, and by the 1950s had established this in his lines.
In 1962 the winds of change were blowing in Belgium, for the backbone of the
Belgian Ring trainers were forming a new organization, the NVBK, in the region of
Antwerp. Going forward there would be four ring organizations in Belgium, the
increasingly prosperous NVBK Verbond focused in the Dutch speaking Flemish region
which would predominate. Societe Royale Saint-Hubert, the FCI national club, carries
on, but its ring program became a shell of what it had been, a dwindling list of old
judges and trainers. Kennel Club Belge (Belgian Kennel Club) was focused the
Wallonian provinces to the south and greatly in decline after more than a half
century of service. The fourth organization was German Shepherd oriented in the
more German speaking far eastern end of the country, and not a factor in this story,
or much of anything else.
For Destailleur the handwriting was on the wall, for the Wallonians were being
marginalized in Belgian Ring and the future was uncertain. In one of those pivotal
moments of fate his eyes turned south to France and the rest, as they say, became
history. Destailleur focused on the French Ring, then German Shepherd dominated
and with dogs going entirely to the upper body. Since Ring clubs needed to be
French based, he established a club in Wattrelos, although actual training apparently
commenced on Belgian soil. On this base he would revolutionize the dog sport of
France.
The irony is deep, and on many levels. A group of disgruntled Flemings in the
vicinity of Antwerp broke off from the SRSH, the FCI Belgian national canine
organization, and launched an independent structure, the NVBK, to run their own
trials and registry, which has gone on to remarkable success. But there was a
collateral effect, for this also set in motion a chain of events in which French Ring
would be turned on its head by a Belgian breeder and trainer.
In this way the NVBK revolution in Belgium was the proximate cause of
something even larger and more world transforming, the establishment of the
modern French Ring Sport. But of course leadership from beyond their own culture
was not a new story for the French, for Napoleon Bonaparte was in a cultural and
original linguistic sense Italian.
Over time Destailleur became established as a competitor, breeder, decoy and
judge. A likeminded circle of friends evolved, most especially a young decoy, fast,
creative, passionate, André Noël, whose kennel was de la Noaillerie. Through the
influence of these friends he began to produce articles for the canine magazines and
promote a new style of helper work, one based on evasion and demanding that for
success the dogs go to the legs. This began to take hold, and Destailleur was ready
with the new equipment for the new sport. Before long those Frenchmen not content
to be relegated to the club trials went north for dogs, for the Malinois, and to learn
these strange new ways. By the end of the 1970's the transition was well advanced,
the German Shepherd was on the way to being just another secondary breed
scrambling for scraps of glory at the club trials, while the Malinois went on to yearly
drink deeply from the cup.
Destailleur, like all great men, was a man of luck, under the protection of the
gods. For at the very moment he chose to literally walk into a neighboring nation and
rearrange their national dog sport to his convenience and liking the advent of very
light, strong, flexible materials was making possible the ring suits on which this
revolution was founded.
With these new suits, and a strong emphasis on quickness, evasion and agility in
the work, the decoy became the dog's adversary, expected to detect and exploit any

266
weaknesses in the individual dog, rather than to present a uniform picture to each
dog. And, of course, a star in his own right.
Over the past several years the Malinois has in increasing numbers been
predominating at high places of international IPO, Schutzhund and other
competition, sneaking in and eating the lunch which had always been set out for the
German Shepherd. I note this with a certain gratification, not only on behalf of the
Malinois, but also for the long-term benefit of the German Shepherd, which has in
many lines lessened in intensity and physique because of the influence of the show
ring, because the brothers of Judas held power in the SV. Schutzhund and IPO were
created by and for the German Shepherd, and Malinois domination can only mean
that this noble breed is in decline.
To what shall we attribute this change, this transformation of the working dog
scene in France, the first among many advances of the Malinois into territory always
the private domain of the German Shepherd?
There is a temptation to speculate that a factor in this tide of Malinois enthusiasm
reflects a disinclination to things German as a consequence of centuries old
animosity and two devastating world wars. This would not be the least bit
remarkable for a man such as Destailleur, who spent the war years evading the Nazi
police, where only one inadvertent incident could have meant capture and being sent
to the front or forced labor and never returning, as was the fate of so many of the
young men of Belgium, friends and neighbors, and so many working dog lines
created through such sacrifice and devotion. In my own personal experience, Edmee
Bowles, pioneer of the Bouvier des Flandres in America, driven out of her Belgian
homeland with but one dog, the rest abandoned to the mercy of the German
invaders, came to despise the Germans and everything German throughout her long
life. While this sort of thing has faded away over time, this was not the least bit
unusual in this era.
But there is much more to this. The general view of the German Shepherd
community would be along the lines of the Malinois coming to the forefront because
the French, with some help from a clever Belgian, essentially stacked the deck, not
because the Malinois is in any fundamental way superior. The Shepherd is from his
foundations a more massive and powerful dog, so the best Malinois are always going
to beat the best German Shepherds at French Ring. And to breed German Shepherds
to win in this ring would be to abandon their heritage, to try and make them
something they are not and were never intended to be.
Michel Hasbrouck – a well-respected French trainer, writer and advocate for
French Ring – has a slightly different point of view. This is not in any way the rant of
some rabid Malinois fan boy, for Mr. Hasbrouck is a man with passion for the German
Shepherd, which he took into the Ring for many years. This is his commentary, by
private communication:
"The Malinois wins because the breed selection is different, based on the
German created 'Confirmation' way.
At the minimum age of one year, German Shepherds are evaluated by a
conformation judge who eventually dismisses them for breeding if they
suffer from determined and sometimes minor-in-the-eyes-of-trial-trainers
problems (missing teeth, long hair for GSDs, saddle backs, and so on).
But, in 1983, the French Berger Belge Club president decided that a Ring
III dog was worth a 42 teeth dog, and conformation judges were compelled
to grant the Confirmation to all excellent working Malinois. This way
(working) champion dogs could produce registered dogs, the only ones
allowed at French Ring trials.

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 In the same time, world GSD clubs went on refusing Confirmation to trial
champions GSDs, arguing about their hair, legs or backs. As for other
shepherd breeds, working lines died away.
More than this, GSDs suffer from hip dysplasia, and lots of premium rate
working dogs die from bloat.
When you spend 3,000 hours training for Ring 3, and you discover your
dog can no longer jump, you start thinking Malinois…
It is now far easier to find a working line in Malinois than in any other
breed. The main advantage of Ring Sport Malinois bloodlines is their ability
to sustain training. To stay burning, witty, obedient, even after a severe
punishment or a long training session."

An in depth understanding of this requires knowledge of the structure of the

French canine world, where each national breed club sets up a system under which
young dogs can be "confirmed " and thus become eligible for breeding by meeting
standards for structure, type and character, similar to the Koer classification system
for the German Shepherd in the mother land. In order to participate in the French
Ring, a dog must have a valid national Registration, which means that no matter how
great a dog is his progeny cannot go on to compete unless the national breed club
grants its blessing.
But in France, and in Belgium, this took an ugly turn. I will mention the situation
for the Bouvier des Flandres, of which I have some experience, but which is typical
of all the other breeds but one. The French Bouvier club is in the hands of
conformation dilettantes who pay at most only lip service to serious working
character. Their character requirement is a "unique to the special qualities of the
Bouvier" temperament test in which all dogs pass, no matter how timid, except those
who show any real aggression. In Belgium I was present in person to see a famous
Bouvier breeder – not Chastel – take a bitch in for such a test. The requirement is
that the dog engage the man in the suit, make actual contact, and this bitch simply
would not engage. Finally, this famous man simply picked her up and touched the
suit, and thus passed. The helper averted his eyes, and to this day I wonder whether
it was to avoid threatening the poor animal, or out of personal shame for what he
was participating in.
Under this system, many exceptional working dogs, including imported dogs with
perfectly good registration in their country of origin, can be and are denied by a self-
centered cabal of breeders in control of the national club, who prefer to go on
pretending that their dogs are of working character.
But there is a major exception. In France, where the gate to the Ring requires
the blessing of the breed club, the national Belgian Shepherd club, which includes
the Malinois, club broke ranks and dictated that the successful Ring competitors be
confirmed automatically, which is most certainly a major factor in their success.
In numerical terms in 2008, of 2640 dogs competing in French Ring, there were
1583 Malinois followed by 661 German Shepherds, 128 Tervuerens, 63 Beaucerons
and 55 Rottweilers. But numbers can be deceptive, for the 128 Tervuerens were
likely in many or most instances long hairs from Malinois litters or lines with heavy
Malinois influence.
The reality is that French Ring is two sports, where the top level Malinois strive
for glory in the various qualification events leading to the Cup finals, leaving the
scraps, titles in the less demanding club level trials, for the lesser breeds.
A vaguely patronizing feature of the Cup rules reserves one or two places, of the
thirty, to an alternate breed. But on occasion an exceptional dog of another breed, a

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Beauceron or Bouvier des Flandres, will defy the odds and qualify in the selection
trials on their own merits rather than through a patronizing exception in the rules.
Even here, there is a certain place for irony. The Bouvier des Flandres Tulasne de la
Genesis, owned and trained by Jean Marie Denece, was such a dog. Now one would
perhaps assume that the French Bouvier community would take heart, and perhaps
encouragement. But the fly in the ointment was that this Tulasne was a dog of pure
Dutch police breeding, from lines looked down upon and despised by the French elite
– they actually like to call themselves by such words – as low class and foreign.
These French dilettantes paid a little lip service and went right back to pretending
that their dogs really were capable, and proving it in their pathetic character tests
and breed certifications. Although I have not experienced it for myself, my
impression is that things are pretty much the same in the Beauceron world, both
breeding communities produce a few specimens that can squeak through at a club
level trial but fail to take the steps necessary for real working credibility.
The 2008 French Ring trial results listing has a little over 500 events, with
popular dates indicating ten or fifteen concurrent trials across the nation. There is no
doubt that French Ring is a vital, thriving community with a strong heritage and ever
increasing levels of performance.
In spite of a lot of effort and publicity French Ring has failed to gain any real
traction in the rest of the world. There are a number of factors for this, but the
primary one would seem to be a simple matter of breed recognition. Schutzhund
prospered in America because of the enormous popularity of the German Shepherd,
based primarily on the image of the strong, noble canine police service. Americans
could relate to the Schutzhund culture, take pride in the roots of their own dogs in
this background, regardless of the reality of their actual potential. If they became
interested and found their dog wanting, the Schutzhund judge from the last trial or a
breeder with German lines was quick to offer an upgrade. Rottweilers, Dobermans
and to a lesser extent Boxers and Giant Schnauzers also benefited from and
contributed to this enthusiasm. And you could go to Germany and buy a titled dog
and become an instant player and authority on American Schutzhund fields.
But very few Americans owned or had heard of a Malinois and even fewer were
inclined to buy a funny looking dog, looking suspiciously like a run down, spindly
German Shepherd, to play in a novel sport. Another significant factor is that there
were many recently emigrated Germans with canine experience living in America or
traveling from Germany to promote the sport and the breed, and not incidentally
themselves.
On the whole the French have been at best lukewarm about the whole thing – at
one point there were grand announcements about becoming the "International Ring,"
but a year or so later the words French Ring reappeared on the various web sites.
When you inquire as to the nature of French Ring with an advocate the likely
response is to compare it to the martial arts, is done for itself alone, wherever higher
levels of elegance, power and skill are sought for their own intrinsic worth. But in the
real world there ultimately is a need to produce dogs capable of excellence in police
work, and this is increasingly a matter of the olfactory capability, the search,
tracking and substance detection applications that are more and more the foundation
of police applications. I will not pretend to have answers to these dilemmas of the
modern world, for ultimately it is more relevant to identify the crucial questions and
hope that men of sincerity can find relevant answers.
In addition to the French Ring sport, conducted on an enclosed trial field, usually
some sort of stadium, there is also a similar trial system conducted in more open and
natural settings, that is, Campagne, which translates as "country." Although
currently much less popular than Ring, Campagne has a long history. In 2009 their

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website listed 41 clubs distributed across France and 17 judges, compared to 85 for
Ring sport and 51 for Mondio Ring, with a lot of overlap.

Commentary
France on the whole has played a relatively minor role in the evolution of the
police dog. Their native herding dogs, such as the Beauceron and Picardy Shepherd,
have withered on the vine, while foreign breeds, early on the German Shepherd and
later the Malinois, have been predominant on their sport fields. Although French Ring
was for many years dominated by the German Shepherd, beginning in the 1960's the
Malinois came to own the upper echelon, which is a world onto itself with perhaps
the most purely sporting character, in the good sense, of any modern system.
Perhaps because they have had no native breed to promote, and the consequent
national pride, they have been much less successful in projecting their dogs, trial
system and canine culture beyond their own nation. The French people as a whole
have been disinterested, preferring the German Shepherds and later the Rottweilers
and Golden Retrievers over their own native breeds.
The Malinois is very popular among the Ring trainers, but, as in the rest of the
world, not so much the civilian population. While the sporting spirit of French Ring is
in general admirable, the world also has a need of well-rounded lines of police dogs,
and increasingly this means dogs capable of searching, tracking and substance
detection, that is, duel or multipurpose dogs. The fact that French Ring ignores this
olfactory capability is a serious limitation in the evolution of functional police capable
lines. For these historical reasons, the French have had much less influence on
worldwide police deployment practice than the Germans, Belgians or Dutch.

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10 Germany

.
Although the ancient people of north central Europe coalesced as modern
Germany relatively recently, in 1871 under Prussian domination, their history goes
back to the epic conflicts with Roman armies and a central role in the Holy Roman
Empire of the middle ages. European affairs since Napoleon have been largely a
process of conflict and war, of integrating this powerful emerging state as a peaceful
member of a stable family of European nations, a process which came to fruition and
prosperity with the merger of east and west upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union
in the final decade of the twentieth century.
These Germans are a people with a strong and compelling canine heritage, and
from the beginning of the modern police dog era were enormously effective at
promoting their breeds to the public, to police agencies and to the military at home,
in the rest of Europe and particularly in America. Although other nations, such as
Belgium and the Netherlands, have a long and honorable police service heritage, in
the public eye it has been German breeds which first came to exemplify the culture
and capture the imagination.

The German Shepherd

Throughout the world the German Shepherd is the quintessential police dog. So
universal is the association that for many – being unaware that others also serve –
they are one and the same thing. From the inception of the studbook in 1899 this
incipient breed was swept up in an unprecedented wave of popularity; by the First
World War many thousands were in homes across Germany, and thousands were to
serve in the looming catastrophe. In the aftermath this popularity went worldwide,
for the German Shepherd came home with the troops to America and within a

271
decade became our most popular breed. Even in pre WWII Japan there were popular
large scale national clubs and military training programs involving thousands of dogs.
The breed dominates the German canine world as no other breed does anywhere –
annual registrations currently run two to three times that of the breed in second
place, the Dachshund.

The Early Years

In Germany during the latter half of the nineteenth century interest in
consolidating the indigenous shepherd’s dogs into a formal breed was growing,
corresponding to similar efforts in England, Belgium, the Netherlands and elsewhere.
Early conformation shows with shepherd dog entries are mentioned in Hannover in
1882 and Neubrandenburg in 1885, with an entry of about ten dogs, apparently in
some instances literally brought from the fields and meadows.
The first formal effort at breed establishment was the Phylax1 Society formed on
the 16th of December 1891 by a Graf (Count) von Hahn and Captain Riechelmann-
Dunau, named after his dog Phylax von Eulau2. This society was focused on creating
an ornamental breed, for many featuring a wolf like appearance3 for commercial
appeal, and fortunately withered on the vine as a consequence of internal conflict
and a lack of clearly defined purpose. According to von Stephanitz:
"The original intentions of the founders of the Society whose aim, along
with ours, were directed to the improvement of the breed of the working
dog, were unfortunately suppressed in the first breeding Society of our
race, the "Phylax" by their one sided emphasis on the purely fancy dog
breeds. The natural result was that the Phylax, which was limited in
general to Northern and Central Germany, began at first to pine, and
finally become extinct. (von Stephanitz, 1925)
Although the formation of a national breed club and the studbook was not to take
place until 1899, for a number of years there had been ongoing breeding and
conformation exhibition by an actively expanding community of enthusiasts,
including a certain young Calvary officer.
The man destined to formalize the German Shepherd as a breed and provide
leadership through the formative years, Max Emil Friedrich von Stephanitz, was born
into a prosperous, noble family in Germany on December 30, 1864. More precisely,
he was born in the city of Dresden in the Kingdom of Saxony, as Germany as a
nation did not yet exist. Upon the completion of his education his desire was to
become a gentleman farmer; but respecting established norms and the wishes of his
family he entered the military as a career officer. Von Stephanitz had long been
interested in the biological sciences and while serving with the Veterinary College in
Berlin gained extensive knowledge of anatomy, physiology, evolution, breeding
concepts and general principles of animal husbandry.

1
Phylax is from the Greek for a guard or sentinel.
2
Possibly same as Phylax von Waldenreut, the sire of Krone vom Park.
3
(Delinger, Paramoure, & Umlauff, 1976)

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 In 1898 von Stephanitz was promoted to
the rank of Rittmeister or Cavalry Captain and
then retired. The conventional version of this
story is that because of his marriage to an
actress, Anna Maria Wagner, which was
regarded as beneath his social status, he was
asked to leave the service, bringing his
military career to an end. This does not
entirely ring true. Other authorities report
that he was forced into retirement because of
illness, specifically hemorrhoids.1 Given that
he was a reluctant lieutenant in his middle
thirties, not the fast track in any man's army,
it is entirely plausible that his prospects were
unpromising, that he wanted out and that his
superiors were more than willing to see him
go, in which case illness or the social status of
his wife would have been more excuse than
cause and his promotion a fig leaf in
deference to his social position.
In any event, upon retirement he
purchased an estate near the city of Grafrath
in Bavaria, 25 kilometers directly west of
Munich in the south of Germany. Here he
commenced the active process of formalizing
Max von Stephanitz and promoting the German Shepherd, and
chose Grafrath as his kennel name. The first
mention of a dog owned by von Stephanitz was the female Freya von Grafrath,
purchased in 1897. The original breeder, name and ancestry seem to be lost to
history, and there are no records of descendants.
The real beginning came at an all-breed dog show in Karlsruhe2 in 1899, at which
Von Stephanitz and colleague Artur Meyer came upon a dog that entirely caught
their attention, exemplified their vision of the German Shepherd: Hector Linksrhein,
a dog out of herding lines.3 Hector, bred by Friendrich Sparwasser of Frankfort, had
been born January 1, 1895. This dog was of Thuringian stock and had passed
through the hands of several breeders, including a man named Anton Eiselen, before
coming into the hands of von Stephanitz. Litter mate Luchs Sparwasser, SZ-155 4,
was also to emerge as a foundation of the breed. Upon purchase Hector was
according to the custom of the time renamed as Horand von Grafrath so as to carry
the von Stephanitz kennel name and became the first German Shepherd in the SV
studbook as SZ-1.5
This Hector was not an unknown dog emerging mysteriously out of the fields but
rather the result of the ongoing breeding program of Friendrich Sparwasser:

1
(Garrett)
2
Karl Karlsruhe is just west of Stuttgart, very close to the now French province of Alsace.
3
According to (Garrett) there is no evidence that either Hector or his parents ever actually
served as herding dogs, the process of breed creation beyond the original function was
already ongoing.
4
SZ is the designation of the German studbook or breeding registry for the GSD.
5
Studbook entries at this time were not necessarily ordered by date of birth or
chronological sequence. Many dogs that had been born in previous years, such as the
parents of Hector or Horand, would eventually be included with higher numbers.

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 Roland
Pollux, SZ-151, born 1891
Courage
Kastor (von Hanau), Grey, SZ-153, born 1893
Schäfermädchen von Hanau SZ-154
Horand von Grafrath SZ-1
Grief Sparwasser, white, born 1879
Lene Sparwasser, Grey, SZ-156
Lotte Sparwasser

The proprietor of the above mentioned Hanau kennel was a man named
Wachsmuth, who according to von Stephanitz had a long term commercial operation,
spanning some forty years, including advertisements for "Thuringian Shepherd Dogs"
in the journals of various foreign countries in the later 1800s. (von Stephanitz, 1925)
Although not well known today, the name Wachsmuth does surface fairly regularly in
researching the literature and old records.
Comments with the pedigree
indicate that Pollux was well-built,
strong and tall, grey in color but with
a coarse head resembling that of a
wolf. The white male Grief
Sparwasser is significant in that
difficulty in eradicating this recessive
color from the lines would persist for
a century.1 Neither Horand nor his
parents are credited with an HGH or
herding title, and apparently Horand
never actually served in the pasture.
Later on von Stephanitz would put
great emphasis on including proven
working stock with the HGH title.
There were two predominant
regional populations of native
shepherd's dogs from which the
Horand von Grafrath (SZ 1), breed was drawn:
formerly Hektor Linksrhein.
Von Stephanitz paid 200 Marks for him in 1899, One of these resources was the
a substantial sum at the time. shepherd's dogs of the highlands of
the Thuringian region of central
Germany, typically with erect ears
and the general appearance of contemporary specimens, though more lightly built.
The Sparwasser line was typical of this "Thuringian blood." Von Stephanitz mentions
Sparwasser in a favorable light and relates that his first dogs came from the Hanau
Kennel of Herr Wachsmuth, mentioned above. (von Stephanitz, 1925)
The second important breeding resource was the shepherd's dogs of the
Wurttemberg region in the vicinity of Stuttgart in southwestern Germany, described
as larger, stronger and more heavily coated. Representing this branch of the family
were the kennels von der Krone of Anton Eiselen located at Heidenheim and vom
Brenztal in Giengen. Von Stephanitz mentions that the Wurttemberg dogs had a
tendency to problems with standing ears, while the Thuringian stock tended toward a
1
This does not imply that this dog is the primary source of the white coats, for the
genetics for white were widespread in the primitive stock on the farms and pastures.

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high tail carriage; sometimes "fixed" artificially, that is surgically, only to return in
subsequent generations to the dismay of unwary purchasers.
Although Horand would become the founding prototype or ideal of the breed
because of his physical and moral attributes, his influential progeny had already been
produced when he was purchased by von Stephanitz. In the words of the founder:
"Unfortunately, I must admit that all of this was not accomplished in my
Kennel; I was not so fortunate with him as were his previous owners…"
(von Stephanitz, 1925) p. 136
Ultimately Horand von Grafrath was bred 53 times to 35 females. Probably the
most illustrious of his progeny was the male Hecktor von Schwaben, out of the
female Mores Plieningen, with the HGH herding certificate and out of two
undocumented dogs known as Franz and Werra. The blood of Hecktor is said to flow
in every German Shepherd Dog's pedigree, but he was bred by H. Drieger and born
January 5, 1898, and thus whelped long before Horand came into the hands of von
Stephanitz.
The fact of the matter is that less than a dozen von Grafrath dogs bred or owned
by von Stephanitz are prominent in the breeding records, and by about 1905 even
this minor level of activity abated. The only really prominent von Grafrath dog was
the 1904 Sieger1 Aribert von Grafrath, selected by von Stephanitz himself, who at
the time declared he would no longer show his own dogs. Aribert is not especially
prominent in modern German Shepherd blood lines.
Thus we can see that the process of creating the German Shepherd was the work
of a community of dedicated breeders and enthusiasts leading up to the founding
events of 1899. Because of his wealth, social status, drive and dominating
personality von Stephanitz receives and deserves the lion’s share of the credit and
recognition, but we must not forget the contribution of so many others who played
key roles in the creation of this noble breed. According to Garrett, men such as
Sparwasser were selling dogs on an increasing scale even outside of Germany prior
to the involvement of von Stephanitz, and actively promoting them at the various
dog shows. The existence of the Phylax Society a few years earlier is evidence that
this was an ongoing process when von Stephanitz first became involved.
On the 22nd of April 1899 von Stephanitz, Artur Meyer, Ernst von Otto, Anton
Eiselen and others gathered together in the city of Karlsruhe in Baden, on the
occasion of a dog show, to found a club. The Verein für Deutsche Schäferhunde (SV)
or in English the Club for the German Shepherd, would become among the world's
largest and most prestigious. The remaining founders seem to be lost to history.
Headquarters for the club were initially in Stuttgart, but moved to Munich in 1901. In
taking an overview of the literature and resource material it becomes apparent that
the founding events and kennels were in the deep south of Germany, with Stuttgart
a focus point in the south west and Munich even further south close to the Austrian
border.
A registration book was created and Horand v Grafrath became the first
registered German Shepherd Dog. On September 20, 1899, the SV adopted a breed
standard based on the proposals of Meyer and von Stephanitz and later held its first
1
Sieger is a word in German that translates as winner, but in the context of German
Shepherd affairs the Sieger is the male winner of the annual national German
conformation championship show, known as the Sieger Show. There are also other
national Siegers in the Netherlands, Belgium and many other nations. The Siegerin is
the corresponding winning female each year, but most of the notoriety applies to the
male Sieger as he is generally bred to very extensively. Other German breeds such as
the Doberman Pincher also designate annual Siegers and Siegerins

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Sieger Show at Frankfurt-am-Main, using the titles Sieger and Siegerin. Von
Stephanitz became the founding president and held the post until the year before his
death, almost forty years later. Artur Meyer became secretary and conducted the
affairs of the club from his home in Stuttgart. Unfortunately, Meyer passed away
soon thereafter, putting an increased burden on the president. (Strickland, 1974) At
the passing of Meyer von Stephanitz took on his office as secretary in addition to the
presidency, solidifying his control over the breed, registry and club which he would
not relinquish until shortly before his death, more than three decades later. By 1903,
when the SV Magazine came into existence, there were almost 600 members.
From von Stephanitz forward until the end of the twentieth century the SV
president would judge the males at the annual Sieger show and the National Breed
Warden the females. In general a benign dictator in the early years of breed
establishment has been a pattern in various successful breeds, as in the case of Dr.
Reul for the Belgian Shepherd, for it provides one founding vision and consistency in
selection. The spirit of these shows was somewhat different from the typical dog
show of today in that the judge was expected to know the dogs and their lines and
select those most suitable for breeding so as to guide the breed as a whole in the
desired direction rather than the most impressive dogs on that day. This in general
was an effective mode of operation in the beginning, but the problem with dictators
is that down the road eventually you get a bad one, and he usually insures that his
successors are cut out of the same cloth. Subsequent to WWII the SV leadership
gradually fell into the hands of an overt show line cabal, exacerbating the ongoing
split of the German Shepherd into show and working lines.
Horand and also Luchs Sparwasser, his brother, were inbred intensively to
consolidate the bloodline, but as mentioned this in reality had little to do with von
Stephanitz. Horand's best son, Hecktor von Schwaben, the second German Sieger,
was mated with his half-sister as well as through daughters of his own sons,
Beowulf, Heinz von Starkenberg, and Pilot III. Intense inbreeding also concentrated
undesirable recessive characteristics originating from the mixing of the original
strains. To compensate for this, Von Stephanitz then encouraged unrelated blood of
herding origin through Audifax von Grafrath and Adalo von Grafrath and perhaps
others. The breed progressed rapidly; if registration numbers were used
consecutively, without skipping any, then they were pushing a hundred thousand
total registrations by the beginning of the WWI, on the order of five to ten thousand
registrations per year.
Police style trials, which would eventually evolve into the Schutzhund venue,
began in Germany in 1901 testing the dog's abilities in tracking, obedience and
protection. In the early years there was great emphasis on the herding title, the
HGH, especially on the part of von Stephanitz. There were championships for herding
and police work, beginning in 1906.
From the beginning in late 1899 both the SV membership and annual puppy
registrations expanded exponentially, making the German Shepherd among the most
popular breeds worldwide. By the time of the First World War the SV had become
one of the world's larger canine organizations with over fifty thousand members and
six hundred local clubs. Overseas popularity came quickly, as these events indicate:
 1908 First GSD Registered with the AKC.
 1913 GSD Club of America founded.
 1919 The English Kennel Club began a registry.
 1925 Replaces the Boston Terrier as first in AKC registrations.

In his book German Shepherd Dog History Gordon Garrett mentions that in
visiting herding trials in Germany even in recent years there was a class for 'Alt
Deutsch Schaferhunde' or Old German Shepherd Dog; that is the actual working

276
lines the modern German Shepherd was created from, bred only according to their
herding function. Garrett mentions that these dogs, without registration records,
were included in German Shepherd lines well into the 1930s. There is some
indication that a tendency to long coats and whites may go back to this, but von
Stephanitz was convinced that returning to the old herding lines was necessary for
the vigor and resilience of the breed. Such a resource would not be an entirely bad
thing even today.
By 1923 SV membership had grown to 57,000 1 and 900 local clubs. Even in these
early years the separation into working and show lines was becoming increasingly
apparent; with show lines becoming more and more distant from the dogs on the
trial fields and in police service.

The Founder's Touch

Max von Stephanitz is a legend and an enigma. He was a man obsessed with
projecting the German Shepherd as the predominant police breed worldwide, and he
succeeded in this. He was not the only one, but he was the indispensable force; he
had the money and the social position at a time when social position still mattered
enormously, and could be as ruthless and aggressive as necessary. His military
connections were indispensable, as the German army had for many years been
committed to developing dogs for war service, providing money, training programs
and support. This is made quite evident by the fact that thousands of dogs, the vast
majority German Shepherds, went immediately into service at the outbreak of the
war. There can be little doubt that von Stephanitz promoted and enabled this, thus
advancing the cause of the SV and the German Shepherd.
His 1925 book, The German Shepherd Dog in Word & Pictures is an enormous,
700 page tome, much of it very heavy reading, no doubt exacerbated by to the
difficulty of dealing with an English translation. At heart this book is a promotional
project, propaganda, as much as history. Many pages are devoted to reports and
pictures of obscure breeds or varieties in remote places such as Serbia or Turkey,
but with little mention of competitive German breeds or other prominent
personalities. Much of it concerns issues of husbandry – breeding, whelping, puppy
raising and so forth – much better explained elsewhere after a century. While he
always told the truth as he saw it, he did not necessarily tell the whole truth when it
did not serve his ends, but that is because his purpose was to promote and sell as
well as enlighten and explain.
But on a second or third reading, after years of related search, there is
substantial value, fascinating and revealing details to be teased out based on hard
won knowledge of the era. As a student of canine affairs in the Low Countries, his
notes on Dutch and Belgian affairs ring true as the words of a man who had been
there.
As well as a military officer von Stephanitz was an academic, well versed on the
science and practice of animal husbandry and veterinary medicine of the era. As has
been mentioned the military was not his preference, but taken up as an obligation to
his family. The first section of the book is a long discussion of animal evolution,
scientifically outdated and thus uninteresting but representing the prevailing science
of the era. There is a long, and quite interesting, discussion of the herding and herd
guardian functions by a man who grew up in an era when these dogs were still in the
fields, would provide the rootstock of his incipient breed.

1
(Strickland, 1974)

277
 Some contemporary readers, particularly the especially sensitive and politically
correct, tend to be disturbed or horrified upon reading this book. Ardent feminists
with only a shallow view of history will be particularly horrified. Von Stephanitz was a
man of his time, a man of the nobility, of privilege and status, a career military
officer in one of the most rigorous military cultures of history, in every sense a
member of an elite class which embraced expansion of German territory and
influence as god ordained destiny. Just as did Americans of the era, who saw the
"winning of the west" as a birthright in spite of the fact that much of it was held by
indigenous Americans, the Spanish and the Mexican nationals.
Von Stephanitz embraced the necessity of preserving racial purity and the
superiority of the European Caucasian, the white man's burden, as a given, his
obligation of his class. Washington and Franklin owned slaves. Lincoln emerged from
this culture, had married into a prominent slave holding family, seeing it as an
opportunity for advancement. Although over their lifetimes each of these men made
strides toward a more liberal personal perspective they remained men of their times,
as did von Stephanitz. My view is that this horror of the generally held historical
values and mores is childish and naïve, a consequence of a culture so bound up in
fashionable political correctness that we have become a generation largely unable to
deal with reality in an ever evolving, complex and morally ambivalent world.
Von Stephanitz was a worldwide promoter of his breed, judging major
conformation shows in London and visiting the United States on promotional tours.
In 1930 Mrs. Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge, wife of the owner and President of
Remington Arms Company, brought von Stephanitz over to judge German Shepherds
at her Morris & Essex dog show in New Jersey, the largest one day show in the world
at the time. The entries were so numerous that the males were done the day before
the actual opening of the show.
The man was obsessed with his canine crusade, and as is typical of dog obsessed
family life, where children either get enough early or are hooked, of his two children
his son Otto grew up with little interest in the dogs while his daughter Herta became
actively involved in the affairs of the club and the dog show world. (Strickland, 1974)
Herta von Stephanitz (born 1899) published a little known German Shepherd book of
her own about 1940, and was tangentially involved in breed affairs after the war.
Von Stephanitz was without doubt the strongest and most influential personality
over most of four decades, but he did not have complete control of the breeding
direction. As the judge of the males at the annual conformation championship, that
is, the person who selected the Sieger each year, he was able to wield great power.
Every breeder ultimately wanted to create a Sieger, to join the elite circle, which
meant that one ignored the leader with great caution. But the histories of the era
indicate that many breeders charted their own course, and many dogs obviously
downplayed by von Stephanitz nevertheless were widely used at stud. (Garrett)
Although the 1904 Sieger, Aribert von Grafrath, was bred and selected as Sieger by
von Stephanitz, at that point in time he announced his decision to cease showing his
own dogs, at least at the Sieger Show. Thus he relinquished potential prominence as
a breeder in order to focus on his leadership role.
Much of the contemporary literature portrays von Stephanitz as the all-powerful
and benevolent founder of the breed; but there is much more to it than this. Men
such as Wachsmuth, Sparwasser and Eiselen had been actively breeding and
showing prototype lines for a number of years, there was an ongoing community
effort well before he became involved. The first mention in the literature of a dog
actually owned by von Stephanitz was the female Freya von Grafrath, purchased in
1897, and there is no indication that he was a known figure prior to the purchase of
Horand / Hector.

278
 Von Stephanitz was the
Aribert v Grafrath, born 1903: ultimate promoter and public
Russ HGH
relations man, and he
Russ (Ruede) HGH incessantly promoted himself
as well as the breed, which
Molli HGH meant down playing all others.
As a modern point of
Audifax von Grafrath HGH reference, it is perhaps useful
to compare von Stephanitz to
Woerro HGH
Steve Jobs of Apple computer
Fanny HGH fame, both driven men very
concerned with their personal
Fanny Hundin HGH legacy and capable of being
Aribert von Grafrath ruthless and uncaring of others
Pollux
Kastor 1893
perceived as standing in the
Schäfermädchen von Hanau way of their personal agenda.
V Horand von Grafrath ( Jobs was an incredibly gifted
Greif (Sparwasser) promoter with enormous,
Lene (Sparwasser) instinctive insight into what
Lotte (Sparwasser)
would sell, but he did not
Sigrun von Grafrath
Max von der Krone HGH invent or create anything. In a
Tilly von der Krone 1896 similar way, von Stephanitz
Lida 1 von der Krone HGH was an enormously effective
Mira von Grafrath HGH leader with an unerring sense
of promotion, but not really a
Lida 2 von der Krone
breeder. Both men had a hard
side, but famous and
successful men are not
necessarily nice men.
Occasionally today's show oriented breeders question the commitment of von
Stephanitz to police work, claim that the breed is to be versatile and that there are
other, equally valid, arenas such as search and rescue. This is a thinly veiled dilution
of character standards, and the best response to this is a direct quote:
"The ideal of the Society was to develop Police trial Champions out of
Exhibition Champions, our shepherd dog therefore, was further developed
by dog lovers as a working dog. The Standard by which he would be
judged and approved was this, namely:–utility is the true criterion of
Beauty. Therefore our dogs exhibit everywhere to-day (in a fittingly
developed frame, and never as the caricatures of Nature, the greatest of all
teachers) a build of body, compacted and designed for the highest possible
efficiency, spare and powerful, with wonderfully well-proportioned lines
which immediately attract the connoisseur, who soon recognizes that it
imparts to its owner a swift, easy gait, a capacity for quick turning and
powers of endurance." (von Stephanitz, 1925) p163
There are perpetual claims that the German Shepherd is a versatile dog serving
in many non-aggressive roles such as guide dog for the blind, search and rescue and
various popular play sports, and that these are of equal value to the police or
military roles. This is more or less innocuous chatter up to a point; but when this is
extended to claim that such work is equivalent as a verification of character for
breeding purposes it must be vigorously denied. It impossible for a working dog to
be such an excellent search dog or assistance dog so as to be designated as breeding
worthy on this basis alone, for the aggressive attributes are and must be
fundamental to the definition of the breed.

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The Dogs of War
In the great nineteenth century colonial empire building era Germany, which
emerged as a major European power only with the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, was
aggressively expansionist, seeking colonial territory in parity with the French and
British empires, particularly in Africa. This was by no means unique, for in a similar
way the United States engaged in the blatantly expansionist Mexican war (1846),
aggressive western expansion marginalizing the indigenous population and the
initiation of hostilities with the Spanish primarily to expand territory, power and
influence, as in the acquisition of the Philippine Islands. Subsequent to the Franco-
Prussian War the Germans strove for military parity or superiority on every front, as
in the launching a massive capital ship construction program intended to gain parity
with the British navy, unprecedented for an historically land based power.
This expansionist propensity extended to things canine, for the German military
was soon engaged in seeking out ways and means of utilizing dogs in war,
encouraging and subsidizing civilian training and breeding. In 1884 a war dog school
was established at Lechernich, near Berlin, which produced a training manual for
military working dogs in 1885. In this era the Germans were enamored with purity in
breeding, which extended to the preference for purebred dogs rather than cross
breeds or the undocumented working dogs of the fields and pastures. This caused
them to overlook their own best dogs, still herding in the fields, to focus on
established breeds, many of them British such as the Airedale or Collie. In his 1892
book on the war dog the well-known German animal painter and illustrator Jean
Bungartz made an impassioned case for the Scotch Collie. (Britannica)1
The establishment of the German Shepherd as a formal breed in 1899 and the
phenomenal growth over the next fifteen years under the leadership of von
Stephanitz was the pivotal event in the evolution of the modern military and police
dog, for in terms of sheer numbers everything else became preamble. The Germans
and the German Shepherd would be the worldwide backbone of military and police
canine applications for a century.
When war came, the German army was ready with trained dogs, placing 6,000 in
service at the onset of hostilities. According to records of the German Society for
Ambulance Dogs at Oldenburg, of 1,678 dogs sent to the front up to the end of May
1915, 1,274 were German Shepherds, 142 Airedale Terriers, 239 Dobermans and 13
Rottweilers. (Britannica)
This immediate surge of dogs to the front was the fruition of a strong, formal,
ongoing working arrangement for war preparation between military authorities and
the SV. Every training club was a reservoir of working dogs, and the infrastructure,
the lists and plans, were in place.2 Von Stephanitz, SV president, was a retired
German Calvary captain and would have remained a part of the brotherhood of
officers, well aware of his obligations as a military officer. He would quite naturally
have retained his military associations and viewed overt preparation for war and
promotion of the German Shepherd as entirely compatible, desirable and natural
ends, serving the expansionist German national cause.
There is a tendency to down play the later military associations of von
Stephanitz, but we know from his own words that he was back in uniform in 1914:
"In 1915 I saw no dogs in Belgium with the stock, for which the War was
probably responsible." Later on the same page: "This experience I had
1
Bungartz was an activist and promoter as well as an illustrator and author. He founded a
German association for Red Cross or ambulance dogs in 1893 and established a
breeding and training facility.
2
(Richardson, British War Dogs, Their Training and Psychology, 1920)p151

280
 nearly every day in West Flandres with the service dog of my regiment who
accompanied me all over my area. Among the Walloons, South of the
Mass, where the terrible closing stages of the War led me, the dogs had
already been appropriated throughout the district for training in the
Intelligence Service." 1
This directly confirms the massive German confiscation of Belgian working and
police dogs, setting back their working culture for two generations.
About 7,000 German Shepherds died during the First World War serving as
messengers, telephone cable pullers or medical search dogs. The initial German
success led to French and British efforts to launch their own programs, but it would
be two or more years into the war before their efforts would begin to have practical
effect. Subsequent to the war much of the German military establishment was
formally dismantled under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, but the heart of the
German officer corps went underground, even then preparing for an eventual
reemergence.

Show Lines and Working Lines

Although there are references in the literature and promotional material which
claim Schutzhund to have been created about 1900 as a foundation on which the
German Shepherd was built, this must not be taken too literally, especially in light of
the fact that there is no explicit use of this term as late as 1925 in the seminal von
Stephanitz book. Von Stephanitz did in fact put increasing personal emphasis on
working titles, especially as the show elements, active even in these early days,
came to the forefront, but much of his early focus was on herding titles such as the
HGH. Schutzhund is the German word for protection, and in this generic sense they
were evolving a variety of tests and trials under evolving rules and procedures. In
the early years the PH or police dog title was featured, and the actual use of the
Schutzhund title does not appear until much later.
As an example, the 1902 GSD Sieger Peter von Pritschen, listed in historical
documents as "SZ 148, KrH PH, Champion 1902." Here we have:
 SZ 148 SV registration number 148
 KrH Kriegshund or war dog.
 PH Police dog ("Polizei Hund")
 Champion 1902 1902 Sieger.

Thus although various police trials and certifications began well before 1910,
Schutzhund titles as such did not begin to become common in German Shepherd
pedigrees until the 1920s, and the program as we know it today would not emerge
until the post WWII era.
In 1924 an extensive program for the breeding and training of working German
Shepherds began at Fortunate Fields, the estate of Dorothy Eustis in Switzerland.
Eustis, an American heiress from Philadelphia, and Elliot Humphrey began an
extensive, innovative program of breeding and training German Shepherds for police
service. The Fortunate Fields project was much more than just a breeding and
training program, it was a research project dedicated to exploring the ultimate
potential for canine service to mankind. Extensive and meticulous records were kept
and analyzed to identify correlations between physical and character attributes and
propensities. In this era before computers and spreadsheets this would have
1
(von Stephanitz, 1925)p186. This is entirely plausible in that he would have been 50
years old in 1914. Intelligence Service probably refers to search and tracking operations.

281
 certainly been an enormous amount of work. Although the focus was on this police
service, from the earliest days there was also a great interest in guide dogs for the
blind, and when the Fortunate Fields program wound down as the Second World War
approached Eustis became a founder of the guide dogs for the blind movement in
America. Interestingly enough, they mention that in their program the police dogs
were almost all males and the guide dogs all females.
Humphrey and Lucien Warner produced a 1934 book Working Dogs with an
extensive report on this program and a broad discussion of working dogs in general,
which is even today an important reference work. In this book they take notice of the
separation of German Shepherd lines for work and show, even in the very early
years:
"It will be remembered that at the turn of this century the German
Shepherd as a breed began to split into two strains. The one produced
beautiful dogs, including all the show winners. The other produced working
dogs, including all the working champions. No dog of the championship
strains born since 1909 has produced winners in both show and working
classes. Thus the cleavage is complete."
(Humphrey & Warner, 1934) p226
But when you look at the early pedigrees and the literature going back to the
beginning, as in the Garrett book, there are many dogs with the HGH herding title
and the PH or police dog title, but few early dogs with an indicated Schutzhund title.
A bit later you begin to see the ZPR, which was a relatively easy companion dog test,
soon abandoned as not sufficiently rigorous. Schutzhund means protection dog, and
was apparently limited to this in early versions, with the obedience and tracking
added later. Schutzhund titles begin to show up in the 1920s, but over the years
there was a lot of variation in the rules, trial procedures and breeding requirements.
The gun test was apparently added later in the development, when von Stephanitz
ran a surprise gun test for the males in the Sieger class, and most of the dogs ran.
The process of tightening up, for instance requiring the Schutzhund III for the select
or V males, came sometime after WWII. It was, and still is, very much a work in
progress. The working requirement for the select class was raised from Schutzhund I
to II in 1947. (Delinger, Paramoure, & Umlauff, 1976)
In studying the
various early references
it is quite apparent that
von Stephanitz
personally was pushing
very hard for the
inclusion of herding
blood, breeding to dogs
actually in herding
service, even after WWI
and in general seems to
have been serious about
work. But reading
between the lines it
seems likely that even
then many breeders were
primarily concerned with
the conformation show
wins and pushing back
against stronger
Klodo vom Boxberg set a new direction for the breed when
requirements. There is a
von Stephenitz made him Sieger in 1925.
general tendency to think

282
in terms of the good old days when everybody was serious about work and
character, but the conflicts between work and show, cited as a reason for failure of
the Phylax Society, have been endemic from the beginning, are based in human
nature.
Degradation of working character as a consequence of the incessant pressure to
win in the show ring is not a recent phenomenon, but rather was there from the very
beginning. This is a revealing episode from the Garrett book:
"In one account of the 1921 Sieger show it is reported that near the end of
judging for the final day, von Stephanitz entered the ring, raised a pistol
and started firing in the air. The account said that he shouted as he was
doing this, yelling at them to get the shy dogs out of the ring. From what I
can gather it appears that was probably the first gunfire test in German
dog shows. It has now become commonplace in every show in Europe.
There was criticism for the lack of warning for the tests.
"From the reports it seems that almost all the dogs ran from the ring, with
tails between their legs, even before von Stephanitz started yelling.
Another account of the incident has a car backfiring in the first instance,
not a planned test at all. By this account it was then that von Stephanitz
came in the ring firing his gun when he saw the reaction the noise had
caused.
"There is no disagreement on accounts about this part, Harras von der Jüch
stood tall, sound and proud through the whole incident. He was the best of
those passing. Von Stephanitz made him Sieger. By the following year the
traditional lines were back in the front of the line at the big show. As we
look at the only picture available of Harras it is not hard to understand. He
looks very high and shows what has to be a terrible front, very straight in
upper arm, short. As shown by his pedigree, he is a Nores son.
"He produced well and a few of his offspring are shown above. It is not
known whether temperament was as much a problem by '22 with the top
dogs but for sure the doubtful were left at home. It is also not known
whether they kept the test going at that time but if not it soon returned to
stay." (Garrett)

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Rise of the Third Reich
In the post war era the German Shepherd prospered mightily, for by the end of
1932 there had been 441,000 entries in the SV registration book. (Strickland, 1974)
This prosperity is all the more remarkable because it occurred in a nation undergoing
enormous stress and strife, living under post war punishment by the victors and then
the worldwide depression of the 1930s, circumstances which paved the way for
Adolph Hitler and his Third Reich.
In the 1930's Germany was in increasing distress and Hitler was on the path that
would lead to a second tragedy in a generation. As in all walks of life, SV members
also affiliated with the Nazi party would have had the potential to take advantage. It
is said that they began to interfere, to cut von Stephanitz off from his life's work;
and that when he resisted they threatened him with a concentration camp.1
This has elements of plausibility, but other authorities indicate that he was
becoming increasingly erratic as a judge, question the wisdom and consistency of his
Sieger selections beginning in 19302, and increasingly overbearing and domineering.
Power does corrupt, even the best men, and the reports of concentration camp
threats come from an interview with his wife many years later, after the deprivations
of the war, the remembrances of an old woman, loyal to the memory of her late
husband as the great man, likely oblivious to the realities of dog club intrigue and
power struggle.
Finally, in failing health, he gave up his office. A year later on April 22, 1936, the
anniversary of the foundation of the SV, Max von Stephanitz passed away, his
personal crusade at an end, as the shadow of the coming tragedy fell across
Germany and the world.
Some ultra-liberal academics make sport of portraying the German Shepherd as
a symbol and instrument of oppression, of rampant militarism, of colonial subjection
and Nazi oppression, citing use in concentration camps and other applications. While
the German Shepherd was popular with Hitler personally and many others, and big
aggressive dogs were present in colonial outposts everywhere, such dogs were
popular and sought after by broad elements of society. I most certainly admire and
respect such dogs, and expect that this would apply to most of my readers. On the
other hand, von Stephanitz and the others involved were men of their times, tending
to be upper class and very conservative; it is likely that many of their views would be
very unfashionable today and thus downplayed.
Hitler was supported early on by the military as an offset to rising socialism and
as supportive of the growing underground military, and the political views of most
military officers, active and retired, would likely have been to some extent
sympathetic in the early days. Americans such as Charles Lindberg and Joseph
Kennedy were favorably disposed to the Hitler regime in the prewar era; I see no
rational reason to be especially critical of these German Shepherd founders on
political, moral or philosophical grounds. As I have noted, these are men of their
times and can only be judged in the context and mores of their era.
Soon after the passing of von Stephanitz, in 1937, the SV did away with the
annual Sieger title, which was not awarded again until 1955. Instead there was the
selection of an elite group of males to establish up a recommended breeding pool.
Whether this reaction was an unwillingness to give such unlimited power to another
man, that is, select one from what were surely a group of rivals, or a more broadly
based egalitarian impulse is difficult to say from this great distance in time.

1
(Strickland, 1974)
2
(Haak & Gerritsen, 2007), also (Garrett)

284
 In the lead up to WWII the emergence
of the Nazi regime in Germany and the
increasingly intrusive control of their
bureaucrats in canine affairs, especially
those concerning potential police and
military applications, disrupted breeding
programs and the ongoing operation of
existing organizations. The German
military took the dogs they wanted, which
along with the general deprivations of war
on the civilian populations to some extent
curtailed the breeding program.
On the other hand, the Wehrmacht was
much less gentle in the Netherlands and
Belgium and here also took whatever they
Othello vom Bergnest, born 1938 wanted, dogs included, with devastating
consequences for the Belgian Shepherds
and the Bouviers. Unfair as it may be, the deprivations in an occupied nation are in
general markedly more severe and brutal than in the homeland of the occupiers.
Although many nations suffered grievously during and after the two world
conflicts, German territory was never occupied in the first war, and while the civilian
population suffered as WWII advanced and defeat loomed, on the whole the
deprivations of occupied nations such as Poland, Belgium and the Netherlands were
significantly greater than in the German homeland. The Belgian and Dutch breeds in
particular were set back grievously during these two brutal German occupations.

Post World War II Germany

WWII brought on a dark age for the German canine world that did not abate until
the reemergence of organizations and competitive events in the later 1940's. It was
at this time that Schutzhund as we know it today began to emerge in terms of rules,
organizations and procedures. Schutzhund titles as German Shepherd breeding
prerequisites and as requirements for advanced conformation placements
increasingly came into existence in this era. The DVG, the largest of about five
important all breed German Schutzhund organizations, emerged at this time, being
essentially a new beginning from a combination of several organizations dating back
to the 1903 era. (Patterson & Beckmann, 1988)
In addition to the slightly antagonistic relationship between the SV and the all-
breed organizations typified by the DVG, there are oblique references in many of the
sources that would indicate an increasingly less than cooperative relationship
between the breed and amateur training organizations on the one hand and the
German military and police on the other. The roots of these animosities run deep.
Konrad Most is well known worldwide by reason of his famous 1910 book, his articles
in various scientific journals and many leadership roles over sixty years of police and
military service. Yet the only reference to Most in the von Stephanitz book is a
disparaging remark relating to training principles. (von Stephanitz, 1925)p 325
This disengagement between military and police agencies on the one hand and
the working canine community seems to have had a number of difficult to quantify
causes. For one thing, military intrusion on canine affairs was generally much more
invasive and destructive than in the prior war. Also, the post WWII German military
establishment was under direct allied control, with many senior officers lost in the
war, executed or imprisoned in the post war Nuremburg trials. After WWI the
military establishment was greatly reduced but remained intact and went
underground, immediately beginning preparations for the resumption of war. None of

285
this existed after WWII. The intimate connection with the German officer corps,
embodied in von Stephanitz, was gone or at least greatly diminished. But beyond all
of this was an increasingly lucrative market for softer companion dogs, both foreign
and domestic.
In the later 1940s Germany was divided into four zones by the victorious
occupying nations; East Germany, and their Shepherd community, would remain
isolated for nearly half a century, until the fall of the Berlin Wall in the early 1990s.
This tended to retard recovery and it was several years before the prewar activity
levels could be reestablished.
From 1938 until 1954 the SV did not select a Sieger and Siegerin but rather an
elite group, a select class or Ausleseklasse. The given reason was to deemphasize
the breeding to a small number of dogs and to help maintain overall genetic
diversity. This may have been an admirable concept in an idealistic sort of way, but a
grand winner is a big part of the publicity aspect of any dog show and thus was
eventually reinstated.
The postwar period saw the reestablishment of the international organizational
structures, with the German national club, the SV, as a member of the German
equivalent of the AKC, that is the VDH or Verband fur das Deutsche Hundewesen.
The VDH is in turn a member of the FCI.
In response to economic recovery programs such as the Marshall Plan,
registration numbers recovered rapidly, with 11,000 in 1945 expanding to 40,000 in
1948 including East Germany. By 1966 there was substantial progress with 17,000
puppy registrations in 1961 increasing to 23,000 in 1965. (Delinger, Paramoure, &
Umlauff, 1976) The SV membership was at 45,000. For the Sieger Show in
Mannheim in September there were 662 entries including about 35 foreign entries,
probably including exported dogs returning for the competition. SV President Dr.
Werner Funk judged the males and Herr W. Trox did a female class of 96 bitches.
Funk’s comments included a warning to breeders to be careful of an increase in size
beyond the standard.
In 1983 there were 13,170 Schutzhund trials with 45,111 entries under SV
auspices. Since there are several other organizations, such as the DVG, and since
there is some competition by other breeds, the totals would be significantly higher.
(Hasbrouck, 1984) The same source indicates that 4,269 German Shepherds became
breed certified, that is, passed a Schutzhund Trial, a Koer Classification and a
radiographic hip examination.
By 2010 over two million German Shepherds had been registered with the SV,
roughly twenty thousand pups a year over the first century. As of 2011, the SV or
national club had nearly 80,000 members, 19 Landesgruppen or regional divisions
and more than 2,200 local clubs.
GSD German registrations for 2006 were 16,908, ten times larger than any other
working breed. This popularity is worldwide, with 11,025 French and 43,575
American registrations in this year for example. The GSD is the most popular
registered dog in France, Belgium and the Netherlands as well as Germany.
As these numbers indicate the SV is a very large organization. As in most canine
organizations, most of the local administrative work is done by large numbers of
dedicated local, regional and national officers and loyal club members. In addition to
this, the SV main office has grown to a significant professional staff, with 65 salaried
employees in the early 1990s. (By 2010 this was down to about 50.)
But there is a fly in this ointment: the 2012 count of 12,786 German puppy
registrations is less than half of the number a decade earlier in 1997, which had
been 29,824. German Shepherd popularity is in steep decline, worldwide as well as

286
in Germany. This trend is not specific to the GSD, but rather reflects a worldwide
decline in purebred dogs, with particular emphasis on the larger breeds.

Bernd Vom Kallengarten Born October 23, 1957

287
Germany Today
National registries for purebred dogs are the foundation of modern breeds, a
record or data base providing ancestry details of all included dogs and related
information. These national registries are interlinked through the FCI or formal
arrangements with non FCI nations to make the overall system a virtual international
registry for each breed. In most instances information is submitted as a litter
registration form indicating the name and registration number of the sire and dam,
without any independent verification process. Usually there is no quality standard, as
long as the parent names match up with the existing records, the forms are filled out
properly and the fees are provided the puppies are eligible for individual registration.
These systems are of course subject to fraud, that is, false indication of the parents,
which can be perpetuated through generations. Recent years have seen some
tightening up such as requirements for submission of DNA samples for the sires as a
means of verification. But even accurate records in no sense certify or verify the
quality of the dogs being bred in terms of soundness, type or character.
Most often these systems are run by a national registry such as the AKC or the
national FCI organizations such as the VDH. This is necessary because many
individual breed clubs are small, disorganized or lack ongoing continuity of leadership
and administration, are simply not capable of maintaining long term records.
The German Shepherd, and some other breeds, is different in that the SV, the
German national breed club, kept its own stud book or breeding records from the
beginning, setting its own standards for registration eligibility and instituting rigorous
systems both to qualify the parents according to quality and accuracy, that is, insure
that the sire and dam are correct. Litters are examined by representatives of the SV
(the breed wardens) rather than relying entirely on owner provided information. On
paper the German way of breeding would seem to be both rigorous and admirable.
In order for a litter of puppies to be registered with the SV both parents must
meet a formidable set of prerequisites.1 These include :
 A Schutzhund or IPO title, which requires the BH with a rigorous stability and
character evaluation as a prerequisite.
 An endurance test, the Aus dauerprufing or AD test, which is essentially
trotting beside the handler on a bicycle for a little over 12 miles to
demonstrate endurance and vigor.
 A radiographic hip examination providing certification of freedom from
disqualifying hip dysplasia.

Once these preliminary requirements are satisfied, each dog must be presented
for a formal breed survey where a judge or Koermeister evaluates and rates the dog
according to suitability for breeding. This classification can be:
 Koerklasse 1 (Kkl1) Recommended for breeding.
 Koerklasse 2 (Kkl2) Suitable for breeding.

The judge may also find the dog unsuitable and thus not give any rating at all,
precluding registration of offspring. As part of the breed survey and as a preliminary
to each conformation show under SV auspices the dog must pass a brief protection
evaluation, including an attack on the handler and a courage test. There is also a
gunshot test. The Koermeister does a complete, written physical evaluation of the
1
Some details are omitted for the sake of brevity; there are for instance temporary and
life time Koer certifications. Also the requirements presented are for "pink papers," that
is full certification. There are also registrations possible with lesser requirements
referred to as "white papers" (actually light green), but these are unusual today.

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dog noting details of coat color and texture, head shape and size, angulation, eye
color and many other details, making special note of significant deviations from the
standard. These Koer reports form a permanent, publically available record which
provides an enormous reference base for historical purposes and future breeding
decisions.
The attack on the handler begins with the dog at heel position, walking toward a
blind or hiding place concealing the decoy with a padded sleeve and stick. At a
distance of approximately twenty feet, on the judge’s signal, the decoy emerges
from the blind and steps toward the dog in a threatening manner, to which the dog
must respond with a firm bite or grip and is then subjected to two sharp stick hits on
the rib cage. The attack on the handler exercise had been an integral part of the
Schutzhund I and IPO I tests but was removed in 2007, supposedly because it was
too aggressive a picture for public view but in reality because too many dogs and
especially bitches were failing.
In the courage test the dog is sent against a distant decoy running toward him in
a threatening manner; the decoy slowing as the dog engages for a safe but
challenging grip. Done properly and with intensity these tests effectively
demonstrate the requisite courage, stability and confidence; but properly means real
intensity in the decoy, that is, moving toward the dog directly in a very aggressive
way and, once the dog engages, driving the dog, that is, stepping into the dog in an
intense way and striking measured, sharp stick hits. The validity of the test depends
on the integrity of the decoy and the judge, which have enormous discretion over the
real challenge to the dog, with ultimate responsibility on the judge who can reject a
decoy unwilling or unable to test the dogs adequately.
Done inappropriately, the test easily degenerates into a decoy showing a timid
presence, essentially feeding the dog the sleeve as a play object and concealing
rather than threatening with the stick which hardly touches the dog. Every show
breeder knows where to find such accommodating decoys and judges. This is
because under incessant pressure from the conformation element, who control the
SV, the decoy work has become so weak and the judging so lenient that these tests
have degenerated into little more than playing at tug with the sleeve, a pretend test.
Thus in all but name a two tier IPO trial system has emerged, featuring soft trials
with easy decoys and understanding judges for the show dogs and real trials for the
real dogs. Sometimes the trial is complete fiction, with the paper work appearing at
the central office as if by magic, without a dog ever stepping on the tracking or trial
fields. Thus the route to the Sieger Show has become a special trial for the dogs of
the elite, continually diluted, often on their own training field with decoys carefully
selected to go easy. These are of course fantasy titles meaning nothing, but
somehow everybody is obligated to pretend that they are real. The transition from
Schutzhund to IPO has been a consequence and extension of this trend.
As mentioned each SV sanctioned conformation show features a preliminary
attack on the handler and courage test, but they are a charade where dogs are
applauded for tugging on sleeves fed to them by absurdly soft decoys, and dancing
with dogs right into show ring has become the norm. It is well known that the decoys
are made aware of certain dogs – perceived as important for breeding or belonging
to well-connected insiders – that must pass and be made to look as good as possible.
Max von Stephanitz would most surely roll over in his grave.
The result of all of this is that the breed is more and more divided into two
increasingly divergent cultures, with their own breeding lines, people, standards and
heritage. Popular books and magazines, especially official breed publications,
including web sites, increasingly pander to this fantasy world, are little more than
fawning propaganda, promoting the pageantry of the conformation shows and
brushing reality aside.

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 Each year the SV conformation exhibitions reach a climax at the Sieger Show,
where the SV president selects the Sieger and a number of select males, which are a
de facto breeding recommendation; and since the same man will judge the dogs the
next year and the one after that until he expires or degenerates into complete
senility the show breeders are strongly motivated to breed according to his
selections. The conventional narrative focuses on these show winners, their progeny
and how these lines propagate over the years. Most of the photos in most of the
books, magazines and on the internet are of elaborately stacked dogs with the
fashionable banana back and extreme rear angulation.
But there remains another, parallel, universe, a separate world of real German
Shepherds: the dogs, breeders and trainers so many of us came to admire and
respect, still found on trial fields and in police and military service worldwide. The
divergence between these dogs, this old heritage, and the elite show dogs paraded
at the Sieger Show is ongoing and increasing. But the house divided cannot stand,
and while the old guard will stand firm until the end younger enthusiasts have more
choices. The Malinois is increasingly predominant in police and military service and
international competition, and if current trends continue unabated may become the
de facto standard in the serious working dog world. The bubble, immense rapidly
increasing popularity, is common in the conformation world. German Shepherd
popularity has always been based on the police dog persona, acquired for the
perception of reflected virility and manliness of the owner. But registrations have
been plunging for two decades, especially in Germany, and the bubble is bursting. If
the hard core working community is able to stand strong and weather the storm, this
may be a good thing, provide a new beginning.

The Eastern Lines

At the close of the WWII Germany was divided into four occupation zones,
administrated by the various allied powers. The three western zones were soon
integrated into West Germany, but the Russian zone remained separate and became
a satellite state under permanent Russian control. East Germany, more formally the
Deutshe Demokratishe Republik (DDR), became a tightly controlled socialist state.
More importantly for our story a police state, for the government had enormous need
for effective dogs to secure their borders, to keep their citizens from escaping, and to
maintain order over a captive population. Dogs such as the German Shepherd, and
to a lesser extent the Giant Schnauzers and Rottweilers, became a state priority, and
for half a century, half of the life of the breed, there was a flourishing German
Shepherd community separated from the west. This may have been a societal
tragedy, but for the German Shepherd dog it was a stroke of good fortune, for the
DDR dogs became a breeding resource virtually unblemished by the show dog
fashion endemic in the free world. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the DDR dogs
became widely available in the west and very popular among the working
community.
The DDR lines are typically more robust and massive, moderate in angulation,
darker in pigmentation and coat color and serious in character. In other words, what
a German Shepherd was supposed to be in the first place. My only reservation would
be that while power and muscular construction are desirable, overall size needs to be
moderate in the interest of agility, endurance and a long and active service life.
Czechoslovakia has a long history with the German Shepherd dog, reflecting the
large ethnically German segment of the population, concentrated in the so called
Sudetenland portion of the Bohemian and Moravian border regions, roughly three
and a half million of the fourteen million Czechoslovakian total in this era. The Czech
community was active from the early years, for Klodo vom Boxberg was the
Czechoslovakian Sieger in 1923 before going on to fame in Germany as the dog von

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Stephanitz selected to change the direction of the breed. Under the post WWII
Communist regime security was state priority number one, and the Czech Border
Police instituted a comprehensive breeding and training program with complete focus
on police dog capability, all or most of the stud services coming from actual border
patrol males. These dogs also became a valuable breeding resource and subsequent
to the fall of the Soviet Union increasingly available in the west, where these lines
remain popular among many trainers. The Czech lines are generally similar in
appearance and character to the DDR lines.
Belgium, Holland and France have had enthusiastic German Shepherd training
communities for many years, prior to the 1970s the German Shepherd was the
predominant competitor in the French Ring Sport.

The Color Code

Apologists for the German show lines like to portray these dogs as beautiful,
correct in structure and noble in appearance, and imply or claim that the working
lines should be altered in this direction. Nothing could be more absurd; these show
lines are an abomination, an embarrassment to the heritage and an insult to the
memory of the founders. The American lines are perhaps worse, but there is some
excuse in the sense that in the formative years the Americans were distant from the
functional working culture in the homelands; you can forgive them to some extent
because they really did not know any better.
Over recent years, the German show line selection has placed increasing
emphasis on the so-called black and red color configuration. These dogs typically
have a black saddle shaped area on the back and extending down the tail and a
black muzzle, with the rest of the body having a rich, mahogany color described as
red. Some commentators claim that this preference is based in the belief that these
colors provide a less intimidating appearance than the darker dogs.
The working lines have more diversity in coat color and texture, as these things
are secondary considerations in such circles. Many working line dogs are described
as sable, which often means a grey or wolf color. Actually the term sable refers to a
pattern of coat color and texture rather than a specific color, that is the banding of
color in the individual hairs. Often the hairs are of various colors with black or dark
tips. Variation in the outer coat or guard hairs and the softer under coat can often
contribute to this appearance. Running your hand or a brush against the grain of the
sable coat will often produce a strikingly different color and texture. There is often a
great deal of variation in appearance of the coat, color and texture, as the pup
matures into the ultimate adult configuration.
Max von Stephanitz is quoted as saying "No good dog is a bad color," and the
dogs he used in the foundation included white or light colored dogs. White herding
dogs of undocumented origin were included at least into the 1930s, after WWII the
white coats were excluded in the standard, and the long coats strongly discouraged.
There are even today people who breed selectively for the white coat as a
novelty, and a number of clubs for white German Shepherds have come into
existence and been recognized by various kennel clubs, sometimes as a separate
breed. In general they are not taken seriously by mainstream enthusiasts. White
German Shepherds are virtually never seen in police service, military service or
serious working trials.
As a general principle coat color is properly a secondary consideration in breeding
selection, less important than structure and character but nevertheless a legitimate
criteria. This is especially true in the early years of breed development, and the
inclusion of dogs with white or partially white coats was an occasional practice at
least through the von Stephanitz era. The lighter coats were, properly, bred out over

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 time, thus including new blood and enhancing desirable characteristics without
permanently changing over all color in the breed.
Thus in individual situations if a dog or bitch is of sufficient merit it can be an
appropriate breeding and the color dealt with later. Such dogs should in general not
be shown for to do so sends entirely the wrong message to the public at large. At
this point in time there is nothing in contemporary white lines to merit inclusion in
any mainstream breeding program.

SV Under Siege
Max von Stephanitz had a firm hand at the helm of the SV for the first thirty five
years, and his successors have also held power long term, once in office being
virtually beyond recall, serving until death, poor health or ongoing senility brings the
regime to an end. As this list of SV presidents indicates, relatively few men have
served:
Max von Stephanitz 1899 – 1935 von Grafrath
Dr. Kurt Roesebeck 1935 – 1947
Casper Katzmair 1947 – 1953
Dr. Werner Funk 1953 – 1971 vom Haus Schutting
Dr. Cristoph Rummel 1971 – 1982 vom Aegidiendamm
Herman Martin 1982 – 1994 von Arminius
Peter Mesler 1994 – 2006 von Tronje
Dr. Wolfgang Henke current

This was in the beginning the strength but in the end the flaw, for power enabled
the promotion of the breed nationally and internationally, charting a steady course
through hardship and war. But power corrupts, and eventually those at the top
yielded onto temptation, began to manipulate and connive to advance dogs, kennels
and fashionable type in service of money and prestige. Fashion
German dogs appeal to feeble and narcissistic people and were bred
Shepherd accordingly, projecting this far into the future. The Martin name
Registrations comes to mind as a tipping point.
in Germany
The power of the SV president has been strong, almost
2016 10,202 absolute, over the elite show lines, where the money is, because
2015 10,523 he designates the Sieger and Select dogs and has enormous
2014 10,470 influence in the selection of conformation judges and the
2013 11,062 evaluation of the females. But the SV bureaucracy has relatively
2012 12,786 little direct influence over other breeders, especially of the
2011 13,339 working lines, and trainers who to a large extent regard the
2010 14,501 bureaucracy as effete and mildly annoying. This is a good thing,
2009 15,870
for the working lines prosper because they are increasingly
2008 16,854
2007 16,868 outside of the mainstream German show community, outside of
2006 16,908 Germany itself or carrying on the DDR or Czech lines. A
2005 18,278 consequence is that the center of gravity of the working lines,
2004 19,874 the real German Shepherds, is increasingly outside of strong SV
2003 19,882 influence.
2002 20,352
2001 21,372 In a business and fiscal sense, the SV is in serious trouble.
2000 20,872 Beginning in the middle 1990s puppy registrations began a
1999 23,839 precipitous decline that within a decade saw registrations cut in
1998 27,834 half, as illustrated in the table. When registrations decline so
1997 29,824 steeply, the flow of money follows and also drops; and
1996 30,802 bureaucrats and commercial breeders live on the steam of
1995 29,805 money, that is registration and show fees as well as puppy
1994 28,730 sales. Since registrations are still declining at a ten percent
1993 27,648

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yearly clip the crisis is ongoing; fewer pups mean fewer litters, and fewer litters
mean fewer trials and less training for the IPO titles necessary to qualify the
breeding stock. There is a consequent over supply of judges and officials on all
levels, which is not a serious financial problem but a generally demoralizing trend.
The SV maintains a large office complex with a paid professional staff of about fifty,
an increasing burden in light of plummeting revenue.
The response has been to throw the working heritage under the bus and put
emphasis on pet sales and programs such as agility and other pet activities. Go to
the SV web site to see how far you have to drill down to find a photo of a dog
actually biting a sleeve, or a mention or emphasis on police service or the IPO trial
program. So many of us had such faith in these Europeans; perceived them as
serious men about serious dogs, turned in this direction because of frustration and
impatience with the play dog atmosphere of the AKC world. How ironic to find that
under pressure the SV has turned into another Mickey Mouse organization no better
in any way than the AKC, even worse when you think of the noble heritage that is
being shamed.
These disturbing trends have become evident at the highest levels on the
international sport fields. At the 2012 FCI IPO World Championship (20-23rd
September in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary) the first four places went to a Malinois. Even
more striking, the first six German placements were Malinois, and the seventh was a
Boxer; not a single German Shepherd from the homeland, where they created the
sport. Perhaps the greatest irony is that Germany was the first place nation, with a
team made up entirely of Malinois.
To maintain a bit of perspective this downward trend extends beyond the German
Shepherd to all purebred dogs, especially the large and more robust. The United
States and most of the rest of the world has seen registrations falling rapidly since
the mid-1990s. In 2007 total German (VDH) registrations were 114,670 and in the
most recent 2012 listing this had fallen to 79,934. It is difficult to know to what
extent this represents a decline in the companion canine population or if increasing
numbers of people are simply breeding dogs without bothering with the formalities.
At any rate, it would seem that the credibility of the purebred dog is in decline
worldwide.

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WUSV
In May of 1968 a European Union of German Shepherd Clubs (EUSV) was formed
with these founding members: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Great Britain,
Holland, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia and the Federal Republic of
Germany. In 1975 this was expanded into a world union (WUSV) which currently has
82 member associations in 73 countries. While there is a great deal of verbiage
about worldwide friendship and camaraderie, some of it real, the Germans retain
tight control and never lose sight of the underlying marketing and propaganda
functions; money does matter.
Because of conflicts in canine politics, the United States has two separate entities
in the WUSV: the original GSDCA in 1975 and then later a USCA entry 1983. Almost
as in an official religious mystery, these two members somehow constitute a single
membership. Since only one team per member nation is permitted at the UWSV IPO
championship, the selection of the American team has been the source of strife and
conflict over the years, with sometimes both USCA and GSDCA being able to
designate part of the team and more recently with a selection trial to designate a
team. The convoluted, ongoing political conflicts and struggle between USCA and
GSDCA over representation in the WUSV is a 25 year holy war with no end in sight.
One of the most popular and visible aspects of the WUSV is the annual working
championship, held in various nations, including the United States. The 2011 WUSV
IPO (Schutzhund) championship was held October 6 through 9 in the city of Kiew in
the Ukraine. There were 108 individual entries from a total of 33 nations, 20 with full
teams, including a 5-member team from the United States. The first two individual
places went to Finlanders with third to a Belgian and fourth to a German.
Team results are based on the total of the three highest scores. There were
twenty teams with three passing scores, in rank order: Finland, Germany,
Switzerland, Slovakia, Holland, Russia, Italy, Hungary, Austria, Belgium, Ukraine,
Czech Republic, France, Brazil, Kazakhstan, USA, Taiwan, Canada, Spain and Japan.
In the 1990s American teams featuring people such as Gene England and Gary
Hanrahan did extremely well, but primarily with dogs purchased as trained and titled
winners, often with behind the scenes financial backers. The Germans did not seem
to mind their own dogs coming back and doing well, because it was a reflection of
their breeding and training, good advertising for their working dog business
ventures. In recent years the all-breed FCI IPO Championship has gradually become
more prestigious, and increasingly dominated by the Malinois.
In the 1920s and 1930s the German Shepherd became enormously popular
across the world, in nations as diverse as Japan, Argentina and the United States.
Beginning in the Meiji period (1868-1912) Japan became increasingly industrialized
and westernized; adapting many customs and fashions of the modern industrial
West, such as dress and industrial technology. Japan also became aggressively
expansionist, dominated by military leadership with the Emperor as a figure head.
This extended to things canine as the Japanese military imported large numbers of
dogs, especially German Shepherds, and built up their training and deployment
programs. The beginnings of this came when Japan occupied German held territory
in China post WWI and thus came into possession of the initial German Shepherds.
Deployment was greatly extended during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in
the 1930s, providing the experience and breeding base for the oncoming war in the
Pacific. Popularity among Japanese civilians also was immense, with several national
level clubs and a translation of the von Stephanitz book in the 1930s. There was a
substantial Japanese canine program in WWII.

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Home With the Troops
Although a few German Shepherds had come to America prior to WWI,
highlighted by the first AKC registration in 1908 and the founding of an American
GSD club in 1913, the real advent of American popularity began as dogs came home
with the troops. A vigorous community of enthusiasts emerged post war resulting in
the founding of regional breed clubs, magazines and prominent breeding programs.
In the twenties and thirties men such as Lloyd Brackett and Grant Mann in Michigan
based breeding programs on imports, including several German Siegers and other
conformation show winners.
In the post WWI era the America evolution of the German Shepherd followed the
German lead as many prominent German show winners were imported for exhibition
and breeding. This was possible primarily because of the difficult economic conditions
in Germany, to some extent a consequence of reparations and other sanctions
imposed after the war. At that time America was overwhelmingly the most
prosperous nation on Earth, and we were not at all reluctant to throw a little money
around.
Throughout the twenties and thirties a number of Siegers and other prominent
show winners were sold to America. Klodo vom Boxberg in 1925, Utz vom Haus
Schütting in 1929 and Pfeffer von Bern in 1937 are only a few examples. These dogs
brought fame or at least notoriety to their new owners, predominating in the
American show ring, often only really competing against the other big money
imports. But it was like a grass fire, meant relatively little in the long run, for a
decade or so later these dogs and their progeny were out of the limelight, and new
wonder dogs from Germany were again the way to importance in America.
By 1925 the GSD had replaced the Boston Terrier as the most popular American
breed, with AKC annual registrations building up from 2,135 in 1920 to a peak of
21,596 in 1926. Since the all-breed total was 59,496 that year this amounted to 36
percent of AKC registrations. Popularity persisted for a few more years and then
crashed with the economy to 1,333 in 1932 and just 792 in 1935. (Goldbrecker &
Hart, 1967)
The Second World War brought all of this to an abrupt end, and after the war the
Germans were in disarray, with many dogs lost and dog breeding taking second
place to national recovery. Gradually post WWII American registrations began to rise
with 4,921 in 1947, 17,400 in 1954 and on to a peak of 111,355 in 1971. By 2006,
the last year the AKC published statistics, they were back down to 43,575.
Early in the 1950s the Germans were on the rebound and the Americans were
still the people with the money, so a fresh wave of German imports inundated
existing American lines, emerging as prominent winners on the show circuit and as
breeding stock. Notable imports of this era included Ingo von Wunschelrute, Bill von
Kleistweg, Harold von Haus Tigges, Ulk von Wikingerblut and Bernd vom
Kallengarten. Perhaps the best known was Troll von Richterbach, born 1953, who
became the paternal grand sire of Lance of Fran-Jo, the most prominent American
stud dog of the modern era.
The 1960s saw the emergence of a new, more independent direction. The import
flow ceased abruptly like someone turned off the spigot and nobody even paused to
look back; for the rest of the century American breeding and lines went their own
way with very little foreign influence. Relentlessly tight breeding on Lance and his
even more extreme progeny became the mantra of the day, and they followed like
lemmings over the cliff.
American breeding never had any pretense of working character, and even in
AKC obedience the American show line discards had to creep off to their own
specialty shows not to flounder. The problem was that the American shepherds
evolved strictly as show dogs, without any expectation or real appreciation for

295
working capability. There can be little doubt that many German dogs lacking in
courage or overly sensitive to gun shots, of little value in Germany, found their way
into the American market, and, more importantly, into our breeding lines. American
breeders of the era talked openly of gun shy German dogs being a really good deal,
an opportunity to acquire an attractive import with an impressive pedigree at a very
modest price.
In America the German Shepherd community from the beginning was a world
onto itself; those attending an ordinary (all breed) dog show would tend to see
relatively few German Shepherds. The reason was that across America there had
emerged numerous AKC affiliated German Shepherd specialty clubs conducting an
entire, year long, circuit of single breed specialty shows. In the AKC system, the
winning dogs are awarded championship points according to how many dogs are in
the competition so as to prevent going to out of the way shows to accumulate points.
Since the specialty shows were heavily attended there would usually be major
points, but often there were only one or two points and few majors at other all-breed
shows.1 (Selected all-breed shows were traditionally heavily attended, virtual
specialties, apparently this got around by word of mouth.)
Over the years there was a cadre of inordinately influential specialist German
Shepherd handlers who lived on the show circuit. Beyond this first rank of five to ten
there were many regional handlers who did not support themselves entirely on the
circuit but were very active regionally and at major specialty shows. These handlers
had enormous influence, to the point where it was very difficult for the outsider to
compete, and one could remain an outsider for a very long time. Money, big money,
always bought immediate insider status. Over the years, Jimmy Moses was always
the big name.
Years and years ago when I was a little bit involved in Shepherds and still naive
enough to take these American lines seriously I had occasion to pick up a specialty
judge at the airport, a dentist from New Orleans I think, and escort him to the hotel
and show, so that he would not be in contact with the competitors prior to going into
the ring. Although I did not quite understand the connection at the time, this judge
seemed preoccupied, even obsessed, with getting Jimmy Moses to come down and
handle some of his dogs.
Naturally, at the show Jimmy won just about everything, each class was
essentially a contest for second place. When the specials,2 dogs already holding the
championship, came into the ring Jimmy took first place at the head of the line,
apparently automatically conceded as his rightful position. He stood there with his
dog for a moment; then carefully wrapped the leash around his hand just right, gave
it a nice tug, looked at the dog, looked down at himself. You could just hear him
thinking "Yep, this is the dog, I am Jimmy Moses, the sun is shining and all is right
with the world." Then he looked up, looked around at the owner, Art Saltz I think it
was, a relatively big name. He got this terrible look on his face, unwound the leash,
held up an open hand to the judge, put his hands on his hips and reamed – gave him
a real tongue lashing. It has been years, but the words were to the effect: "You idiot,
you can’t double handle from there, get down at the end where you belong." The
owner scrambled into the indicated place, and Jimmy once again went through the
process of carefully arranging the leash. He looked at the judge, smiled, and nodded
his head. The judge gave his little return smile, waved them to go around and
1
The AKC championship requires a total of 15 points with two major wins (a major win is
one with three or more points). The majors must be won under different judges.
2
A "special" is a dog which is already a champion and entered in shows to compete for a
best of breed selection in order to gain prestige and to compete against other dogs in
multi breed shows.

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pointed his finger right at Jimmy and the dog before they had done a half circle,
before some of the dogs even started to move out. Would you believe it, that judge
evaluated all of those dogs and determined that Jimmy had the very best one in all
of fifteen seconds? Yes indeed, Mr. Moses had handled yet another dog to "Best of
Breed, Best of Specialty Show." The dog, Sabra Dennis of Gan Edan, was apparently
well regarded in these circles, for he went on to become Grand Victor in 1981. When
they were doing the photos, the judge was heard imploring Jimmy "After all I have
done for you today, when are you going to come on down to handle my dog?"
Double handling, attracting the attention of the dogs from outside the ring, is
technically not permitted by the AKC but always goes on at Shepherd specialties.
Although there was never much effort to enforce the ban, at one particular show
there was an AKC representative present: taking note of an owner/judge outside of
the ring double handling for Jimmy Moses, he suggested to the judge that he should,
in consideration of his position, set a good example and obey the rules. Art looks at
the rep, looks back at Jimmy, considers his options and says something to the effect
"You do what you have to do, I know what I have to do" and went on with his double
handling.
It has been said that Joan Firestone, of rubber company fame, spent well over a
quarter million dollars having Moses show a dog named Manhattan for a year; but
she did wind up with the really big tin cup at the Westminster show in New York in
1987, so I suppose it must have somehow seemed worthwhile to a person of means
whose life was so devoid of meaning that such things seem important.
On a certain level all of this is little more than gossip, but it serves to illustrate
the dynamics of the show dog world where professional handlers, a politicized
judging culture, elaborate promotional campaigns and enormous amounts of cash
have become determining factors in establishing champions, specialty winners and
thus trend setting prototypes. The resulting fashions and trends lead other breeders
and judges – profoundly ignorant of canine history and the relationship between
physical structure and working function – to blindly emulate the "winning" breeding
on a journey to nowhere. If this were only a matter of determining who got to take
home the tin cups and satin ribbons, and whose dogs got their photos in the German
Shepherd Dog Review, it could be dismissed as an elaborate diversion for shallow
people with empty lives, a meaningless charade. But for those with a passion for
working dogs there are serious, ongoing negative consequences, for this show
system is the driving force of breeding selection, resulting in a process where
fashionable "type," ever more extreme angulation and over extended side gate,
rather than a physical structure conducive to excellence in real work, are
predominant determining factors.

Structure and Stride

The work of the shepherd's dog, particularly the tending style dog with large
herds to manage and control, requires stamina, endurance, quickness and enough
size and intensity to intimidate the sheep and repel predators. These are in general
very much in line with the physical requirements of a modern police dog, which is
one of the reasons why they emerged from the historically herding breeds rather
than the mastiff style estate guardians. Such dogs must have an efficient stride,
which requires medium size, length of body and some flex in the back, and
moderately pronounced angulation for reach in front and drive from the rear. A
moderately deep chest accommodates heart and lung function for distance and
stamina, but avoids excessive chest width which compromises efficient stride and
agility. The emphasis in the cattle herding and droving breeds, such as the Rottweiler
or Bouvier des Flandres, is more on power, agility and quickness, which requires a
shorter back, a more square structure viewed from the side and more moderate

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angulation, and thus sacrifices to some extent the longer stride, speed, stamina and
endurance. Neither herding heritage requires the extreme depth of chest of the
coursing hounds such as the Afghan; the shepherd's dog needs to cover distance
efficiently, but not with the extreme distance speed of the coursing or sight hound.
The essential point is that when any physical attribute – angulation for a longer
stride or the deeper chest for longer distance, high-speed endurance – is emphasized
other attributes such as agility or power are compromised. Each breed and each
working environment requires its own set of interrelated structural compromises to
optimize performance, which is why herding dogs in new regions such as Australia or
Argentina tend to be new variations rather than directly imported European herders.
These are the basic structural determinations made by nature and man to produce
diverse herding lines according to need in terms of stock attributes, existing predator
threat and prevailing terrain. But the conformation systems, in both Germany and
America, have taken the basic herding requirement of an efficient stride and
endurance and over time degenerated into an obsessive preoccupation with
exaggerated, pointless front and rear reach to the exclusion of balance, deleterious
to other, equally fundamental, physical and performance attributes, most especially
agility. These banana dogs, monstrosities of the show ring, extreme in angulation
and wobbling in the rear, hardly capable of standing upright, would be of little
practical use in an actual herding or police service environment, their only real
function being to circle the show ring and induce the judge to point his finger.
In looking back to the earlier German Shepherds, even as recently as the 1950's,
there was much more similarity in structure to the Belgian Malinois and the early
Dutch Shepherds, although these dogs were always moderately less massive and
muscular. This was the general structure that generations and centuries of service in
the pasture produced, the result of practical breeding for a real herding function. The
Malinois of today, and also to some extent the working line German Shepherds,
retain much of this basic structure for a good and simple reason: it works.
Von Stephanitz famously observed that form must follow function; but from the
beginning American breeders and fanciers were in denial, culturally compelled to
ignore the practical aspects of service and deployment. Virtually none of the
American breeders or judges had participated in any sort of police training, had any
real familiarity with or understanding of the actual function of the breed, because the
American canine culture was viscerally hostile to any sort of real aggression in any
dog. Also, in this era there were only a few police canine operations, mostly small,
fragile and short lived. The question becomes how can you breed for and preserve
the form if you do not comprehend the essentials of the function? The answer is that
you cannot, and the consequence is that breeding selection was according to fashion
rather than function, and fashion is inherently a political, social and money driven
process with nothing to do with the consequences in terms of physical type or
performance.
The Germans of course retained the Schutzhund requirement for breeding, and in
general maintained the traditional physique longer. But beginning in the 1970s the
Schutzhund trial itself was compromised. The scaling wall was replaced by the A
frame, which is lower than the scaling walls used in KNPV and the national Ring
sports. There is no broad jump or ditch jump, and the high jump at one meter is not
especially demanding. Aspects of the trial proving difficult for the dogs were
remedied by compromising the functional tests rather than breeding dogs capable of
performing to the existing standards. The focus changed from performance to
obedience, to the detriment of physical excellence. The cane stick became the
padded stick, the pursuit and turn in the courage test was abandoned, the attack on
the handler was removed. Even more seriously home field trials with very lenient
judges and accommodating club decoys became increasingly available, and if this
was not sufficient it was possible to fraudulently submit the paper work, providing a

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Schutzhund title to a dog never having stepped foot on a trial field. The Americans
were ignorant, and while they may have clung tenaciously to their ignorance they
were less blameworthy than the German show breeders, who knew the heritage full
well, and betrayed it for money, pseudo prestige and personal aggrandizement.

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The Doberman Pinscher
Most of the police breeds, such
as the German Shepherd and the
Malinois, were created by seeking
out regional dogs of an existing
function and type, and then
selectively breeding from within this
foundation stock to solidify physical
appearance and character
attributes. In a sense the foundation
of these breeds had been
established over time as stockmen
and farmers made breeding
selection according to the demands
of their work, and the formal breed
founders, the men who created
studbooks and breed clubs, were
merely consolidating and completing
the work of generations of
herdsmen, making formal an
already existing breed in the rough.
The creation of the Doberman
Richard Strebel drawing, 1903 Pinscher was different in that
existing lines of dogs were
combined to create a new breed
with a specific purpose and corresponding physical and character attributes
appropriate for that purpose. While the Doberman is a prime example of this
process, the details remain murky. What is well accepted is that in the 1880s, Louis
Dobermann, along with several associates, was combining various sorts of dogs so
as to produce a line useful in their work as night watchmen and perhaps also dog
catchers and tax collectors. This was taking place in the German town of Apolda, 155
km west of Dresden in Thuringia. The associates mentioned include a man named
Rebel who was a night watchman. Also mentioned is a prominent cattle merchant by
the name of Stegmann whose business involved importing stock from Switzerland for
breeding purposes, creating the need of vigorous dogs to drive and protect the
cattle, and also the drovers who would likely have carried significant cash for their
business transactions.
This was an informal process in the sense that while they were serious and
careful in their selection no long term breeding records were kept, for these were
working men likely lacking the leisure and inclination to create records or to foresee
that this line of dogs would endure in the long term. Throughout history men,
individually and in cooperating groups, have been creating their own lines for their
own purposes, most of these being transient, creating no enduring records,
eventually lost to memory with the passage of time.
Louis Dobermann1, since his name has come to also be the name of the modern
breed, is often taken to be the founder, but the reality is a little more nuanced.
William Schmidt, the leading American authority, mentions in his well-known book,
with editions starting in 1926 and running on into the 1950s:

1
Several variations appear in the literature, including Friedrich Louis Dobermann and
Friedrich Dobermann.

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 "The name was taken from a man named Louis Dobermann (1834 - 1894),
who held the various positions of night watchman, scavenger and dog
catcher in the city of Apolda, at the time the breed became known. No one
is in a position to state whether Dobermann had anything to do with the
origin of the breed other than his name. He was a fancier of dogs and well
acquainted with many breeds, although it must be doubted whether the
ultimate breed the Doberman pinscher was his goal." (Schmidt, 1935)
Even those who credit Dobermann as the literal founder concede that he left no
written records and had been gone for a number of years before others took on the
task of setting up a book of origins, formal clubs and the infrastructure of a modern
breed. On the other hand Dobermann was well known as favoring and breeding
aggressive dogs which may well have been known colloquially by his name, which
thus became attached to the breed even though he may have had little to do with
the formal creation. Thus it becomes a matter of semantics, of precisely how the
term breed founder is defined.
What is clear is that when Louis Dobermann passed away in 1894 there was no
formal breed in existence, and the use of his name, dropping the final n, was an
indication of the esteem and respect in which he was held. Whether the founding
breeding stock was actually the direct result of the breeding of Herr Dobermann or
more or less independently selected and combined by the later founders such as
Göller in the same general style has been obscured by the passage of time. If the man
was not literally the founder of the breed, he was evidently well regarded by those
who did found it.
Although details are scant, it is generally accepted that the founding stock
contributing to the initial amalgamation included primitive Rottweilers, German
Pinschers, Beauceron and perhaps other regional predecessors to the modern
German Shepherd, that is the regional Thuringian shepherds, to produce a breed
synthesized from the ground up as a protection dog. It is to be remembered that
terms such as Rottweiler were colloquial in this era before formal breeds, referred to
type and function just as describing a man as a cowboy referred to his line of work
rather than whether he was black, white or Hispanic.
Otto Göller (1852–1922), a distillery owner in Apolda, was the man who at the turn
of the century brought the modern Doberman into existence as a formal breed. He
seems to have operated on a relatively large scale, for it is said that at times his
kennel, von Thuringen, held 80 or more dogs.
In 1899 Göller founded the German national Dobermann Pinscher club, which
was in turn recognized by the German Kennel Club. It is speculated that it was Göller
who incorporated the Greyhound, which would account for a larger and more
massive dog compared to the original pinscher or terrier type. Other early figures
were Philip Gruening and Goswin Tischler(1859–1939), owner of the kennel von
Grönland. Both men were located in Apolda. Other early breeders included Gustav
Krumpholz and Wilhem Kippel.
In about 1925 the most prominent American authority of the era, William
Schmidt of Milwaukee, commented in his book:
"Within a short period of eleven years (in 1910) at the Sieger show in
Cologne, Otto Settegast finds the breed to have reached a high degree of
perfection. There was an entry of 142 Dobermans. At that time the red and
tans were yet superior to the black and tans. The years following 1910
brought about a change. Dogs that were too tall and not typical in head
made their appearance. It took again a number of years to weed out such
animals." (Schmidt, 1935)

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 Unfortunately, Mr. Schmidt
does not go on to offer an
explanation for this turn of
events. More recently
references such as Gerritsen
and Hack1 provide more
information, to the effect that
the inclusion of "Black and Tan
Terrier" and also the Greyhound
were involved in this, although
details remain murky. An exact
definition of Black and Tan
Terrier is a bit difficult to pin
down, but seems to be a
general reference to relatively
large, especially robust terriers
of the English and Welsh
Black and Tan Terrier of the era (Drury, 1903) country side. In any event,
exactly what actually was
imported and bred into the
Doberman is likely to remain a mystery.
Terriers are well known as feisty and animal aggressive, which is of course why
they were incorporated into the Pit Bull Terrier and other fighting stock. The original
Doberman breeding lines were famously intense, and this terrier blood created more
volatility in the breed and more natural inclination to animal aggression. Otto Göller
is said to have been opposed to this for several reasons, including opposition to the use
of English rather than German blood, opposition to the more elegant and fragile type and
opposition to the introduction of terrier like character attributes. Although the concurrent
introduction of both terrier and Greyhound blood makes it difficult to sort out cause and
effect, in general more elegance and refinement, and a dog higher in the leg, were the
desired physical attributes. The black and tan color variety seems to have come from the
terriers.
In reference to the Greyhound influence, Gerritsen and Hack comment: "It is
known that about that time a very savage black Greyhound bitch was used, and from
the exterior and speed of the modern
Doberman it appears to have considerable
Greyhound influence. This Greyhound was
used in order to get the more aristocratic
expression and outline in the Doberman
Pinscher, but also caused problems in the
type of heads, height of the dogs, and the
closeness to the Greyhound-type, not to
mention the changes in the character of the
Doberman."
In time the Doberman came to have
influential advocates, such as Konrad Most,
Great Dane of the Era
the man most associated with the evolution of
the police dog in Germany, famous for his
1910 training book referred to even today.
1
(Haak & Gerritsen, 2007)

302
Most bred Dobermans under the kennel name von der Sarr in the town of
Saarbrücken, west of Stuttgart on the French border.1 He was a passionate
proponent of both canine police service and the Doberman Pincher, conducting
elaborate demonstrations and seminars in Germany, Austria and elsewhere.
According to the German stud book, there had been a total of 207 registrations
through 1905 and a total of 1200 through 1912, the last book before the war. 2 (In
comparison, prewar German Shepherd registrations were about 100,000.) As a
consequence of these activities, and an indication of the promotional efforts of the
originators, by 1911 there were 360 Dobermans among the 1300 police dogs in 400
German police canine units. (Schmidt, 1935) If these numbers are accurate, it would
mean that more than a fourth of the Dobermans of the era were in actual police
service, a very large amount.
Through 1933 48,000 had been registered in total, with an average of about
5000 a year toward the end of this period. In the modern era the Doberman has
been much less numerous in the homeland, for there were only 757 registered in
Germany in 2006, down to 616 in 2011.
The German Doberman club did not hold a Sieger show until after the war, in
1920. In this era they selected two Siegers, one black and tan and one of any other
acceptable color combination. Two Siegerins were also selected in the same manner.
There is no mention of work or character requirements. (Schmidt, 1935)
The first Dobermans came to America relatively late, around 1908. The
Dobermann Pinscher Club of America was founded in 1921 and adapted the German
Standard. The Doberman experienced a huge American surge in the 1970s, going
from 18,636 in 1970 to 81,964 1n 1978, a hefty 20,000 more than the German
Shepherd. In subsequent years a surge in Rottweiler popularity would produce a fall
as dramatic as this rise. There were 11,546 American registrations in 2006, fifteen
times as many as in Germany itself.

1
It would perhaps seem odd that the book of a Doberman man would have only German
Shepherd photos, but what is available is the English translation of 1954, the year Most
passed away, which states that the photos presented were not original but rather were
taken in England for this edition.
2
(Schmidt, 1935)

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 The Rottweiler
Rottweiler enthusiasts tend to fancy their breed as
going back directly to the noble war, cattle herding
and carting dogs of the Romans. In one sense this is
an exaggeration, for the breed is a modern concept,
and focus on commonality of appearance and the
closed breeding pool goes back only to the latter
1800s; there are no records of descent much before
1900. Just as in other breeds, the founding stock,
according to descriptions and existing photos, had
extensive variation in size, type and coat texture.
But while in a broader sense the idea of the
Rottweiler as a breed coming directly from antiquity is
an exaggeration, it is true that this is an ancient and
persistent type. Even before the Romans, indeed
going back to much earlier eras, men have had the
need for massive, powerful dogs of the general
Molosser type. In the 1500 years between the fall of
Rome and the emergence of the modern Rottweiler
innumerable regional types no doubt emerged, served
Havok v Schwarzen Hammer and sometimes faded back into the morass of canine
stock.
In central Europe in the centuries before there was a Germany there would have
been a natural diversity of type, for the draft dog would have tended to be large,
powerful, relatively square in stature and straight in angulation, and placid in nature.
The cattle or drovers dog would have needed to be quick and agile as well as
powerful and thus perhaps less massive, slightly more pronounced in angulation and
more intense in nature to dominate the cattle. Functional specialization naturally
leads to distinctive physical type and character; this is after all the underlying
evolutionary principle of life.

AKC Rottweiler Reg By 1900 the emergence of the railroad, paved roads
Year and slightly later motor cars and trucks were rapidly
1969 439 rendering the traditional cattle driving and draft or
1983 13,265 carting functions obsolete, and it is said that the breed
1987 36,162 had virtually disappeared in the far southern region of
1990 60,471 Germany, in the vicinity of the city of Rottweil from
1994 102,596 which the name was taken. Just as in the other breeds,
1996 89,867 there were men unwilling to let this heritage pass into
2006 14,709 history and the remnants of these working lines were
2007 14,211
gathered together and preserved, and the process of
breed creation with the written standard, studbooks and
specialty clubs commenced.
As a formal breed the emergence of the Rottweiler was later than the Doberman
and German Shepherd, where the breed clubs were unified, well established and
flourishing by 1905. Although there were several Rottweiler clubs in the early period,
it was about 1920 before a unified German club, the Allgemeiner Deutscher
Rottweiler Klub (ADRK), came into existence as a consolidation of previous clubs.
ADRK registry records begin in 1924.
Although there were a few individual Rottweilers in America prior to WWII,
serious American presence came only after that war, and the breed was very sparse
through the 1960s. Over time breed popularity tends to wax and wane according to
fickle public whim, driven by such things as appealing movie roles or celebrity pets,

304
but nothing can compare to the surge in Rottweiler popularity, as shown in the
above table of AKC annual registrations.
There is no mystery as to what drove this surge, for American fascination with
the German police breeds goes back to the beginning of the century; this was the
next big thing following the ebbing of the Doberman bubble. Indeed, over much of a
25 year time span the two breeds tracked almost one for one, every step up in
Rottweiler corresponding to an equivalent step down for the Doberman. Both breeds
for a brief time eclipsed the perennial favorite police dog, the German Shepherd,
which has been relatively consistent in popularity since the end of WWI. By 2006 the
Rottweiler registration count was down to 14,709.
At his best the Rottweiler is a magnificent and functional beast, powerful,
relatively square and short-coupled, an admirable combination of agility and relative
massiveness. But of course the Rottweiler of the American show ring is not at his
best but rather a bloated caricature; the lineup of males contending for best of breed
looks like a parade of pigs ready for the slaughter. It was not uncommon for the
dogs being Schutzhund trained to need twenty or more pounds of fattening up for
the show ring.
When I first went to Europe in the 1980s, my familiarity was of course with the
American Rottweilers. The Rottweilers I saw in the Dutch IPO trials of that era were a
revelation, looked like another and much superior breed, more like moderately
bulked up Beaucerons than what I was used to seeing.
It is instructive to compare the Rottweiler to the Bouvier des Flandres, another
cattle dog, one in which I have had some personal interest. In the French language,
the Rottweiler is just another bouvier with the small b, that is a dog of the cattle
herder. Now of course these dogs at first glance would seem to be radically different,
but much of this is due the coat of the Bouvier and the elaborate, artificial grooming
for the show ring. Think about a Bouvier closer to the original herding lines, with a
much sparser coat, perhaps clipped down, and the kind of Rottweiler that could
really herd cattle rather than looking like one of the cows. In both instances you
have a dog square with a relatively level top line and moderate angulation compared
to the shepherd's dogs. Both breeds require a relatively massive head and
moderately deep chest, but should not be overly wide in the front. (In spite of show
ring partiality.) Yes, the Rottweiler is a little more massive and powerful, and the
Bouvier perhaps slightly more quick and agile, but the similarities, dictated by the
needs of the cattle dog and the drover's dog, are as important as the differences.

The Giant Schnauzer

The Giant Schnauzer, or Riesenschnauzer, is the largest of three contemporary
German Schnauzer breeds. The name is a reference to the bearded face or nose, as
the word Schnauzer translates from the German roughly as muzzle or snout.
The Riesenschnauzer is a rough coated, dark colored, medium sized dog which
stands relatively square when viewed from the side, historically with cropped ears
and the docked tail, often compared to the Bouvier des Flandres. Many of the old
Schnauzer photos to my eye look remarkably like the early Bouviers, while others
have little resemblance to any of the Bouvier progenitors I am familiar with. One
sometimes sees speculation of Bouviers behind the Schnauzer, but I am not aware of
solid, specific references. The cattle driving or drover's dog function is also a
common link with the Bouvier.
This breed was to an extent man created, that is, the result of the mixing
together of existing breeds to produce the type and character desired. In addition to
the Bouvier, there is mention of breeding the existing and older Standard Schnauzers
with the Great Dane. There could easily be common ancestors with the German

305
Shepherd, for dogs with long and rough coats existed but were selected against.
(Note that although the Malinois has a coat similar to the German Shepherd, the
other Belgian Shepherd varieties have rough coats and long coats with a wide variety
of coloration, some of which was eliminated through selective breeding.)
Although the Riesenschnauzer has never been especially common in America,
there were several, perhaps six or seven, in service with the Delaware State Police in
the early 1990s and there was thus a small wave of popularity on Schutzhund fields.
The rest of this story is a little interesting, for these dogs were from East German
border patrol lines that the fall of the Berlin Wall had made superfluous and thus
available. I am told by men who worked them that several of these dogs were truly
dangerous, even by police standards. And of course those who thought that the
Giant was the new wonder dog and purchased indiscriminately from West German
lines were most often disappointed, and the mini wave of popularity quickly
dissipated.

The Boxer

The Boxer is a German

breed of the general Molosser
type, that is, short haired,
stocky, with broad, short skulls
and square muzzles. The Boxer
is bred with a severe under bite
on purpose as a matter of style,
which is regarded as a severe
fault in the other police breeds
because of the negative effect
on the ability to take and hold a
strong full grip. The pushed in
face and very short nose are
also deleterious in the olfactory
Ken Johnson's Tyson or scent work; in general the
creators of this breed have
historically preferred a fashion statement to a serious working dog.
Of the German breeds with an historical police service association, the Boxer is
second only to the German Shepherd in general American popularity, with 33,548
new dog registrations in 2002, sixth overall in AKC popularity. In actual police or
protection service the Boxer is perhaps the least common with very little pretense of
serious purpose among the breeding community in America or the homeland.

306
11 British Origins

Edwin Richardson and his dogs.

The countries of the British Isles have in general been among the least engaged
of European nations in the police patrol canine program, with no native protection
breeds and a strong pacifist streak in the class oriented civilian canine community.
The British have regarded protection style working dogs as a perhaps necessary but
an unpleasant activity properly restricted to military and police trainers. There is
little protection sport activity or civilian participation in police training as exists, for
instance, in the Netherlands. The early eradication of the wolf and other predators,
and the dispersed rather than large flock nature of sheep husbandry resulted in the
native working shepherd's dogs being much less adaptable to the police patrol role
than the continental varieties.
The hysteria driven campaign in recent years to lock out fighting style dogs, a
culture with strong British roots, and eradicate undesirable foreign breeds is not an
aberration, but consistent with the British character and heritage.
In spite of all of this, early in the twentieth century, there was significant activity,
albeit with very little long-term consequence.

307
 Edwin Richardson and his
Airedale Terriers
Since there was so little interest in
police canines in Great Britain, simply
as a matter of culture, as in America
those enthusiasts who sought to create
interest found themselves swimming
against a very strong tide. Perhaps the
most prominent and well known of
these early pioneers was Lt. Col. Edwin
Richardson (1860 - 1946). As a
consequence of his prodding,
representatives from the Metropolitan
Police went to France in 1906 but were
not impressed, likely going over not
intending to be impressed.
Airedale Terrier The Airedale was the largest and
most robust Terrier of that era; and in
the eighteen nineties was imported extensively by the Germans and other
Europeans. Although originally imported as a hunting dog, the Germans soon began
to promote the breed as police and war dogs, resulting in the breeding of much
larger dogs and altering the overall character of the breed. Although almost
forgotten today, the Airedale was in Germany a serious competitor with the native
German Shepherd for police and war service; perhaps even then the attraction of the
exotic import held sway over the more pedestrian home breeds.
Major Richardson was a devoted promoter of the Airedale, exporting dogs to
Russia where his dogs were used during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 and in
1910.
The first British police dogs were Airedale Terriers used by the Railway Police for
night patrol on the Hull Docks, to help in maintaining order among disorderly sailors
returning from leave, likely in the best 'have fun when and where you can' tradition
of sailors everywhere. The decision to use the Airedale was based on the perception
of the breed as being "stronger, hardier and having a keener sense of smell."
National pride was no doubt a factor in this perception, but in the big picture the
future belonged to the herders rather than the terriers. The absence of any need for
strongly protective herding breeds in Britain was perhaps the key factor in the
eventual emergence of continental breeds, training and deployment practices
becoming the worldwide standard.
As a side note Chapman mentions that the Airedales used on the Hull Docks were
imported from Belgium rather than coming from within the British Airedale
community. (Chapman, Police Dogs, 1990) This and other indications, such as no
mention of military or police work in popular British Airedale books and publications
of the era, indicate that the British Airedale establishment had a negative or at least
disinterested attitude. This has persisted until this day and been a severe detriment
to the advancement of serious British working canines. Actually, there was a fair
amount of early day interest in the Airedale on the continent, in Germany as well and
Belgium, although this seems to have pretty much died out by the 1930s.
The popularity of the Airedale in Germany, especially as a police or protection
dog, likely seems strange to many of us in light of such famous German working
dogs as the German Shepherd. But we need to understand that the Airedale was
already a well-known breed when von Stephanitz began his first tentative efforts in
the 1890s and the SV was not founded until 1899. By this time police patrol

308
operations were under way in Belgium and the German Shepherd was probably not
widely known in Germany when the Airedale was getting his toe hold.
Edwin Richardson was the leading British proponent of the police and military
canine applications, publishing a number of books, magazine articles and engaging in
public speaking engagements. He was the director of the British war dog program
during WWI. As mentioned previously, this was very much a matter of shoveling
sand against the tide of public and official disinterest, something for which I can
have a certain amount of personal empathy.
A number of sources mention that the British programs of this early era were
much less formal than those on the continent such as Ghent, in that often they were
not formally trained or acquired specifically for police duty but more the personal
companions of the individual patrol officer. Two trained Airedales bred by Major
Richardson were shipped to the Baltimore police in 1915 and put into patrol service,
but this program was discontinued in 1917, apparently because there was no real
knowledge or appreciation of the necessary training and the dogs reportedly never
did participate in an arrest. (Chapman, Police Dogs, 1990)
At the commencement of WWII the British were again unprepared – had no
canine military program, and needed to start again from scratch. This time the
leadership fell to James Baldwin, who had been a British Army Major serving under
Richardson during the WWI training program. Baldwin had become enthused about
German Shepherds while serving in France and became a prominent breeder and
proponent of this breed between the wars. Although it was politically correct to call
them Alsatians, the German Shepherds became the preferred breed. Just as in
America the supply was so short that there was a public solicitation for suitable
candidates, and whatever could be acquired from most any source and trained
served.
Effective, wide spread British police canine utilization was greatly repressed until
well after WWII because of a general resistance to using non-British breeds – or
more generally resistance to anything German.

309
 12 The Protection Dog

Earlier chapters explored the ethological

foundations and ramifications of canine aggression
for police dog breeding, training and deployment.
Here the focus shifts to more general societal
implications of canine aggression, that is, breeding
considerations, training and legal ramifications for
civilian applications that employ dogs to enhance
security of person, home or in commerce and
business.
Suppressing much of overt canine aggression
through breeding selection has been a major focus
of the domestication and civilizing process. While
aggression was and is fundamental in many working
and service roles, people in general now keep dogs
for diverse purposes requiring a much more passive
and compliant animal: most of us today do not
need, do not want and are not prepared to deal with
extreme aggression in dogs.
This makes all the sense in the world, and the
aggression level of each breed or line needs to be
set and maintained according to the purpose
through breeding selection. A relatively low
aggressive potential is generally appropriate for
mainstream home companions, particularly in more
urban areas. The problems arise when people
seeking a more assertive or virile image acquire
Stick broken over back of KNPV
Malinois. Dog is Renzo KNPV 439
dogs out of serious police or military service lines
pts. Owner John Kessel, helper without the knowledge, skills and personal vigor to
Donne Scheidt, deal with dogs at this level: many breeders pander
photo Peter Gubbels to this by evolving lines of soft dogs for profit, by
selling the image, pretend working dogs, rather than
the real thing. Entire breeds can and do become emasculated through this process.
Well into the nineteenth century farm families made up the vast majority of
European and American populations. The farmstead was isolated, that is lacking
electric lights, telephone service or routine police patrol. In this world a good dog
was a ubiquitous element in home and farm security, often the mere presence
causing potential intruders to reconsider and desist or move on down the road
seeking more vulnerable opportunities.
Farm dogs announce visitors and provide a first line of security, particularly at
night. The dogs also deter predators such as a coyote or fox on the prowl for an easy
meal, literally keeping the fox out of the hen house. Although there has always been
variation according to local custom and personal preference, these were not in
general huge or especially fierce dogs but often rather typified by the old-fashioned
farm collie so often portrayed in paintings of country and pastoral scenes. Although
many of the livestock dogs, particularly the tending style shepherd's dogs such as
the progenitors of the German Shepherd, were with the flock or herd exclusively, it
can hardly be doubted that there was significant overlap between the herding dogs

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and those present in the farmyard. There were regional variations, the American
Bulldog for instance evolving out of the traditional yard and farm dogs of the rural
southern United States existent prior to the Second World War. As the population
shifted from rural areas to cities and then suburbs as a result of industrialization
people took their dogs with them, to serve as watch dogs and sometimes more
aggressive guard dogs as well as family companions.
Prior to the resurgence of American police canine units and civilian Schutzhund
training, roughly the 1970s, people in urban or suburban areas who felt, or actually
were, insecure would have a watchdog or perhaps some sort of a guard dog to alert
and bark, which would announce a guest and perhaps deter a more sinister stranger.
Those wanting or needing more would tend to a bigger dog with a deeper bark.
Beginning in the 1920s the upwardly mobile, perhaps needing to impress friends and
family, had the more expensive option of one of the purebred police or protection
breeds recently imported from Europe, one with AKC papers, perhaps a German
Shepherd or a Doberman Pincher.
Those not quite certain that they were getting the real deal only had to ask the
breeder, who would steadfastly assert that his dogs were exactly like the better
police dogs except for a little bit of training, which he personally had never gotten
around to actually participating in. If doubt persisted, he would provide innumerable
anecdotes of valor and courage in everyday life, just like Lassie or Strongheart in the
movies. A little later in this era professionally trained area protection dogs –
junkyard dogs – were sometimes provided for subscribing businesses and there were
a few marginal professional protection dog trainers, not especially sophisticated,
typically utilizing the old-fashioned pillow suit. Very few civilians of any social strata
had dogs that were trained specifically for protection in this era, that is, prior to the
1970s.
In America the increasing popularity of Schutzhund and the market for police
dogs and training services greatly increased the supply of more robust and
aggressive dogs and more sophisticated training. The Vietnam War occasioned a
substantial resurgence in military applications, resulting in an increasing demand for
better dogs and a legacy of former servicemen with training experience and an
ongoing interest in civilian applications. As a consequence, those with an especially
urgent need for security or just deep pockets came to have the option of a
professionally trained protection dog, generally expensive to acquire and maintain
but an elite status symbol. There was and is variation in quality among such dogs,
for it is difficult for the novice to know if what he is being offered is a legitimate
investment in security or, all too often, a scam, a mediocre dog with only superficial
training.
Civilian canine protection applications can be broken down into three general,
overlapping classifications, each with its own requirements in terms of the character,
training and deployment of the dog:
 The home and family protection or guard dog, the companion who also
provides elements of security on the home premises, the dogs many of us
grew up with and which routinely share our lives.
 The personal protection dog, whose focus is on the full time protection role,
which extends off home premises to provide protection to the individual in his
routine daily life. Often provided and trained by professionals, such dogs can
be very expensive and require great care and research in order to identify an
honest and competent trainer and an appropriate dog.
 The area protection dog, the proverbial junk yard dog, whose function,
working in the absence of human support and back up, is to deny the intruder
physical access to a specific area, such as a warehouse, automotive

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 dealership or department store.

In the next three sections we will discuss these facets of the protective canine.
Police and military service will be covered in detail in subsequent chapters.

Watch and Guard Dogs

Many companion or family dogs fulfill an ancillary guardian role, that is alert to
unusual activity, persons or vehicles, on the property or premises. This is typically a
natural rather than formally trained response, and the most desirable situation is
where the dog comes to ignore routine activity according to circumstances, that is as
in the city dog ignoring passing traffic but the country dog far up a long driveway
vigorously alerting with the approach of any vehicle or person. It is generally
desirable that the dog be more aware and quick to alert at night when activity is
more likely to be suspect, and in general have moderately above average suspicion
and alertness. Such behavior is typical of the watch dog, and is usually sufficient, all
that most of us really need. The key to domestic tranquility is that the dog becomes
reliably acclimated to the normal pattern of life and refrains from barking at
innocently passing pedestrians or vehicles. Even if recreational barking is not
annoying to the owner or family, in the urban or suburban setting the incessantly
barking dog is a nuisance and a visit from animal control is just a matter of time.
Thus the effective watchdog will act proportionately, that is announce a visitor
approaching the door with a perfunctory bark but respond vigorously if someone
were to open the door or enter the yard, most especially at night. When the
watchdog has alerted the household and in particular continues barking when a
stranger enters unbidden, he has fulfilled his duty. A really intense, persistent dog,
especially a small dog, who continually backs up just out of reach and intensifies his
barking, is a serious problem for the intruder, for he usually is not sure who else is in
the house and cannot know what the dog will do, that is, if he actually will bite. And
of course, while this is going on, someone might well be calling the police or loading
a revolver. The savvy intruder has good reason to move on to the next opportunity
when faced with such a situation.
The guard dog takes the protection role one level up, is expected to respond with
physical aggression against a persistent intruder not deterred by the vocal threat. In
an otherwise empty house, especially in an isolated setting, extensive barking may
not deter an intruder, and in the urban neighborhood a barking dog may be a
nuisance but is not likely to cause the neighbors to call the police in a timely matter,
who in any event may have higher priorities than another barking dog complaint.
While the guard dog does provide more protection or deterrence, that is postures
more seriously or actually bites, there is also more need for training and supervision.
Most people with a bit of canine experience can accomplish this by selecting an
appropriate breed and individual pup or young dog. Such dogs should have
reasonable obedience training and perhaps some specific aggression enhancement if
it needs to be at the serious end of the aggression scale.
The reality of home and family protection is that a good dog functions like the
lock on the front door, which could easily be picked or broken by the determined
burglar but will likely send a random intruder down the street to a more vulnerable
residence. No dog and no lock is invulnerable, serving primarily to deter the casual,
less determined or well prepared adversary, and buy time when he cannot be
deterred.
The prerequisite for the success of the family companion and home protector is
that the dog be a good match and a good companion. Care of a dog in terms of
feeding, access to the outdoors for the calls of nature, exercise and play is a small

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price willingly paid by the dog enthusiast, but those with no particular affinity for
canine companionship may soon find that the dog acquired for protection has
become an ongoing burden and inconvenience. Lack of interest in the dog is likely to
result in his devising his own means of entertainment, such as chewing household
objects, incessant pacing or recreational barking. If this causes the dog to be
confined to a run or otherwise contained for owner convenience the protective
function is essentially nullified. Often the result is yet another dog abandoned to a
shelter, that is, the place where they kill your dog for you because you have found
him to be inconvenient.
The incremental cost of a good watchdog is nominal to those whose normal way
of living includes a dog; is basically a matter of using a little more care in selection
and training. This does not have to be an overly expensive dog, the world is overrun
with perfectly good German Shepherds and other breeds turned in for "rescue" by
people who have gotten in over their head or just lost interest once the novelty has
worn off. Also, there is nothing wrong with the carefully selected mixed breed from a
shelter or elsewhere, although an inexperienced person would do well to have a
competent friend evaluate the dog or pay a professional trainer for an evaluation.
Those who want more than a casual watch dog should identify an appropriate trainer
before the acquisition; not only is this likely to avoid a poor selection, the trainer
who has participated in the selection is going to be more committed to success as a
matter of professional pride. (The trainer's inclination to disparage other dogs in
order to sell one of his own is an issue that the customer needs to be aware of and
work out according to specific judgments and circumstances.)
In general the best protection dog for the typical family is the breed or mix that
they are comfortable with in terms of preference, training and maintenance.
Labrador, Golden, Flat Coated or Chesapeake Bay retrievers can be perfectly
adequate, and there is no urgent need to seek out one of the traditional guard
breeds such as a German Shepherd, American Bulldog or Rottweiler. Those with a
preference for one of these guardian breeds would seem to have an obvious choice,
but this is not always the case as many individual dogs and lines are of such weak
breeding that they no longer exhibit the requisite character and physical attributes.
On the one hand many are fearful, timid and insecure and on the other they may be
too difficult for family members to deal with. A well-adjusted retriever in the living
room is a much more effective deterrent than an aggressive and unmanageable dog
confined to a run behind the house. Smaller dogs most certainly have their place,
can make a whole lot of noise and be evasive enough to present a real problem to an
intruder, who does not want to spend a lot of time trying to catch and silence the
yippy dog.
If one does decide on a traditional police breed, and is going to purchase a pup or
young dog, it should be from a working line breeder who has been made to
understand that you are looking for a confident dog of moderate drive. Again, if
training is to be involved, identify the trainer before buying the dog.
For those who otherwise would not own a dog, a watch or guard dog in the end
will tend to become expensive in terms of maintenance such as feeding and medical
care and particularly in terms of a newly restricted life style. Every venture away
from home, even overnight, requires arrangements for the care of the dog, and the
dog is going to seek attention and companionship which the owner finds to be a
burden rather than a joy. Those ambivalent to dogs in general, not likely to own one
strictly as a companion, are well advised to forgo a dog in favor of an alarm system
or a residence in a more secure neighborhood.
Training the home watch dog is in general a matter of obedience and manners,
with particular care to avoid intimidating the dog and thus blunting his natural
tendency to take responsibility for home and family. The traditional farm dog lives

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out of doors and provides an energetic warning when visitors approach.
Unfortunately, in the country training sometimes consists of acquiring relatively
cheap dogs until one is found who will stay on the premises and is lucky enough to
become car smart before being hit by a vehicle and killed.
Watch or alert dogs on the one hand and actual guard dogs on the other are not
entirely separate types but represent the end points of a continuum. Dogs just do
not come as neatly specified commodities like a bolt or nut in the bin at the
hardware store, each one functionally equivalent. Even the better lines in a
protective breed may produce pups which, because of genetics or inappropriate
imprinting, are destined to become timid, soft or difficult. The dog acquired as a
household watchdog may turn out to be a real guard dog when the chips are down,
and this of course enhances the general deterrent effect of having a boisterous dog
in the house. But on the other hand such a dog might prove to be difficult in terms of
discipline and training for a timid or inexperienced owner.
Those who have a real need or desire for a much more assertive guard dog, one
that can be relied on to respond with serious physical aggression, need to carefully
select the breed, and especially the blood lines, for the unfortunate fact is that many
dogs with German Shepherd or Doberman Pincher on the pedigree are no longer
serious working dogs and likely to fail to respond to training or an actual encounter.
In general, the breeder proud of his conformation show wins and the champions in
the pedigree is a poor choice. Those seeking such a serious dog, unless qualified
themselves, should work with a trainer, and identify the trainer before acquiring the
dog.
Such a dog really does need to be trained and tested to provide control and
confidence that there actually is something under the hood; the false belief in an
inadequate dog may render the owner more rather than less vulnerable if he
becomes careless, that is lax in locking doors, maintaining security lights and other
routine measures. Training should involve practical obedience and then sessions with
a decoy or helper, that is the man with a sleeve or suit. The dog needs to reliably
engage and persist, and must not be run off by the adversary shouting, showing
aggressive posture or striking the dog with a stick. If the dog is sound in terms of
basic breeding and rearing as a youngster this need not require the extensive
training of the police or Schutzhund dog, since the elaborate search, obedience and
distance attacks are not necessary. The capstone, the final test, is to have a
stranger, not the trainer or someone the dog has seen, with a sleeve or suit, or
much better a hidden sleeve, actually enter the house unannounced to insure that
the dog will reliably engage. The really robust and aggressive guard dog is not a
commitment to be taken lightly, becomes a lifetime responsibility and an ongoing
expense to maintain alertness, aggression and discipline.
The presence of children or other household members intimidated or made
personally insecure by the dog creates an entirely new layer of complexity. One issue
is that a child may inadvertently allow the dog to come into contact with outside
people, often other young acquaintances, without adult supervision. Although most
dogs will bond with the family and relate well to children, there are some dogs which
would be fine in other circumstances, often outstanding workers, which simply
should not be in an environment with children. Every breed proponent will of course
claim that their dogs are absolutely wonderful with children, but this is not and
cannot be universally true of any breed.
We always had aggressive dogs in the house when our children were younger
with no difficulty; but both dogs and children need to be carefully evaluated,
acclimated and trained in order to insure a safe situation. In my opinion it is never,
ever safe to have children alone in a home with the expectation that a dog will
provide security and protection; there are just too many ways for a situation to spin

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out of control with tragic consequences. Exactly when a child evolves into a young
person able to deal with such a situation is of course difficult to discern, and a source
of anxiety for every parent with kids and dogs.
Finally, effective utilization of a guard dog in the home should be as part of good
overall security plan. People, especially breeders, sometimes pander a dog as an
overall solution, saying that with one of their wonder dogs on duty you no longer
need to worry about locking your doors. This is nonsense, and more specifically
dangerous and stupid nonsense. If doors and windows are secured, then the time
and noise of breaking and entering will likely rouse the dog prior to entry. Once in
the house the intruder has a lot more at stake and is much more likely to shoot, stab
or club the dog, and no dog can ever be sure of defeating a man, especially one with
a weapon.

The Personal Protection Dog

Searching the internet for personal protection dogs brings forth page after page
of evocative full color photos, friendly, handsome dogs lounging in upscale family
settings side by side with pseudo fierce dogs lunging at the whip wielding man with a
protection sleeve. Warnings of rampant crime on the streets, abductions and home
invasions are standard fare; all of which are best repulsed by an elite personal
protection dog from their secret European sources or exclusive wonder dog breeding
program. For those with the need for more, and the implied prestige, there is of
course the executive protection dog. Price is usually not mentioned up front – and
varies over an enormous range. Many of the dogs are trained European imports,
sometimes with an actual KNPV or IPO title and sometimes pandered as "trained for"
without the actual title, leading the skeptic to wonder what does actually happen to
all of the dogs that wash out of Euro training programs.
But the reality can be quite different. A few years ago I had the opportunity to
buy a European dog for a very low price, a few hundred dollars, but was advised not
to. A little later the dog was featured by one of these dealers as a $50,000 executive
protection dog, and still later the dog was relinquished to a rescue operation out
west. While I doubt that anybody actually paid anything near the asking price for this
particular dog, it is unfortunately within the realm of the possible: difficult as it may
be to believe people do actually get taken in by such things.
So, what, exactly, is a personal protection dog?
So many sorts of dog with such diverse background and training are given the
designation that it means virtually nothing about the attributes, potential, state of
training or usefulness of the dog. Unfortunately, there are no universal criteria or
credible, objective standards that could lend legitimacy or establish value. There are
no licensing requirements for trainers and dealers and no realistic certification
programs, and the people involved like it this way. The consequence is that dogs are
sold for whatever the market will bear, often at incredible, even astonishing prices.
In the police dog market brokers or breeders generally establish an ongoing
relationship with their customers, deal with experienced police handlers or
administrators who understand training, deployment and market value. When they
deliver an inadequate dog they are expected to make good, and the broker who
misrepresents or fails to stand behind his dogs quickly comes to have a poor
reputation, making it more difficult to sell to any police agency. Even when the
recipient is wrong, that is when the dissatisfaction is in his perception rather than the
quality of the dog, most vendors will cheerfully provide a replacement because it is
just plain good business. The civilian market however consists of less sophisticated
customers, little repeat business and relatively little contact among the usually
clueless customer population, which means that there is much less impact of a poor

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reputation. Bad police dog suppliers tend to go out of business quickly, suppliers of
poor personal protection dogs can go on finding new marks perpetually.
Thus there is an enormous range in terms of honesty, competence and quality
among those offering personal protection dogs. Many skilled police level trainers also
serve a select civilian market, and are generally reputable and deliver good dogs and
training, but there are also numerous con men whose business is living off of the
gullible, naive and ignorant.
In addition to these commercial vendors there are all sorts of people playing
around in back yards, training mostly having to do with macho posturing and fun
with the dogs rather than selling dogs or services. Much of this activity is amateur
and informal, individuals and small groups getting together with a sleeve or training
tug and playing at what they like to call personal protection, putting up endless
videos on the internet of dogs on a harness jumping up and down in front of a guy
waving a sleeve. Adult refreshments and dramatic music for the internet video
generally contribute to the atmosphere. Sometimes these are people unwilling or
unable to prepare for a serious sport trial, or have dogs which might seem animated
or even aggressive but in reality are not confident and strong enough for the longer
distance engagements with a strong decoy or stable enough to demonstrate
impartiality in the presence of passive people or other dogs
In many ways a legitimate, serious personal protection dog is equivalent to a top
end police dog; that is a vigorous German Shepherd or Malinois with advanced
training including food refusal, serious distraction work and intense control under
realistic conditions of stress and unknown surroundings. The primary difference from
a police dog would generally be less emphasis on the long distance pursuits,
searching and tracking, although these things can be part of the package. Such a
fully trained and tested dog will cost upwards of ten thousand dollars, roughly the
price of a good street ready police dog, although many people out there will take
more, much more, from those gullible enough to give it up. But this is just the
upfront money; in order to utilize such a dog effectively the owner must be
personally equivalent to a good police canine handler or hire someone who is. In the
longer term the dog will require ongoing maintenance training and testing costing
thousands of dollars yearly.
A good watch or guard dog in the yard and a shotgun or hunting rifle in the front
hall closet has been the foundation of rural American security, and for most of us
remains perfectly viable today. The reality is that few of us need, can afford or are
able to effectively deploy much more than the ordinary watch or guard dog; the so
called personal protection dog thus often being little more than conspicuous
consumption, a status symbol.
But there are a few people, such as those in a sensitive political or corporate
office, which actually can be in danger from powerful, far-reaching adversaries such
as a major criminal organization or terrorist group. Those susceptible to abduction or
kidnapping, or with similarly vulnerable families, may well find that a good dog or
several dogs may be part of an integrated security solution, but dogs in and of
themselves cannot provide stand-alone security. Such things are well beyond the
scope of this book and my area of competence; it is sufficient to point out that those
in real need are well advised to seek out appropriate professional services, and to be
very careful about how they go about selecting them. What I can say for certain is
that if someone is trying to sell you a dog to provide this level of security you are
being conned, and much more than your money is at stake.
The fundamental problem is that there are no standards, since there is no
licensing system literally anyone can hang out a shingle or tack up a diploma from a
mail order school and become a professional protection dog trainer. Sometimes dogs
are taken in for several weeks, given just enough perfunctory training to support a

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demo of the dog on a short lead lunging at someone waving a sleeve, perhaps the
kid who had been "working" him all week. The reality is that such dogs often offer
relatively little in the way of enhanced protection, and the business is based on the
fact that the customer is generally unable to evaluate and understand what has been
done to his dog and what can realistically be expected should a confrontation occur.
In summary, a good dog properly selected, raised and trained can be a real asset
to family security as a watch dog or medium level guard dog without excessive
expense, inconvenience or changes to life style; many family companions function
effectively in this way. Those with a higher level of risk, a business executive under
kidnapping or assignation threat, personally or for the family, may benefit from a
comprehensive professional solution, which may very well include a good dog in
addition to other protective measures. Such a situation is going to involve a lot of
money, and the most difficult step is to determine who to trust, for there are many
less than marginal vendors offering services, and the risk of poorly spent money is
small in comparison to a failure to protect when a threat actually materializes, for
there may be no second chance.

The Area or Premise Protection Dog

Beyond police applications and family or personal protection, dogs historically
have been used to protect business or industrial premises, at the crudest level the
old-fashioned junkyard dog. Often such dogs were provided as a service, being
dropped off in the evening at the close of business and picked up in the morning. In
addition to the proverbial junk yard, such dogs were used by automobile dealerships,
department stores, factories, warehouses and other places of business where there
was a need for nighttime security by unsupervised dogs roaming the premises. The
primary requirement of such a dog is that he be loud and threatening so as to deter
a potential adversary, that he be constantly on the move rather than finding himself
some secure nook to sleep in and finally that he make good on his threats with a
strong reaction to any intruder; reputation is essential to the effectiveness of such a
program, a rapidly spreading word on the street after an incident is the best long
term deterrent.
But such applications are diminishing because of the effectiveness of modern
electronic alarm and surveillance services and because of the potential for legal
repercussions. The legal liability and consequent insurance expense tends to expand
as the courts become more likely to regard aggressive dogs as a disproportionate
response to the threat of theft and vandalism, reasoning similar to that which makes
booby traps, such as a trip line on a fixed shotgun, illegal in most jurisdictions.
Accidents, the employee with a key returning for a personal item for instance, also
are a potential problem. The supplier's expenses in terms of vehicles, gasoline and
employee expenses for the larger vendors, and especially their own insurance costs,
render the nighttime guard dog increasingly problematic.
Technology has been a huge agent of change; electronic intrusion detection and
very cost effective and reliable television surveillance means that all areas of a plant
can be under observation from central, remote locations many miles away.
Sophisticated motion detectors can bring an incident to the attention of the people in
the central control site, who can quickly bring the scene up on one or several
television monitors and summon local security personnel or the police as necessary.
From the business owner’s point of view, police intervention is far preferable to a
response by a dog or an employee, for all of the legal liability and potential bad
publicity falls on the agency. This is socially desirable in that our system is based on
police intervention rather than private action, which can quickly evolve or be
perceived as evolving into vengeance.

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13 The Police Dog

Although intrusion alert and defense of

the primitive band, farm or village were
almost certainly canine functions from the
beginning, at the dawn of the agricultural
age, the formal police dog as we know it
today is a relatively recent innovation,
created in response to the Industrial
Revolution and the consequent influx of
farm labor for work in burgeoning
industrial and urban areas. This process,
commencing in the middle 1800s, caused
radical changes in the way of life of much
of Europe, particularly in nations such as
England, Germany and Belgium where it
originated and prospered.
As a consequence of this rapid
industrialization the population gravitated
to ever expanding cities, drawn from the
countryside by the jobs of burgeoning
urban industrial neighborhoods.
Concurrent changes in rural areas,
specifically labor saving innovations such
as the tractor and other forms of
mechanized farming, further encouraged
this urban migration.
The replacement of sailing ships with steam powered vessels not only created the
demand for shipbuilding and manufactured products; it made practical the large-
scale importation of agricultural products such as mutton and wool, driving prices
and domestic production inexorably down, greatly reducing and eventually
eliminating the need for shepherds and their dogs in places such as Belgium and
much of the rest of industrial Europe. This ongoing urbanization put ever-increasing
demands on civil authorities for security, social order and law enforcement in an
environment of expanding expectations of justice and civil liberty. A primary
response to these needs was the evolution of the uniformed police patrol, which also
created new roles for these displaced herding dogs.
Thus at the turn of the twentieth century, beginning in Belgium and then
Germany1, the police dog evolved to provide security and project authority for police
officers on foot patrol in an era of rapidly expanding, rough and tumble working class
neighborhoods. These concepts and programs, and imported dogs, soon began to
spread to America and the rest of the world. In this era there were few motor
1
The precedence of the Belgian program is acknowledged by von Stephanitz:
"The splendid experience when training our dogs, and the reports of the Press of Foreign
Countries about the trials made with Belgian shepherd dogs in the Security Service of
the Police, encouraged the SV, as early as 1901, to suggest similar trials to the German
Police Administration." (von Stephanitz, 1925)p325

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vehicles and no radio communication; the urban law enforcement officer was
generally alone and on foot, and thus vulnerable, especially at night. Prior to
widespread street lighting especially, a good dog was an enormous enhancement to
foot patrol officer security and effectiveness. Such a dog could routinely alert to
hidden adversaries through the sense of smell, acute hearing and night vision, and
provide physical deterrence as well as early warning. A strong dog projects fear and
demands respect, and can deter an overtly violent conflict and thus affect a
resolution short of a physical engagement.
Over the twentieth century the police dog role continually evolved, driven by
societal change, advancement in firearm technology and availability, a transition to
vehicle based deployment and the emergence of ever more effective two-way radio
communication systems. The transition of police service from primarily foot patrol to
vehicle-based deployment transformed police operations and necessitated a virtual
reinvention of the police canine function. Indeed, the advent of the radio equipped
police squad car in the early 1950's brought the initial era of the American police dog
to an abrupt close, but in time also served as the foundation for a new service
paradigm emphasizing the olfactory based search and substance detection
capabilities.
Today security and deterrence remain as primary canine functions, but this is
more often in situations of officer initiated contact, as in a building search or an
active pursuit of a crime suspect, tasks without a direct civilian counterpart. Although
relatively few contemporary officers walk a beat, patrol car or light truck based
canine units are in ever-increasing demand for applications such as substance
detection, criminal apprehension, building searches, tracking and officer security.
Increasing emphasis on the olfactory capacity for substance detection, primarily
drugs and explosives, resulting in the modern dual-purpose police dog, has driven
canine deployment expansion in the past several decades, in military as well as
police service.
Although the technology was slow to emerge, police use of radio communication
for command and control has always employed advanced technology because of the
enormous tactical advantage, immediate communication with officers in the field
greatly extending the reach of law enforcement. In the early years vacuum tubes
required voltages much higher than supplied by a vehicle battery and the installation
of the equipment involved extensive modification to the vehicle. Nevertheless,
experiments with broadcast or one-way radio began in the later 1920s and there
were some tentative pre WWII implementations of prototype two-way radio systems.
In this era radio communication was expensive, fragile and limited by the availability
of suitable radio channels. WWII brought rapid technological advancement, such as
the famous backpack "Walkie-Talkie" units carried by a combat infantryman, among
many other consequences rendering the military messenger dog obsolete. Early
systems utilized a single frequency both inbound and outbound and depended on a
powerful base station with a good antenna installation to provide coverage 1 This
meant that at any moment only a single officer could talk to a central dispatcher and
officer-to-officer communication was generally through repeat transmission by the
dispatcher. Once out of the patrol vehicle the officer was on his own, beyond direct
communication and thus much more vulnerable.
Police dog deployment strategy and radio communication advancements have
always been intertwined. Although the transition to radio dispatched squad cars
contributed to the demise of existing American canine programs after WWII, the
reemergence of the police dog has been facilitated by modern communications
1
Modern systems rely on multiple base stationed shared channel or trunking systems
with much less radiated power per transmitter.

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systems which enable rapid deployment response and direct tactical, that is, officer
to officer, communication. Radio equipped vehicle based canine teams can be
dispatched as needed, making the service much more cost effective in that a few
well managed canine patrol units can provide timely support throughout a city or
district.1
When firearms were expensive, unreliable and required great practice and skill to
muzzle load for a single shot, the dog was a significant enhancement to offensive
potential and a formidable weapon. Although revolvers had replaced muzzle-loading
pistols, late in the nineteenth century the urban patrol officer was typically armed
only with a club or baton and a whistle to sound an alarm or summon help. A good
dog was an enormous step up in terms of offensive potential and officer security. But
today in the age of high power semi-automatic firearms with enormous magazine
capacity and quick reloading, the canine bite is a relatively low tech, secondary
component of the police arsenal.
Social change as well as technical progress has had a profound effect on police
canine training and deployment. In the early years the patrol officer – and his dog –
had a relatively free hand; for the working class especially there was often little
practical recourse for police actions and tactics. But over time the expanding
expectation of legal and civil rights for all elements of society – rather than
entrenched elites – made effective law enforcement strategy ever more complex and
demanding. Today every police officer and police dog engagement is subject to
intensive scrutiny by increasingly rights oriented civilians, and often such encounters
are video recorded. It is an ongoing struggle for police dog breeding, training and
deployment strategy to cope with these ever-expanding expectations.
In summary, the primary original motivation for the deployment of the police dog
was enhancement of the personal security and effectiveness of the foot patrolman,
generally unarmed, in an era before radio communication or even the street corner
call box. Especially at night or in the rougher districts the presence of the dog
provided security through physical deterrence and as a second set of eyes and ears
to give warning of danger, buying the seconds that can make the critical difference in
the outcome of an engagement. In an actual attack on an officer, the dog becomes a
powerful adversary able to create diversion and encourage an aggressor to flee or
submit to minimize his losses. The twentieth century would see enormous changes in
police function in response to technological innovation and societal evolution. In
order to survive and remain cost effective the police dog would take on new
functions, unforeseeable in the beginning. But even today the enormous quickness,
power and raw intimidation of the police dog remain fundamental to his utility and
service.

1
As a slightly ironic side note, my professional engineering career was with Motorola, the
pioneering firm in the development of mobile police radio equipment, a key contributor
to the effectiveness of the modern police patrol vehicle and thus in a way a contribution
to the end of the inaugural era of American police canine service.

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The Early Years
There are sporadic references to police style canine applications, emphasizing
aggression and intimidation, going back to the Greek and Roman eras and even
earlier. Among the earliest instances of more or less modern police deployment was
provisional use of a few dogs for riot control in the German village of Hildesheim in
1886, conducted by Police Captain Schoenherr, who later became head of the
Prussian governmental breeding program and the Instruction School of Service Dogs
at Grunheide, near Berlin.1
The modern era of European police canine
service and the police breeds emerged
concurrently, with a tipping point in both
Belgium and Germany at the turn of the
twentieth century. Notable milestones include
the first formal deployment program in Ghent,
Belgium and the commencement of German
Shepherd registration in Germany. Although
these events have by accident of history – and
the efforts of a couple of master public
relations men – gained the lion's share of the
historian's ink the movement was broad and
inclusive, and prospered primarily because the
time had come.
The first formal, full scale police canine
operation was in Ghent2, Belgium begun in
1899 under the direction of Chief
Commissioner Ernest van Wesemael. This
program began with ten Belgian herder style
dogs, which increased to forty dogs the next
year and then sixty night patrol dogs by 1908.
(Vickery, 1984) The motivation was to enhance
police officer security and authority in night
patrol; increasing numbers of industrial
Ghent, Belgium. Circa 1907
Note coat on dog & muzzle. workers naturally gravitated to and created
rough neighborhoods and districts where maintenance of law and order was difficult.
One officer and a good dog was much more cost effective than patrolling in pairs for
reasons of security and safety. As shown in the photo, the dogs were often muzzled
and provided protection from the elements. Contrary to most modern practice, in
which the dogs generally live full time with their handlers, the dogs resided in a
central kennel and were deployed on nightly foot patrol to enhance officer security
and authority.
Photos from this era show a few much larger dogs with an apparent mastiff style
background; these are unusual and do not seem to have persisted. Although Bouvier
des Flandres registration would not commence in a serious way for another twenty
years, photos show some of these Ghent dogs to be clearly in the Bouvier style, with
others more of the Belgian Shepherd type.

1
(Humphrey & Warner, 1934) p3
2
A problem in European nomenclature is that the spelling of geographical entities varies
according to language. Ghent is the common English reference to the city which is Gent
in Flemish, Dutch and German; the French would be Gand. Gent often appears in
translations.

321
 While the Ghent program is rightly
regarded as the first, the reality is that
this was an idea whose time had come and
pioneers in several nations, especially
Konrad Most, were rapidly moving in this
direction. The Belgians were adept at
promotion and publicity, as evidenced by
the substantial written records,
photographs and press coverage that have
come down to us. Many departments
around the world sent representatives to
observe, and many went home with
inspiration and young dogs, generally of
the Belgian Malinois type. The Belgian
cities of Antwerp, Mons, Bruges and
Ostend among others quickly followed the
example of Ghent by establishing their
own programs, and a German Minister of
the Interior sent a Police Commissary,
whose favorable report encouraged
German participation. (Chapman, Police
Dogs, 1990) Several American
departments, including New York City,
South Orange, New Jersey and Muncie,
Bouvier style Ghent Police dog Circa 1899 Indiana are recorded as importing dogs
Significant Bouvier des Flandres registration from the Ghent program before 1910.
would not commence for another (Vickery, 1984)
generation, after WW I in the 1920s
Sadly, this was very short lived. The
Ghent program, and Belgian police
breeding and deployment in general, were devastated during WWI; the invading
Germans commandeered the Ghent kennel facility and ran it for their own canine
program, taking what they wanted and in the end destroying much of what
remained.
After the war the Ghent canine corps no longer existed in any recognizable form,
and police administration was restructured without the night police as they had
previously existed, allowing only a few dogs in service, which finally disappeared with
the advent of motorized patrol. This situation persisted until 1979, when a new
canine program began, originally using primarily German Shepherds, and there were
even attempts to train dogs taken from the pound. (De Caluwe, 1995)
Somehow these references to German Shepherds serving in the Ghent, Belgium
police force in the contemporary era did not at first seem to pass the common sense
test, but Europeans with first-hand knowledge have verified this and I have 1985
photos of in uniform Ghent police handlers with German Shepherds. Today the Ghent
canine unit is made up of Malinois, but the WWI German atrocity had pushed Belgian
police agencies and the Malinois from the forefront for most of a century, even in
homeland police canine programs.
If the Belgians were first the Germans were not far behind, being early and
strong contributors to the modern police dog heritage. Colonel Konrad Most, a
prominent German police trainer and administrator published his world famous
Training Dogs, a Manual in 1910. Colonel Most had become active in police dog
training in 1906 while serving as Police Commissioner at the Royal Prussian Police
Headquarters located in Saarbrücken . In the years prior to WWII he was involved in
government breeding and training operations in Berlin and developed methods and
deployment concepts for police patrol and tracking dogs. As an example, his

322
elaborate experimental work and research provide the foundation of the crushed
vegetation concept of tracking, the practical basis of most modern tracing. (Gerritsen
& Haak, 2001)
During WWI Most served in high-level staff posts for the German Army and then
in the period between the wars until 1937 was in charge of the Canine Research
Department for the Army, and after WWII, toward the end of his life, was involved in
training dogs for the blind.
It is fashionable in some quasi academic and play training circles to disparage
Colonel Most, and implicitly Koehler, who is regarded as of the same school.
Nevertheless, among serious people in the field there is an enormous amount of
respect:
"Shortly after the turn of the century, and 28 years before the publication
of The Behavior of Organisms (Skinner, 1938), an obscure dog trainer in
Germany was busy discovering the basic principles of behavior and
describing their application in training service dogs. Colonel Konrad Most, a
police commissioner at the Royal Prussian Police Headquarters, anticipated
many of Skinner's key concepts in his book. A pioneer in animal training,
Most showed an understanding of the key elements of operant conditioning
including primary and secondary reinforcement, extinction, shaping,
fading, chaining, and negative conditioning (punishment). Most began
training service dogs in 1906 while police commissioner in Saarbrücken.
The Most book continues to be recognized as an authoritative source for
canine training throughout Europe." (Burch & Pickel, 1990)
Perhaps even more telling, Humphrey and Warner, in their report on the famous
Fortunate Fields project in Switzerland, an extensive research program into scientific
working dog breeding, which evolved into the American Seeing Eye program of
Dorothy Eustis, make extensive reference to the academic work of Colonel Most.
(Humphrey & Warner, 1934)
The first formal police canine units in the United States were in New York City
and South Orange, New Jersey beginning in 1907. Other early programs were in
Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Detroit and Berkeley, California. (Chapman, Police Dogs,
1990) There were short-lived state police operations in Pennsylvania and
Connecticut.
The New York program began in 1907 when the City Police Department sent
Inspector George R. Wakefield to Paris and Ghent, Belgium in order to evaluate the
practicality of setting up a canine operation of their own. Wakefield was apparently
quite impressed with the Ghent program, actually going on patrol and observing
training, and returned with five untrained year old Belgian Shepherds as a foundation
for the incipient New York program.1(Dyer, 1915)
In these years the New York canine program was quite active, with further
imports of shepherd dogs from Belgium and a small number of Airedale terriers,
augmented by various local acquisitions. The primary deployment was in relatively
prosperous residential areas with a focus on the suppression of burglary and pushing
muggers and thieves out of these neighborhoods. The dogs accompanied officers on
foot patrol, often if not always muzzled, and working off lead to seek out potential
criminals lurking in yards and allies.

1
It is interesting to note how frugal the beginnings were: The total cost of the trip and
acquisition was $364.84, which included $50 for all five dogs; $132 for fare to and from
Belgium; $48 for board; $3 for cabs; $25.60 for incidental expenses incurred while
looking for the dogs; $6.60 for three crates; $50 for freight; $10 for duty; and $2.65 for
a book on training police dogs.

323
 New York police canine unit on parade, circa 1910.

The New York program was the most successful in America in this era, persisting
through WWII in good and bad times from 1907 until 1951. According to Chapman,
the end of the canine program coincided with the advent of the radio-equipped patrol
car. While the dog had proven effective for the officer on the beat, the day of the
canine unit incorporating a patrol vehicle was still in the future. New York would not
resume canine service until 1982. (Chapman, Police Dogs in America, 1979)
As an interesting and revealing sidelight, from a 1911 newspaper report on the
New York program:
"The canines were taught to trip a person by wrapping their front legs
around one of the suspect’s legs, grasping tightly and throwing the suspect
to the ground. The dogs were then taught to pounce on the suspect and
bark until an officer arrived."
(Chapman, Police Dogs, 1990)
Although our knowledge of deployment strategy and training in this era is
incomplete, the available material indicates that the dogs were generally muzzled
and often off lead in order to search away from the officer on foot, seeking out
potential burglars, muggers or other such men. Most references talk of night patrol
and although this might not have been universal it seems to have been the primary
motivation for the police dog. The practice of muzzling the dogs was apparently to
prevent inadvertent injury to upright citizens, since the dogs were often out of sight
or direct physical handler control. This was a time with much less vehicular traffic or
street lighting, providing more cover for the criminal and much less dangerous for
the dog in terms of vehicle traffic. (Most of these comments, and the available
reference material, have to do with the New York program. Other agencies may have
had other strategies and policies.)
In general these American police dog programs were run on a shoe string:
tentative, small and lacking in long-term significance. Obtaining backing to start a
program was one thing, but each change in civilian or police administration required
backing of the new office holders, which might drop a program to free up funds for
other uses.

324
 For three years after the close of
the New York program in 1951, there
were no known canine units in
existence in America. This marked the
end of the initial era of police canine
service, one that never went beyond
the provisional or experimental stage
and in the overall scheme of things
had only minor impact on police
operations in general. In this early era
only twelve cities and two states,
predominantly east coast, had police
canine units, often existing for only a
year or two. Combining this with the
fact that we had no military program
in WWI and the abandonment of
military canine operations in the
general winding down after WWII and
it becomes apparent that in terms of
culture and capability America was
simply not ready for the effective
widespread deployment of canine
units, either for the military or police
service.
As a broad generality, the early
European motivation for canine
service was dogs in the rougher
industrial districts, where the focus
was on projecting authority and
maintaining law and order, while in
America there was more emphasis on
Dutch Police officer and dog, 1910. deployment in more prosperous
Note sword on bike. neighborhoods in order to deter and
drive out the transient criminal
element, this resulting in more sensitivity to public perceptions of control and more
benign force.
The British had pioneered the purebred concept and the elaborate, pretentious
dog show, and many Europeans of the era tended to perceive the English breeds as
the more fashionable and sophisticated. In Germany the general desire for police
canine service became more compelling after about 1870; various types and styles
of dogs, such as British Collies and Airedales, were put forth as candidates for police
and military service.
But eventually the trend would be strongly to the herders, both in Germany and
elsewhere, such as the German Shepherd and the various Belgian herding varieties
such as the Bouvier, Groenendael and the Malinois. Even today, there is an
occasional unusual breed, but the German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois
predominate.1 It must be kept in mind that these herding breeds simply did not exist
in a formal way prior to about 1890 for the Malinois and 1900 for the German
Shepherd. Certainly the foundation stock was at work in the fields, meadows and
1
This is of course relevant to the general purpose patrol dog, many breeds, generally less
aggressive, are used for search and rescue or single purpose drug, explosive and
accelerant detection.

325
pastures, but somehow seemed invisible for the want of fancy kennel names and
registration numbers written down in a sacred book.
In general the Germans believed implicitly that a police or military dog must be
of a recognized formal breed. On the other hand the Belgians, in Ghent at least, as
evidenced by the many photos, were from the beginning open to many sorts of
regional dogs. Germany – young, evolving and stridently nationalist – apparently
was excessively focused on racial purity even in this era. Even today these attitudes
persist, for in order to compete in Germany, in IPO, a dog must have a valid FCI
registration, while the Dutch police dogs are what they do on the field and while the
Belgian NVBK dog must be registered, it is more or less a formality.
Although the origins of the Airedale are British, it was the Germans who actually
pioneered the breeding and use of larger and more man aggressive specimens for
military and police applications; and there was a also great deal of early German
interest in the English Collie. This was in an era, before 1890, when the German
Shepherd was unknown, his progenitors in obscurity, serving the shepherds in fields
and meadows with the sheep.
There were a number of reasons for the eventual predominance of the herding
breeds rather than the traditional Mastiffs or Molossers that had such a long history
and evolution for area guarding and human aggression applications. The herders
were of medium size and thus more economical and easy to maintain, yet capable of
intimidating an adversary as required. Because they were generally with the herd
year round in all weather, these dogs evolved coats, metabolism and structure well
adapted to the outdoor life.
The energy, and thus the destructive power, of a projectile is proportional to the
mass or weight multiplied by the square of the velocity. This means that doubling the
muzzle velocity makes the destructive power four times greater. This is why modern
military weapons, such as the M-16, employ a relatively light but high muzzle
velocity projectile producing maximum destructive power with minimum weight. This
allows the infantryman to carry many more rounds of ammunition.
In a similar way, the more intense medium size dog can be as intimating and
effective as a more massive dog, yet more agile in the chase or search and of
greater endurance. Such a dog is more comfortable and adaptable to smaller
vehicles and generally retains this physical fitness and agility to an older age, thus
extending the effective service life of the dog. This can greatly increase the overall
cost effectiveness of a program.
The herding dog heritage, especially in the tending style breeds, incorporates an
instinctive sense that there is a time to disengage as well as engage, that it is the
protection of the flock that is essential rather than simply the defeat of a particular
predator. This is enormously useful in the control aspects of the police dog, such as
the release on command and the call off. Just as the herd guardian needs to break
off an engagement and allow a predator to flee so as to maintain herd security, the
police dog needs to be able to disengage when the adversary is defeated or the
handler intervenes. Police dog examinations generally require a dog to go to the bark
and hold when the adversary halts and stands still rather than directly engaging, but
in actual service this is often irrelevant in that few suspects are really going to lock
up and stand still, the dog will in most instances find a reason to engage. Training
and deployment strategy for suspect searches is a subject of ongoing debate and
contention today, driven by political and public relations considerations as well as
tactical realities.
Just as the police officer wears a uniform so as to be immediately identified by
the general public, a relatively uniform and consistent appearance of his dog came to
be regarded as important. Indeed, the ubiquitous use of the German Shepherd
throughout the world caused this breed to be known by many simply as the police

326
dog, and for that reason alone is often the first choice in breeds. The Malinois,
making great strides in deployment in Europe and America, is similar enough in
appearance to the German Shepherd to be perceived by most people as a plausible
police dog based on appearance. For this and various other reasons, other breeds
are increasingly rare in mainstream police patrol dog service today.

The Scales of Justice

From the beginning police canine service was aggressively promoted, especially
by various breed advocates such as von Stephanitz and the Doberman community.
Much of this was straightforward and positive, but some of it was over the top and at
times bordered on the outlandish. As an example, beginning in 1909 the SV 1 began
offering a one Mark reward to the handler of a German Shepherd "solving" a
homicide case, paying out 18 times over the next year and a half.2
These promotional efforts were generally well received and popular and thus
effective, and police dog exploits, especially as involved in the solution of dramatic
crimes, began to gain more and more press enthusiasm, especially when the exploits
of a dog could be portrayed as "solving the case" through following a track or trail or
selecting a perpetrator from among a group of candidates. There is, unfortunately, a
long history, in Europe and America, of canine exploits being aided by indicating to
the handler the expected end of the track, the presence of the drugs or the right
man in the lineup.
But the role of the police is to exonerate the innocent as well as to apprehend
and convict the guilty, and when public and press plaudits become a disproportionate
driving force one thing can quickly lead to another. When a handler or police
authority has a suspect in mind, or is under pressure to make an arrest, the dog can
be cued and encouraged, unconsciously or maliciously, to select the "right man."
Even today it is not uncommon for men to be released after many years in prison
because police manipulation of evidence or a compelled false confession has been
uncovered.
By 1913 this sort of a thing came to a head in Germany when controlled
experiments, scientific investigation, notably by Konrad Most of the Berlin police,
demonstrated that because of primitive training and handling, and enthusiasm for
the arrest and press attention, rendered such results erratic and open to question.
The Berlin police conducted these tests beginning in 1913, and then more
extensively after the war. (Haak & Gerritsen, 2007)p28
Von Stephanitz, ever the public relations man, had a differing view:
"Even though, when the Government took up the question of the Police
dog, Police Lieut. Most, (the well-known author of some papers on
Training, who succeeded Major Klein), showed some biased unwillingness
with regard to the use of the dogs in detective service3, this did no real
harm; on the contrary, it gave an impetus to the work of all convinced
believers in the possibilities of the service of the dog in this very respect."
(von Stephanitz, 1925)p325
This remark, the only reference to Most in the 700 page book, is telling. Max von
Stephanitz was not in the business of publicizing or promoting other breeds or
sharing the limelight, and Konrad Most, an advocate of the Doberman, which he bred
1
German Shepherd club in Germany
2
(Haak & Gerritsen, 2007)p26
3
Detective service here means searching, tracking, canine selection from a line up and
other olfactory service.

327
under the von der Sarr kennel name1 and was active in demonstrations and
seminars, and also the author of the most notable training book of the era, was a
very important man. (See the biography of Most in an appendix.)

Modern Deployment Strategies

As previously mentioned, by the early
1950s the American police dog – always
a marginal factor in police service – had
gone extinct, primarily because of the
transition from foot patrol to mobile
deployment and the advent of the radio
dispatched patrol vehicle. Canine service
would not reappear with any vigor until
new needs and roles were identified and
cost justified a decade or so later.
Ironically enough, the mobility and reach
of the radio dispatched patrol vehicle
would in coming years enable a new
paradigm, where rather than supporting
an individual officer on a beat a vehicle
based canine team would respond –
The German Shepherd dog was quickly be where needed – often in
predominant in police service throughout
minutes. In principle such teams provide
the twentieth century.
backup and ancillary services, such as
drug detection or building search
potential, to every officer on the street, rather than just those with a dog of their
own. This has proven to be a remarkably successful and cost effective strategy.
As police programs gradually began to reemerge in the later fifties and especially
the sixties, there were new priorities and missions. One of these was crowd control,
but police excesses in responding to civil rights conflicts, particularly in the American
South, ultimately had a negative impact, causing a second major downturn in the
use of the police canine, with many units curtailed or eliminated entirely because of
adverse public perception and reaction. Police oppression is never pretty, and
snarling dogs and fire hoses on American streets came to be emblematic of an ugly
chapter in our history. In retrospect this was a major setback in American canine
deployment, for the strategy and motivation simply did not match up with the
realities of the time, training and discipline were insufficient and most importantly
media driven public perception was increasingly negative.
The Vietnam war was a turning point, marked the advent of an era of expansion,
a revival of police canine service. There were several factors leading to this:
 Military canine service in Vietnam had been and was perceived as very
effective.
 The level of press and television coverage had generated a great deal of
public awareness and acceptance.
 Illegal drug distribution was coming to be perceived as serious national
priority, and drug detection had proven effective in Vietnam.

1
(Schmidt, 1935)

328
 Many experienced veterans, including canine handlers and trainers, were
reentering the civilian workforce. Although very few of the dogs returned1 the
knowledge and experience necessary to identify, acquire and train effective dogs
provided a foundation for a reemerging police canine service.
Although the original roles of officer security and criminal apprehension
remained, they became secondary to the use of the remarkable olfactory, hearing
and night vision capabilities, enabling the dog to seek out the hidden or unexpected
adversary or those lost and in need of help. Tracking and area searches, especially
building searches, which had been an incidental or secondary function from the
beginning, took on more and more importance.
Beyond this, substance detection, primarily drugs and explosives or bombs,
brought an entirely new dimension to the utility of the police canine. In the
perception of mainstream middle America drug usage emerged from the exotic
neighborhoods of New York and San Francisco in the post-Vietnam era to become a
primary focus of law enforcement, a crusade ideally matched to police canine
capabilities. Subsequent to the Vietnam War searching for hidden substances such as
drugs, fire scene accelerants, cadavers or explosives became the driving force behind
the expansion of police canine units.
Thus while citizen and officer security retains high priority during an actual
engagement, today the primary function, and cost justification, has tended to be
oriented to search and substance detection. Because of the specialized nature and
extensive, time-consuming training the modern canine team normally serves as a
resource for the entire city or district. The mobile canine team is typically deployed
on routine patrol, but available to be dispatched by radio to support any other unit,
that is provide a drug search, backup in a confrontation or building search.
Thus in a way, since most officers do not have a dog, protection has become an
ancillary or secondary role in conjunction with the search and detection services. Of
course, a successful area or building search will often result in an arrest, and the
presence of the dog can be a significant factor in maintaining control and in the
worst case of an attack on the handler the dog can come to his aid. The dog is
generally trained to respond to a direct attack on his own initiative, without specific
command of the handler. This self-initiated defensive response is of course the
natural instinct of a good patrol dog, carefully nurtured through breeding selection
and training. But it is a double-edged sword, and the handler must provide the
tactical oversight and control to avoid putting the dog in the position of making an
inappropriate engagement in circumstances that he cannot be expected to
comprehend.
Upon arrival at a crime scene, the perpetrator is unlikely to step forward, politely
make introductions and offer his hands to be cuffed. Especially if not in plain sight,
he is a potential danger to the officer and others present; a dog can very effectively
search the immediate area to detect and perhaps apprehend a suspect. Once the
scene is secured, it is the function of the police officer to gather evidence necessary
for a successful prosecution. Here again the dog can be an effective aid, bringing
attention to small objects such as a gun casing or shell, hidden in the grass or
elsewhere. In the Dutch police trials, one exercise involves dropping two small metal
objects, such as a coin or machine screw, in a grass area approximately ten by thirty
meters. The dog must on his own search to find both objects and bring them to the
handler. The same grass area is used by all of the dogs participating in the trial. (An
alternative practical protocol might be to have the dog indicate the article so that it
could be examined and perhaps photographed in the original setting.)

1
A shameful episode of our military history to be covered in the next chapter.

329
 A fundamental reality of police operations is that the normal reaction of the
criminal when the police arrive on scene, or at the end of a car chase, is to flee on
foot, sometimes with dramatic helicopter news coverage. If the subject can get out
of sight, even for a few moments, he can often disappear into the city streets or
countryside and thus be out of reach, with the potential to commit further crimes. If
he goes into hiding, he is likely in familiar territory and has the potential to wait out
the police.
The police dog can be extremely effective in such situations, outrun and bring
down the fleeing man or quickly locate and detain a suspect hiding in a field or a
ditch. Wall climbs and broad jumps are part of all training and trial regimens in
recognition of the fact that agility in the chase is fundamental to the realities of the
patrol function. When the suspect gets out of sight even for a few moments the
pursuing officer is in danger of failing in the chase, for there are so many places the
man could have gone, but the dog uses his nose as well as his eyes and ears and
quickly takes the right path. A man fleeing an officer alone can go to ground, hide
almost any place, and have a chance of remaining quiet and leaving later, but a
handler and dog team is likely to go directly to the hiding suspect. Even when the
fleeing suspect has been gone for minutes or even hours the patrol dog can often
track him down and apprehend him or show where he has gone.

Aggression and Discipline

In the early years of canine deployment aggression was the primary persona of
the police dog from the perspective of the street officer, the suspected criminal and
the public at large. Enhancement of foot patrol security and projected authority was
the essence of the original justification in terms of cost effectiveness and of law and
order. Although search and substance detection roles have taken on increasing
importance in recent years, and justified much of the rapid expansion of canine
service, most police dogs today are dual purpose and retain an important aggressive
role. Part of this role is based on the psychological impact in that the presence of the
dog quite often is enough to deter confrontation and allow the officer to diffuse a
disturbance or affect an arrest. Just as the side arm is most successful when never
actually discharged, the effectiveness of the police dog is greatest when deterrence
resolves the situation without a physical altercation. In order to achieve these ends
in a society increasingly sensitive to the legal and civil rights of all citizens, the dogs
must be stable and under reliable handler control. To achieve this takes effort at
every level, that is in breeding and selection, training, and deployment policy and
strategy.
The aggressive potential of the police dog was always a two edged sword; the
innocent and fearful as well as the guilty and aggressive can be intimidated and
subdued as well as injured or disabled. An imposing physical presence and assertive
demeanor served as an effective deterrent from the beginning; it was primarily a
man and his dog against the criminal elements in an era with less emphasis on
esoteric criminal rights, where the idea of lower class criminals going to court to sue
for damages, civil rights or discrimination would have seemed absurd – what
happened on the street more or less stayed on the street. But these days are gone,
and that is a good thing. Today all elements of society are more aware of the legal
limitations to police authority, civil rights and recourse to the courts.
Aggressive, rights oriented media, the ubiquitous potential for video recording
and a generation of emphasis on civil rights have required increasing sophistication,
restraint and self-control in police work. This is especially true of canine patrol
because the original function of the police dog was largely intimidation and
aggression; the snarling, lunging dog on the end of the lead had become embedded
in the folklore. For all of these reasons the focus of canine selection, training and

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deployment needs to be on the stability and control of the dog, and the handler. If
and when the subject becomes willing to surrender the likelihood of the inadvertent
bite or excessive suspect injury needs to be minimized through the handler's ability
to restrain or recall the dog as the situation warrants.
Just as there are detailed incident reports whenever a sidearm is discharged or
even displayed, canine bites almost always require a detailed incident report,
including photographs of associated wounds. The primary purpose is to provide
documentation in the event of defendant court action, and as an internal record for
review. There are strategies and protocols according to departmental policy, one
often being that photos for the records are always taken subsequent to hospital or
emergency treatment when the wounds are cleaned and spattered blood is removed;
even the most vile criminal can be painted as vulnerable and pathetic, and thus
deserving of leniency. Unfortunately, court decisions can be based as much on
emotional response as relevant facts, especially when a jury is involved. Beyond the
specific incident, these records are necessary for statistical purposes, as abnormal
numbers of gunshot or dog bite instances or outcomes can indicate problems in
training, officer discipline or deployment strategy.
In this era of criminals with arsenals of heavy duty, rapid-fire weapons, organized
crime, ubiquitous inner city street gangs and widespread substance abuse
confrontations or crime scenes can quickly escalate, requiring effective planning and
strategy to maintain security and order in our cities. SWAT 1 teams with elaborate
firearms, support systems and other modern technology and tactics have been
adapted to cope, requiring effective training, strategy and tactical leadership to
maintain control and resolve a situation with minimal violence. Police dogs have
often had a significant role in this, and just as police officers are selected and trained
with great care the dogs must also be especially well bred, evaluated and then
trained.
In America virtually every sworn officer is armed, and when the canine team
arrives on scene there is likely at least one ally already present, the requesting
officer. In such tactical situations effective handler control of the dog becomes
paramount, which demands effective discipline. The first priority is that the dog be
under sufficient control so as not to be a hazard for already on the scene police
personnel, be part of the solution rather than part of the problem because of a lack
of control: a dog escaping and going in search of an adversary on his own is likely to
become the highlight of the evening news, not generally good public relations.
Although it is unusual, every police encounter involving physical conflict has the
potential to escalate into a serious confrontation. The resulting potential for
confusion, unforeseen circumstances and collateral damage – the fog of war – can
arise in many ways. The dog may perceive another officer or uninvolved civilian as
an adversary and engage, causing injury and disrupting ongoing operations. The
handler or dog may be injured, incapacitated or even become a fatality. Other police
dogs may be present.
Discipline and control is created and maintained in multiple reinforcing layers.
The first level of control is the decision to deploy, that is when to make the dog
present. Normally the dog is confined in a cage built into the back seat of the patrol
car or the back section of a light truck. There are circumstances such as heavy
vehicular traffic or crowd engagements where the potential benefits of deployment
are outweighed by hazard to the dog, the possibility of inappropriate aggression or
negative physiological effect on ordinary citizens or possible violators.

1
Special Weapons and Tactics

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 Vehicle containment requires careful management, as the temperature can very
quickly rise on a warm day, with possible fatal consequences. The primary
responsibility for the well-being of the dog is with the handler, who must be
constantly aware of the circumstances when out of the vehicle. The sad fact is that
every year police dogs die because their handler did not care enough to adequately
monitor the physical well-being of his canine partner; dogs are with distressing
frequency left to die in an overheated vehicle. In order to minimize this danger,
ancillary air conditioning and ventilating capability is normally provided in the
vehicle. Another safeguard is often an automatic temperature alert system which will
detect and report overheating by way of the police radio communication system or
other media. Normally cold weather is not a problem; the dog is entirely safe and
comfortable in the vehicle in spite of extreme cold; he is dry and sheltered from the
wind, and came from ancestors in north central Europe who normally were in the
fields with the stock in the winter months.
Once the dog is actually deployed, taken out of the vehicle, primary control is the
leash, and sometimes a muzzle. On leash the dog is immediately available, is
sometimes an effective deterrent and is under direct handler control. The leash is
sometimes replaced by a long line, ten meters (30 ft.) or even more, usually in some
sort of a search context. The long line is very often snapped to a ring between the
shoulders of a harness, which allows the dog to pull into it without interfering with
breathing. (The normal six-foot leather leash is usually attached to a collar.)
The final and most critical level of control is the obedience of the dog, training
allowing the handler to restrain the dog by voice or hand signal. When the dog is
sent after a distant or fleeing person, he is trained to respond to a handler recall
command by either returning or going to a down but alert posture. This is one of the
primary advantages of the police canine: he is less than deadly force in that even
when there is an engagement, the subject is bitten, his life is usually not
endangered, and if there are new circumstances after sending the dog, as in the
handler reevaluating the send decision, the object going out of sight or another
person appearing in the field of view the dog can be recalled.
The primary reason that modern police dogs have evolved from the herding
breeds, specifically the tending style dogs such as the Belgian and German
Shepherds, is that the function of the dog was the preservation of the flock or herd
rather than the defeat of the predator, such as a marauding wolf. When the predator
has been forced to cease the immediate, direct threat the instinctive action is to
allow escape and remain with his charges rather than pursuing. Wolves hunt in
packs, and are perfectly capable of employing part of the group to draw off the
guardian dogs, leaving the stock alone and unguarded, at the mercy of the other
wolves. (As explained fully in the first chapter, the herding functionality of these
dogs is substantially different from the Border Collies which typically come to mind
as herding dogs.) Historically, wolf eradication was the function of entirely different
sorts of dogs, sight hounds such as the Russian or Irish Wolfhounds, now existing
mostly as nonfunctional recreations or replicas.
The point is that the police patrol dogs evolved within a venue where the
potential for control and limitation on aggression comes from within the dog, as
when the herding dog repels the wolves or other predators but breaks off the
engagement, remains with his herd, when they disengage and retreat. Such dogs are
easier to control and train because of this instinctive tendency disengage when the
adversary yields rather than to fight to a conclusion regardless of consequences or
external handler command. The police dog needs to be agile, quick and amenable to
control rather than just large, powerful and aggressive, which is why he is drawn
from among specialized tending or herding dogs rather than powerful mastiff style
dogs or swift, relentless sight hounds such as the wolf or deerhounds. Just as a good

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police officer has the potential of both aggression and restraint, his dog must share
these qualities, this balance.
Modern technology is increasingly used to provide assistance for control and
safety. Many canine patrol vehicles are equipped with a radio-controlled device
allowing the release of the dog from a distance as needed. This is of course a very
critical decision, for releasing the dog when on a traffic stop gone wrong puts the dog
in danger from oncoming traffic, such a decision must weigh the benefit the dog can
provide against the danger to the dog and others.
Sometimes the use of radio-controlled collars extends beyond training to actual
patrol service to enhance control under the stress of engagement. While an
increasing trend, such electronic aids are never perfect, can fail or run out of battery
capacity at the wrong moment. The officer likely has a communication radio and a
drawn pistol to deal with, and additional devices increase the chance of a mistake or
accident. Reliance on the remote collar to overcome disobedience in the dog, lax
training or generally weak discipline can be of serious concern. If control of the dog
is dependent on the device any one of several eventualities has the potential to
produce a bad outcome. The device may simply fail at the wrong moment, run out of
battery capacity for instance, the handler may drop or lose the controller or be
incapacitated, shot or otherwise injured. The result of any of these eventualities may
be an uncontrolled and likely highly excited dog loose on the scene.
A police dog engaging another police officer is unfortunately not an uncommon
occurrence, and can be very disruptive operationally and cause serious injury or
disability and the consequent great expense. Other officers shooting an out of control
police dog sometimes becomes necessary, or a poorly trained or frightened officer
may shoot a dog when the situation could have readily been dealt with using less
extreme methods.
In the event of an incapacitated handler, other police personnel on the scene
must deal with his dog, which will very often be in an extreme and somewhat
unpredictable emotional state. If actually engaged in a search the dog may continue,
and thus require control, or he may become very defensive of his downed handler, a
situation others must deal with in order to come to the aid of the man down. In
extreme cases, the dog may be shot to regain control, always a tragic outcome.
The reality is that police dogs are expendable, sometimes put in harm's way to
preserve the life of a human being. Injuries to the dog, very serious in and of
themselves, also can pose immediate problems in that the injured dog has the
potential to become indiscriminately aggressive. The need to secure the dog and
provide medical assistance can greatly disrupt the ongoing tactical situation. This is
an especially difficult situation if both the handler and his dog are injured and the
dog must be secured by other personnel.
In the ideal every person in the department with the potential to be on scene
needs to understand the potential and limitations – and hazards – inherent in the
dog. If the handler is incapacitated, other police personnel need to be able to step in
and stabilize the dog, and perhaps further its utilization. In particular, those in the
chain of command need to understand the potential and limitations of the canine
teams so as to utilize them most effectively and safely. Training for these realities is
an inherent cost that needs to be factored into the decision to build and maintain a
police canine program.
Pistols and squad cars are commodities, essentially interchangeable and quickly
obtainable as needs change or losses occur. Police dogs are not commodities; each
one is different and distinct and must be put in the right situation with an effective
handler in order to realize his full potential. Bad decisions can lead to bad outcomes
and legal, administrative and political ramifications. The assertive, powerful,
impulsive dog must be matched with a handler physically and psychologically

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 capable of standing up to the dog and being in command. The best dog for the late
night factory or warehouse search in an industrial district may not be an ideal
selection for a lost child search. Good canine unit leadership, planning and policy are
just as essential as good dogs and handlers. Tactical decision makers, including
watch commanders and dispatchers, need to have some comprehension of these
issues, and the experience of the handlers needs to be part of the deployment
decision-making process.
Once engaged, the canine handler has the ultimate responsibility to foresee
circumstances where the aggressive potential of his dog, selected for in breeding and
enhanced in training, will lead to inappropriate intervention, and provide the
necessary restraint, control and discipline. Establishing and maintaining an effective,
reliable, safe police canine operation is a demanding and expensive process. This
requires effective, responsible canine officers and strong dogs, but even more
fundamentally good leadership all the way up the chain of command to ensure the
acquisition of appropriate dogs, effective training programs and appropriate
deployment policy and tactical leadership.

Scent Work: Search and Detection

Over many years the persona of the police dog was the aggressive dog, the
German Shepherd or Doberman biting the man in the protection suit and projecting
fear and respect for the law in the criminal elements; the excitement of the chase,
an active guard or the physical engagement where the perpetrator is bitten and
subdued.
But this is a distorted and increasingly obsolete perspective in that the olfactory
capability, the ability to search, track, find evidence and detect substances such as
drugs, explosives or accelerants, is
in reality of more intrinsic
importance and utility than the
potential for overt aggression. If
German Shepherds and Malinois
were not capable of searching or
substance detection, were one-
dimensional pursuit and bite
machines, they would be of much
less practical utility, and the police
canine service as it exists today
would be much less prevalent and
much less fundamentally useful.
And more to the point, enormously
less cost effective.
As discussed in more detail in
the chapter on scent work, there is
a distinction between tracking,
which is the systematic following
of the surface or vegetation
disturbance caused by the
footsteps of the person, and
trailing where the actual personal
odor is the focus and the nose
KNPV line Dutch import Malinois tracking and evidence tends to be carried higher and
search exercise with new police handler. Notice nose focused on the air scent as well as
pushed deeply into the grass. near ground body odor. The
Instructor Rik Wolterbeek on right. tracking dog is focusing on the

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actual damage to vegetation or changes to the surface and is characterized by the
nose very close to the surface, often probing each footstep. Trailing, typical of many
Bloodhound scenarios, involves the dog sniffing the air for indications of the actual
body scent of the person. The trailing dog may at times be many yards or meters
away from the actual path of the person. Although sport scenarios such as the
Schutzhund tracking exercise are purely tracking, often in practical situations there is
overlap with the dog following ground disturbances and airborne scent according to
circumstances, perhaps alternating modes according to circumstances during a
particular search. Although the practice may not be universal, my observations of
imported KNPV dogs, already familiar with free searching, being prepared for
American service involve the new handler teaching the dog a bit of formal tracking
similar to the Schutzhund work, sometimes interspersed with off lead object
searches involving several objects.
The patrol dog such as the German Shepherd is sometimes initially trained
strictly for tracking, as in the Schutzhund trial. The dog learns to indicate any objects
with the scent of a person, such as a billfold or weapon, which are possible clues and
potential evidence. Such dogs, if solid trackers, in general readily convert to a more
varied style appropriate to police applications.
In reality, under the pressure of the search, the distinction between tracking and
trailing tends to become blurred and the dog does what the dog needs to do, and the
function of the handler is to decide how much direction and restraint can be given
without discouraging and impeding the dog. In practice, a tracking or trailing process
can evolve into an area search, where the dog may circle and when coming down
wind of a hidden person or object go directly to the source rather than following out
the trail. Generally the handler wants to discourage this and only allow it when the
track is actually lost, in which case a wider search might possibly find either the
person or a point from which tracking can be resumed.
The typical dual-purpose police dog has outdoor search, tracking or trailing
capability in addition to his drug detection and building search capabilities. When the
need arises on a crime scene or in response to a missing person report the dog on
the street is the most immediately available asset and if time is of the essence this is
likely the dog that will do the job. If a crime subject has been seen fleeing time most
definitely is of the essence in that the suspect typically is highly motivated to be long
gone by the time the dog approaches. The distinction between pursuit and trailing
may tend to blur when the distance is short and closing.
When there is more time, it is often desirable to bring in specialist dogs and
handlers. Reports of missing persons, such as overdue hikers or people failing to
show up at an expected time and place, are often deferred because of a lack of
sufficient indication of illegal activity or immediate physical danger. When the search
dog is brought in several hours later, the scent is likely to be much older and
confused by other activity in the search area. In such instances, specialist police
teams, sometimes Bloodhounds, or volunteer search and rescue organizations may
be the most appropriate choice.
The street patrol dog accustomed to building search operations is increasingly
likely to be trained in an active search and bite or engage mode or at least
accustomed to an aggressive encounter at the end of his search. Such dogs are from
the police breeds where aggression is a fundamental part of the breeding heritage,
and a certain amount of aggression is necessary to make the cut in the selection
process. Such dogs are problematic, to say the very least, when searching for an
innocent civilian, potentially an especially vulnerable child with a mental disability or
a confused or senile older person. Although some agencies do not permit such patrol
dogs to search in these circumstances because of the danger to the subject and the
enormous legal liability, sometimes the dog at hand is used on a very short lead and

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with close up assisting personnel as available. This is a compromised situation in
search effectiveness as well as danger and liability, as the tightly constrained dog
can only cover a small fraction of the area an off lead search and rescue specialist
dog could. Every situation is different and tactics must be dictated according to the
potential benefits and liability, which is only one of the reasons that police command
personnel need to know as much as possible about specific canine capabilities and
potential, so as to make the best possible decision in conjunction with the handler.
One of the most difficult challenges for the police handler is the search subject
heavily under the influence of alcohol or drugs, prescribed or illicit, whose actions are
unpredictable and may strike out in irrational violence or flee or conceal themselves
out of fear or guilt. Such people may illicit unpredictable reactions from the dog, who
has been bred and trained to respond to aggression with aggression, which can come
in many and diverse forms. Foreseeing such reactions and maintaining control and
insuring safety and security for all is one of the most difficult challenges the canine
handler, or any police officer, can take on.
A related service is scent discrimination, that is a process in which a dog sniffs an
article suspected of being touched or owned by a perpetrator at a crime scene and
then having the dog pick a suspect out of a lineup. Just as drug dogs can give false
indications because of overt or unintentional handler cuing, canine criminal
identification needs to be subject to rigorous standards of training and procedure.
Unfortunately, police and prosecuting attorney corruption, convicting men with false
testimony and other illegal means, has extended to canine service where prior
knowledge is supplied to the dog handler, who produces the desired indication or
trailing result. The canine team is subject to this, since the handler "reads" his dog in
ways that are not generally apparent to observers; if the handler says his dog has
made an indication it is difficult to contradict, and if he has been called in specifically
to make the indication the temptation to encourage or perceive the right response is
ever present. Such things have been the subject of much litigation, and the courts
are gradually establishing rules and procedures to protect individual rights and
ensure honest police work while maintaining a framework for effective police
investigation and crime solving. This balance is among the most difficult to strike and
maintain in a free and democratic society, but it also the most important: unbiased
scales of justice are the foundation of our civilization and national integrity.

The Building Search

The building search is one of the most common and useful tasks performed by
the police dog. When an alarm system results in a call to a nighttime warehouse or
similar place of business, without a dog it is difficult and time consuming to
determine if someone is actually present, the level of threat and most importantly
their actual location or hiding place. Most of the night could be spent searching a
larger warehouse or production facility without finding a person, and almost no
matter how much time is spent it can never be certain that nobody was or is lurking.
Furthermore, it is easy to bypass a hidden person, allowing him to slip out and
escape or attack from the rear.
When an intruder is in or suspected to be hidden in a warehouse or place of
business, the most desirable outcome is surrender in response to the called out
"Police. Come out or we will send the dog!" The senior police tactical leader, often
the handler, perhaps alone, is never certain who is in there: it can range from a
fifteen-year-old kid on a prank to an armed psychopath perfectly willing to die in
order to take an officer with him. Increasingly common use of dangerous, diverse
drugs, legal and illegal, and alcohol mean that rational decisions cannot be assumed;
totally rational, stable people very seldom wind up hiding in a warehouse. The
subject has the potential to become incredibly, irrationally and unpredictably violent

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and dangerous. He may also be armed with an array of high power, large magazine
capacity weapons.
Men search primarily by sight, with a lesser likelihood of hearing something, and
are at a tremendous disadvantage to a dog, which will rely primarily on his nose.
There are thousands of places to hide, but the odor, confined in the building, often
leads the dog directly to the hidden person. You can hide your body, but it is
extremely difficult to conceal or mask your scent, and most of the search subjects
will not understand how the dog is working or how to evade detection. A good dog
will quickly find a hiding person, enabling the police officers to make the
apprehension in relative safety; having a barking dog in your face or on your arm
tends to make it obvious where you are and distract you from running or the
effective use of a weapon. And as a bonus, calling out "Police, come out or we will
send the dog" accompanied by enthusiastic barking can often produce the most
desirable outcome, a nonviolent surrender, with very little risk. Although it should
always be policy to emphasize the control of the dogs and the reluctance to deploy
them, a well-established reputation for police dog enthusiasm on the street enhances
the likelihood of surrender rather than the need for an apprehension.
Searching is a demanding and often difficult task with many variations. The
search can be for a known felon or a likely suspect, but also for a lost child, a drunk
or a disoriented elderly or impaired person. A search area can include city streets,
warehouses, rural fields or forests and involve water in the form of ponds, rivers and
lakes. Part of the training of every Dutch Police dog, for instance, involves working in
water with object retrieval and directed stream crossings.
The aggressive patrol dog may not be the ideal choice to search for a lost child,
but the search might of necessity be initiated by an experienced handler exercising
tight control of the dog because time is of the essence. Volunteer search and rescue
units provide noble service in many contexts throughout the world, and are most
effective when there is good liaison and cooperation between police administration
and volunteer unit leadership to insure that the right dog or dogs deploy in the right
places and at the most opportune times. But when time is critical, as in the instance
of following a trail from a crime scene or a child or elderly person wandering off in
severe weather, either a trained dog on the force is going to do the search or the
opportunity is going to be lost.
Beginning the 1980's and 90's there was a vigorous ongoing debate on training
and tactics for the patrol dog search. The traditional doctrine had tended to support
what is known as a find and bark or find and guard strategy, in which the dog was
trained to bark vigorously at the discovered subject as long as he remained passive
and motionless. This is the normal procedure in sport and trial programs such as
Schutzhund and KNPV and tended to be perceived by the public, and many
politicians and senior administrators, as the obviously correct approach. The find and
bark advocates argue that being the subject of a search does not convict one of a
crime, and that the dog might find a child, a sleeping night watchman or other sorts
of people with any number of perfectly legitimate reasons for being in the search
area. Proponents of the find and bark have included men such as long-term Chicago
Police training director Ken Burger who argue convincingly that the liability of a find
and attack strategy is inherently disproportionate force and ultimately going to lead
to serious liability problems in the courts. (Burger, 1991)
The alternative strategy, the so-called find and bite model, expects the dog to
engage immediately anyone found in a search. The proponents argue that it is much
more practical and realistic to teach the dog to engage directly because this is his
natural propensity and it is more of a deterrent to the criminal element. They further
argue that if the man has a weapon, especially a gun, the bark and hold dog is
simply being set up to be shot.

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 The vulnerability of the dog to a weapon in the hands of the found person is a
risk that the handler and his supervisors need to evaluate on a case-by-case basis.
The hard reality is that a primary reason for the dog is that he is expendable;
sometimes he must be put at risk in the interests of officer security and safety.
Searching on a lead rather than free is an option where the subject is likely to be
dangerous, but on the other hand a potential impediment to the mobility and
quickness of the search.
The key defect in the find and guard or find and bark strategy is that in training
the helper is a confident, secure man with protective clothing and a padded arm or
heavy bite jacket. The man is in no real danger and under no real stress, he is in
control of this situation, or should be. The guard and bark is under tight discipline
from both the handler and the helper. But on the street the object person is going to
be fearful, armed, aggressive, inebriated, incapacitated or any combination of these
things. The subject in most instances is simply not going to be able to stand quietly
facing the dog, and this is going to cause even the best trained and disciplined dog
to engage. Find and bark is, in many credible minds, the wrong strategy because on
the street it simply does not work.
A second, and perhaps more telling, consideration is that handlers under the
illusion that their dog will refrain from a bite are much more likely to send him in a
situation where encountering an entirely innocent and vulnerable person, such as a
child or an elderly person, is possible or even likely, often with a bad ending.
The find and guard procedure is universal in the dog sport world because it
demonstrates admirable control, is enormously good public relations, and because
the intensity of the guard reveals much about the dog's drive and character. The
problem is that higher-level politicians and police administrators – sometimes lacking
in general canine experience or the realities of on the street canine work – find the
perceived public relations value of the find and bark scenario irresistible and embrace
it in spite of the underlying reality.
An increasing majority of the most experienced and qualified trainers and
handlers believe that a police dog sent to search is almost certainly going to engage,
and if this is not an acceptable tactical and legal risk in a specific situation then the
handler or senior person present needs to refrain from sending the dog or decide to
search with the dog on line or otherwise restrained so as to allow the handler to
make the ultimate decision to engage. Hopefully all of these training time and effort
resources are going to enhance realistic control aspects, such as reliable call offs
under practical, stressful circumstances.
That said, there remain experienced, credible trainers and handlers that advocate
the find and bark. Some argue that the find and bite is encouraged by brokers and
commercial trainers because it easier to train, and because it can conceal weakness
in the dog. This has been one of the most contentious and passionately argued
issues in police canine work over many years.
My personal experience is Schutzhund, and I well know the time and effort that
goes into training the guard exercise. As a breeding suitability exercise this gives
insight into the intensity of the dog and the trainability, the potential for handler
control. But at some point a reality check becomes necessary, the realization that it
is past time for IPO to be reevaluated, to introduce into the program exercises such
a KNPV style distant call off and release commands when engaging the decoy. IPO
desperately needs to edge back closer to the real world. Unfortunately, those in
control seem to be oblivious to this need, are satisfied to see the program become
more and more stylized and out of touch with real world police canine applications in
terms of training and breeding.

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The War on Drugs
In America, the war on drugs has been a primary driving factor in the expansion
of police canine deployment. The proliferation of illicit drugs, such as the narcotics,
and related crime, emerged during and subsequent to the Vietnam War era. As a
high school student in the late 1950s and collegiate undergraduate in the 1960s
marijuana was associated in our minds with exotic Jazz clubs and the heroin or
opium user was envisioned as the unimaginably deprived "dope fiend," but none of
us had ever met one. Although as engineering students we would likely have been
the very last to know, I was never aware of anyone known personally to be involved;
it was another, hardly imaginable, world. As the last generation prior to the flood of
baby boomers we were on the cusp of change in so many ways.
In the intervening years drug usage has exploded into every segment of society
and commences at ever-younger ages, even in our grade schools. It has filled our
prisons, with the highest percentage of incarceration in the world, largely with minor,
nonviolent offenders who would otherwise mostly be paying taxes rather than being
transformed into real criminals in our prison system. The international scope of
illegal drug operations has been a major challenge to law enforcement agencies, and
transformed American police service. It is a war we are not winning, and probably
cannot win without transforming our nation into an oppressive, heavy-handed police
state.
This ever expanding use of narcotics and other illicit drugs has been an
extraordinarily difficult law enforcement challenge for half a century, and the
burgeoning use of the police canine has expanded in lock step as a counter measure.
Well-trained detection dogs have emerged as a first line of defense, particularly at
international borders and in searching vehicles suspected of transporting hidden
drugs. A good dog can move quickly down a line of a hundred bags in the luggage
area of an airport and focus in on the one with the drugs or find the vehicle with the
drugs at a traffic stop or in line at a border. In general most experienced trainers and
handlers believe the ideal situation to be the single purpose detection dog, selected
strictly according to the search and alert potential and trained with a complete focus
on this specific role. In many situations, such as an airport or other point of entry,
there is more than enough work to occupy a handler for a full shift daily; making the
dedicated dog a practical solution. Such dogs can be smaller and more agile for
searching the cargo bay of an airliner, a warehouse or any other confined space. The
candidate pool is significantly larger than for the dual-purpose dog; the breed and
individual can be selected strictly according to the prey or food drive for the search
and other desirable physical and character attributes. Candidates not making the cut
as a patrol dog can often become excellent dedicated detection dogs.
Because of formal educational requirements, demanding physical fitness levels,
firearms qualification, emotional stability and other cognitive and character
attributes, the fully sworn police officer is, and should be, a highly qualified and
relatively expensive asset. The handler of the dedicated drug dog can be a specialist,
with simpler and less comprehensive qualifications, and thus much less expensive in
terms of training and ongoing cost. Such a person need know only how to handle
and care for the dog in a very specific, limited set of circumstances.
The single purpose drug detection dog is thus much more cost effective not only
because of the potentially increased efficacy, but also because both the dog and
especially the handler can be less expensive to acquire or recruit, train and pay or
maintain. The actual drug find is most likely to occur where there is backup
immediately available, in the form of onsite or nearby police personnel, to make any
necessary arrest and process prisoners, or where there is not a potentially
threatening person present, as in a baggage area or loading dock search. The
handler need not be capable of controlling and motivating a highly aggressive dog;

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the dogs can be more easily dealt with by others and perhaps kenneled on site,
further increasing cost effectiveness.
Proponents of the single purpose dog point out that the dual-purpose dog will
always involve compromise in selection, training and deployment strategy, which by
definition means the dog cannot always be the best in both roles. The law
enforcement administrator must always strive to provide the most cost effective
service possible, and that ultimately taxpayer pressure will bring in someone else if
he is perceived as coming up short. For the canine unit administrator, and for the
entire working police canine community, this in general means that the dual-purpose
patrol and detection dog is usually the most cost effective solution on the street, and
that efficiency in breeding, selection and training of such dogs is essential to insure
ongoing taxpayer support.
The on the street the law enforcement canine handler functions in much different,
more complex and difficult circumstances than the single purpose dog handler.
Engagements occur at traffic stops, checkpoints and crime scenes, often in the dark
– environments fraught with inherent risk and danger. Engagements may be in
isolated areas or at night where backup may not be in place at the critical moment of
confrontation; and those present are likely to be potential suspects, who may
become violent and aggressive, resist arrest, flee or fight back. In this environment,
a dual-purpose drug and patrol dog, a German Shepherd or Malinois, is an enormous
enhancement to officer security and the ability to affect an arrest without incidental
violence. Because of the need to have the drug-detecting dog immediately available,
because of the need for officer security in the search and arrest and because of cost
effectiveness considerations, the need for the same dog to serve all necessary
functions, the vast majority of police canines today are selected and trained for dual-
purpose service.
Over the years, many breeds, methodologies in training and deployment
strategies have been devised and implemented on a provisional basis, and mostly
fallen away. There have been a few instances of experiments with a single officer
patrolling with two dogs, usually a Malinois or Shepherd as the primary dog and a
second dog, often a smaller and less aggressive, who is a drug specialist. This is
expensive in terms of support and possibly the expense of a bigger vehicle and in
terms of the care and maintenance of the dogs, where the handler must feed and
train both dogs and provide ongoing maintenance training. Furthermore, two dogs
mean two dogs to integrate into personal and family life and possible discipline
problems if the dogs tend toward mutual aggression. This means that every day
there are two dogs that need personal time and attention for training and just to
hang out with the boss. This approach, and many others, have been abandoned
because of practical deployment and cost considerations.
When the explosive or bomb detection dog makes his find in a safe way there has
by definition been a successful mission completion; a potential tragedy has been
averted. Identifying, finding and prosecuting or otherwise neutralizing the people
behind the bomb are secondary issues.
But drug detection is only the first step of a process that must lead to a
conviction of those responsible in order to be truly successful. This means that the
chain of events leading up to the find or arrest must stand up in court as a legally
valid search and the procurement of evidence must meet all legal thresholds. This
will often require a certification process to demonstrate that an indication by the dog
is valid probable cause for a search. The dog with a history of false indications will
likely be cited by the defense attorney as a transparent pretext for an illegal search.
For this reason, the training needs to create a minimal percentage of false positive
indications as well as the reliable ability to find drugs in difficult circumstances.

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Complete, specific documentation of successful training against false positives
becomes a fundamental requirement for successful prosecution.
The Bill of Rights, as implemented as the first ten amendments to our
constitution, has had a profound effect on the evolution of our nation and the overall
American experience. The Fourth Amendment reads:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath
or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized."
As the use of drug detecting dogs has become more prevalent and effective, the
responding defensive legal strategy has often been the claim of violation of
constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure. As these cases
have wound their way to the Supreme Court case law is gradually laying down the
ground rules. A major Supreme Court decision in an Illinois case has held the routine
sniffing drug check as part of a traffic stop to be legal if it does not detain a citizen
unreasonably and racial or ethnic profiling is not a routine cause for a search. In
practice this means that if the dog is there he can sniff around the car, but you
cannot hold a person for an hour waiting for the canine unit to respond to a radio
summons.
A further legal strategy has been to question the accuracy of the dog, to demand
proof in court that the dog’s indication was highly likely to be valid because of a
proven historical high success rates. A drug dog is accurate because of good
selection, training and deployment practice, and if false positive indications in
training are condoned then it will translate to false indications in service. One might
argue that a hit rate of forty percent is reasonable, that you will find many drugs
that way, but the negative factor is that the sixty percent false positive indications
are going to result in inconvenience and annoyed citizens, perhaps extremely
annoyed citizens. Furthermore, at some level of false positive indications the courts
are going to find that they do not constitute probable cause; and the resulting
searches, and any evidence or illegal drugs recovered, might well be non-admissible
in court.
As a personal experience, in the terminal in New York on the way back from the
Netherlands, I was in a line of passengers and a handler with a Beagle made a pass,
most likely looking for produce or other agricultural products banned because of
potential disease propagation. The dog went quickly down the line, but sniffed
carefully at my shoulder bag, but then went on without making a distinct indication.
The handler gave me a look, but passed on. Clearly the training and discipline
demanded a very specific indication in order to justify a further search, which was
not present here. We had been in many kennels and at various training fields, my
bag probably picked up some scent, perhaps I put it down and it was marked,
providing an international canine greeting for the next dog. The handler later
approached me and asked if he could look in my bag, he was clearly uncertain about
what was going on with the dog. When the cops or the handlers make good
decisions, and follow the appropriate protocols, there is nothing about it in the
newspapers.
There are significant variations in the quality of trained dogs in use, and the need
to weed out the less well trained through education, public pressure and increasingly
comprehensive certification programs is necessary for ongoing taxpayer support.
Routine canine drug or explosive screening has been expanding into our airports,
court buildings and schools. Police search and surveillance practice always walks the
knife-edge of appropriate diligence and breaching the protection of the constitution
against inappropriate search. In reality, this is an ever-moving demarcation point, for

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no one can doubt that the 9/11 atrocity provided security and police administrators
new latitude, both in new laws with expansion of legal search procedures and
circumstances and in increasingly permissive interpretation of existing law.
Police or contractor administrated drug scans in schools have been controversial.
A uniformed officer with a holstered side arm and a German Shepherd going up and
down a line of grade or high school students looking for drugs is not the educational
atmosphere most of us want, and certainly not good public relations. Benefit in
terms of drug recovery and deterrence would seem to be out of proportion to the
fear and disruption of the educational process and the police state overtones. On the
other hand, searches of lockers, desks or classrooms when students are absent are
less objectionable and yet still capable of detecting drugs or serving as a deterrent if
the students are made aware of the practice.
The police force, and particularly the individual officer, is inevitably under
enormous pressure. When heinous crimes are in the newspapers and on the evening
television news there is enormous pressure to produce a suspect, and district
attorneys routinely launch political careers on the basis of high profile convictions. It
is a melancholy yet inevitable fact that the system finds and convicts innocent people
in response to these pressures, and the canine handler is under particular stress. A
sniff based canine indication of the presence of drugs, according to extensive court
rulings, provides a constitutionally valid probable cause for a search. But the
indication is ultimately in the mind of the handler, who can see or produce such an
indication at will regardless of the actual presence of drug odor; more than almost
any other area of law enforcement the integrity of the system is directly dependent
on the moral integrity and courage of the individual handler. Most often these ideals
are lived up to, but constant vigilance on the part of police administration and the
court system is necessary to insure justice rather than just convictions.
In summary, canine drug detection must be scrupulous in training, record
keeping, certification and evenhanded application so as to build public confidence
that searches of vehicles or premises are according to the spirit and letter of the law
rather than using the dogs as a pretext or an excuse to profile, intimidate or violate
constitutional rights.

Explosives and Bomb Detection

Festering international terrorist activity, culminating in the attack of September
11, 2001, created a radical transformation in internal and external security practice.
A consequence has been ongoing military involvement in the Middle East, where the
tactics of the adversary focus on hidden explosive devices and suicide bombing
operations. This has brought the explosive detection potential of a good dog to the
forefront as a means of detecting and thus being able to disable or safely discharge
explosives before they cause damage and loss of life. Dogs have also been effective
in detecting accelerants, that is, remnants of flammable substances at a fire scene,
possibly indicating arson and thus the likely concealment of evidence.
Bomb and explosive detection in critical applications such as airport security and
Middle East military operations have thus been a major focus of canine application in
recent years, and well-trained dogs have been in great demand. For obvious reasons
of security, police officers and trainers are in general extremely reluctant to discuss
tactics and details of training, which of course must be respected.
Although carefully selected Shepherds and Malinois are high potential detection
dogs, in applications with significant civilian exposure, such as airport security, a
breed with a non-aggressive persona, such as a Labrador Retriever, has obvious
advantages. In such applications, a smaller dog can be much more agile and thus
have easier access in restricted area searches such as the interior of an airplane. The

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consequences of a single failure to detect are so potentially devastating that the dog
is usually a full time, single purpose dog. Also, in this environment, there is often so
much work to do that explosive detection becomes a full time occupation.
In other applications such as the general police patrol, the dog who will reliably
alert on explosives, guns or ammunition brings an extra dimension in terms of
finding evidence as well as the detection of an actual explosive device.
Although there is much commonality with the training methods employed for
drug dogs, the explosive detection dog must have an extremely reliable passive
alert, that is, upon sensing the presence of explosives react calmly, go into a sit or
other passive posture and not scratch at, push with the nose or otherwise disturb the
suspected explosive device.
The law enforcement patrol or specialist dog is virtually never trained to detect
both drugs and explosives. Training for several substances is not especially difficult,
but dogs are fallible and subject to momentary confusion and mistakes just like any
other creature, man included. Missing a single concealed drug package in the broad
scheme of things is not of extreme consequence, but any missed explosive device
has a high potential for a disaster, and any compromise in training is too high a price
to pay for convenience in training or deployment. In some situations outside of the
mainstream law enforcement applications, such as general drug sweeps in prison
systems or schools, some dogs are trained to alert on firearms as well as drugs. The
use of this training strategy is of course a judgment to be made by the individual
institution, but not generally considered bad practice in these specific circumstances.
(Frost, 2010)
Explosive detection is actually a diverse set of specialties, including bomb
detection, explosive detection, land mines, firearms and ammunition, each requiring
specific training methods and the corresponding deployment tactics. The land mine
dog is typically a specialist, and the dog primarily intended for civilian vehicle checks
would have differences in the details of training from a military dog being prepared
for the extreme hazards of the war zone. The people involved are in general very
reluctant to talk about details.
Explosive detection is also extremely important for national security, and thus a
key element in the protection of government leaders and officials and government
and military facilities worldwide. According to Chapman the United States Secret
Service began using explosive detection dogs in 1976 to protect the President, other
officials and foreign dignitaries and heads of state. By 1988 there were about thirty-
five detection dogs serving as part of the Secret Service. (Chapman, Police Dogs,
1990)

Crowd Control
Throughout history those empowered to impose law and order generally
answered only to an elite set of authorities, had a free hand to enforce discipline and
insure order and tranquility, if not justice. These were times of entrenched class
social structures, and the function of civil authorities was primarily to enforce and
maintain class privilege. Large, aggressive dogs often had a role in this, were
extraordinarily intimidating and effective at creating fear and breaking down morale
and the willingness for overt resistance. This was a fundamental reason for the
Molosser or Mastiff style of dog, and some of the earliest nineteenth century records
of police dog programs indicate that crowd control or riot suppression was the
primary reason for their creation.
In modern democracies with established legal systems increasingly open to all,
and an active press to highlight abuse, the use of dogs to counter civil disturbance
becomes more problematic. While those sympathetic to law and order as an

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overriding priority may applaud canine intimidation in a crowd control or riot, others
will see the dogs as inappropriate force, manifestations of police abuse or even
brutality.
In our era, establishing policy for canine deployment to maintain order in
crowded areas or regain control in case of riot or civil disruption is a most difficult
task for the administrator of a police canine unit. While a small number of handlers
with dogs can provide significant leverage both in a physical and psychological sense,
there are always among the mass of people individuals of vulnerability, such as
children, or inadvertent, innocent bystanders. Avoiding civilian injuries, brutality or
inappropriate intimidation needs to be a priority because it is the right thing to do,
and because it is the general inclination of the press to focus attention on such
things, which are inevitably used as a basis for criticism in the aftermath. In spite of
the serious potential hazards, crowd control is in general a somewhat common police
canine service. As an example, most British police officers are not armed, and the
use of dogs in crowd situations there is not especially uncommon.
A complicating factor is that a primary objective of most demonstrations or riots
– perhaps the overriding objective – is to provoke police retaliation that can be used
to gain sympathy for the cause; and nothing is more evocative than direct canine
engagement in the media, especially when victims can be portrayed as innocent,
young or vulnerable.
The use of dogs and fire hoses in the civil rights conflicts of the 1960's American
south is a primary example, for these images are seared in our common memory
half a century later. In the aftermath of these events there was enormous backlash
against police canine deployment; as a direct consequence, some canine units were
disbanded entirely and many others either banned use of the dogs for crowd control
or set in place rigid deployment policies and restrictions. This was a real setback in
police canine programs, which would not entirely recover until the priority of
suppressing illegal drug distribution emerged after the Vietnam War.
Historically strategy for canine use in crowd situations was often to feature the
dogs, bring them out early and up front, for maximum psychological impact to nip an
insurrection in the bud, quickly break the spirit of the crowd and to provide ongoing
long-term intimidation. One of the positive outcomes of this unfortunate era in
America is that overt police intimidation of any segment of our population is much
less politically, legally or morally viable. Today there is need for much more caution,
and when the dogs are in use the usual practice is to minimize exposure, especially
where it is likely to draw the attention of the press and the cameraman. American
police agencies seem to have this well under control; I cannot recall an instance of
well-publicized canine presence in a crowd situation in recent years. The dogs may
on occasion be in the background, but they are not often making the evening
television news, which is a very good thing any way you look at it.

Administration and Leadership

Effective administration and sound acquisition and deployment strategy are just
as critical to the police canine operation as strong dogs, committed handlers and
good training. Most units prosper because they are effective and beneficial, make an
ongoing contribution to fulfillment of departmental objectives. But canine units are
not essential, are vulnerable to reduction or elimination in difficult economic
circumstance or when new civilian or police leadership is not fully committed. In
order to prosper in the long term the unit must be continually justified by proven
effectiveness and public acceptance. This means that it must be cost effective,
project authority on the street and yet not be perceived as an agent of inappropriate
police intimidation. In many ways these requirements pull in different directions,
necessitating compromise and balance in strategic planning and tactical operational

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imperatives. Maintaining integrity, effectiveness and respect is a difficult ongoing
task which can only be accomplished through excellence in leadership, administration
and planning.
While bringing a new dimension to police presence, the canine unit also adds a
new layer of complexity to police administration. The dogs must be selected, trained
and deployed so as to be effective, but reliably under control, unlikely to engage an
innocent person, including ancillary police personnel, under conditions of enormous
stress to the people and the dogs alike. If a ten-year-old child turns up in a building
search and the dog bites indiscriminately the press will most certainly go into spasms
of righteous indignation, never mind that there was no reason for the kid to be there
or that they have no viable alternatives to suggest.
Not only must the canine handler have and maintain the attributes of a good
police officer – that is know the law, be proficient with his side arm, maintain
physical conditioning – he must also maintain readiness in his canine partner. The
training and deployment regimen must provide a dog that is effective, physically fit,
aggressive and reliably under control. But beyond these burdens, substantial as they
are, the handler must always be situationally aware of his dog and environment, for
the dog implicitly has the license to perceive imminent danger and respond with
aggression. The handler must foresee and avoid circumstances where the dog will
understandably but inappropriately perceive a threat and react, an enormous
ongoing responsibility. This commitment must come from the top down as well as
the ground up, be the expectation of the leadership, the real standard of behavior,
and the result of commitment and training at every level.
Police administration must take care to pair the right handler with a capable,
compatible dog and then provide professional instruction and training, both prior to
deployment and ongoing, to make this work. This means either carrying the cost of
competent police dog instructors on the staff or paying outside agencies to provide
instruction and education. Either option is expensive. Furthermore, the canine teams
– especially the drug detection dogs – require ongoing testing and evaluation,
maintaining accreditation, in order to insure successful prosecution subsequent to
the drug find.
Dogs live in their own world and respond to stressful confrontations according
their nature and to training and handler interaction and control. The handler must
not only determine appropriate force but also be able to sense his dog’s state of
mind and deploy him accordingly. This requires a strong bond and deep
understanding between handler and dog, which only evolve through training and a
long term working relationship.
It is essential for those in command to understand this bond and make training,
deployment and assignment decisions accordingly. It is natural to regard squad cars
as interchangeable assets and assign them according to connivance; but when this
mind set carries over to the dogs serious consequences can ensue. Although not now
common practice, there have historically been circumstances where dogs were
assigned to multiple handlers. Such a policy makes it difficult to insure proper rest,
training time and recreation for the dog. But the primary difficulty is that a strong
dog and handler relationship is difficult to achieve under such circumstances.
While the dog is the responsibility of his handler, it is essential that other officers
be able to manage the dog in case of handler injury or separation during
deployment. The dog and handler are often dispatched to provide assistance to
fellow officers, and they need to be part of the solution rather than a new problem.
Training and planning for such contingencies should be part of the routine training
regimen, and shooting the dog to regain control, while sometimes a tragic necessity,
is not a good plan.

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 In America the police dog is usually the property of the department and
represents a substantial investment in terms of acquisition cost and training. Sound
management requires that as much as possible the dog and handler team form a
long working partnership. In the ideal, a dog will enter service with a well-trained,
handler and serve out his career as part of that team. If free of injury the dog
entering service at two to three years of age can typically serve for seven to eight
years, a little more in exceptional situations.
Today, the vast majority of police dogs live with the handler when off duty. Some
become well integrated with the family and spend time in the residence; others are
routinely segregated in a run or other enclosure, perfectly practical as long as
adequate exercise is provided and there is sufficient protection from the elements
according to local climate. This is highly variable, and family integration requires that
all members be accepting and able to deal with the dog as necessary; taking daddy's
police dog out to play is no more appropriate than wandering around the
neighborhood with his service revolver. There is a lot of variation in police dogs,
some perfectly good dogs need more rigid discipline and thus need to either be
contained or directly under the control of the handler at all times.
In many departments there is a policy of rotating officers among diverse duties in
order to enhance training and preparedness and to have personnel always available
trained to respond to a specific situation. The ambitious individual officer wanting to
advance must gain diversity in experience in order to move up in the ranks; and the
canine program as a whole benefits from the presence of higher leadership and
administrative personnel with real hands on canine experience. Many other
situations, such as a handler injury, disability, retirement or personal preference will
from time to time necessitate the end of the relationship. If the dog is near the end
of his career an early retirement is often a good outcome, but otherwise the dog
needs to make the transition to a new handler.
The transition is either going to take significant acclimation and retraining time or
result in a less than service ready team on the street. Side arms and shotguns are
standard issue items, but each police dog is unique in many ways and effective
application is dependent on a firm bond and relationship between the officer and his
dog, which takes time and dedication to build and maintain. Rotating dogs too often
can also have serious consequences in off duty family situations; the dog well
adapted to one home and family may not integrate well into another and may not
adapt immediately to a kennel environment.
The nature of the dog always needs to be a consideration in team assignment:
some dogs though when properly managed are very effective become dangerous in
in the hands of a not sufficiently dominant partner. When dogs are routinely assigned
by administrators without personal hands on canine experience a difficult dog can fall
into the hands of an inexperienced handler. This can sometimes be made to work
when the transition occurs under the close direction of a good instructor, but
expecting an immediate transition without sound training can create a real danger to
the officer, his family and the public at large. Time allocated to training, and thus out
of service, must be adequate to maintain readiness yet used efficiently and diligently
enough to maintain long term cost effectiveness in the overall program.
In one instance a five-year-old Malinois with an outstanding service record was
reassigned to a third handler, a police officer lacking canine experience. The dog was
strong and aggressive and needed careful handling. In spite of being warned, when
the officer was out of the home his wife let the dog out of his crate, and their small
child was seriously injured by the dog. The knee jerk reaction, especially in the
press, was that the dog should be put down because he mauled a kid, but a closer
look is called for in such situations, for this may or may not be an indication of an
inappropriate dog, but it is a clear indication of a failure of policy and administration.

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 When you really think about it, this is so stupid on so many levels it is hard to
know where to begin. In the first place, it is a serious breakdown in training and
administration to drop an experienced, aggressive dog on a rookie handler,
apparently with inadequate training and preparation. Next, from the dog’s point of
view he had been abruptly abandoned by his partner of several years and placed
among strangers, who did not handle the transition appropriately. Obviously, nobody
could have explained all of this to the dog and in spite of being of a very strong
character he was just a dog, having your long term handler drop you off and not
come back has to be enormously confusing and stressful. Any aggression against an
innocent person is undesirable, but it is especially egregious when it is the
consequence of stupidity in training and deployment, the failure to understand and
empathize with the nature of the dog.
One police officer of my acquaintance commented that his Malinois is a police
working dog, not a family dog. He said he would no more let his police dog loose
with his family than he would let his child take his Glock out to play with the kids in
the neighborhood. In a sense, this should be the default policy, with family
integration to be carefully introduced in appropriate circumstances. This is of course
a case-by-case personal decision, but the police administration and leadership need
to supply guidance, especially to inexperienced handlers, in dealing with these
issues.
Sometimes a causative factor for inappropriate training, living and deployment
circumstances and decisions comes from believing misguided public relations
propaganda. Some advocates tend to be reassuring and claim that a police dog is
just like any other dog, except that rather than living full time in the home they
happen to go along to help mommy or daddy at work. Well, a good police patrol dog
is not just like any other dog; he is specifically bred and trained for aggression. Sure,
some police dogs integrate with a particular family nicely, but this needs to be
decided on a case-by-case basis, taking a good look at the dog, the maturity and
competence of the handler and the general home situation. The spouse of the
handler uncomfortable with the dog is always a serious problem. There is nothing
wrong with a police dog living primarily in a kennel run as the norm; this can keep a
lid on all sorts of potentially bad situations.
The police department is akin to the military unit in that it is founded on esprit de
corps, top down commitment to the enforcement of law and order with ongoing
respect for civilian dignity and rights. An essential element in military integrity,
discipline and readiness is the separate system of military justice which closely binds
the chain of command as embodied in the officer corps with legal authority. This is
much less true of police operations, which interact primarily with citizens rather than
adversaries on the battlefield. This makes police operations vulnerable to much of
the labor strife encountered in the private sector. For these reasons entrenched
bureaucracy and police associations or unions can cripple a canine program.
As an example, Ken Burger, the now retired long time director of the Chicago
Police canine program, some years ago mentioned in an extensive Dog Sports
magazine interview that because of union rules the assignment to the canine unit
was according to seniority rather than aptitude and a desire to contribute in an
extraordinary way. This meant that some handlers were just men with seniority
looking for a soft job, who would more or less do what was required by the book and
then go home, which is not a situation conducive to excellence. (Burger, 1991)
Chicago is of course world famous for corruption, featherbedding and padded work
rules – ask any down town convention exhibitor who has had to pay an electrician
several hundred dollars to plug in a spot light – but while most police operations are
effective and professional all governmental agencies, especially those involving union
representation, are vulnerable to this sort of thing. Excellence in a canine program

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directly depends on the selection of aggressive, athletic handlers willing to go the
extra mile, where the assignment is a privilege rather than a right.

Acquisition and Training

The rapid initial expansion of European canine police service and the police
breeds such as the German Shepherd, beginning about 1900, was mutually
supportive and reinforcing; police and sport trainers, breeders and the emerging
national canine organizations were a community with common goals in spite of
differences in language and culture. The time had come, it was as simple as that.
The involvement of senior police and military leadership, such as Most in Germany
and KNPV officials in the Netherlands, was enormously beneficial to the vigor and
growth of the entire culture.
In America, things were much different. A primary reason was the time lapse;
serious American police canine activity did not commence until the 1960s or become
mainstream until the 1970s. The canine establishment, based on the British pattern,
was hostile and obstructionist, strongly discouraging serious dogs or any activity
involving canine aggression. Where the European founders were able to deal with
supportive or at least neutral national organizations, the AKC was historically always
hostile.
For these reasons America police service evolved in isolation from civilian
amateur activity emerging in the same time frame or a little later, relying almost
entirely on Europe for dogs, training methodology and guidance. The consequence
was very little communication, cooperation, mutual support or sharing of resources
with the emerging amateur working dog community, which was weak and late to
evolve. Each set of people forged their own European bonds, but were virtually
independent, so much so that they were not even well enough acquainted for
distrust. Another factor has been the general tendency in American police circles to
turn inward and distrust civilian authority or cooperative relationships beyond the
necessary interaction with the politicians and office holders, who supply the money
and appoint the senior commanders.
American sport trainers from the beginning were isolated and dependent on
Europeans for breeding stock and training philosophy. Importing titled dogs for
instant credibility and a shortcut to the podium became fashionable, but did little to
enhance the domestic working dog culture or the credibility of the movement. Much
of this European subservience was about the seeking of acceptance and approval,
condescending pats on the head from Europeans in positions of perceived prestige
and authority. There was generally little interest in the actual utility of the dogs
beyond accumulating certificates and cups to wave on the podium, and making
money selling dogs and services to newcomers seeking their own cups.
In the early years there was the hope and expectation that American unity would
in time evolve through emulation of European synergy, adopt the better aspects of
the culture and tradition. Instead Europe has drifted in the wrong direction, toward
estrangement between police breeding, training and service on the one hand and the
incessantly watered down IPO sport program of the FCI on the other.
This has been especially fraught in Germany, particularly in the German
Shepherd community. Schutzhund originated as the definitive German Shepherd
character gage, the prerequisite for breeding. IPO had existed for many years as a
similar international program with different rules and philosophy. In 2012
Schutzhund went out of existence, and the IPO sport program became the German
Shepherd performance and character evaluation process. This was not destined to
end well, for the FCI continued to water down the IPO program, dropping the stick
hits from the FCI IPO championships in 2014.

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 European emphasis on conformation lines, primarily in the German Shepherd,
with increasingly feeble character expectations exacerbates this general deterioration
of the heritage. Thus when the police resurgence and awakening sport interest
commenced in America, broadly speaking in the 1970s, the unity in Europe, most
especially Germany, was dissipating, with the emerging predominance of show line
breeding and sport training standards diverging increasingly from the realities of
police service.
For all of these reasons American police dogs have primarily been European
imports, or dogs a generation or so removed. This has occurred either through
brokers or by sending in house personnel to evaluate, select and purchase dogs,
both untrained prospects and trained or titled dogs. Military acquisition has followed
similar patterns, although they have had their own breeding program at Lackland for
a number of years. American civilian trainers, mostly Schutzhund enthusiasts, have
also remained dependent on imported dogs for competition, often trained and titled
dogs.
Many American police departments, especially the smaller or relatively newer
units, acquire dogs and training through commercial vendors. The quality of the dogs
and training varies, for anyone can line up a source of European dogs, easy to do if
you have the cash, and be in the business of supplying police dogs and training. The
problem is that dogs are not a commodity. Within reason you can purchase a specific
model Glock automatic according to price and service, but every dog is different and
it is enormously more difficult to select and negotiate price. Administrators of smaller
or newer canine units are quite often lacking in experience, which is why they are
going to the commercial supplier for the package solution in the first place. If the
agency does not quickly evolve and become more sophisticated, the supplier has no
reason, other than personal integrity, to advance the quality of the dogs or training
because that would mean that he would need to supply better and thus more
expensive dogs. For this among many other reasons there is enormous variation in
the quality of police dogs on America's streets today. The solutions for this need to
come from within the police agencies, and cooperative training, competitive events,
outside evaluations and formal certification requirements would all help in raising
expectations and standards.
Having spent a little time observing training in a vendor facility, it becomes
evident that success takes more than just the right vendor, has several components:
 A quality dog with appropriate early socialization and training.
 Knowledgeable, experienced instructors able to project enthusiasm.
 Engaged police administration committed to training and excellence.
 Candidate handlers that are sound patrol officers with a strong work ethic and
enthusiasm for working with the dogs, willing to go the extra mile, and the
ability to bond with the dog.

As in every sphere of business, there will always will be manipulative, deficient

and even fraudulent police dog vendors, it is in the nature of human beings and free
enterprise. The only driving force for better vendors is better informed and more
sophisticated customers. In this environment good police administration means as
much as possible bringing the knowledge and experience in house, to come to the
point where the department handlers and trainers, and former handlers still within
the department, perhaps at administrative levels, are able to evaluate dogs, training
and performance. This often does not scale well to the smaller programs, which must
either function in cooperation with neighboring agencies in terms of training and
leadership or rely too much on the commercial vendors. Strong administrative
experience, knowledge and engagement tends to result in a stronger vendor
relationship, because of the certain knowledge that poor dogs or service will not go

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unnoticed and could result in losing the business. Good vendors are created by
strong, knowledgeable, demanding customers. Bad vendor relationships are those in
which the vendor is able to manipulate and in effect manage the canine unit to his
own benefit and profit.
One experienced police trainer has commented that among the reasons for the
lack of interaction and cooperation between the police canine community and the
sport training in America is that vendors and brokers have tended to encourage
dependence and disparaged the amateur or sport training. While this is only one
aspect of a very complex reality, which has been discussed extensively in earlier
chapters, it does ring true in my ears.
Police dog candidates are increasingly being bred specifically for sale to American
police agencies, both here and in Europe. This is not just a matter of good breeding
stock, proper care of the bitch in whelp, attending the whelping of the litter and
providing clean runs, good food and medical care. As discussed in the Nature and
Nurture section at the end of Chapter 2, the young dogs need intensive socialization,
especially in the two or three weeks after the eyes open. This may seem to be a
matter of just having people play with the puppies, but it is more difficult than that.
The pup ideally needs to get into some sort of a family situation. Just as the
assistance dogs for the blind are fostered out for a year or so to provide this critical
socialization, our military breeding program at Lackland Air Force Base and
commercial breeding operations seek out people to foster candidate pups.
Fostering a pup for assistance training or the military is generally a matter of a
contribution to the common good, a service to society as a whole. Fostering a pup
for a commercial operation brings forth a complex set of issues, in that the process
greatly adds to the value of the pup, presenting the question of who should share in
the eventual purchase price. The free enterprise answer is that the market should
dictate price, that if puppy fostering becomes a paid service rather than a civic
contribution the person needs monetary compensation. One problem with this is that
money will attract people seeking money, and some will seek to acquire many pups,
perhaps from different agencies, and simply feed and kennel them for the allotted
time and then turn them in for payment, which of course means that the whole
exercise has been more or less pointless. These are complex and unresolved issues.
Canine units are expensive and under continual pressure to justify their existence
in terms of cost effectiveness. Obvious components of cost include procurement of
the dog, provision of food, shelter and medical care and the necessity of special
equipment, such as larger and extensively modified vehicles. But the major ongoing
expense is training in that the handler generally is on duty during routine training,
either on an overtime basis or on the clock detracting from patrol availability.
Eight to sixteen hours a month of maintenance training per dog, a modest
schedule, quickly adds up, is a budget item of many thousands of dollars for even
small programs. If the training is local, the dog is generally available for dispatch in
case of an incident, offsetting some of the expense, as breaking off a training session
at any point is generally not harmful; indeed, preparing for the unexpected is one of
the fundamental aspects of the training.
Beyond the time of the individual handler, there must be people to direct the
training, observe and correct procedures, serve as protection helper, evaluate the
dogs and generally run the program. Smaller units often use outside professional
services because it is impractical to find or pay an in house trainer. Larger
departments often maintain in house training and supervisory staff in addition to the
actual on the street canine handlers. Regardless of the organizational details, these
tend to be experienced, capable people, and thus relatively expensive in terms of
salary, the provision of office space, vehicles, equipment such as bite suits and
sleeves and other ongoing expenses.

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 In order to justify their
expense, police dogs
increasingly need to serve
more than a single purpose. In
particular, the olfactory
potential is of fundamental
importance, for the modern
police patrol dog must be
capable of searching a
building, doing an outdoor
area search, scanning the
ground and grass for evidence
and tracking and searching for
a criminal or lost person.
When a track is long or
British police officers patrolling the docks and rail yard. difficult, or the weather is hot,
1941 tracking can require great
stamina and endurance, as it
is very demanding and difficult work. With the exception of a few specialist
situations, such as an occasional Bloodhound, the police dog in America today is a
German Shepherd or, increasingly, a Malinois.1 This is because the medium size and
great stamina of the herding dog is an excellent match for the police patrol role and
because viable candidates in other breeds do not exist in sufficient numbers.
The growth of police canine programs, and increasing military requirements, has
created a brisk and expanding demand for capable dogs. Many years ago in Chicago
public radio announcements that the police department was seeking donations of
candidate canine patrol dogs were fairly common, and such dogs were in fact
utilized. But the reality is that effective police canine patrol programs require more
than pet breeding cast offs, demand that the dogs come from serious breeding
programs where the stock is realistically tested to establish that they indeed do have
the physical and moral attributes necessary. In general the vast majority of
unwanted dogs in civilian hands are unlikely to stand up under training, and taking
on a dog that at some point has to be discarded is an expensive and wasteful
process.
Today most American police dogs are imported, primarily from countries such as
the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and the Czech Republic, or are first generation
offspring of such dogs, often bred specifically for police service by commercial
operations. Breeding has been ramped up to produce dogs specifically for the
American market, attracted by prices upwards of five thousand dollars for an
untrained year and a half old dog. American quasi-amateur dog sport programs,
primarily Schutzhund, have played relatively little part in this, which is generally not
a good thing.
When I was spending significant time in the Netherlands it was quite common to
find police officers as active trainers in KNPV clubs, and when introduced to higher-
level KNPV officers they were quite often police administrators in their day jobs. This
perception may be slightly skewed by the fact that the friend whom I usually stay
with is a KNPV judge; perhaps I have just been less fortunate in my American
connections. But on the whole my opinion is that the fact that European police
officers, club trainers and trial participants have close relationships – indeed are
1
Dutch Shepherds being essentially a coat variation of the Malinois.

351
often the same people – is a fundamental causative factor for the widespread
success of Dutch police canine programs.1
Part of an ongoing canine operation is or should be periodic performance review
of team effectiveness. In the middle 1980s, I was fortunate enough to spend a day
at a police training and evaluation session at Appledorn in the Netherlands. The
practice there was that each six months an outside evaluator was brought in to
conduct what amounted to a mini KNPV trial, which as I recall took about half a day
for the six or seven Malinois and five or six Bouviers then on the force.
My impression was that if a dog looked good, and had looked good previously,
the test was perfunctory, short and quick. Presumably in a questionable situation the
evaluator was free to test to whatever level he felt necessary to verify the dog. An
interesting point is that if the dog failed to qualify again after being on probation the
dog would or could be eliminated. But if the dog went the handler most likely lost his
canine handler status and privileges. There are no doubt provisions where it seems
to be a fundamental problem with the dog rather than the training, but to continue
as a handler you were responsible to maintain the readiness and discipline of your
dog, which would seem to be simple common sense.

Trends
Over the past twenty years there has been enormous demand for police and
military canines, domestically driven primarily by the war on drugs and the
enormous demand for bomb and explosive detection dogs in the various Middle
Eastern conflicts.
Reliable statistical information on the number of police dogs in American service
is surprisingly difficult to come by. According to Chapman there were approximately
7000 police canine teams in America in 1989. There does seem to be steady growth,
as there are reliable reports of over 9,000 in police dogs serving in America in 2002.
(Mesloh, 2003) The post 9/11 emphasis on security would make a somewhat larger
figure seem likely. Although long-term demand seems likely to remain high, in the
short term the winding down of our Middle East commitments is likely to reduce
demand.
The wild card in all of this is the evolving American attitude toward recreational
drugs, which is generally softening. Possession of small amounts of drugs such as
marijuana is increasingly treated as a minor infraction, often ignored at officer
discretion, and increasingly condoned on a state by state basis. Although federal law
and enforcement aggressiveness remain relatively stringent, state laws are
increasingly relaxed in terms of medical use, which is often a wink-wink acceptance
of recreational use, and outright legalization.
Widespread acceptance of recreational drug use would seem likely to diminish the
demand for police canine service. Legalization of soft drugs, particularly marijuana,
would present retraining and management problems in that positive find indications
on newly legal substances would likely be interpreted as civil rights or constitutional
violations.

1
This is especially effective in the Netherlands, neither the Belgian or French sport
programs seem to have police relations that are comparably strong and cooperative.

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 14 The Dogs of War

The propensity of primitive men

to raid neighboring bands or villages
did not abate as we advanced
technically and socially, learned to
fashion ever more sophisticated and
effective weapons. Advancing
civilization provided the technical
and societal means to plunder on an
ever expanding scale.
As understood and explained by
scientists such as Konrad Lorenz,
this innate aggression is a necessary
evolutionary adaption for survival.
But establishing social mechanisms
to limit aggression has become
much more difficult as advancing
technology and production potential
U.S. Marine handler, Corporal Michael Galloway and have provided increasingly effective
Scout Dog Stormy search a tunnel and find an weapons. The domestication of the
enemy satchel of explosives (Vietnam, 1970). horse provided mobility for larger
Stormy’s first handler was Ron Aiello. and more robust states and to
enable more far reaching excursions.
As a consequence small scale
skirmishes between bands evolved
over time into full scale wars among nations.
Dogs were participants from the earliest times, providing intrusion warning,
searching out opportunities for plunder and directly fighting an adversary. Such
things were natural extensions of the herd guardian and hunting roles, emerging out
of ancient, evolutionary established predatory and territorial instincts and the family
group or pack social structure. Even into the era of swords and spears aggressive
dogs could be a significant factor in an engagement, just as in the hunt.
En masse deployment of war dogs of the Molosser type has been depicted on the
walls of the ancient Egyptians and Assyrians and in the writing of the Greeks and
Romans, sometimes with armor and spiked collars. Although the vision of hordes of
snarling, spike collared hounds hurtling into enemy ranks is dramatic, details of
breeding, training, logistics and deployment strategy are sparse. Those with the least
bit of practical canine experience can well envision the care and effort necessary to
loose masses of dogs in the vanguard of battle, for those large and aggressive dogs
would have needed handlers and trainers to make them ready and willing at the
appointed place and time. Even transporting the accouterments of war, the spiked
collars and body armor, from battle to battle, indeed, even feeding the dogs, would
have been a resource consuming logistical challenge.
Engagement tactics would have been problematic, for in the fog of war battle
fields become confused and turbulent places. When the command went forth to
release the dogs effective training and deployment strategies would have been
critical to ensure that confusion and fear was struck in the ranks of the foe rather
than your own advancing lines. The extent to which the purpose of the dogs was

353
psychological, creating fear, rather than tactical is difficult to discern at this point in
time.
In this era battles were decided in hand to hand combat, where discipline,
holding the line of battle, was fundamental. Although we know little in the way of
detail, what we do know, the descriptions of body armor and spiked collars, of
massive deployment, indicate that the purpose of the ancient war dog was to disrupt
and distract the adversary, to render him vulnerable through injury and fear,
disrupting formations and dissipating discipline.
Since we have limited knowledge of how common or effective packs of dogs were
or might have been, evocative drawings on ancient walls may have been akin to
some modern depictions of war, having more to do with image and propaganda than
reality; war stories have no doubt been told as long as men have gone to war. But
chained or restrained dogs as perimeter defense are commonly mentioned in history,
as in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign and later in Russia. Attila the Hun is said to have
routinely employed dogs as perimeter guardians of his encampments. Dogs
restrained by handlers, or tied to fixed points, would have provided intimidation,
deterrence, defense and the option of loosening them at an appropriate moment.
Psychological factors, the fear that they might be loosed, likely played their own role.
Although the massive deployment of war dogs had long faded in Europe by the
medieval era, the surge of European exploration and colonization of remote regions
devoid of guns and steel brought forth new opportunities for dogs of war, as
exemplified by the overrun of the Aztec empire by the Spanish Conquistadors and a
little later the suppression of slave insurrection in the Caribbean islands and
elsewhere. New world agriculture and mining, from South America through the
American South, became dependent on African slave labor, and the ever present
threat of insurrection on every scale, as illustrated by the successful revolt in Haiti,
became an oppressive part of colonial life. In most regions slaves far outnumbered
European owners and overseers, and every means of containment and control was
employed.
Large and aggressive dogs, bred specifically for the purpose, often of the
Molosser type, played a major role in intimidation, recovery of runaways and
punishment. In the Caribbean particularly packs of savage dogs, bred over time for
the purpose, were routinely deployed; fear, the expectation of savage attack by
packs of dogs, was an ever present reality for the slave population. Such dogs,
evolved by crossing Bloodhounds with especially vicious mastiff or bulldog lines,
came to be known as Cuban Bloodhounds, and also as Nigger Hounds and other
pejorative names meant to demean and instill fear. 1 There is little doubt that there
were diverse regional varieties, with some the cross bred hound type and others
more of the Molosser style, precursors to the modern Dogo Argentino and Fila
Brasileiro.
In antebellum America much of this fierce canine persona was created by packs
of slave hunting hounds, made famous in the movies and portrayed as hunting
escaped prisoners as well as slaves. While all sorts of dogs were likely employed, the
emphasis was on specific lines such as imported Cuban Bloodhounds. This savage,
terrifying persona became legendary because of the reality and because the image
was projected in lurid press accounts and through word of mouth – creating
subservience through fear and intimidation was the underlying purpose. Although
1
Bloodhound enthusiasts emphasize, correctly, that these were cross bred specifically for
fierceness, and that the original Bloodhounds of the era, and those of today, were and
are much more benign.

354
such dogs to a large extent disappear at the close of the war, remnants of such lines
likely persist in our southern farm dogs.
Although in most of the world today military and police dogs are less often
deployed for terrorism and oppression, such things do, and always will, go on. Even
in the American South of the civil rights era, the 1960s, such dogs were deployed,
along with the fire hoses and police lines, for intimidation. Throughout most of
history, fear of the military or police dog was there because it was put there, was the
purpose of the dog, was a perfectly rational response to the reality.

The Modern Era

The widespread introduction of gunpowder transformed all aspects of war. As
artillery increasingly dominated the battle field and the rifle became more
sophisticated and effective castles were transformed from strongholds of survival to
picturesque relics, armor and the mystique of the knight were relegated to the realm
of legend and the offensive role of the dog abated. Just as the infantry man with a
modern repeating rifle rendered the cavalry charge obsolete, modern firearms
removed any remaining vestige of practical use for war dogs as offensive weapons.
Today purely aggressive dogs are out of the mainstream of modern, progressive
military and police applications. While it remains true that contemporary police
breeds, such as the Malinois, are capable of serious aggression, and are bred and
selected to be high in fighting drive, to be of use in the modern context this
aggression must be secondary and supportive rather than the primary function.
Discipline, restraint and control are canine watchwords where the dogs routinely
come in close contact with diverse military, supporting and civilian personnel. The
static perimeter guard role, long a mainstay of canine service, has to a significant
extent been taken over by electronic and optical intrusion detection technology, such
as television surveillance and night vision devices.
In the twentieth century, beginning in WWI, military dogs increasingly served as
messenger, search, detection, scout and patrol dogs as exclusively aggressive roles
diminished. This transition was gradual, for the old fashioned military guard dog,
persisting into the Vietnam era, was in no essential way different from the perimeter
guard dogs of Napoleon or even back into the era of Greeks and Egyptians.
Although many breeds were proposed and touted for modern military service, the
tending style herding dogs, especially the Belgian and German Shepherds, emerged
as the practical type. Although breeds such as the Airedale and Doberman served
through WWII, these breeds were generally abandoned as the modern era
progressed. There is a touch of irony in the fact that breeds specifically created for
man aggression, such as the Molossers and Doberman Pinchers, fell by the wayside
as the herders, with the inbred instinct to protect the flock or herd rather than focus
on engaging the predator population, came to the forefront.
As Napoleon famously commented "An army marches on its stomach," and dogs
have contributed to logistical, behind the lines support roles throughout history. The
American Army deployed sled dogs as recently as WWII – to rescue downed aviators
in northern latitudes among other things – and the indigenous draft dogs of Belgium
played a minor role in WWI. Dogs have always fulfilled the more informal and
mundane roles of watch dog, guard dog, draft dog, pack dog and even messenger;
when man goes to war warriors have needs between battles, and the dogs, like the
camp women, were always present as mascots and simple companions if nothing
else. The Roman Legions often took herds, and accompanying dogs, on the march to
provide food; to what extent the dogs participated in battle can only be a subject of
speculation.

355
 During the American Civil War dogs were
employed as sentries, mascots and as makeshift
search or patrol dogs, but there was no formal
program of recruitment, training or deployment
on either side. Dogs were used at prisoner of
war camps where they served as guard dogs;
and where packs of hounds were maintained to
chase down escaped prisoners. No doubt the
canine packs maintained to pursue and punish
fleeing slaves were well adapted to this new
role.
The first formal, large scale deployment of
the modern war dog took place in the First
World War, most prominently and successfully
by the Germans, the only nation with a
substantial, long term prewar program in place.
Although the Americans had no military dogs of
their own, they were able to utilize British and
French dogs to some extent. (Chapman, Police
Dogs, 1990)
The early German enthusiasm for military
applications naturally brings to mind the
prominence of the German police breeds, but
this was going on in the later 1800's before
these now famous breeds had been formalized,
were still in the fields and meadows with the
WW I British Messenger Dogs sheep and cattle. Although there had been
(Richardson, 1920) growing interest, the German Shepherd national
breed club and the rapid proliferation of the
breed, and to a lesser extent the others, particularly the Doberman, would not occur
until the later 1890s.
In their search for war dogs the Germans were focused on the formal purebred
rather than cross breeds or undocumented dogs of the fields and pastures. In this
era many of the prominent purebreds were British, the progenitors of the German
police breeds still unnoticed in the hands of shepherds, drovers and farmers. The
breeds considered included the Poodles because of their intelligence and trainability,
but they lacked ruggedness. The St. Bernard was a candidate, but had degenerated,
was too far from their functional roots. The Great Danes were large, unwieldy and
difficult to control. The larger hunting dogs were robust, but the inherent hunting
instincts were a serious impediment to training; the deeply ingrained inclination to
chase rabbit or deer presented discipline issues. The Airedale was a contender early
on, and many served in the German military in both world wars, but they would
fade.
In his 1892 book on the war dog the famous German animal painter and
illustrator, Jean Bungartz, made an impassioned case for the Scotch Collie.
(Britannica) Beyond his illustrations and writing he was directly involved in the Red
Cross (military medical assistance) dog program of the German Government, was in
fact the director. This experimental program seems, at least initially, to have been
focused on the Collie, and his participation would persist until well into the twentieth
century. Von Stephanitz was not enthused about Herr Bungartz and his Collie dogs.
Commencing after the Franco-Prussian War, in 1870, the German military had
begun encouraging and subsidizing civilian training and breeding. In 1884 the first
war dog school was established at Lechernich, near Berlin. Training was diverse,

356
including messenger dogs, scout dogs, sentry service and ambulance or sanitary
dogs. Jean Bungartz, a hands on man as well as a famous artist and writer, was the
head trainer with his particular interest in the Red Cross dogs. These ambulance
dogs were the subject of incessant promotion and publicity prior to WWI, in several
nations, largely because many of the promoters were essentially breed advocates
seeking service venues which would engender positive public perception. In the
harsh reality of WWI trench warfare expectations faded and interest did not
reemerge after the war.
The Herrero Campaign (1904-1907) in German South-West Africa (modern
Namibia) served as a proof of concept proving ground for the German war dog
program. Some sixty dogs were deployed with the military and were deemed
effective as security, search and patrol dogs in difficult terrain and operating
circumstances. This success provided impetus for the German program in the lead up
to major European war. In a war of subjugation over the native population there was
no expectation of public concern over harsh treatment or injury to victims with no
legal rights or standing, which provided a great deal of latitude for experimentation
with little expectation of negative press or civilian wringing of hands.
The establishment of the German Shepherd as a formal breed in 1899 and the
phenomenal growth over the next fifteen years under the leadership of von
Stephanitz was the pivotal event in the evolution of the modern military and police
dog, for in terms of sheer numbers everything else became preamble. The German
Shepherd would be the backbone of military and police canine service for a century.

WWI
When war finally came, the Germans were ready with trained dogs, placing 6,000
in service at the onset of hostilities. According to records of the German Society for
Ambulance Dogs at Oldenburg, of 1,678 dogs sent to the front up to the end of May
1915, 1,274 were German Shepherds, 142 Airedale Terriers, 239 Dobermans and 13
Rottweilers. (Britannica) About 7,000 German dogs were destined to die during the
First World War, serving as messengers, guard dogs, telephone cable pullers or
medical search dogs.
The allies – the British and French – were late to the war dog game. A formal
British program was not established until 1917 at Shoeburyness, some three years
into the war, under the auspices of the signal section of the Royal Engineers. This
program was under the direction of Major Edwin H. Richardson, who had been
promoting and studying military and police canine applications for many years. The
initial dogs going into service were those that he had been training privately, and the
supply of dogs was largely from private citizens in response to a well-published plea
for donations. As mentioned, there was no American war dog program at all.
Emphasis was on the messenger service, but sentry dogs were also trained and
deployed. Of 340 dogs sent to France from the school within a certain period, 74
were collies, 70 cross bred sight hounds or Lurchers, 66 Airedales, 36 sheep-dogs,
and 33 retrievers, the remainder being made up of 13 different breeds. (Britannica)
The static western front provided relatively little opportunity for the scout or patrol
style of service that would prove so successful in the South Pacific in the next war,
and in Vietnam.
One of the primary uses of the dog1 was for message delivery, as practical radio
use was in the future and telephone lines took time to lay and were subject to
1
Carrier pigeons also played a role, sometimes transported to the front on messenger
dogs.

357
sabotage or monitoring by the enemy. High value goods, such as maps, ammunition
or even cigarettes could be transported. Elaborate training and deployment methods
were devised, including the delivery of pigeons by dogs for return messages. The
trench warfare contributed to the practicality of this, for it provided cover for the dog
and established routes which could in some circumstances be learned and repeated.
In more dynamic tactical environments, with routine advances, retreats and troop
movements, a returning dog might have to seek the handler by use of his nose, that
is, find where he had moved to, which introduced an element of uncertainty.
The British used messenger dogs with a single handler or trainer, the dogs being
taken forward by ordinary soldiers and then released as necessary with a message in
a tube or container attached to their collar, the dogs returning to their handlers by
instinct and training. Among the advantages of this approach was the efficiency in
terms of personnel, that is a single handler typically worked several dogs, since
specialist handlers were not required at the point of origin, usually the front lines,
the dogs having been taken forward by ordinary soldiers, and all of the dogs could
return to a central location, usually some sort of command center. The Germans
employed teams with two handlers for each dog so they could be sent back and
forth, sometimes referred to as liaison dogs.
Richardson, in his famous book on war dogs, says that the simpler single handler
system was necessary for the British because there was no preexisting program and
reservoir of trained dogs and handlers. He advocated that a certain number of liaison
dogs, those capable of going back and forth between two handlers, should in the
future be trained and maintained ready for service, but much to his frustration the
British program was abandoned after the war.1 Richardson indicates a strong
preference for use of male dogs and reports that retrievers in general were not as
satisfactory. Terriers such as the Airedale and also smaller breeds such as the Irish
Terrier were successful in his program, and he was entirely open to the use of mixed
breed dogs. Statistically, the Collies, Lurchers and Airedales predominated.
A central British kennel and training operation was established in France at
Etaples. The dogs were ready for deployment after five or six weeks of intensive
training. From Etaples the dogs were posted to sectional kennels behind the front
line, each kennel consisting of about 48 dogs and 16 men. From these kennels the
handlers, with up to three dogs, were sent forward for duty behind the trenches.
The French canine training center was at Satory, established about the same time
as the English school at Shoeburyness. Shepherds of various kinds, Airedale Terriers
and Scotch Collies were among the breeds utilized. In addition to the messenger,
sentry and patrol dogs, the French also trained dogs for transport, that is, pack and
draught dogs.
As mention previously, the German war dog program was large and diverse, with
German Shepherds, Dobermans, Airedale Terriers and Rottweilers the preferred
breeds, roughly in that order. The Germans emphasized the duel handler messenger
dog system, the so called liaison system, with the dogs travelling back and forth
between two handlers. The two handlers generally had several dogs, and were
trained or adaptable to cable laying and transporting carrier pigeons, ammunition,
maps or other light, high value items. If there were no military missions, the dogs
were run without messages as necessary in the interest of training and conditioning.
According to Lemish the British and the French had twenty thousand dogs by the
end of the war, and the Germans thirty thousand. Least anyone retain any illusion of
the romance or nobility of war, thousands of these unfortunate dogs, acquired and
1
(Richardson, 1920)

358
 trained at such sacrifice, were
simply put down at the end as
surplus. (Lemish, 1996)
After the war the Germans were
under onerous terms, very seriously
limited and restrained in their
military activity, which made
another war virtually inevitable, and
the British and French greatly
diminished their own military
preparedness. The Americans
disarmed almost completely, and
only low level, sporadic interest in
dog applications would come before
Pearl Harbor. Canine programs were
very much on the back burner everywhere, but the Germans, under duress and
economic hardship, persisted as best they could.
But in spite of the short sighted curtailing of activity, the effectiveness of war
dogs in these new roles was in general proven, and the service would expand
significantly in the future. The Germans especially learned their lessons well, and
even in spite of the restrictions of the peace terms carried on their training and
breeding programs.
But not all war dog programs were successful. In the years leading up to the war
a great deal of publicity and effort had been devoted to the so called sanitary or
ambulance dogs, intended to find wounded and disabled men on the field of battle
and provide assistance, often in the form of guiding rescuers to the wounded men. A
principle factor in the effectiveness of the medical assistance dogs was to have been
the ability to distinguish between the dead which they were trained to ignore and the
wounded who they were to respond to by encouragement or taking a hat or object
back to the handler, thus summoning help. All of this was based on the assumption
that the unmistakable red on white cross symbol used on men, animals, hospitals or
ships would be recognized and honored. Such turned out not to be the case.
According to Edwin Richardson:
"Had these conditions obtained in this war, ambulance dogs would have
been of great assistance. As it was, however, when the French army
hurriedly sent some of their ambulance dogs with their keepers to the front
in the earliest feverish days, the first thing that happened was that,
although both men and dogs wore the Red Cross, the enemy brutally shot
them all down whenever they attempted to carry out their humanitarian
work. It was also found that, when the opposing forces settled down into
trench warfare, the opportunities on the Western front were closed. The
only ambulance dogs that were used with any success were those with the
German army when the Russians were retreating on the Eastern front." He
continues: "… the conditions on the Western front soon became, as I have
said, impossible for the successful use of ambulance dogs. The French War
Office entirely forbade their use with their army after the first few weeks."
(Richardson, 1920)
It seems that the Ambulance dog, the soldier's friend, was created for public
relations reasons as much as anything else; advocates seeking a favorable public
persona for their breeds and the dogs generally. Although peace time, civilian
oriented search and rescue carries on, formal military programs of this sort no longer
are significant.

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The Specialists
In modern warfare many soldiers are specialists, and this is even more true of
the military dogs: there are a number of distinct functions or missions that demand
selection for specific characteristics and the provision of specialized training
according to their expected role in combat or behind the lines. Trainers and handlers
of course also require their own specialized skill and knowledge sets, and more
senior officers and noncommissioned officers need to understand these roles and
deploy the teams accordingly, something that has not always been appreciated or
achieved in practice.
Most military training programs are thus set up to produce a specific skill set,
that is specialist dogs such as sentry, patrol, scout and search dogs. But these roles
– discussed in subsequent sections – can overlap and evolve in service as handlers,
perhaps assisted by trainers in the combat zone, adapt their dogs according to
circumstances, tactical needs and perceived potential in the individual dog and
handler. As a prime example, many of the WWII Marine messenger dogs were
converted to scout or guard dogs in the South Pacific theatre. In the fog of war,
capacity for adaption and improvisation is essential.

The Messenger Dog

In WWI the primary canine function was, arguably, that of messenger dog. As
illustrated in innumerable tales of dogs returning home over daunting distances, they
are capable of navigating difficult terrain and avoiding detection or interference. The
four footed drive, low profile, ability to blend in and innate instinct to find a way
home were the ingredients for service, and until the advent of reliable, effective field
radio units the messenger dog was found to be quite useful and effective. The dogs
were often acclimated to carrying a pack so as to deliver supplies or ammunition,
and some were trained to string telephone wire up to a mile using special harnesses.
Dogs could move rapidly in adverse terrain and presented a difficult target for the
rifleman. While most often the dog returned to the handler, it was also able to follow
and find the handler by scent at a distance up to several miles in case
circumstances, the shifting battle, forced the handler to move. This is a brief
description of WWI German service:
"... a dog was intercepted no more frequently than a man, and
furthermore, if a human messenger is captured he can be forced to amplify
the information he carries whereas no one has yet learned how to make a
dog talk."
"The infantry and the artillery have separate sets of liaison dogs, because
the infantry dogs run from the front lines back and vice versa while those
of the artillery run parallel to the fighting line. It has been found that if a
dog regularly runs in a given direction there is less chance of its changing
its course when crossing other lines of canine communication. All animals
are taught to run wearing gas masks as frequently they must cross gassed
areas."
(Humphrey & Warner, 1934) p19
The Germans – and the Americans in WWII – employed two handlers for each
dog so they could be sent back and forth. The initial Marine deployments in the
South Pacific were half messenger dog teams, with one dog and two handlers, the
other half being scout dogs. In the early deployments messenger dog usage turned
out to be minimal and they were deemphasized as the war progressed. Many were
converted to scout, guard or other duties. (Putney, 2003)
In WWI British messenger dogs used a single handler for the dog, which was
taken forward in the care of the ordinary soldiers and then released as required to

360
return to the handler at a base location, usually some sort of command post. Each
base end handler typically worked with several dogs since individual trained handlers
were not required at forward points in the lines. The special collar with a message
tube was typically put on immediately before the dog was sent to build the
association with the task required.
WWI had been largely a static engagement where the soldier walked into battle
and much transport was by horse and mule, but increasingly WWII, particularly the
European and African theaters, involved rapidly moving tank warfare, deployment by
truck and generally mechanized operations, made messenger dogs increasingly
impractical. In addition to this the early phases of WWII saw the introduction reliable
portable field radio units – the famous Walkie-Talkie – which came into widespread
use and were very effective.
In the South Pacific the rain and wet conditions typical of jungle warfare reduced
the reliability of the radio gear in the early stages and thus the messenger dogs
retained a minor role. But improving radio equipment and tactics over time reduced
this role, and many messenger dogs were converted to sentry or scout duty.
(Putney, 2003) The relative number of messenger dogs deployed with new units also
was substantially reduced over time, and the Marines eventually stopped training
such dogs entirely to focus on the enormously effective and in demand patrol dogs.
The overall transition away from the messenger dog was gradual, for they were
still being trained to some extent at the Camp Carson Army center as late as the
early 1950s.

The Sentry or Guard Dog

The dog of war conjures up the image of the snarling, barking beast straining at
the end of a lead, but this guard dog is only one of several types, and in many ways
the least sophisticated and demanding in terms of training and handler
sophistication. The function of such dogs was to protect fixed bases, encamped
troops or any other static asset, anywhere a watch or guard is needed. These dogs
were selected to be active and aggressive to protect the handler and to give warning
of an intruder; sometimes their highest priority was to live long enough for the
handler to recognize and warn of an intrusion. When the handler lacks a radio, the
barking of the dog may be the primary warning and notification mechanism. Often
deployed as a foot patrol, they are also useful when a jeep or other vehicle is
utilized.1 Sentry dogs are to a large extent born rather than made, for the instinctive,
even excessive, aggression cannot be effectively created where it is not there, and
making lesser dogs aggressive by abuse, by backing them into a corner and making
them fight, is unreliable because in the field there may not be a corner and flight
might very well win out over fight. The sentry dog needs to form at least a minimal
bond to the handler, and a certain level of insecurity can aid in this; there is in
general no need to be restrained or social, for the world of the guard dog is one
dimensional, he is in many programs either on duty or in confinement.
There has been significant variation over the years in the sentry dog, for when
they are selected and trained for total aggression they can be dangerous even to the
handler, and to veterinarians and others who must care for and interact with them,
as when the handler is off duty. Furthermore, such dogs can be deployed only where
1
There are also references in the literature (Richardson, 1920) to long metal lines strung
between stationary points, sometimes with a shelter for the dog, so that he could move
back and forth as the line from his collar to the slide on the static line allowed him to
cover a great range. I am unaware of any contemporary applications of this sort, which
are probably precluded by considerations of legal liability.

361
there is no expectation of interaction with people who may have legitimate business
or a legal access to the area. There are a lot of advantages to a more stable,
controllable and better-trained dog.
In the modern world of increasingly effective electronic surveillance, that is very
economical networks of TV cameras and intrusion detection, and increasing legal
liability, this old fashioned one dimensional security dog is increasingly obsolete.

The Patrol Dog

The next step up from the sentry or guard dog is the patrol dog, which is trained
so as to be very similar to the traditional police dog. The patrol dog can work in a
crowded environment and is much more sophisticated in terms of response to
handler management; that is will out reliably and can be recalled. Just as in their
civilian counterparts, the military patrol dog, often serving with the military police, is
often a dual-purpose drug or narcotics detection dog. Such dogs require a generally
better and well-rounded dog, much more training and a more sophisticated and well-
trained handler.
Beginning in the Vietnam era, the focus of military training has shifted from the
guard dog to the patrol dog. Much of the discussion in the police dog chapter is
directly applicable to this sort of military dog, rendering further comment
superfluous, but such dogs are very important in military service.

The Scout Dog

The sentry or guard dog is by definition always playing defense, deployed to warn
of intrusion on fixed assets such as a military base or encampment. This is a
relatively straightforward role, relying in the natural instincts of the dog to bark and
show aggression in the presence of a threat, requiring only minimal control and skill
in the handler. But neither war nor football games are won on defense, in order to
prevail it is necessary to seek out and engage the adversary. This is the purpose of
the military scout dog.
The scout dog is deployed with a patrol, a group of exploring soldiers generally
seeking out the enemy to force engagement or establish his deployment pattern. The
function of the scout dog is to detect and silently give warning of the presence of a
concealed adversary, primarily by means of the sense of smell but also hearing.
Silence is essential because even the smallest sound could potentially alert the
enemy and thus transfer the advantage to him, endangering the entire unit. The
scout dog role is among the most sophisticated and useful, requiring an especially
proficient handler capable of reacting to the first hint of alert in the dog and
maintaining situational awareness. In the most effective mode the dog is off lead and
ranging ahead so as to give the earliest possible warning while keeping the handler
and the rest of the patrol as far back from danger as possible. This requires strong
control, which must be silent or almost silent, in order to keep the dog within sight
and thus under control and capable of giving warning.
Scout dog candidate selection must emphasize alertness, intensity, the acute
sense of smell and the ability to remain silent when detecting the enemy and seeking
out his position. The dog must be cooperative and trainable; remain under close
control as he detects and then moves up to engage the enemy or while withdrawing
from a superior force as the tactics of the situation dictate. While the guard dog need
be little more than neutral to his handler, the bond between handler and scout dog is
the foundation of the effectiveness of the team.

362
 In the ideal the dog will
work off leash yet remain
responsive to handler
control, since in this way, as
long as they remain in sight,
the dog can give earlier
warning and put the handler
and the patrol further back
from danger. This is difficult
in that the handler must
keep the dog within the
desired distance and yet
maintain silence so as not to
warn an enemy.
An important point is
that the olfactory potential
of the scout dog is primarily
used for scenting air borne
Vietnam era scout dog US Army Photo odors or particles rather
than the ground odor, that
is sniffing the ground to detect disturbances in vegetation or other scents on the
surface rather than in the air. While tracking or ground scenting is appropriate in
many police situations, including military police and tracking or trailing operations,
the scout dog needs to have his head up and be focused ahead where he can alert at
the earliest moment based on airborne scent, sound or sight. Sometimes both search
or tracking dogs and scout dogs are deployed on the same mission in order to
provide both functions, that is search out or follow an enemy through ground and
local air scent and also detect the hidden enemy rather than approaching too closely
not knowing of his presence.
The sight of the dog tends to be less effective than that of the handler, who
because of his erect or semi erect position has a much better field of view; this is
very much a team effort. The dog, while not color blind, has much less color
sensitivity than a man, which means he is less capable of picking out stationary or
partially hidden distant objects or adversaries. The man has better binocular vision,
and thus better depth perception, which greatly enhances his ability to discern
distant objects. In the dark, the canine eyesight is superior to the man but in general
supplementary to the senses of hearing and smell.
Handler understanding of the acuity and limitations of the olfactory power are
fundamental, he must always be aware of the wind direction and intensity, for when
the wind is from behind the odor of the adversary is carried away in the opposite
direction. Because of this the detection capability of the dog is enormously
compromised, in a way comparable to operating partially blind. It is essential that
the handler understand and be responsive to such issues: operating with the wind
from your back oblivious to the consequences may be more dangerous than not
having a dog at all because of the false sense of security. For maximum
effectiveness and safety the leader of the patrol must make his deployment decisions
based partially on the capability of the dog, it is always a substantial advantage to
advance into a dangerous area with the wind in your face, bringing the scent to you
and your dog, rather than from behind. Another consideration is that if the enemy
has a dog then this tactic takes advantage of wind direction to conceal the advance
as long as possible. (The Japanese had an extensive military canine program in
WWII.) Practical circumstances often prevent a downwind approach, requiring
especial caution on the part of the handler.

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 Airborne scent carries and disperses on the wind, which means that terrain,
including hills, bodies of water and vegetation influence airflow and thus the distance
and reliability at which the dog can alert to danger. The more the handler and patrol
leader are aware of these factors, the more the dog can contribute to the safety and
effectiveness of the patrol.
Although scout dogs are sometimes thought of as similar to police service dogs,
the man aggression of the scout dog is secondary in a team where every human is
heavily armed and alert to the need to respond. Sure if things get up close and
critical it is good that the dog pitches in and contributes, and the dogs with the drive
and intensity to be good scout dogs are likely to be aggressive in close. But direct
aggression as in bite and hold is secondary for the primary mission of the scout dog.
That said, in many programs the scout dog is sometimes expected to be capable
of service as a sentry or guard dog, able to protect a command or observation post
against enemy infiltration, especially at night. This needs to be limited however, the
dog in the field all day must be rested just as the soldiers must rest; expecting to get
double duty from the dog by having someone else take him on guard duty at night
could greatly reduce effectiveness in both roles. But of course in war every man and
dog has to occasionally pinch hit in something a little bit outside of his comfort zone.

Explosive Detection Dogs

Although explosive or mine detection is today arguably the most important
military canine application, this is a relatively recent development. There is little
mention of such things in the literature prior to WWII, and although there were
significant unsuccessful American efforts to develop and deploy mine detection dogs
in that era detection would not come into its own until the twenty-first century.
WWII German use of buried, nonmetallic mines in North Africa, which could not
be detected by existing electronic mine detectors, created a serious problem and led
to the training and deployment of mine detection dogs. A unit including 100 trained
dogs was deployed to the African campaign, arriving in Algeria in May of 1944. But
the dogs proved unreliable and substantial causalities occurred as they were
deployed. (Lemish, 1996) (Waller, 1958)
According to Lemish there were the usual problems of setting up a program with
no experience base, that is no trained personnel, and canine acquisition and training
programs in place. But the underlying problem was that the dogs were essentially
taught to detect the odor of the material of the mine and the soil or ground
disturbance by human beings when the mines were buried. This training was based
on compulsion and avoidance, generally producing erratic and fearful response. The
underlying problems were thus in the motivational approach, compulsion rather than
reward, and not understanding that the focus of training should have been on the
odor of the explosives themselves rather than the material of the mine or the
disturbance to soil created by the burial. Those involved did not seem to comprehend
that the dogs could have been much more effective at sniffed out the odor of the
actual explosives had they been trained to do so. The unit was soon returned to
America and deactivated, providing poor public relations for the war dogs in the
European theater. (Lemish, 1996) The Marines also trained a small number of mine
dogs, which were ineffective for these same reasons. (Putney, 2003) In general
WWII attempts to produce mine detection dogs were regarded as failures.
U.S. Army training documents late in the Vietnam era indicate that the primary
motivation for the explosives detection dog was to be food, and the concept was that
any trained dog could be utilized by any correspondingly trained handler. (Phillips,
1971) German Shepherds and Labrador Retrievers were the preferred breeds, with

364
no mention of Belgian Shepherds or any sort of play object motivation such as use of
a Kong or ball.
The aftermath of the 9/11 attack in 2001 and our subsequent military
engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan would bring explosive detection dogs to the
forefront, both in the military as a counter to the ubiquities deployment of
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and in police and domestic security operations
to deal with terrorist use of planted bombs. Although the traditional training methods
as pioneered by men such as Most were historically adequate in scout, patrol and
sentry applications, successful substance detection, both drugs and explosives,
required a much more inducive or reward based training protocol. The more
traditional aggression based applications, that is guard or patrol dog, were effective
because the motivation, the fighting drive, came from within the dog; there is no
need to reward a good dog for engaging the decoy with food or a ball. But in and of
themselves drugs or explosives have no interest for a dog, the training protocol must
therefore provide a separate reward, generally food or an object such as a ball or
Kong.
In addition to the traditional breeds of herding origin, the German and Belgian
shepherds, the military today employs other sorts of dog for purposes such as
explosive or IED detection, notably Labrador Retrievers, that while powerful and
robust are, because of long term breeding selection, much less volatile and much
less intimidating to civilian populations.
In general the dual purpose dogs, that is Shepherds or Malinois, used for patrol
and detection, are largely trained using prey or object drive, where the dog learns to
indicate passively, usually by sitting quietly, in order to gain his reward of a tennis
ball or Kong. The specialists such as the Labradors are often trained exclusively with
food, sometimes to the extent that the only food they receive is in payment for
finding the desired substance. It is to be understood that these are generalities, and
that there is a great deal of diversity in training methods according to practical
considerations in specific circumstances and the preferences of the people involved.
The old training saying that there are many roads to Paris certainly is applicable
here.

365
WWII
The consequence of Hitler's rise to power was rapid expansion of the existing
covert preparation for war. One component of this was the establishment of a canine
training facility at Frankfurt in 1934. The result was 50,000 dogs ready to go when
the Polish invasion commenced in 1939. (Chapman, Police Dogs, 1990)
As in the Police applications, the American military also lagged European
programs, with no formal canine program prior to the WWII. When the Japanese
struck at Pearl Harbor dogs on hand in the military were only a few sled dogs in the
north, which did form the nucleus of an critical rescue capability for downed flyers,
as for instance in Greenland during transfer of military aircraft for service in the
European theatre.
Early in 1942 the need for working dogs was an escalating priority, and the
civilian, volunteer based Dogs for Defense program came into existence to fill the
gap. Although training, begun on an amateur civilian basis, quickly was taken over
by the military, Dogs for Defense was a primary supplier throughout the war. By the
end of the war, 40,000 dogs had been offered to the program, but more than half
were rejected immediately, with 18,000 being shipped to training and reception
centers, where another 8000 failed preliminary health, size or temperament
evaluations. Although the Navy and Marines initially procured some dogs directly
from civilian donations, this was folded into the DFD program, which thus became
the sole provider. On one level this represented a strong citizen commitment to the
war and helped build public morale, but on the whole it would seem to have been a
relatively inefficient means of supplying the necessary dogs. (Lemish, 1996)
The formal military program began on March 13, 1942 under the auspices of the
Army Quartermaster Corps. The most urgent priority was the costal patrol operations
of the Coast Guard, for there was great fear of a Japanese invasion and the landing
of Japanese or German sabotage personnel, especially from submarines, which were
actively patrolling both coasts. In June of 1942 four German saboteurs were landed
from a submarine on Long Island and four more landed in Florida a few days later.
Although there are no records of other landings, the beach sentry dogs were
available for rescue efforts and did on occasion locate bodies from merchant marine
ships which went down.
In the modern era there have been only sporadic programs to develop more
offensive oriented canine programs,
that is, train dogs to take direct
physical action against the enemy.
The most prominent of these in
America was a program begun in
October 1942 at the Cat Island War
Dog Reception and Training Center,
located in the Gulf of Mexico near
the mouth of the Mississippi.
Approximately 25 American soldiers
of Japanese descent were selected
to play the role of Japanese soldiers
in the training, which included large
dogs such as Irish Wolfhounds and
Great Danes. This played out for
about four months before the Army
brass came to their senses and
scrapped the program, although the
WW II Marine War Dogs Cat Island facility served as a

366
conventional training facility for the duration.
In addition to the Cat Island episode, there was a brief experimental program at
Fort Belvoir in Virginia where dogs wearing a backpack with explosives and a timing
device were to be trained for sending to enemy bunkers, unknowing suicide dogs.
This program never got beyond the preliminary phase, which is probably just as well.
Although it is human nature to be critical or dismissive of such things in
hindsight, in time of all consuming war every potential avenue of advantage needs to
be explored. If no one ever looked into concepts that seemed obviously foolish or
impractical in the end enormously important and effective innovations, such as
repeating rifles or atomic weapons, would have been overlooked. At this time only an
elite cadre of scientists on the vanguard of modern physics were aware of the
enormous energy potential of atomic fusion: to the world at large the proposals for
the atomic bomb were outlandish to say the very least. Several high ranking military
officers are reported as flat out denying that it was possible.
The Army canine program formally commenced on July 16, 1942, under the
auspices of the Quartermaster General. The first Army training center was
established by the Quartermaster Remount Depot in August of 1942 at Front Royal,
Virginia. In late 1942 additional centers were opened at Fort Robinson, Nebraska,
Camp Rimini, Montana and San Carlos, California. Later in the war, as the focus was
increasingly on the scout dog, all training was done at Fort Robinson.
Eventually a little over ten thousand dogs were trained by the Army and rendered
valuable service around the globe, from the deserts of North Africa to jungles on
Pacific islands. The following chart of WWII statistics is from the Army Quartermaster
General's Office (Waller, 1958) :

Type of Dog Army Coast Guard Total

Sentry 6,121 3,174 9,295
Scout 571 0 571
Sled and pack 263 0 268
Messenger 151 0 151
Mine detection 140 0 140

Type of Dog Number Domestic Overseas

Sentry 9,295 8,396 899
Scout 571 135 436
Sled & Pack 268 0 268
Messenger 151 0 151
Mine Detection 140 0 140
Total 10,425 8,531 1,894

This is only part of the picture, since WWII Marine Corps canine operations in the
South Pacific, commencing a little later, became extensive and on the whole more
successful. A total of 1,047 dogs passed initial screening and were enlisted in the
Marine program, with 465 eventually deploying overseas. Over the course of
hostilities 29 canine Marines died in action and 5 went missing, 25 on Guam where
dogs served on 500 patrols. (Putney, 2003)

367
 The first contingent of canine Marines
trained with the Army at the Fort Robinson,
Nebraska facility; because of this the first forty
marine war dogs were Army supplied, mostly
German Shepherds. Subsequent basic training
during the rest of the war took place at the
Camp Lejeune Marine facility in North
Carolina.1 More advanced training, on the way
to Pacific deployment, took place at Camp
Pendleton near San Diego.
At the end of the war, 232 dogs were
shipped back in November of 1945 to be
returned to their owners or remain with their
handlers. Eventually, 491 canine veterans,
from overseas and Stateside, were processed
back into civilian life. This was done over a
period of about a year at Camp Lejeune under
Dr. Putney, author of a subsequent book on
the marine war dog experience. In spite of dire
predictions, this went smoothly, with virtually
no subsequent problems in civilian life,
WW II Coastguardsman with Walkie although, sadly, a hand full of dogs had to be
Talkie radio unit and Doberman. euthanized as too difficult to transition back.2
Combat radio equipment was rapidly Although impressive numbers for a
rendering the messenger dog obsolete, program that started from nothing, literally
and although initially many messenger
with donated dogs off the street, this was a
dogs were trained there was less and
less use as radio equipment became
relatively small program compared to that of
more reliable. Some dogs were retrainedthe Germans and others. Even the Japanese
in the field as scout or guard dogs. had their ongoing prewar, large scale breeding
and training programs and substantial
numbers of trained dogs, primarily German Shepherds, at the commencement of
hostilities. Some of these Japanese dogs, were captured and converted for use in our
own programs. (Putney, 2003)
The Guadalcanal invasion conducted by the Marine Corps in August of 1942 was
very difficult jungle warfare, and ongoing efforts to clear pockets of resistance in this
environment met with high casualties. Although there were no existing canine units
available, one result of this experience was the decision to launch an ambitious
recruitment and training program to provide canine support for future invasions and
particularly patrol in jungle environments.
This turned out to be very successful, and experience in the South Pacific and
Vietnam has proven conflicts in jungle settings to be the arena where the dog is the
most effective and useful. The jungle patrol is relatively quiet and cautious, the
enemy is dangerous because he is silent and hidden. The scout dog was able to
detect hidden Japanese troops at distances large enough to provide an effective
warning. Although distances of 1000 yards, more than half of a mile, were reported
this would be under unusually favorable circumstances, but one or two hundred
1
This was in some respects a bad choice, as the majority of dogs trained developed heart
worm and other parasite infestations associated with mosquito populations. This was
much more difficult to prevent and treat in that era. (Putney, 2003)
2
This brings into focus the shameful military policy of the Vietnam era and beyond, where
policy was that dogs served for life, to be put down when they were no longer
convenient for the military bureaucrats to deal with.

368
yards would be a reasonable expectation. Perhaps the greatest testimonial to the
effectiveness of the scout dog is that, once training and deployment issues were
refined by experience, they were much in demand by the troops actually going out to
face the dangers of patrol in enemy infested jungle areas.
The Doberman Pincher Club of America immediately took up the cause and
substantial numbers of Dobermans were provided for the duration. There are some
misconceptions about this in that there were about as many German Shepherds as
Dobermans used in the Marine program and also other breeds. These Dobermans
were promoted under the banner Devil Dogs but this seems to have been largely
external propaganda, the term does not appear in the definitive book on the Marine
war dog experience by Marine Captain William Putney (Putney, 2003), a veterinarian
who played a key role in the training program and deployed to the South Pacific
where he was actively engaged in combat. Captain Putney is also well remembered
for his efforts, in the mid-1990s, to move and preserve a canine cemetery as a
memorial for these fallen heroes of the South Pacific, a shining example among
many shameful episodes in the military's treatment of the dogs of war when their
service came to an end. (Putney, 2003)
The primary Marine training
center was Camp Lejeune in North
Carolina, and deployment in the
Pacific Theater commenced in June
of 1943; the combat debut was
Bougainville in the Solomon Islands
shortly thereafter. Significant
numbers of Army trained canines
were also being deployed in the
South Pacific and South East Asia in
1943, some serving with Marine
units.
In a broad sense, the experience
of the Second World War was that
dogs are much more effective in the
jungle warfare of the South Pacific
than in more open terrain suitable
to tank warfare as existed in Europe
and North Africa. Lemish makes
reference to "...the failure of the
military dog program as a whole
WW II Marine War Dogs throughout the European
campaign."1 While this is harsh it is
nevertheless – based on a broad review of the history – a realistic assessment.
Contributing factors were the reactions of the dogs in the presence of artillery,
partially a training and selection issue but also a fundamental limitation and the rapid
pace of mechanized war. And some of the problems were due to the lack of
experience and knowledge that would only come later. As an example, Lemish notes
that a major problem with mine detection dogs was that no one knew that the dogs
could detect through smell the presence of the chemical explosive and training
efforts thus centered on the disturbed ground or the metal.
On the eastern front in WWII the Russians trained and deployed dogs as anti-
tank weapons by acclimating them to a bomb laden pack, starving them and then
1
(Lemish, 1996)p97

369
teaching them to seek out food under tanks, where the explosives were most
effective because of the thin armor. This had its problems in that released dogs are
unpredictable, can wind up in many undesirable places including back with the
handler and under your own tanks. The threat was, however, serious enough that
the Germans were aware of it and devised counter measures, that is, were alert to
shoot loose dogs on the battlefield. In spite of the difficulties, such things have been
contemplated more recently, by the Israeli military among others.
The fundamental lesson to take from our WWII experience is that while dogs can
be extraordinarily useful and effective adjuncts to our service men in their duties, full
benefit only comes from programs that invest wisely in acquisition and training of the
dogs and handlers and focus resources and funds selectively. There will always be a
need to identify areas where dogs are marginal or ineffective and direct resources
elsewhere. But even this is not enough, for effective deployment requires that the
general military leadership, the officers and noncommissioned officers, know enough
about canine capabilities and especially limitations to apply them effectively. These
same general common sense principles also of course apply to police deployment.
Toward the end of the war, there was a decision in the Marine Corps to abandon
use of the Doberman Pinchers. (Lemish, 1996) This is the pivotal report by Marine
Lt. William T. Taylor, commander of the Second War Dog Platoon:
"Although a few of the Dobermans performed in an excellent manner, it is
considered that this breed is, in general, unsuited for combat duty due to
its highly temperamental and nervous characteristics. They also failed to
stand up as well as the other types under field conditions. On the whole,
the Doberman proved to be more excitable and nervous than the other
breeds under combat conditions, and required much time and effort on the
part of his handler at all times in order to keep him properly calmed down
and under control. Although admirably suited for certain types of security
work, dogs of this breed are not desired as replacements for the 2d and 3d
War Dog Platoons."
Lt. Taylor goes on:
"They [German Shepherds] stood up excellently under field conditions;
and throughout their health average has been very high. Possibly the fact
that this group were not so highly bred may have had some bearing on
their more stable qualities and better stamina. All German Shepherds were
available for front line duty at all times."
(Lemish, 1996)p129
Lemish goes on to comment:
"Taylor's report, accepted on face value, meant the beginning of the end
for the Doberman Pinscher as a military working dog."
This needs to be kept in perspective, since we were at war with Germany and
because of the general state of war in Europe all of these dogs were drawn from
existing domestic stock, the dogs in American homes. In light of the effectiveness of
more modern specialized breeding programs, what was accomplished by pulling
ourselves up by our bootstraps was remarkable. On the other hand, these working
breeds, that is the German Shepherds and Dobermans especially, were from
American breeding only a few years removed from the original imports after WWI
and in fact there was continuous importation, especially of widely used stud dogs, in
that era. American and European lines were not nearly as divergent as they have
become in recent years.
The Doberman community was intensively aggressive in promoting their breed,
and through the Dogs for Defense program provided the lion's share, particularly for
the Marine program. The most plausible explanation for the observed problems is

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that these civilian enthusiasts, with no real military dog knowledge or experience,
generally misunderstood the actual attributes necessary in war service, and selected
for overtly aggressive dogs, both in breeding before the war and in recruiting
candidates. It is true such dogs would have been more appropriate in static
perimeter sentry duty, and many were to serve successfully in that role, which may
have skewed initial selection toward more overtly aggressive, less stable dogs. While
the guard or sentry dog only needed to relate to the handler, and overt aggression to
others was generally appropriate, the Marines of the South Pacific were primarily in
need of patrol dogs where timely warning of the presence of the foe was of the
essence, and where the dog had to remain silent and under tight control in routine
close contact to other Marines and civilians, in the general fog of war.
After the war the canine programs were greatly curtailed as part of a general
disarmament in the brief lull before the commencement of the cold war. The Army
dogs were in the immediate post war period under the operational control of the
Quartermaster Corps remount depot in Fort Royale, Virginia, and beginning in 1951,
the infantry at Fort Carson, Colorado. In this era the Army was purchasing their own
dogs, exclusively German Shepherds, and the Marine program was no longer in
existence.
Although there were some areas of disappointment, on the whole the American
WWII military canine program was a remarkable achievement, based as it was on
dogs taken directly out of American homes for men with little or no experience
assigned to new canine units with no culture or established training methodology in
place. They literally built a program from the ground up in a very few months.

Korea and the 1950s

The Korean police action is the
forgotten American war; reminiscing
about the great generation of WWII
being much more emotionally satisfying
than remembering the brutal conflict in
remote Korea, ending in stalemate
rather than victory. But those who
served there sacrificed and died too,
including some of the dogs. This was a
cold harsh climate rather than a jungle
and after a quick North Korean advance,
a spectacular American amphibious
landing at Inchon and then massive
Chinese forces coming across the border
the conflict became relatively static on
Scout dog & handler in Korea the 38th parallel. During the early
stages of rapid mechanized warfare
there were no American scout dogs
deployed. (Lemish, 1996)p153 The existing canine forces were totally inadequate
and an extensive recruitment and training program was implemented. As the dogs
became available emphasis was on night patrol and sentry duty. Approximately
1,500 dogs were deployed for the Korean conflict, many serving with distinction even
if they are now almost forgotten.
By the mid-1950s the Army was winding down in general and the canine
operations were no exception. This was the era of the increasing tension with the
Soviet Union and great expansion of the missile and air bases of the Strategic Air
Command and the Nike anti-aircraft missile bases going up around the nation as a
defense against Soviet air attack. There was great concern about potential sabotage

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 and the Air Force was seeking ever-increasing numbers of dogs for perimeter
defense of these critical installations.
In the 1954 to 1957 time period, the Army Dog Training Center at Fort Carson
was primarily used to train military working dogs for the Air Force. In 1957 this
facility was closed down and operations transferred to the Air Force.
In October of 1958 the Air Force established the Sentry Dog Training Branch at
Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas. Although this was in the beginning
a very small unit, with less than a dozen men, it would eventually evolve into an
enormous facility encompassing more than 700 acres. The Lackland facility grew
rapidly, and eventually, after the Vietnam War, would become the primary training
facility for all military canine operations, other governmental operations such as the
Secret Service and, after 9/11, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
In 1964 the Air Force began a policy of securing and training its own dogs, rather
than through the Army, further expanding operations at Lackland. This was an era of
increasing tension, expanding police canine units and escalation in Vietnam. The
biggest problem was procuring sufficient numbers of suitable dogs, and Air Force
recruiting teams toured the country, setting up radio and TV advertising and buying
dogs on the spot.

Vietnam
The Vietnam experience was gut
wrenching for the entire nation, most
especially the military; and the canine
operations were no exception. In the
early years the focus was on propping
up the Vietnamese military, sending in
ever-increasing amounts of material and
American advisors. In general the South
Vietnamese government did not have
adequate, broad based support from the
population and commitment was the one
thing we could not pack up in boxes and
Scout dog & handler in Vietnam ship over at taxpayer expense. This was
fundamentally guerilla warfare where
the enemy held no ground, controlled
the time and place of engagement and disappeared at will back into the jungle or
underground tunnel and cave networks.
In the early years significant numbers of dogs, many purchased in Germany and
shipped directly to Vietnam, were provided with the expectation that American
advisors would be able to conjure up an effective military canine operation, with the
hope of creating a standalone capacity through ongoing breeding, training and
deployment programs.
This turned out to be tragically unrealistic in every aspect, for the Vietnamese
culture simply did not relate to the dog in the same way as do the Europeans and
Americans: turning the often reluctant Vietnamese candidates into effective
handlers, let alone trainers, was difficult, and creating a stand-alone infrastructure
capable of an ongoing breeding and training was simply beyond the realm of reality.
Even establishing an effective program for care of the dogs was problematic in a
culture where many saw dogs as food, and, indeed, more than a few dogs did wind
up being eaten and many more perished because of starvation or lack of simple care.
Vietnamese officers made serious blunders in deployment: according to Lemish it
was not uncommon to deploy sentry and attack dogs into the field as scout dogs,

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often with tragic results. Such dogs were entirely useless or more to the point a
danger because of their training, that is, they were programmed to alert, bark and
attack any stranger, which was appropriate on perimeter base security but a disaster
looking for a place to happen on patrol, where the dogs needed to silently indicate
unseen Viet Kong. (Lemish, 1996)p171
As the situation deteriorated and combat was taken over increasingly by
Americans the canine units became much more numerous and effective. The military
dogs served a number of distinct roles:
 Security of Air Force and army bases and other fixed installations.
 Scout dogs for patrol.
 Search or tracking dogs
 Tunnel detection and neutralization
 Mine detection.
 Drug and contraband detection

As the American presence expanded, the initial highest priority canine role was
base security at places such as Cam Ranh Bay, Da Nang and Tan Son Nhut; names
that became all too familiar on the evening news. Air Force sentry or guard dogs
peaked at 467 dogs in 1967, and the Army had their own program peaking at about
300 dogs. The Marines and Navy also had smaller sentry dog units at Da Nang. Most
if not all of these dogs were German Shepherds. (Lemish, 1996)
The sentry or guard dog training of the era focused on the creation of vicious and
difficult to control dogs, perhaps appropriate for a single man and dog on the
perimeter of a lonely ICBM facility in North Dakota but difficult to deal with on
increasingly crowded bases with increasing interaction with others, such as
veterinary personnel, new handlers and larger groups deployed to respond to a Viet
Kong intrusion.
In 1968 the military responded by developing training and selection emphasizing
better control, that is, producing dogs more akin to traditional police patrol dogs
than dogs with single dimensional aggression. Such dogs were much more versatile,
able to function unmuzzled and in some circumstances off leash in increasingly
crowded areas in the presence of both friend and foe. The 1968 program at Andrews
Air Force Base in Maryland employed Washington Metro Police personnel to train the
dogs, and more importantly open up a new world of sophisticated canine application
to the military trainers. This, and similar Air Force experimental programs marked a
turning point in military training, an era of more sophisticated training and
deployment and better public relations. The patrol dog, that is a dog trained
according to contemporary police methodology, replaced the sentry dog as the
standard and most common military dog. (Lemish, 1996)p181
Over all, the security dogs in Vietnam were enormously effective and a serious
impediment to Viet Kong base intrusion. Although there were the unavoidable
causalities, to both handlers and dogs, training and deployment strategy became so
effective that more sentry dogs were lost to heat related illness or snake bite than
enemy action. (Lemish, 1996)p181
Secure base areas was well and good, but in order to win the war the need was
to engage the enemy on his own ground, the jungles and villages. As in all guerilla
warfare the Viet Kong held little ground, selected the time and place of engagement
and disappeared at will back into the jungle or underground tunnel and cave
networks, some within the confines of supposedly secure base areas. In order to
respond to this, new tactics and strategies were needed. Ultimately, the best defense
is a good offense, and as American infantry men and Marines were increasingly
engaging the Viet Kong in the jungles, their home territory, the enemy's knowledge
of his environment and ability to select the points of engagement placed our troops

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in an increasingly hazardous environment. Several solutions emerged, especially the
renewal of the scout dog program to provide security for our troops on patrol and
specialist search or tracking dogs to seek out the enemy in his lair, especially his
underground networks.
Thus the Army base at Ft. Benning, Georgia was designated to provide Vietnam
era scout dog training, commencing in early 1965. In addition to the Army dogs, for
the first time since WWII the Marines were preparing to deploy scout dogs: On July
3, 1965 the 1st Marine Scout Platoon also commenced training at Ft. Benning.
(Aiello, 2012) The program kicked into high gear in September of 1965 in response
to urgent requests from Vietnam for immediate deployment of scout dogs. In
February of 1966 two Marine scout dog platoons, with fifty six dogs, all German
Shepherds, deployed for the first time since WWII, near Da Nang.
In order to search out the enemy, the military implemented training programs to
produce dogs that could follow or search for Viet Kong troops and other dogs
specializing in locating the ever expanding network of tunnels. Bloodhounds were
tried but quickly discarded, one reason being that they were vocal, with the
likelihood of warning the intended targets. As the program evolved, most of the
tracking dogs were Labrador Retrievers, who were found to be robust, resilient and
very effective. Since these dogs were focused to a certain extent on ground scent,
likely alternating between tracking and trailing in today's terminology, there was a
significant risk of inadvertently engaging the object of the search, with seriously bad
consequences. For this reason, the search teams often included a tracking / trailing
dog and also scout dogs, which were trained to focus entirely on air scent, sight and
sound so as to most reliably alert on the presence of an adversary at a distance large
enough to maintain tactical control, that is effectively engage or retreat rather than
blundering into an ambush.
Mines and all sorts of what today would be called improvised explosive devices –
booby traps, trip wire explosive detonators, punji stakes, concealed pits and so forth
– were ubiquitous and effective elements of the Viet Kong operation. Although the
scout dogs might very well alert on such devices, a significant number of dogs were
trained as mine or explosive device detection specialists. These were apparently
most often German Shepherds or other traditional police breeds, as engagement
with the enemy was a regular occurrence. These dogs and the tunnel detection dogs
were originally trained as separate specialties, but in the realities of actual war
service individual handlers and dogs often adapted to fulfill functions other than their
original training.
Vietnam was an unpopular war and most Americans were not there voluntarily.
This and other factors, such as easy availability and an increasingly open drug
culture, led to a significant level of illicit drug use. Just as drug detection dogs have
become part of drug suppression on the home front, there was considerable use of
dogs in Vietnam to counter this activity. This seems to have evolved late in the war
and been focused primarily on preventing large quantities of drugs going stateside
with the returning troops.
Another consequence of conscripted troops was that, although volunteers were
much preferred, many canine handlers were draftees arbitrarily assigned to canine
training; handlers injuring their own dogs to avoid patrol duty was not unknown,
since the handler of a sick or disabled dog normally remained at base rather than on
patrol. Sending handlers of injured dogs out on the point, sans dog, seems to have
discouraged this. (Lemish, 1996)
During the Vietnam War the Army unit at Fort Gordon, Georgia was primarily
responsible for training scout dogs, combat tracker dogs, mine dogs, tunnel dog
teams, and marijuana detector dog teams. Ultimately approximately 5,000 dogs
were deployed, mostly as sentry or scout dogs. Since many handlers, especially the

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draftees, went home after a year or two, most dogs, serving life sentences, had two
or even more handlers. Thus over the course of the war, more than 9,000 handlers
were used for the 5,000 dogs.
Credible estimates are that about 2,700 dogs were given to the South
Vietnamese, of which 1,600 were euthanized and 281 were eventually listed as killed
in action. These dogs could not win the war, but they made an enormous
contribution to the effectiveness and safety of our ground troops; many American
men returned because of these dogs.
Vietnam was not our finest hour in many ways, and the wind down after defeat
rather than victory tends to be disorganized and ugly. These military dogs, heroes to
so many, were for the military bureaucrats merely excess equipment to be disposed
of locally in the most expeditious way. Although there was enough public reaction to
goad the military into sending a token few back, in the end most of these dogs were
to be abandoned and sacrificed by an incredibly callous military leadership in one of
their most shameful and blackest hours, forever a stain on their honor.
Current policies are much more humane, but this is not credit to a better grade of
military bean counter, but rather that direct internet and telephone contact between
the troops and home would create an enormous backlash at the abandonment of a
dog except in the most dire circumstances. Throughout history military bureaucracies
have been able to do whatever they found convenient, satisfying or personally
profitable, to their own as well as the enemy, and routinely lied about it on the
grounds of security considerations. Indeed, military secrets often have more to do
with shame and concealment of greed than actual security for the troops in the field.
This was primarily because communication was meager, delayed and absolutely
under their control. This is no longer true, and although there are some complexities
on the whole we are better for it.

The Post Vietnam Era

In June 1973, as Vietnam wound down, the Defense Department made the
decision to give the Air Force complete responsibility for canine procurement and
training, which has carried forward to the present. Thus today the United States Air
Force provides all procurement and training services for American military working
dogs through their 37th Training Wing at Lackland AFB located at San Antonio,
Texas. At the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan engagements Lackland was
producing about 500 working dogs a year, some from their own Malinois breeding
program. Reports of the total number of military dogs at any time vary, but about
2,700 seems to be the consensus. Since this means that on average the career of
the individual would be a little over five and a half years, this seems to pass the
common test. Reports on the actual number in Iraq and Afghanistan, primarily for
search and explosive detection, also varied over time as circumstances changed; five
to seven hundred are typical of reported estimates.
The Lackland operation supplies trained military working dogs for scout, patrol,
drug and explosive detection, and other specialized mission functions for the
Department of Defense. Other government agencies including the Transportation
Security Administration also use Lackland as a primary source of trained dogs.
Although primary procurement and training responsibility is with the Air Force, the
other branches, that is, the Army, Marines and Navy, also have training personnel
involved to support their specific needs and programs. Although many breeds have
participated in the past, today only the German Shepherd, Belgian Malinois and
Dutch Shepherd are accepted for patrol and sentry dog duty. Drug and explosive
specialist dogs are sometimes other, less intimidating, breeds such as Beagles and
Labrador Retrievers.

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 Military dogs were present in August of 1990 when American and associated
forces drove Iraq out of the Kuwait oil fields, but played a minor role in the high tech
operation involving air operations and wide ranging tank engagements. Although
difficult to confirm, it is said that this was the first presence of the Malinois deployed
with American forces, an accelerating trend even today.

Century Twenty One

The decade long American military engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan thrust
our soldiers into a new kind of war, one in which they had all of the advantages in
terms of weapons, infrastructure and technology but were nevertheless uniquely
vulnerable, in many ways fighting blind in that the enemy, among and
indistinguishable from the people, could choose his moment to strike. Multimillion
dollar helicopters and elaborate armored vehicles, transported at enormous expense
half way around the world, often proved inferior to explosive devices triggered by a
twenty dollar radio controlled toy truck mechanism or a modified cell phone,
activated at the decisive moment by an invisible foe who slipped away unseen from
the blood splattered scene of devastation and death.
To meet these challenges more sophisticated canine training and deployment
strategies evolved, most especially explosive detection dogs capable of seeking out
the ubiquitous IED devices by the odor of their explosives, of indicating quickly,
reliably and correctly without disturbance to the found objects. Also essential were
dogs able to patrol and search streets and buildings under handler direction, often
off lead, where civilians were more often than not more numerous than the enemy.
For the detection dogs especially this marked a paradigm transition in training
doctrine and methodology in which prey or hunt drive – balls and Kongs – became
the primary motivating factor. This necessitated stability, intense drive and dogged
persistence since the war zone military search by its nature is a long and arduous
task in enormously stressful and often disagreeable circumstances. (Some specialist
dogs continue to be trained using food as the reward mechanism, but the same
comments on intensity and persistence apply.)
Although the old style military training – pioneered a century earlier by men such
as Colonel Most – remained as a foundation, more modern concepts of drive based
training came to the forefront. In this program training tends to be increasingly
through enhancement and encouragement of natural drives and instincts, as in the
use of food and prey objects such as balls and Kongs, rather than compulsion. In
acquiring young dogs breeding according to these natural propensities and drives
became increasingly important, for such training demands that the drive be there
and that it be intense and persistent under stress. Many dogs will play fetch for a few
minutes on a sunny afternoon, but in war long hours of persistence and adverse
conditions are the norm.
Thus the modern war dog is focused on the search and detection roles, that is
patrol duty, clearing or searching city neighborhoods or building interiors and
detecting hidden explosive devices. Such dogs can be most effective through the
cooperative bond with a strong handler, an exemplary soldier as well as a capable
dog man. Each half of the team brings a unique set of assets and capabilities to the
team. The dog brings olfactory acuity, sharp hearing, night vision and close in
aggressive potential far beyond that of a man. The handler contributes situational
and tactical awareness and the more effective, above ground field of vision. The
effectiveness of the team is thus multiplicative, so much more than the sum of the
individuals.
Because this bond, this partnership, is so essential the ideal military canine
experience would be an exclusive long term relationship with a single handler,

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extending from initial training throughout the service life of the dog. This ideal is
very seldom realized. Handlers in the normal course of events are routinely
reassigned, promoted, incapacitated or reach the end of their enlistment. In such
instances the dog, representing a substantial investment in acquisition cost and
training, must usually transfer to a new handler. (An older dog nearing the end of his
service life sometimes retires with the handler or his family.)
Transfer is generally readily accomplished so long as the need for time and
resources dedicated to a training and bonding process is recognized. In a typical
scenario, when a handler is rotated out at the end of a tour of duty and the need for
the dog remains, in addition to the waste of resources it would detrimental to
readiness to not transfer the dog to a new handler, putting lives unnecessarily at
risk.1
Although historically new dogs and handlers often were trained together from the
ground up, today the green dog is often trained by full time staff personnel to a
relatively advanced level, at which point a novice or even experienced handler is
introduced to complete training as a pair prior to deployment preparation and
training. Just as the truck driver does not necessarily need to know how to overhaul
a transmission, effective handlers are not necessarily, and do not need to be,
competent ground up trainers. Civilian business entities often acquire and train pups
and young dogs for subsequent sale to the military. When well run, such programs
have advantages in that they evolve effective relationships with suppliers, often
European, maintain consistent work to keep the better trainers on staff and can be
called on to supplement training by military personnel in times of peak demand, as in
war.
One of the reasons for dedicated trainers is that no matter how selective the
program some dogs are inevitably found wanting and must be discarded part way
through the training process. With experienced trainers such things can often be
minimized or identified early in the process, thus discarding the dog with less waste
of time and money. A novice handler and a green dog can make problem
determination, whether to wash out the dog or the handler, difficult.
While military dogs must be under good control, and many are reasonably social
and can mix with diverse people, others are not social and only safe because of
handler situational awareness, discretion and discipline. This means that the dog, the
handler and the mission must be appropriately matched, which is why the success of
canine programs, police and military, depends on understanding of the intricacies of
canine service at administrative and leadership levels.
Many aspects of war are ugly and fraught with unintended consequences, and for
these reasons downplayed or done in secret. There is a general fear of dogs in many
individuals and cultures, which can be and is exploited in order to intimidate or
extract information.2 This is sometimes condoned and sometimes goes on without
1
During the war in Iraq there was a much-publicized incident where a female canine
handler was injured and wanted her dog to be sent home with her to provide
companionship and comfort, even though dogs were acquired and trained at great
expense, in short supply and thus withdrawing the dog from service would seriously
endanger other personnel. She sniffled a little bit, played the press card and got her
way, and the politicians paraded her in Washington for their own propaganda purposes.
But this was a selfish and irresponsible episode, potentially endangering her fellow
soldiers still at hazard in a combat zone. War is a cruel and difficult business, and such
decisions need to be left to the professional military and not played out in the press or
through political patronage and manipulation.
2
The primary purpose of the Malinois in the mission to take out Osama bin Laden is
generally believed to have been intimidation of possible civilians outside the compound.

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explicit authorization because it is understood that nobody is going to look for it;
under the stress of war men will do what seems necessary to prevail or survive and
deal with the consequences, if any, later. It would be seriously naïve to doubt that
this sort of thing will exist as long as men go to war.

U.S. Marine Lance Cpls. James Blomstran and Ryan Gerrity, an improvised explosive device
detection dog handler and fire team leader with Blomstran’s dog Sage.
Helmand province, Afghanistan, Photo Cpl. Reece Lodder.

Commentary
Vietnam was an American tragedy. We blindly blundered into a new kind of war
where with great confidence, some would say arrogance, we sought to impose our
concepts of how others should govern themselves, conduct their national affairs. We
found ourselves losing a war where the enemy was among the people, wore no
uniform and could strike and then fade into the background. We were brought down
by hubris; the expectation that our vaunted industrial and military prowess enabled
and justified the determination to rearrange the social order in regions of the world
we did not begin to comprehend.
Most sadly of all we learned nothing, for forty years later we would do the exact
same thing in Iraq in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack. As in Vietnam, in Iraq and
Afghanistan the American military has had overwhelming superiority in terms of
weapons and technology, yet was unable to prevail in the long term. The people of
Afghanistan in particular have been fading into the countryside and mountains for
centuries in the face of invasion and occupation, only to reappear when the Greeks,
British, Russians or Americans finally just gave up and went home frustrated.
The Iraq and Afghan insurgents fight with patience, cunning and skill, one of their
primary weapons being the IED or Improvised Explosive Device, which has been
responsible for the majority of American causalities. The military dogs have been
generally the most effective means of countering this threat, and rendered great
service and helped to bring many of our people home alive and whole, not an

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insignificant legacy is such difficult circumstances. But in a culture with vastly
differing attitudes to dogs, it is questionable whether the military canine has had a
positive role in winning minds and hearts rather than projecting the image of the
arrogant American.
War is a business where young men, and now young women, perish, often for no
perceivable purpose of national honor or gain, to atone for the failures of leadership
and diplomacy of the old men who provoke and conduct war. Most would endorse
our WWII crusade, but those who were maimed or perished serving in Korea,
Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan must also be honored and remembered. Our war dogs
have not won or lost any wars, but thousands of young American soldiers and
Marines lived to return to families and complete their lives because of our canine
soldiers – and their trainers and handlers – and we must thus honor them as well.
The war dog is a vast and complex subject and this can be only a brief
introduction; those with deeper interest are well advised to acquire and study the
exceptionally useful and well written books of Michael Lemish and Captain Putney.
The Lemish book especially is indispensable for the serious student and scholar of
American military canine applications, there is really nothing to compare to it.
(Putney, 2003) (Lemish, 1996)

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15 Emergence of the Breed

In the world of television, the Sunday comics and the movies men coexisted and
interacted with dinosaurs, but in reality there were seventy million years between
the passing of the last dinosaur and the first upright creature in any way resembling
modern man. In a similar way these venues often depict primitive man as having
canine companions, but the early evidence is sparse. The famous cave drawings in
Europe, relatively recent, perhaps only 10,000 to 30,000 years old, show no dogs or
domestic animals of any sort. Current scientific thinking is that the dog emerged
from an intermediate, self-domesticated population or species at the earliest perhaps
13,000 years ago, which would mean that dogs did not exist prior to the beginnings
of agriculture and village life, and that subsequent specialized canine populations,
the first primitive breeds, evolved by natural selection, that is because men favored
them in feeding or drove out or culled undesirable pups and young dogs rather than
active human intervention in selecting which male bred the female.
Scientific knowledge of the evolution of the human and canine partnership, the
use of the domestic animal and the herding way of life and the spread of agriculture,
has moved rapidly over the past several decades, and remains in a state of flux. The
migration of the human race and the domestic canine to the Americas is a case in
point, for the current view, based on extensive genetic and archeological analysis, is
that the American Indians brought their dogs with them from Asia, that there never
was any domestication from the wolf or coyote in America. (These genetic studies
indicate that the dogs of the North American Indians virtually disappeared in a
genetic and practical sense, that Indian breeds being marketed today were created
from combinations of the dogs coming over with the European migrations.)
The time lines are complex, for solid evidence for the widespread existence of the
domestic dog goes back no more than twelve to fifteen thousand years, the same
general time period for the earliest Indians. Further research may well push either or
both of these estimates further back into the past. This is not a real problem in that
if the human migration to the Americas predated canine domestication it would
simply mean that the dogs came in with subsequent migrations and spread across
the continent. This would be similar to the situation in Australia, where the dingo was
not present until thousands of years after the first men arrived.

Domestication
Primitive canine functions, the foundation of the partnership, included intrusion
alert, guarding and hunting. As man evolved and adapted his dogs also evolved to
take part in new ways of living, particularly the herding of semi-domesticated
animals, sheep and goats likely being the first. Rather than men selecting mating
pairs as is commonly the case today, the dogs for a long time most likely bred
among themselves according to natural selection. Being continually on the move it
would have been difficult to separate a bitch in season from the free running dogs,
and direct human selection was probably dependent on more or less permanent
settlement as pastoral existence converted over to agricultural life. Human
involvement in selection could have been mostly by feeding and providing for those
found useful and abandoning, culling or driving off those which were not. According
to Coppinger (Coppinger & Coppinger, 2001) this mode of propagation is even today
still typical in regions from the Himalayas to the Pyrenees among sheep guardian
dogs and herds continually on the move. Regional types, dogs adapted by structure,

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character and trainability for the particular regional needs of farmers, stockmen and
others, no doubt evolved and were perpetuated in many places and times according
to local requirements and circumstances.
As man became more well established in crop tending and evolved more
elaborate farms and villages, breeding selection, actual human determination of
which male was to be bred to a bitch, choosing the best workers to procreate, would
at some point gradually become common practice. In general breeding selections
were according to the expectation of more effective working dogs, and the abstract
concept of purity in breeding would have seemed strange and perhaps even
outlandish, for a dog was what he did in his work, not who his ancestors were. Even
today most real herdsmen, shepherds and large segments of the Dutch Police
community, among many other examples of pragmatic decision making, make
breeding selections in exactly this way. These evolving processes went on across the
world for the better part of ten thousand years, perhaps more according to how one
marks the beginning.

The Purebred Dog

During the latter portion of the nineteenth century, after 1850, Europeans and
later Americans with leisure and means increasingly bred restricted pools of dogs for
style and appearance to establish formal breeds and went on to create kennel clubs
to maintain records of descent. Shepherds had maintained local and regional lines of
dogs for centuries for use in their pastures, and such dogs in Germany for instance
would most naturally have been thought of and described as German shepherd's
dogs. But in this new world of kennel clubs, trophies and ribbons this was not to be
enough. No, to be a German Shepherd Dog with capital letters there would need to
be a number written down in a book, with a pretentious kennel name the dog would
never know or respond to.
In time it came to pass that many dogs in the fields herding sheep or guarding
cattle, as their ancestors had for generations and centuries, were not to be Collies or
German Shepherd Dogs with the capital letters, and many formal Collies or German
Shepherd Dogs with a number, a kennel name and baskets of ribbons, trophies and
photographs in fashionable canine magazines would be out of place, perhaps
terrified, in a world with actual, living sheep, cattle or threatening marauders of
every species, man and beast.
This freshly minted canine nobility was given a novel name to reflect their
newfound superiority; they were henceforth to be known as "purebred." And instead
of casual references to known ancestors, of use in pragmatic breeding selection,
these purebred dogs were to have a pedigree, often elaborately inscribed on fancy
paper or parchment, with numbers and designations of champions and an embossed
seal.
Each new breed in its own turn became the occasion for a new mythology, it
somehow came to pass that these special dogs were in fact ancient and noble, had
been there for generations and centuries, just waiting to be discovered by some nice
European hobbyists and inscribed in an appropriate book of origins. And conferences
of hobbyists would gather to pool their wisdom and create, write down and
propagate a standard of excellence, a guide for future generations of breeders and
judges, for this newly discovered ancient breed.
In the beginning, the founding stock was sought out and inscribed in a book of
origins, to be the common ancestry for all time. Should a member of this race or
breed happen to copulate with any other kind of dog, even related dogs of the same
function, region and background, distant or perhaps not so distant cousins, the pups
would be denied respectability with all of the intensity reserved for bastard human

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beings produced without the blessing of a clerical ceremony for the unfortunate and
misguided parents.
Certainly such dogs could not be purebred, and derogatory expressions such as
mutt, mongrel and crossbreed came into use to convey the shame of their very
existence. Registration became the new mantra for respectability, and the
fundamental mission of every kennel club came to be propaganda enforcing this
standard of propriety, ingraining the concept that until money was sent for
registration, like an offering onto the gods, the new pup was not really what the
responsible, respectable family wanted to have making puddles on the living room
carpet.
Thus came to pass the canine breed in the formal, modern sense, emerging as a
closed population of dogs employing breeding selection to establish commonality of
appearance and competence in a specific function, such as the pointing of game
birds or retrieving in the hunting breeds or patrol work in the police breeds. But,
somehow, the focus on function, actual utility to mankind, was always lost in the
process.

The Dog Show

The foundation of breed creation and ongoing evolution is the conformation show,
the formal process of gathering together dogs for evaluation and rank ordering
according to faithfulness to a hypothetical breed standard of excellence, so as to lend
guidance to breeding selection. The creation process of each breed involves
conjuring up a founding mythology, the participants generally emerging as breed
authorities and often in control of conformation show selection in the formative
years. These shows often produced written critiques of the individual dogs, generally
printed in a magazine or journal and influential in the community at large.
Max von Stephanitz for the German Shepherd and Dr. Reul for the Belgian
Shepherd are primary examples and illustrate differing outcomes. Von Stephanitz
produced a large, influential and comprehensive book and was the dominant figure
for forty years. Dr. Reul was influential over a much briefer time period, passing
away in 1907, and the club he founded did not predominate in the long term. This
was a contributing but not a predominant factor in the early popularity and
commercial success of the German Shepherd relative to the Belgian Shepherds. The
common thread is that the greatest influence of such men was through personal
control of the influential conformation show process in the formative years, which
was the mechanism by which they stamped their vision of the breed on the founding
stock and thus the direction of the founding lines.
The conformation show was and is by its nature an inherently political process, a
competition for prestige and the promotion of personal concepts of the ideal and the
advancement of one's own breeding lines or preferences. Almost universally an
unforeseen consequence has been the abandonment of the practical or working
functionality of the breed, with prestige and breeding preference going to the
conformation show winners with little regard for character or work. Very often this
results in splitting the breed into increasingly divergent lines, those emphasizing
appearance as evaluated in the show ring and those selected for increasing
competence in the functional role of the breed. The lines selected according to
conformation tended to become ornamental in the sense of emphasis on extremes of
physique, rendering the dogs physically less and less capable of the breed function.
Kennel clubs have emerged as bloated bureaucratic propaganda machines, gone
to great length to encourage widespread pet ownership and participation in the
hobby of dog showing, spending weekends fluffing and puffing on the grooming
tables in hope that their gait and bait performance will result in the magic, dramatic

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pointing of the finger, encouraging them to write even more checks for professional
handlers, dog show entries and elaborate magazine ads so the other judges will
come to know where the correct finger points.
In evolving into a sport, an end in itself, the dog show has become a process of
taking type to extreme, as we have seen in the steeply sloping top lines, extreme
rear angulation and slinking gait in the German Shepherd or the monstrosities
paraded as Bulldogs which can hardly waddle up to the food dish. Closer to my
home, the process has also overtaken the Bouvier des Flandres, with the emphasis
on short backs, wide shoulders and deep chests, accentuated with ever longer and
softer hair to sculpt the massive appearance, dogs which can hardly stumble around
the ring without stepping on themselves.
In time the dog show became the preeminent arena of quality; on appointed
days, usually a weekend, large elements of the show dog community arise early to
fluff and groom their dogs, often with elaborate coiffures, and make their way to the
appointed ring where the judge, a man or woman with correct manners, social
position and political connections, would commence the elaborate ceremony of
stacking, baiting and gaiting the dogs, ultimately leading to the dramatic moment
when the judge, with a well-practiced flourish, points the finger at the winning dogs,
taking them a step closer to greatness in the fantasy world of the show dog. So
much money, so much time, so much emotion, all in the hope that at the end of the
day the judge will give your dog the finger. In time, particularly in America, this
often became too demanding for mere mortals, and a class of professional handlers
emerged to ensure the correctness of the ceremony, and to ensure that the judge
would recognize the importance of the dog at the end of their lead. Nowhere in the
process is there any real concern with the actual functionality of a breed, the ability
to herd, search or protect, or with physical characteristics such as stamina, power
and agility, or moral attributes of courage, trainability and desire for the human
working partnership.
In the beginning the emphasis was on the dogs of the more upwardly mobile, the
emerging middle and commercial classes, or those with such aspirations, particularly
the hunting dogs. In Belgium, most of the early magazine articles, even for the
working herding dogs, such as the Malinois and the Bouviers, were in a magazine
called Chase et Peche, or in English Hunting and Fishing.
A little later, about the turn of the twentieth century, other men, often a little less
gentile and socially prominent, began to seek out the dogs of the country side, the
farmer's and herder's dogs, in order to establish their own breeds. Veterinarians,
perhaps the best-educated and most literate men routinely out and about in the farm
country, were often prominent in leadership roles.
Herding trials were successfully popularized in the British Isles, and remain so
today. A small number of herding trials held in Belgium and other areas in the late
1800s proved much less popular. Beginning about 1900 the emphasis on the
continent was increasingly on the police dog trial, particularly in Belgium, the
Netherlands and Germany. From the very beginning there was tension among the
advocates of the police breeds between the upwardly mobile who tended to seek
acceptance and a place in the higher-class show dog world and those who regarded
the working trial as the primary arena of excellence. This fundamental conflict, this
difference in values, is at the heart of the strife and anger that characterizes the
world of the working breeds even to this day.
In the English-speaking world there were no serious working trials other than
herding, and the obedience competition emerged even later, well after the first world
war. In time many or most conformation shows allocated rings on the periphery
where dogs not evaluated as of show potential, pet quality, were trained for dreary
obedience events.

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 But there was trouble in this paradise. The thirst for fashion and novelty in the
show ring led to extremes, to pudgy little Bulldogs that can hardly walk, and have to
be delivered by caesarean section, collies with heads so long and narrow that
eyesight is affected and where room for a functional brain hardly exists. Natural
attributes of character, irrelevant or deleterious in the show ring, decline; and soft,
compliant dogs, even in breeds created and valued for the aggressive potential, are
diluted for convenience in keeping a kennel full of breeding stock to produce pups for
sale to pet homes.
The demands of ever more extreme, even grotesque, style took control of the
process. In every breed more and more bitches were bred to fewer and fewer elite
show ring winners, no one quite grasping that a closed gene pool can only become
smaller and smaller, a process that in the natural order of things genetic sameness
will in time punish. The concept of the closed gene pool, the essence of the purebred
dog, is a novel genetic experiment less than two centuries old, a mere moment on
the time scale of evolution. This experiment is failing.
Over the years, as the futility and pointlessness of it all became increasingly
apparent, the motivation, the reason for these sand castles in the sky, remained
elusive. Perhaps because this generation was the first to live in cities, away from the
land, they grew out of touch. The children of the farmer, of the village and the
smaller towns grew up familiar with animals as the source of sustenance and a way
of life, where horses and oxen were transportation and dogs had a real function on
the farm and in the community. In this era most men needed to train horses and
dogs, and deal with cattle, sheep or swine, to make a living and support a family.
Such people would be practical about animals, and the concept of breeding their
Collie dogs with narrow heads and their bulldogs as grotesque monstrosities would
have made no more sense than driving their sheep over a cliff. As city life emerged
and the employed middle class came to have leisure and resources, the creation of
canine monstrosities, strange as it may seem, somehow came to seem like a
reasonable and fashionable hobby.
If there were a god, would he laugh, or would he cry?

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16 Evolution, Genetics and Medical
Screening

Subsequent to the Second World War modern agriculture and animal husbandry
underwent a revolution driven by twentieth century science and emerging biological
technology such as stored semen, radiographic examination, science based breeding
selection and the application of evolutionary and genetic principles to create
advances such as higher grain yields, more rapidly maturing livestock and increased
milk production in dairy herds. On a smaller and somewhat delayed scale these
principles and this technology began to be applied to canine breeding, largely in
response to genetic defects, particularly dysplastic hips. These emerging defects
were to a significant extent the consequence of increasingly close breeding in the
process of breed creation and particularly the obsessive pursuit of extremes in type
and uniformity.
Modern evolution and genetics is a complex and subtle science, but one
increasingly important for breeders in light of emerging biological technology, which
is the reason for the brief survey presented here.

Genetic Inheritance
Charles Darwin revolutionized our understanding of life and biology just as surely
as Albert Einstein revolutionized modern physics. Both of these great men, through
concepts contrary to the reigning conventional wisdom and worldview, brought order
out of chaos, opened up entirely new vistas of human knowledge. As always, some
men clung to the old ways, but over time experimental results such as the
observation that the gravity of the sun does indeed bend the path of passing light
and the emergence of the double helix structure of DNA with the work of Crick and
Watson as a biological mechanism for the evolutionary process, and thousands of
other scientific advances, have verified the validity of these fundamental scientific
paradigm shifts.
Those who cling to old beliefs, think the Earth is less than five thousand years old
for instance, are just as intellectually crippled as those who believe that the Earth is
flat. The Earth is indeed a sphere, curved, just as Einstein showed that space and
time are themselves variant, curved. These profound scientific advances have
important consequences for the canine world. Men such as Lorenz have shown that
behavior propensities are driven by evolutionary processes just as are physical
attributes, and understanding these mechanisms is a step toward better breeding
selection and training methodology.
Genetic inheritance is the driving force of evolution, the means by which ever
more complex and sophisticated creatures have evolved over time. Change at the
most basic level comes through random genetic mutations, most of which are by
simple probability deleterious and immediately disappear because the individual dies
or is incapable of maturing to breeding age and procreating. (Just as a random
change to a computer program would most likely be a fatal defect rather than a new
and desirable feature.)
Some genetic attributes are incipient defects, present in the genetic code but not
exhibited in the phenotype, the outward physical structure, of the individual. They
remain latent in the gene pool until by chance an unfortunate individual inherits the

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wrong combination of genes and external or phenotypical attributes appear. In the
case of poor hip socket formation, for example, these individuals are likely to be less
able to hunt and survive and thus procreate, and the incidence of the defect is thus
in the wild population, though always present, limited by natural selection, survival
of the fittest in its most primitive and effective form.
The original concept of evolution, and one still widely perceived, is that change
and speciation was gradual, came about through small, reinforcing genetic change,
and essentially uniform over time. But current thinking in evolutionary biology,
beginning with the concept of punctuated equilibrium in the 1970s, is that change
does not typically come about gradually through small changes in broad populations,
but rather much more quickly in small isolated groups. These evolving theories,
concepts such as punctuated equilibrium, have important consequences for the
understanding of the process of breed creation and preservation.
In simple terms, perhaps overly simple terms, dramatic change requires the
isolation of a small breeding population under strong evolutionary pressure. In
nature this can be physical or regional separation. Breed creation is a similar process
in which isolation is the consequence of the intervention of man through explicit
breeding choice, where evolutionary pressure is created by selecting among a small,
genetically isolated group according to a preordained set of desired physical and
moral criteria.
In nature it is likely that many or most isolated populations under stress fail to
adapt, simply vanish, are unable to change quickly enough to experience the
necessary genetic changes to survive new circumstances. In breed creation, mankind
interferes in the sense of extending the process, of keeping the intermediate stages
alive and breeding, which is one of several reasons why breeds can be established
relatively quickly, in a few generations.
By definition, the small foundation group for the incipient breed creates
something analogous to a line breeding program, and the out cross, by virtue of the
isolation, is essentially impossible. In order to succeed, the new breed or species
needs to become large enough, rapidly enough to in time create the out cross
possibility within the gene pool and thus reestablish sufficient genetic diversity for
ongoing breeding while still maintaining new type and character attributes. A
vigorous, vital breed is difficult to maintain because it is a delicate balance between
tight enough to maintain type and functionality while at the same time providing
sufficient genetic diversity for vigor and the containment of inherent genetic defects.
There is a difference between the species and the breed. A species was
historically by definition a group of animals which can only successfully breed within
the group, that is, produce fertile offspring. Thus once a new species exists it is on
its own with no possibility of back crossing for diversity. But a breed is different, for
it is an artificial grouping within a species, in our case the canine, and thus has the
possibility and sometimes the necessity for the back cross component in the ongoing
breeding process.
But in the modern view the concept of the species is more complex and subject
to interpretation and academic debate. Some have considered dogs and wolves as a
single species because they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, as can dogs
and jackals. Others regard them as separate species because differing geographical
range, social patterns and breeding dynamics render cross breedings very unusual
and the cross bred population marginal and tending to die out quickly. Current
thinking tends to support this latter view. New circumstances, however, can upset
this balance. Coyotes and the northern grey wolf were for millions of years separate
species, yet because mankind has so disrupted the North American landscape they
now breed together and produce ongoing cross bred populations in south eastern
Canada.

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 Because of these genetic dynamics within a species or breed there will always be
latent genetic defects in any population. In the natural order of things those defects
which are detrimental to survival are minimized by natural selection; those genetic
features which are beneficial in that they lead to increased competitive effectiveness
are evolutionary developments. Thus all gene pools have a floating set of genetic
defects which from time to time, by pure chance, produce an individual destined to
die very young, often as a fetus before pregnancy is even established, or produce
individuals which are born but suffer serious defects and thus lead short,
unsuccessful lives. Short is the key point here, for it precludes procreation and thus
serves to prevent further propagation of the deleterious gene.
There is a down side to man stepping in and breeding dogs in closed genetic
pools: artificially interfering with this process so as to allow the dog not viable in
nature to survive and be bred short circuits the natural purification mechanism.
Breeding dogs where medical intervention has prevented an early death, or where
the breeding dogs are so distorted so as not to be viable on their own in nature,
allows many serious genetic defects, once under natural selection control and
limitation, to expand without effective limit.
Consider hip dysplasia. In the wild canine population and the hundreds of
generations as practical working dogs the incidence of phonotypical manifestation,
that is, actual, observable physical defect, was effectively controlled by selection of
the fit for procreation through breeding. But show dogs that live out lives in kennels
after a brief conformation competition career, where they become champions and
thus desirable breeding animals, are an example of this. They have become certified
as breeding worthy before the effects of the genetically defective hips or other
serious defects reveal themselves as observable problems. Animals most likely to
have been eliminated by competition in a natural setting become instead primary
breeding resources, thus forwarding and concentrating their genetic defects.
Among human beings procreation has been ongoing for millennia under the
influence of biological and social drives, needs and customs. Primitive hunter-
gatherer bands evolved societal structures where the younger males or females were
exchanged among neighboring bands, and incest taboos strongly discouraged
breeding among the closely related. This was not unique, for similar social forces
encouraged genetic diversity among the wolf packs from which the dog was to
emerge and most other wild animal populations.
Where custom or happenstance leads to small, closed human genetic pools,
where inbreeding occurs over generations, serious genetic problems do emerge. The
royal families of Europe are an example, where the bleeding disease in the Russian
aristocracy and the general lack of brightness among English royalty are
manifestations of the general tightness. Religious sects with persistent inbreeding
and the breaking down of incest taboos in isolated rural populations demonstrate the
deleterious consequences of sharply reduced genetic diversity.
In European society it was the princes and princesses, the sons and daughters of
the kings and queens, which were most obviously subject to genetic disease. The
very narrow gene pool of the aristocracy was and is the causative factor. They had
the services of the best medical experts, and it did nothing for them. This population
is dying out, or more accurately being dissipated into the general population, which
is not a bad thing.
Throughout history man selected for breeding those dogs who served their
purpose, which meant relatively mature dogs which had passed the real world test of
physical fitness by demonstrating their ability over time in the hunt, in herding
service or in the physical protection of the band, tribe or farming community. Natural
diversity and human aided natural selection, a broad pool of genetic resources,
maintained physical fitness as well as the necessary moral and working character

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attributes. Simple, practical choices among mature, proven dogs based on
functionality effectively limited genetic defects.
In the years before the turn of the twentieth century, the later 1800s, the
concept of the purebred dog with a closed gene pool, the conformation show as the
primary breeding selection process and kennel club registration as the primary badge
of value and legitimacy, profoundly changed the age old partnership between man
and dog.
Instead of large regional breeding pools for local agricultural and hunting needs,
with a sporadic injection of lines from remote regions as dogs on occasion were
sought out from greater distances, the closed gene pool with constantly narrowing
bloodlines emerged as the normal selection process. But this violates all of the
principles of nature, replicates on a formal and enforced basis the practices which
among human beings and other animals have always, eventually, led to widespread
and entrenched genetic degradation.
From the perspective of a century of experience, only the most obtuse could fail
to see that the purebred dog concept is based on the hubris of the elite, that
ingrained arrogance has created a system preordained to collapse in a genetic sense
just as surely as the ongoing incest of the European royal class led to its physical,
moral and intellectual decline. The result has been breeding among an ever-
narrowing pool of dogs based on fashion and appearance rather than practical
working capability, truly functional structure and traditional values.
The consequence of the innate desire of each generation of breeders and judges
to stamp a personal mark on a breed as the new desired physique has become more
and more bizarre, creating grotesque caricatures of the normal canine.
Manifestations of this include the incredibly narrow Collie skull, the extreme
angulation of the American German Shepherd show ring and, perhaps the most
grotesque of all, the English Bulldog.
These brief paragraphs constitute but an amateur oversimplification of an
exceedingly complex subject. The reader is well advised to obtain and seriously
study other material, especially the Coppinger book (Coppinger & Coppinger, 2001)
and the Bragg article. (Bragg, 1996) Jeffery Bragg has produced perhaps the best
overall review of the consequences of medical screening and kennel club registration
practices in a number of lengthy articles, which should be required reading for
anyone with a serious interest in dog breeding.

Medical Screening
It began with hip dysplasia. In the 1950's and 60's the canine community could
no longer ignore the proliferation of crippled young dogs and sought to remedy the
problem through use of radiographic hip examinations as a screening mechanism for
breeding. The concept was quite simple: since the defective hip socket configuration
and the consequent proliferation of crippled dogs was primarily the result of genetic
inheritance, the proposed solution was to eliminate from the breeding population
dogs exhibiting external symptoms and also those whose hips were deemed faulty
through the use of X-ray examination.
This program has had a significant element of success. The certification of
breeding stock as free from dysplasia, by agencies such as the Orthopedic
Foundation of America (OFA) and various European programs, gradually became the
standard of breeder responsibility. This was on the whole a good thing, for there has
been statistical evidence and general observation of a broad improvement in the hip
status of many breeds.
As time moved forward and other defects began to emerge the success of hip
screening gradually led to a proliferation of further tests breeders were under

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increasing pressure to embrace. In the Bouvier des Flandres, for instance, numerous
problems emerged beyond dysplastic hips. These included heart ailments such as
sub aortic stenosis, serious eye problems leading to blindness, thyroid problems and
gastric torsion. The Doberman became a walking disaster with wobbler syndrome
and von Willebrand’s disease leading a pack of horror stories.
But this needs to be kept in perspective. Not all breeds are seriously afflicted and
some breeds are problematic primarily in intensively competitive show lines. As a
prime example, the Malinois has never been prominent in the show ring, and there
are flourishing and significantly independent working Malinois communities in
Belgium, the Netherlands and France which provides substantial diversity. This does
not imply that there are not dysplastic Malinois and outbreaks of other genetic flaws,
for these things always exist, but in such a geographically separated and diverse
gene pool long term consequences are minimal. Specific kennels or breeding lines
with an emerging problem become less popular as people gravitate to other sources
and breeders bring in new dogs or seek outside stud services. Which is, of course,
how it is supposed to work.
Working breeders in general are less prone to incessantly breeding multiple
bitches to the latest winner because they tend to breed less often and be more
selective in choosing a stud dog. Trial wins are a team effort; it is the best dogs and
handlers which are in the hunt, so the best dog for breeding is not necessarily the
winning dog on the trial field. Dogs which have not had a particularly stellar trial
career are often, nevertheless, used fairly widely at stud by those believing that they
possess qualities, such as inherent hardness and aggression, that are not necessarily
rewarded appropriately in the points. Individual trial wins are subject to
happenstance such as drawing a difficult track or a slight miss step by a decoy. In
general an older but still actively breeding male with impressive sons and daughters
on trial fields is often preferable to the younger dog with wins which might prove to
be a flash in the pan.
The working breeder needs to produce dogs which will reliably function at a high
level for several years, an entire working career, after maturity, which tends to bring
insipient genetic defects into the open. They tend to be more leery of unproven
breeding stock because too many years can pass and too much training time can be
expended before defects become apparent in the progeny.
The show dog on the other hand can obtain a championship at a relatively young
age and with a couple of early major wins go on to an extensive breeding career
without ever demonstrating stamina, drive or agility. Such a dog only need work a
few minutes, gait a few of times around the ring, and can often be conditioned or
drugged for the brief time necessary. With such brief exposure to public scrutiny
serious genetic defects are much more easily concealed or ignored. Genetic tests
provide some transparency in the case of prominent defects but are less likely to
reveal the more unusual problems that extensive work training and trial participation
would likely reveal. It is of course possible to substitute a different dog in a medical
test, especially if there is not a solid basis for identification such as a microchip, but
in the working trial it is generally more difficult to put in a ringer because it is a
public event, and serious defects are likely to show up in rigorous exercises such as
the scaling wall or long jump.
German Shepherd show lines in Europe are vulnerable in terms of character and
structure, and have their share or more of genetic defects. Because of the prestige
and dominance of SV show lines, scrupulously maintained by German judges, other
nations do not in general have independent lines which could provide diversity.
Working lines are more favorably situated, that is largely independent working
communities exist in a number of nations such as the Czech Republic, Belgium and
the Netherlands, and much of the old East German blood is being maintained.

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 The most problematic working breeds are those that are relatively small in
numbers and primarily conformation show driven, without in depth working lines,
such as the Doberman Pincher and the Bouvier des Flandres. In these popular,
intensively inbred breeds and lines medical screening became increasingly
fashionable, a way to buy notoriety, importance and the aura of righteousness with
relatively little personal effort or risk of dirty hands. One could buy young dogs from
among the show winners, or better yet engage a professional handler to buy and
show dogs, subject them to testing and establish a breeding program. In the Bouvier
world there emerged such extensive screening that it became fashionable to boast of
a "five star" dog, one who had passed five leading screening tests. This and an
essentially meaningless conformation championship tend to be proffered as
hallmarks of quality; never mind that the dog might waddle like a windup toy and
would just lapse into dumb passive resistance were anyone foolish enough to try and
train him for the work of his breed.
But this is not working well and questions persist after all of these years and all
of this testing. Why, after several thousand years of ongoing breeding without
medical screening, are we seeing all of these genetic problems and doing all of this
testing? Are we really producing better dogs? Or are we in avoidance, putting out
brush fires while dissipating the heritage of the founders? Other than providing a
revenue stream for the veterinary community and the medical service establishment,
what exactly is being accomplished? Perhaps the time has come to step back and
make a new evaluation.
There are compelling reasons to believe that the underlying problem is the ever-
shrinking gene pool, exacerbated by slavishly breeding tighter and tighter to
fashionable dog show winners, leading to breeds sadly deficient in the functional
character and robust physique that were their original purpose. The result has been
the emergence of a never-ending series of genetic defects and generations of fragile
dogs exaggerated in type and lacking in vigor, robust good health and reasonable
longevity. The underlying problem is that each new genetic test eliminates dogs from
breeding consideration, further contracting the common genetic resources to be
available in future generations.
It is true that testing for subclinical genetic defects, those not obvious in the
young dog, provides useful information in breeding selection. But in the broader
picture, within the context of a closed and contracting gene pool, blindly excluding all
dogs testing positive for any of multiple known defects has the potential to so
severely contract the gene pool that the breed faces extinction. Combined with
incessant breeding to transiently popular show winners, this can eventually push the
breed below genetic critical mass.

In Denial
Over several decades significant elements of the canine community has been
drawn into increasingly elaborate screening programs primarily because it is the path
of least resistance; an easy way out from under proliferating genetic defects much
less intellectually challenging than the effort to understand the biological dynamics of
breeding and evolution. The conventional wisdom has become that through ever
more sophisticated testing, and perhaps ultimately artificial gene manipulation, the
need for genetic diversity can be discarded as old fashioned along with the fireplace
for heat and the candle for light. The futility of this can be seen in breeds such as the
Doberman Pincher which have been backed into a genetic corner, face practical
extinction. It is only a matter of time.
The essence of the problem is that the success of screening in diminishing hip
dysplasia set a precedent, and each new screening program further diminishes the
gene pool, the aggregate breed genetic resources. In order for this to function in the

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long term it would be necessary to replenish this diversity by bringing in outside
blood, either from outliers within the breed or from outside. But breeders are loath to
do so because winning in the ring comes through breeding ever more tightly to
narrowing winning lines, and because the process of bringing in outside resources
produces benefits only in the long term while next year's wins are the driving force in
breeding, especially for the increasingly predominant short term breeder. The
complexities of the registration process and particularly peer social pressure weigh
against wider breeding in a world where "purebred" is the foundation mythology.
Bringing in outside genetic resources runs counter to the culture, is seen as an
admission of guilt, of betraying the heritage.
Thus each newly emerging defect, such as proliferating heart and eye problems,
leads to the creation of new screening programs which are promoted as convenient
ways of avoiding the consequences of blindly breeding winners to winners.
Remember that breeders were dragged kicking and screaming into the age of science
when increasing pressure forced routine hip examinations. Once their hand was
forced they began to see certified this and certified that as useful promotional
mechanisms. Those deficient in understanding of biological principles, ancestral lines
and practical breeding selection could simply spend the money for the currently
fashionable set of tests to buy credibility, posture as responsible breeders. A great
deal of effort and propaganda goes into shaming those who resist useless and
meaningless testing and breed in ways established and validated over the centuries,
that is relying on diversity and breeding older animals which have been proven in
their work. This tends to bring forth latent faults and thus exclude the affected
animals, especially the males.
As a point of reference, consider that most human beings have children without
passing a five star genetic testing program and the human race does manage to go
reproducing itself with minimal incidence of serious genetic defects. Why is this? Do
we care more about our dogs than our children? The fact is that over thousands of
years we evolved social and cultural mechanisms that encourage sufficient diversity
in breeding selection, which effectively minimizes the occurrence of recessive
defects. It is true that in unusual circumstances particular ethnic or national groups,
because of long-term genetic isolation, develop characteristic, widespread genetic
defects. The solution to such problems is generally social, opening up the group to
more diverse people to secure more diversity, but sometimes medical screening tests
have a role to play.
Over the generations and centuries dogs were bred in very much the same way,
with many social and practical mechanisms for genetic diversity. It was the advent of
the formal breed and the enormous focus on inbreeding to establish artificial type
which is the cause of the serious genetic defects in our purebred dogs today. Rather
than more and more elaborate screening to avoid the natural consequences of
incest, we need to breed our dogs with similar mechanisms to encourage genetic
diversity, broader genetic pools. This is the exact opposite of what we so often do,
breed very tightly, especially on a strongly inbred male line.
More diversity requires that in addition to encouraging more open breeding
practices and discouraging massive use of momentarily fashionable stud dogs the
need for occasional inclusion of dogs outside the studbook needs to be recognized,
encouraged and provided for in the registration process. For this to happen there
needs to be an above board mechanism and supportive culture for bringing in
outside dogs.
Because of the nature of our free enterprise economic system an inherent aspect
of the problem is that genetic testing programs represent income streams and profit
to every element of the veterinary care industry, and it is not in their individual,
interest to question the ultimate efficacy and collateral damage in terms of the

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diminishing gene pool. The pharmaceutical houses, laboratories, certification
agencies and veterinary clinics all are in business to make a profit, and must be in
order to be viable. From a strictly business point of view, a reliable revenue stream
can hardly be seen as a bad thing, and inherently fragile and vulnerable populations
of dogs produce more revenue than populations of vigorous, resilient, healthy dogs.
This is not some sort of conspiracy theory or meant to cast doubt on the integrity
and sincere concern of our veterinary community; these are on the whole honest,
hardworking, well-intentioned professionals. But they are and must be business
people too, and if there is a demand for a new heart or eye testing and certification
procedure they are of necessity going to need to provide the service, regardless of
its actual long-term efficacy, lest their clientele go elsewhere.
This is not a novel situation, for consider that our pharmaceutical houses
routinely spend twice as much money on promoting drugs for problems people are
not even aware of as on research and development. Money rather than any abstract
desire to improve the human condition always drives the process on the corporate
scale. This is the foundation, the essence, of our capitalist system, and if one or a
few individuals are too squeamish to squeeze the money out capitalism demands
that they be replaced by those willing to serve and prosper.
Each time a new genetic problem emerges the free market responds by
developing a screening test, an appropriate foundation with a blue ribbon committee,
and the start a whole new revenue stream. The problem is that the purebred system
is the ultimate cause of the problem and that more screening programs are only
band aids, do not promote or enable real long term solutions, that is, significantly
widening breed genetic diversity through the introduction of outside breeding stock.
More and more genetic testing is not the answer, and we cannot blame the
veterinary establishment, for if breeders did not jump on every passing bandwagon
then nobody would be building bandwagons; big business does what makes money,
not what is good, desirable or moral from a societal point of view.
In the ideal perhaps the breed clubs and especially the national clubs should
provide leadership, but in order to face up to the problem the AKC and the FCI would
have to come to terms with the reality that the underlying problem is that their
house is built on a false foundation, the closed breeding population, and the
inherently flawed nature of the purebred dog paradigm. This is unlikely to happen.
In the Bouvier des Flandres world, as an example, there emerged in the 1990s a
plague of the heart defect known as sub aortic stenos (SAS) and serious eye
problems along with the traditional garden-variety problems such as dysplastic hips.
The source of this was perfectly obvious to those willing to see; it was driven by the
influx and close breeding on the Dutch show line imports in the later 1980s and early
90s and also the closely bred Belgian lines previously popular. Not that these dogs
were all bad, but they were already tightly bred and the American breeders,
especially in California and the west coast, bred to them blindly and ever more
tightly, like another gift of the Euro gods, the keys to the best in show ring.
The reaction to burgeoning blindness and heart failure was yet another round of
denial, followed by the usual crusade to make increasingly elaborate and expensive
medical screening the mark of the responsible breeder. This was basically an ostrich
head in the sand reaction, because the root cause of the problem was the shrinking
gene pool. In essence, a few breeders with large financial, emotional and breeding
stock investments in these over bred Dutch show lines were trying to pull everybody
else into the mud so they would not feel so lonely and dirty.
Many serious working breeders do little or no testing, confident that a five-year-
old dog with a Dutch Police (KNPV) certificate or similar title needs no further proof
of vitality and health. While I certainly believe that we should make use of science
and medical tests as a rational part of an overall program, that approach has served

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well for hundreds of years, and we need to realize that more diversity in lines, the
open gene pool, meaning mechanisms of legitimately breeding outside lines back
into the closed breed studbooks, reliance on working and character tests for fully
mature dogs as primary elements of breeding selection and especially breeding the
males as more mature dogs at an older age are the keys to ongoing breeding lines
with the health and vigor we all seek in our dogs.
The enormous twentieth century scientific advances and the resulting technology,
that is, radiographic examination to reveal bone structure, ultrasonic sound to view
soft tissue, chemical and biological tests to reveal the presence of disease at early
stages, revolutionized human medicine and veterinary practice. These are good
things, and failure to use these tools in favor of historical ways of doing things would
be irrational; we would still be hunting with chipped stones if this had been the
prevailing mindset of mankind.
But technology brings forth problems and dilemmas as well as benefits, and
perceived benefits taken to extremes bring forth unexpected consequences and
collateral damage. Just as the automobile and the internal combustion engine are
producing environmental and economic problems of enormous magnitude that we
need to address as a society, medical diagnostic technology can be used in pervasive
selection programs which only exacerbate the reduction in the gene pool and at
some point introduce more problems than they can resolve. There are all sorts of
things floating around in the genetic backgrounds of the various breeds, and if we
could test for all of them, which we may in the future be able to do, eliminating
every dog with any problem would simply eliminate all dogs and bring the breed to
an end.
These scientific and engineering advances are the foundation for medical
screening in the breeding of dogs, and most serious breeders will from time to time
test for such conditions as thyroid deficiency and in other circumstances where there
is evidence or reason for concern. The screening for hip dysplasia has in general led
to an overall improvement in many lines and should be ongoing.
But the emergence of the conformation dominated national and international
registry bodies based on the breed as a group of progenitors with a closed studbook
has resulted in increasingly limited genetic diversity. This has been seriously
deleterious to the dogs we live with, as evidenced by the persistent and increasing
incidence in many breeds of defects with proven or suspected genetic cause.
The concept of the purebred dog with an entirely closed breeding population, with
genetic diversity incessantly lost due to breeding to a few show winning males,
selected without regard to working suitability either physically or in terms of
character attributes, is failing.

Spiral to Oblivion?
If diminishing genetic diversity, increasing susceptibility to debilitating genetic
defects and fragile dogs lacking in vitality and vigor is the problem, what is the
solution?
In general a broad based genetic diversity with emphasis on breeding stock
demonstrating essential physical and moral attributes is the basis of a viable ongoing
program. Physical attributes must mean more than just appearance and structure,
must consist of actual demonstrations of power, agility and endurance. Such tests
must involve obstacles such as scaling walls, high jumps and pits; running and
trotting significant distances and energetically engaging the decoy over a long
enough time to reveal inherent structural and metabolic weakness. Character
evaluation must be serious training to a significant certification level; a dog which
has been prepared for the KNPV or Schutzhund III level, given an honest and

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rigorous trial, is unlikely to have serious hidden flaws, either in physique or
character. Preparation for such examinations generally takes much more than a
year, and this long duration, ongoing testing and evaluation is the essence of the
process. There simply are no short cuts.
Mankind bred dogs in this way for generations and centuries before diagnostic
medical procedures came into existence. Such tests provide useful new tools and
capabilities, but cannot replace the time honored process of breeding dogs according
to demonstrated working capability. The combination of a conformation appraisal and
a set of diagnostic tests to identify worthy breeding candidates, the process in many
nations and breeds today, has proven to be inadequate, inevitably leading to
degeneration.
Furthermore, it is essential to note and account for variation in circumstance and
outlook according to breed. This is especially true among the various national
working communities with their more diverse competitive venues and working
cultures. Large segments of the working dog population are vigorous and prosperous
with substantial diversity both in terms of currently ongoing breeding lines and
strong, independent national heritages. Conformation lines tend to be more
homogeneous and thus more interrelated and susceptible, as exemplified by the
strong SV influence and control over German Shepherd conformation affairs
worldwide, with the notable exceptions of the North American AKC and CKC
conformation lines, which are a world onto themselves.
The Belgian Malinois is the prime example of a strong ongoing program with vigor
and vitality, primarily because over the twentieth century there was relatively little
conformation show interference with working culture and lines. While as in any other
breed the Malinois is subject to the periodic emergence of genetic defects, there are
several distinct national populations with their own culture, breeding stock and sport
programs. These independent working communities – that is the Dutch KNPV lines,
the Belgian NVBK lines and the French Ring lines – each constitute diverse and
robust gene pools and serve as mutual genetic reserves. Other breeders and trainers
in these nations, as well as Germany and America, carry on lines of increasingly
successful dogs for IPO competition and represent a further diversity and a deeper
genetic reserve. Other breeds, specifically the German Shepherd, exist in much
larger numbers on the international scale. But a much larger percentage of Malinois
are bred for real working character while on the other hand the vast majority of
German Shepherds are bred in companion or show lines of no real use as genetic
resources.
The show segment of Malinois breeding has never had the popularity, numbers or
political influence to exert control over working lines, and this issue was essentially
resolved within Belgium through the creation of the NVBK in 1963, taking the
essential Belgium Malinois lines out of the hands of the FCI oriented show
community. Although there are, and always will be, periodic outbreaks of genetic
problems, there is at the moment little apparent potential for a serious genetic
diversity crisis in the Malinois.
The German Shepherd working lines, for all of the problems of recent years, are
still large in number, historically deep and somewhat diverse. These resources
include the Czech lines, the old East German lines, remnant working lines in
Germany itself, breeders in Holland and Belgium and other small but persisting
pockets of dedicated breeders and trainers with their own faithfully nurtured lines.
The German Shepherd working heritage is in serious trouble on several fronts, but
for the moment at least, looking at the worldwide situation, genetic diversity is not
especially high on the problem list. The essential problem is that the vast majority of
German Shepherds worldwide are useless for their work and thus a millstone around
the neck rather than a viable genetic reserve.

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 Even in breeds blessed with substantial diversity genetic screening is perfectly
valid, a useful tool in an ongoing breeding program. When defects become evident in
specific lines, as they will from time to time, the use of testing to identify and
eliminate from breeding those dogs with sub clinical defects, that is, dogs with the
potential to pass on the problem but normal in appearance and function, is useful
and appropriate, an important means of more quickly and completely weeding out
the defective dogs.
While the working shepherd lines, the German and Belgian, are relatively diverse
in a genetic sense, the problems come in the show lines, such as those predominant
in the SV Sieger Show, and the smaller, second tier working breeds, such as the
Doberman Pincher and the Bouvier des Flandres.
The Doberman is today a relatively small breed in Germany, with for instance
only 612 VDH registrations in 2011, primarily show dogs. Doberman working lines
are sparse and the breed as a whole is generally inbred and subject to a long list of
genetic problems such as wobbler syndrome, von Willebrand’s disease and endemic
heart failure. Serious Doberman people understand that a resurrection could not be a
recovery, that the resources are not there; a full-scale reconstruction, perhaps
bringing in extensive Beauceron or Rottweiler breeding resources, would be essential
for meaningful progress. This does not seem likely.
The Bouvier des Flandres is on its last legs as a serious breed. The show lines
have endemic inbreeding problems and multiple serious genetic defects. Bouvier
working lines – sad for me to say – consist of remnants, are almost certainly beyond
recovery. A few of the older, hard-core breeders and trainers persist, taking what
comfort they can in going down with their ship.
Seriously troubled lines and breeds, such as the Doberman, have very little
likelihood of being revived through testing and selection; when the breeding pool is
below critical mass reconstruction from outside sources is the only viable alternative.
But in reality this is practically and politically difficult because the people involved
cling to their mythology and because kennel club culture and structure create
enormous obstructions. Some breeds, such as the English Bull dog, are beyond
redemption, need to become extinct.
An illustrative example of the need for a more pragmatic approach to breeding is
the Dalmatian. Unfortunately in the 1970s and 80s all purebred Dalmatians had a
recessive gene which produced high uric acid levels, which in turn cause an
extremely high incidence of debilitating urinary tract blockages. Since the gene was
universal selective breeding within the existing base as a solution was not an option.1
(Nash, 1990)
Yet there is a perfectly viable solution to this problem. In 1973 Dr. Robert
Schaible began a "Dalmatian-Pointer Backcross Project," in which a Dalmatian was
bred to a single English Pointer, producing in a few generations dogs which looked
like Dalmatians, acted like Dalmatians and for all practical purposes were
Dalmatians, yet substantially free of genetic high uric acid levels. But in the eyes of
the AKC, British KC and the various breed clubs these dogs are not purebred, are in
their eyes low class mongrels to be held in contempt by all respectable people. After
forty years of denial the Dalmatian community finally began to relent in the 2011
era, after inflicting pain and suffering on generations of dogs and people in the
absurd cause of purity.

1
The Dalmatian is also subjected to serious levels of congenital deafness, which can
theoretically be remedied by selection within the breed.

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 This is unconscionable. An ongoing program for breeding a population of dogs for
common type, structure, appearance, character and working propensities is a time
honored and noble undertaking, a satisfying and useful human achievement. But
somehow we deny, at least in our own minds, that these breeds are always created
by crossing selected individual dogs, often with substantially different characteristics,
to produce the desired result and in time consistently reproduce the desired type.
Breeding populations need to be open to occasional, closely controlled and monitored
outside matings to introduce diversity, thus maintaining genetic viability and vigor.
Historically the practical means of introducing outside genetic resources has often
been the use of a desirable male and then the falsification of the registration, using
the name and identity of an existing male within the breed. This is not especially
uncommon, and often well known to the insiders. But the introduction of DNA testing
is making this difficult or impossible, an instance of the negative consequences of a
scientific advance. Rather than using such testing for the benefit of breeding stock,
the AKC and other registries will use it to put teeth and consequence into an
irrational paradigm.
There have been sporadic attempts to address these issues, but shoveling sand
against the tide has proven difficult. In the German Shepherd world, Dr. Helmut
Raiser, for a brief period national Breed Warden of the SV, the German national
breed club, has taken the stand that lock step selection based on hip X-rays has
weakened character in the German Shepherd Dog and proposed that selective
introduction of Malinois blood could be part of a better overall approach. It cannot be
a surprise to anyone that the German show breeders soon conjured up a way to
remove Dr. Raiser from his office and go back to with business as usual. Others from
time to time speak out, but the establishment is deeply entrenched and invested in
their system.
But there are chinks in the armor, a glimmer of hope in the rapidly declining
registrations in both Europe and America. AKC registration totals have fallen by 63
percent over 15 years, and other registries have experienced similar reductions.
These dramatic reductions have been especially pronounced in the larger and more
aggressive breeds, especially the German Shepherd. As discussed in the next
chapter, the ongoing collapse in the AKC and FCI creates vulnerability, but also
perhaps the opportunity for better paradigms to emerge.
While line breeding is the foundation of animal husbandry, the process by which
breeds are established and maintained, it is generally accepted that the periodic out
cross to maintain diversity and vigor is fundamental to the process. The fact that the
closed gene pool and the focus on breeding to a very small number of show winning
dogs has in many instances made the true out cross impossible, thus preordaining
the fragility, lack of vigor and proliferation of genetic faults that we see before us
today.
The ideal situation would be a number of concurrently evolving breeding lines,
with ongoing interchange among them, to provide the necessary genetic diversity.
The Malinois is in many ways a good approximation of this. The problem is that the
exhibition breeders, and to a lesser extent the working breeders, tend to go blindly
back to the same winning lines since that is what is seen as the road to recognition,
personal status and puppy sales.
Although not widely used today, in Belgium there is an established, formal
process to introduce outside lines. One can show his dog to two conformation judges
and, upon receipt of good or very good ratings receive provisional papers.
(Unfortunately, there is no requirement of a character evaluation.) The offspring of
such dogs also receive provisional papers, but in the third generation they convert to
full registration. This rational system should be the norm everywhere.

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 As historical background, this started in pre WWII Belgium where there were
multiple registries competing for acceptance. Being reluctant to acknowledge the
existence of another registry, this was a face saving way of incorporating existing
dogs. In many instances lines developed by working trainers who had ignored
registration for economic or social reasons were valuable assets that needed to be
included. Also, until relatively recently the French & Belgian registrations were not
compatible, that is it could be difficult to import dogs. As an example, in the early
1950's the president of the Belgian Bouvier des Flandres club, Felix Verbanck, was
able to acquire a French Bouvier and register it in Belgium, and then forward the dog
to the founding American breeder. This was necessary because at that time it was
not possible to register directly a French dog in America. In general the Belgian and
other European breeders, other than a few people with working lines, are not
engaged in this sort of thing, but the tools are there.
The fundamental problem is not the use of medical procedures to determine the
latent potential for defects in the progeny, for it would be foolish to ignore this
technology, but rather the propensity to use it blindly to eliminate dogs without any
thought of the overall consequences. From the beginning the OFA emphasized that
breeding decisions should be based on a large picture and broad consideration of
consequences, that breeding decisions should be made on the bases of diversity and
the gradual reduction of risk rather than blind elimination. The breeding of mildly
dysplastic dogs should be viewed as an undesirable but sometimes necessary
expedient based on the overall quality of the expected progeny and the aggregate
contribution to potential diversity.
Medical screening can primarily be useful and successful as an ancillary practice
in an overall breeding program driven by selecting breeding animals from among
those who have demonstrated proficiency in the particular purpose of their breed at
a relatively mature age. In such a program serious problems such as heart defects,
severe dysplasia and juvenile blindness most often become apparent and eliminate
the dog from breeding. A four or five year old dog qualifying for a KNPV certificate
simply cannot be hiding much, is with high probability a physically good specimen.
But when dogs are qualified in the show ring and bred relatively young the breeders
can and do conceal physical defects because the dogs never have to publicly scale
walls, search in the woods or pull down a man on a bicycle.
Medical screening is truly a double-edged sword. On the one hand it provides a
tool to assist in a gradual remediation of widespread genetic problems. But on the
other hand it has been used as an excuse for ignoring the real problems before us
today, that is, the closed studbooks, the breeding based on conformation rather than
function and the shrinking gene pools. But applied blindly, by excluding all dogs
testing positive for newly perceived genetic defects in a closed gene pool, medical
screening can only further tighten the noose in an ever-tightening spiral to oblivion.

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17 The Establishment

In the latter half of the nineteenth century a robust middle class, with increasing
leisure time and discretionary income, began to emerge in industrial nations such as
Great Britain, Belgium, America and Germany. A consequence was an interest in new
diversions and hobbies, and pastimes such as softball and bowling became popular
recreational and social outlets. Many people became enthused with pet ownership
and particularly participating in conformation exhibitions and competitive training.
As this brave new world of the purebred dog emerged there was increasing
interest in banding together to discover natural populations of dogs with
commonality of appearance and purpose to formalize as a breed. Each of these
incipient breeds required organization in order to support a registry, establish
conformation standards, appoint judges and conduct conformation exhibitions and
sometimes working trials. Thus each incipient breed group tended to become
formalized and establish a national breed club, and in time see the emergence of
subsidiary regional and local clubs.
Organizational and management aspects of canine affairs required ongoing
services such as the administration of registration records, trial results and working
certificates which benefit enormously from the economies of scale; one national
registry system is generally quite enough. For these reasons the foundation of the
purebred dog world was from the beginning a national level kennel club such as the
AKC or the Kennel Club in Britain. Each of these provided services and organization
to the various affiliated national breed clubs. The focus was on conformation
exhibition, validation of the purebred paradigm and promotion of companion dog
ownership. Tension between the evolution and solidification of working functionality
and consolidation of conformation type and structure was palpable from the
beginning.
This breed creation process was not always harmonious and orderly, as there
were sometimes several incipient clubs competing for affiliation. Although the AKC
and British KC were predominant from their earliest existence, other nations have a
long history of multiple national kennel clubs and ongoing conflict.1 Belgium is an
example, for after more than a century of conflict there are even today two still
existent entities, that is St. Hubert and the NVBK. (And remnants of Kennel Club
Belge, formerly robust and prominent.)
Comprehensive organizations provide critical economies of scale, long-term
stability and reliability in maintaining important archival information – usually
through the employment of a full time professional staff. Registries, originally based
on massive paper and card file records and an army of clerks, today are generally in
the form of a computer resident relational data base system.
Although a few of the more prominent breeds, such as the German Shepherd,
run breed specific local, regional and national conformation shows, multi breed
shows which can share a site, judging assignments, administration and record
keeping are in general much more practical and efficient. Working trials, with the
1
There are smaller, competing registries in the United States, such as the United Kennel
Club (UKC), but they are not as strong and robust.

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exception of regional or national championships, even when run by breed specific
organizations, are generally open to all appropriate breeds.
Although von Stephanitz and his early associates, and others in each nation,
were serious about function and character, in general there was never very much
real concern for practical canine function, vigor and health. Competition for
popularity tended to create selection for extreme physical features, and many breeds
evolved into grotesque caricatures such as the English Bulldog, the reverse bite of
the Boxer, the narrow Collie head or the extreme angulation of the German
Shepherd.
In general the national and international canine establishment, that is primarily
the FCI and affiliated national kennel clubs, have been focused on show and
companion dog affairs to the exclusion of working functionality. This has led to the
proliferation of breeding and lines generally deficient in athleticism and character,
especially appropriate aggression, for effective police and military service. Partially in
response to this separate work oriented organizations such as the KNPV and the
NVBK in Belgium have evolved in parallel. Working breeders existing within the FCI
system tend to use the registration process but generally engage in passive
resistance in order to maintain their lines and culture. The police and military people
have not been alone in this, for the serious hunting dogs have also tended to flourish
in their own separate organizations and cultures.
In 1873 the Kennel Club in England was founded as the first of its type. By 1900,
when the SV was formed, there were breed and national clubs, often fiercely
competing, over much of Europe. Although the Belgian Shepherd advocates were
active from about 1890, the police breeds as a whole were late to this party. The
German Shepherds and Dobermans became prominent and prosperous prior to WWI
but most of the others – the Rottweiler, Bouvier des Flandres and Riesenschnauzer –
did not have a serious presence until the 1920s, largely because of the disruption of
the First World War.
These clubs were and are anything but egalitarian; although ordinary people can
sometimes be voting members at a lower level, elaborate structures were
established in the beginning to retain real power in elite hands. As an example, the
American Kennel Club is made up of individual conformation and performance clubs,
but only a very select few clubs have an actual vote, a say in AKC affairs. Most of the
local or regional clubs are non-voting, have no input, influence or control. The
continental breeds in general and the police breeds in particular, implicitly viewed as
lower class, have always been systematically marginalized.
Although the emergence of national canine structures was often a competitive
and adversarial process, Belgium led the way in terms of strife and intrigue,
spawning intensely competing national organizations whose quarrels would spill over
to most of a century. Conflicts often centered on superficial issues such as coat
texture, length and color – as in the Belgian Shepherd, where an individual dog
might be a candidate with one club but not another, with the requirements
continually in flux in the formative years. Quite often the exclusion of a particular
coat would result in the creation of an entirely new club to legitimize and promote it.
This led to the concept of the variety within a breed, and inevitably increasingly
complex regulations concerning what circumstances permitted intra variety breeding,
and how the progeny were to be registered.
In contrast to the ongoing strife in Belgium – not fully resolved more than a
century later – the German Shepherd prospered from the beginning under a single
national club, the SV, with unified leadership, at times verging on dictatorship, a
major factor in the ongoing prosperity. There is perhaps something to be said for
strong, perhaps even dictatorial, leadership at the foundation of a breed. The
problem is that sooner rather than later you wind up with a grasping, venial dullard

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with a personal agenda; and they seem to live forever and leave power in like hands.
The Martin boys might come to mind.
The driving force in the evolution of the purebred dog and the various kennel and
breed clubs was the exciting newfound hobby of dog showing, where everybody with
a little money and time could buy their way in and become instant players. The down
side was that the pretty ribbons, tin cups and "wins" quickly emerged as ends in and
of themselves, with any concern for functionality, longevity, vigor or health fading
into the background. The dogs themselves tended to become an inconvenience in
that they were useless outside the ring, you had to kennel and feed them during the
dreary weeks between shows.
In America a whole class of professional handlers emerged, willing to purchase,
manage, maintain and show a dog for you without the inconvenience of ever taking
actual physical possession. Those of us actually involved in the breeding, training
and use of dogs for practical purposes were less interested in clubs, meetings and
politics, going about our business oblivious to the changes taking place. Control of
the formal organizations was increasingly in the hands of the exhibitionists, and they
had little interest beyond the trophies and personal illusions of relevance.
Ultimately the conflicts come down to control of breeding requirements, that is,
performance certifications, event and trial rules and the selection and assignment of
judges. The show people in control minimize or ignore functional requirements, the
result being that those primarily interested in working the dogs evolved their own
organizations or opted out, essentially ignored formal structures entirely. The
German Shepherd club in Germany, the SV, has tended to have relatively strict
requirements on paper, but this is routinely subverted and diluted through the
selection of corrupt judges and weak decoys for the show line dogs, allowing dogs to
just walk on the field and be given a pass regardless of demonstrated character or
merit. The heart of the breed, the real working Shepherd, is increasingly sustained
by resilient, single-minded breeders and trainers outside the mainstream of breed
clubs, conformation shows and political structures.
Although the closed studbook and emphasis on "pure" breeding was the
foundation of this brave new show dog world, other, working oriented, organizations
– such as the NVBK in Belgium and the KNPV in the Netherlands – created their own
book of origins or required no registration at all, a dog in this environment being
what he does on the field, not what is inscribed on a piece of paper. This has created
practical problems: registration of an import in another nation can be difficult or
impossible, and lack of easily verifiable papers creates the potential for fraud. Each
KNPV certificate has a photo of the dog to help alleviate false identification problems
– that is the dog sold based on a certificate actually earned by an entirely different
dog. These have been difficult issues to deal with.
Although it has become the norm, an all-breed organization in each nation, with
subsidiary national breed clubs, was not inevitable; some large and vigorous breeds
at one time had the potential to go it alone. The German Shepherd was from the
beginning enormously popular and influential, and the Germans never really wanted
to play nice, always felt entitled to complete control but were never quite able to
make it work internationally. Initiating two brutal military confrontations, especially
the German invasions of Poland and France to begin WWII, did not especially
engender confidence in German benevolence, and Adolph Hitler provided a
compelling illustration of the likely nature of unfettered German domination. The
German Shepherd world union (WUSV) was created for this purpose, and incessant
German interference in American GSD affairs has created half a century of conflict
and strife. As recently as the 1980s there was talk of the Germans establishing their
own standalone international German Shepherd organization, with a single unified
studbook, but they never quite built up the courage to make the leap.

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 The driving force behind these kennel clubs and the conformation or beauty
shows was the emerging middle class, with time and money on their hands, seeking
hobbies and diversions. The dog show was perfect, for there was no standard, no
real world requirements. They could create and define their breeds at will, and the
authority resided in the pointed finger of the judge. And of course the best part was
that they simply created these judges from among themselves, that it was a political,
fashion and popularity process rather than having any basis in canine functionality,
vigor or robust good health. Anybody could be a judge, all you needed to do was win
some friends and influence some people, and if that did not work fast enough
spreading a little money around was sure to do the trick.
There are a number of problems with this, including the arrogance of the
inevitable entrenched bureaucracies and the evils of the show systems, which in
practice seek as the ideal breeds consisting of ever more extreme clones, dogs
virtually identical in structure and to a lesser extent character. The problem is that
such populations are increasingly fragile in a genetic sense, and concentrate genetic
deficiencies, processes which by their nature and founding principles the kennel clubs
incessantly exacerbate. The kennel clubs were created to enable the formation and
maintenance of the formal, modern breeds, which as closed and incessantly
shrinking gene pools are the root of most of the evils of the modern canine world.
In 2008 the BBC broadcast a searing television series on purebred dogs, kennel
clubs and dog shows entitled Pedigree Dogs Exposed providing graphic illustration of
the consequences of long term close breeding focused on dog show winners and
selecting for ever increasing extremes in type in breeding, such as the sloping back
and extreme rear angulation of the show line German Shepherds, the grotesque
reverse bite of the Bull dog and the extreme narrow head of the Collie. This was a
necessary and long overdue public service, putting a spotlight on festering abuses
most of us have long been aware of but unable to bring to public focus.
Over the past years, beginning roughly in the mid 1990's, the public has
increasingly come to see through the kennel club propaganda and the fact that the
AKC has been run by a self-serving elite and a bureaucracy devoted to their own
power, financial benefit and security with little real concern for the vigor, functional
excellence and welfare of the various breeds. Over a ten-year period, beginning in
the middle 1990s, AKC registrations dropped by more than half, and the numbers
continue to decline.
By 2008 the embarrassment had become so acute that the AKC bureaucrats were
driven over the edge, became so hysterical and secretive that after more than a
century they ceased the publication of yearly statistics by breed, revealing,
reluctantly it would seem, only breed rank order; yet one more example of the old
AKC head in the sand trick. These trends have also become increasingly evident in
Europe, and have been especially pronounced among the larger breeds. German
Shepherd registrations in Germany have dropped by more than half since the middle
1990s and are still plummeting.

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Fédération Cynologique Internationale
Just as many services, such as registration and record keeping, are
best rendered within a country by a national kennel club serving all
breed clubs, there are international issues such as mutual recognition of
registration, judging licenses and breed standards that ultimately
require formal arrangements and organization.
As the various breeds and their associated national clubs were
coming into prominence at the turn of the twentieth century, just after 1900, each
nation essentially stood alone, making their own decisions, running their own shows,
appointing judges and maintaining studbooks. Sometimes there were conflicting and
competing national breed clubs, as in Belgium which in reality was two conflicting
cultures, each with their own languages and heritage. Although the individual breeds
were generally national in nature – that is, founded within a specific country such as
Germany or France – many became popular abroad, presenting the problem of how
internationally recognized standards were to be established and which studbooks
were to be definitive.
One option would have been for the nation of origin to become the international
authority for each breed, promulgating the standard, appointing and assigning
judges and maintaining breeding records. An obvious problem with this was practical
and administrative: communication and record keeping would have been difficult in
an era where correspondence was via the post office, often with hand written letters
and documents, in diverse European languages. An even more critical problem was
that foreign enthusiasts would have had no meaningful voice in their own breed
affairs, would have had an essentially colonial status, a practical matter of logistics
as well as national pride. No sovereign nation wants its neighbors meddling in
internal affairs – running shows, collecting registration fees, dictating judges and
establishing regulations – even if the breed is of foreign origination. Mutual
recognition of registration, and the ability to obtain registration in one's own country
for an imported dog, was desirable and attractive from the beginning. The need for
an international, Eurocentric, organization became increasingly urgent.
Although it was long delayed, this came to pass in the form of the FCI, the
Fédération Cynologique Internationale founded May 22, 1911.1 The FCI was
eventually to become the Eurocentric, predominant worldwide organization of
national kennel clubs. The founding nations were Belgium, France, Austria and the
Netherlands. The Federation ceased to exist during WWI but was reestablished on
April 10, 1921. Were it not for the fact that the major English speaking nations –
England, Canada and the United States – stood aloof the FCI would have emerged as
the predominant worldwide canine entity.
Today the FCI is headquartered in Thuin, Belgium and includes 84 member
nations each with their own national organization and various subsidiary breed and
performance clubs. The FCI is primarily an administrative body concerned with
international affairs: it issues no pedigrees, licenses no judges and keeps no national
records, leaving these matters as the responsibility of each sovereign national club.
In order to foster international competition, the FCI does provide rules and
regulations for a number of performance event venues such as IPO, although many
nations also maintain their own sports, such as French Ring Sport. The FCI is –
because of its size, seniority and the robust power of its various national kennel
clubs – of enormous influence in the canine world.
The relationship between the AKC and the FCI, governed by formal letters of
understanding and informal realpolitik considerations, is well defined, strong and
1
In English this becomes International Canine Federation.

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mutually beneficial. Neither side is likely to step on the toes of its partner in crime,
as for instance accepting the registration papers of a competing, dissident registry or
allowing dogs without the appropriate registration to compete in international events.
It is a simple matter of routine paper work to obtain AKC registration for dogs with a
valid FCI registration, and vice versa. Judges commonly serve in each other's
domains, as in Germans coming to America to judge a class of German Shepherds.
Similar mutual relationships exist with Canada and Britain. This means that for the
European looking for an international reputation and clientele, that is with a desire
for a piece of the lucrative American market, it was and is essential to have FCI
registered dogs. Increasing economic prosperity in Europe has diminished this
differential in recent years, but for most of the twentieth century American
prosperity made our purchasing power very influential in Europe, and the export
market remains lucrative.
In the early years there were sometimes several competing national or regional
breed clubs in an individual nation. The advent of the FCI, with only one member
club per nation, each in turn with only one national club for each breed, imposed
order and stability. The down side was that the most politically agile people and
clubs, which tended to be conformation oriented rather than focused on functional
utility or work, generally became predominate. Like the dominoes falling power and
control gravitated to the effete exhibitionists. Perhaps even in that era the serious
trainers wanted to avoid politics and just train their dogs; but leaving politics to the
politicians, people with an inclination and preference for intrigue and manipulation,
seldom ends well. Quite simply, the exhibitionists were the more adapt and cunning,
since their "sport" is primarily about political and social intrigue and manipulation,
about arbitrarily ornamental dogs rather than the utility and intrinsic value of a breed
as a whole.
Thus although the emergence of the FCI contributed to breeds with an
international commonality of appearance, broadly based character standards and
requirements were virtually impossible to enforce. Even if work requirements could
be established within one nation, there was no mechanism for extending these
requirements to other nations, which could produce any number of dogs of unproven
character yet with valid international credentials, effectively subverting the character
of the breed as a whole.
As Europe became more prosperous – and especially as improvements such as
better roads and railroads and innovations such as the automobile, telephone and
radio made international travel and communication more practical and convenient –
there was increasing interest in international working programs rather than individual
sports unique to specific nations or groups of nations. This has many advantages,
including the possibility of international competition, a greatly expanded pool of
judges and protection decoys and a common, well recognized means of evaluation
and comparison of breeding stock working character.
Historically Schutzhund was a German created and administered program, with
Germany sometimes reaching beyond her borders to run trials and support
organizations in other nations. This led to issues of national sovereignty, resentment
of German intrusion and interference, and as a result the desire for alternative
programs not dominated and controlled by Germany.
The consequence of this was, beginning roughly in the 1970s, programs very
similar to Schutzhund emerging in neighboring nations as increasing numbers of
Belgian, Dutch and even French trainers embraced such sports in preference to their
national suit oriented venue. This created a lot of confusion and conflict, was
becoming the dog sport version of the Tower of Babble.
In response to this a very similar FCI program, IPO (Internationale
Prufungsordnung) emerged as the sleeve style international trial venue, under

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international auspices rather than any individual nation. This created a certain
amount of confusion as often both programs – or similar programs in other nations –
existed in an individual nation. Further confusion stemmed from the fact that rules of
all of these programs were continually changing and evolving, varied over time.
Although there were ongoing differences between IPO and Schutzhund – and
incessant tinkering with the rules and requirements – in later years these programs
were increasingly similar to the point that a dog which could do one could easily do
the other. In 2012 Schutzhund was finally folded into IPO, bringing unity and
consistency, but at the lowest common denominator in terms of truly testing
functional police potential and as a guide to breeding and service readiness.
The underlying down side of all of this was that in merging Schutzhund into IPO it
was significantly emasculated both in the letter of the law and the underlying spirit,
eliminating the vertical wall, the attack on the handler and the original courage test
among other things. Many or most of these changes in Schutzhund came prior to the
merger, and evolved as responses to incessant push to lower standards and pressure
on the dog. I became involved in the late 1970s, and in no instance was the sport
made more demanding, a greater test of the dogs – every change was a concession
to the play sport persona. Taken as a whole, the changes in Schutzhund were a
matter of gradually watering it down to make the last step of merger into IPO in
2012 more transparent.
But this was not the end of the emasculation. Early in 2014 there was a grand
announcement from the FCI Utility Dog Commission, headed by Frans Janssen, that
the stick hits would not be applied in the protection exercises of the FCI IPO
championship in Sweden later that year, and that it was their intention to cave in to
political correctness and eliminate the stick hits entirely. Although they backed down
under intensive reaction, much of it from America, the vulnerability remains. The FCI
is an organization by and for conformation and companion dog breeding with no real
commitment to working character. The Utility Dog Commission is made up of
national representatives appointed by the member nation's national clubs such as
the Raad van Beheer in the Netherlands or the VDH in Germany, themselves pet and
play dog oriented. The fundamental problem is that working dog people have no real
representation at all in the FCI scheme of things, no real say in working dog affairs.
The aborted threat of elimination of the stick hits in 2014 as a precursor to an
intended elimination by 2017 was a harbinger of things to come; further serious
compromise and pussification is preordained. The Utility Dog Commission has
declared that IPO is a sport rather than a legitimate breeding test, and given this
mind set there can be little doubt that the gun sensitivity test and the courage test
will be the next to go, for why should gun sureness or courage matter in a play
sport?
The essential point here is that when Schutzhund was merged into IPO ultimate
control of working dog affairs went from the hands of working dog people to the FCI,
which at heart is a pet and show dog organization not only run by squeamish pet and
play people, but susceptible to social and political pressure in an increasingly pacifist
Europe. The Utility Dog Commission is appointed and under the control of
conformation and companion breeders who have ultimate authority. Throwing the
working dog heritage under the bus at the first bump in the road is always going to
be the reflex action of the FCI to social and political pressure from the animal rights
elements and the so called green political movement.
Although it is generally not of particular interest to Americans or working oriented
people, an important issue in the FCI world is which working titles entitle a dog entry
to the working class at a conformation show. It is true that for most of us there
should not be any adult conformation class except a working class, but in Europe this
is a complex, political issue.

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 The evolution of the suit style protection sports has taken a much different
course than what we have seen in Schutzhund and IPO. Although there has been an
effort to create an international program in Mondio Ring, discussed below, it has
gained very little real traction and instead national programs in the Netherlands,
Belgium and France have continued to prosper to the exclusion of others.
There are important political and organizational distinctions among these suit
sports. While they are under a separate organization in the Netherlands and mostly
separate in Belgium through the NVBK– there is still a remnant of ring activity under
Societe Royale Saint-Hubert auspices - the French Ring retains an official FCI link
through Societe Central Canine, the French kennel club equivalent. But French Ring
is a national sport under indirect auspices rather than international venue under the
FCI like IPO.
The NVBK in Belgium is a separate organization, for not only do they run their
own Ring trials with their own rules, they have their own studbook and registration
system. This came to pass because most of the Ring trainers broke away to set up
their own organization in 1963, the NVBK, entirely separate from the FCI, in order to
take control of their own affairs, to ensure that working trials, judges and integrity
were under the control of the actual working people rather than conformation
oriented bureaucrats and breeders. Since these dogs are not as readily adapted to
direct entry into police and military service, and because the NVBK does not have the
strong national police connections that KNPV does, exporting dogs has had some
complications. Quasi-legal solutions to the registration problem have evolved, but
this is an ongoing source of irritation and annoyance.
The French Ring Sport people do have some complicating issues and
entanglements, for in order to participate in the trial a dog must have a valid FCI
registration. This is the reason that although at one time a French Ring title would
make a dog eligible for the working class at a CACIB international conformation show
this is no longer true. This of course was heavy-duty canine politics at work, and how
much the Germans were behind this is a matter of conjecture and speculation.
The KNPV trainers have been very much stand alone and aloof about: they have
little interest in conformation events and a very strong market for their titled dogs in
police and military service worldwide. Because of this, registration is more or less
irrelevant to the KNPV trainer. The KNPV has always had some sort of relationship
with the Raad van Beheer, the Dutch Kennel club, and historically the KNPV titles
appeared on Dutch pedigrees. This has come to a stop as the Raad van Beheer have
striven to become even more politically correct and more dominated by the pet and
play people.
The general problem with these bite suit sports is that you cannot easily trial a
dog or sell a dog for competition beyond your own nation, that is the Belgian Ring
dog for instance would require extensive retraining for either French Ring or KNPV,
with the other combinations being incompatible in a similar way. There have been
efforts to bring each of these programs to America, but only French Ring has had
been able to persist, but has remained marginal relative to Schutzhund.
A general desire for an international suit style trial system sanctioned by the FCI
led to the creation, in the 1980s, of an entirely new FCI program to be known as
Mondio Ring. The concept of Mondio ring was to bring people from all of the
protection suit sports together to synthesize from the best elements of each a new,
universal sport, with the hope that it would become popular and the working dog
world could achieve unity. Kind of like Esperanto, a completely new language
intended to be universal and allow all of mankind to communicate. Esperanto just
never got off the ground, and English has become the international language, by
circumstance more than any special qualities of the language, the English or the
Americans. Creating Mondio ring was kind of like gathering delegates from the Pope,

405
the highest-ranking Rabbi and the most senior Mullah to create a new, unifying
religion, based on their common roots in the old testament as the children of
Abraham, to put a final end to crusades, jihads and wars of liberation and revenge; a
noble undertaking but not something the proposed participants were really ready to
embrace.
As one would expect, committees tend to solve problems by discarding whatever
generates complaints, so the result tends to become a diluted sport with no heritage,
no judges in place and no serious people interested in giving up their national sport
to play in a new, least common denominator program. The result is that each major
European nation continues to emphasize its own national venue for the police style
dogs, which is Schutzhund – rebranded and internationalized as IPO – in Germany,
KNPV in the Netherlands and French and Belgian Ring. Mondio Ring has remained as
a marginal program and there is little indication of it emerging as a predominant
international sport; the traction just does not seem to be there.
What is really needed are two international programs, one sleeve oriented and
one bite suit oriented, with absolute separation from the FCI, totally under the
control of the people training, breeding and trialing their dogs. Such organizations
would no doubt be subjected to reprisal from the FCI, its constituent national
organizations and the breed organizations. Therefore, for real control, independent
registration programs would likely be necessary. French Ring is still under the FCI
thumb through its association with the French national organization, but KNPV or
NVBK would be good models.

406
 The American Kennel Club
The American Kennel Club, founded in 1884, is arguably the
largest and most powerful canine organization in the world, with
tight control of all aspects of American purebred dog breeding,
registration and standards. Just as deBeers cornered the diamond
market and convinced much of the world that love is measured
by the size of a relatively common carbon crystal, the AKC has
through clever public relations made their registration papers the
hallmark of quality, even though they were always issued with no real verification of
character, structure or even accuracy of the pedigree. These are two of the most
incredible and profitable marketing schemes ever perpetrated, based on not a shred
of objective reality.
Unlike national clubs in many European nations, the AKC does not derive power
or authority from any government agency; other organizations are not legally
excluded.1 The AKC is made up of individual breed and obedience clubs; no individual
person has a voice in AKC affairs beyond his social position and influence in the
various member clubs. The AKC is among the least democratic of our national
institutions: for most of the first century women, black people, Jews and other
minorities were systematically marginalized. This is not ancient history; women were
formally excluded as delegates or officers until 1974.
All AKC power is in the hands of the member club delegates – the people who
elect board members and otherwise make decisions affecting American canine
affairs. In the early 1990s the delegates included thirteen representing Beagle clubs
and exactly zero represented the Rottweiler, at that time one of the most popular
breeds. Lest you think that the German Shepherds or Dobermans had proportionate
representation, they each had but a single vote, that of the respective national club,
out of the then total of 462 member clubs.2 Beyond the elite 462 there were over
3000 "affiliated" clubs – read second class – with no representation, vote or power.
The disenfranchised affiliated clubs included all of the regional Bouvier, Rottweiler
and German Shepherd clubs and the vast majority of obedience training clubs. The
AKC has always been elitist and exclusive, and the working breeds were from the
beginning systematically marginalized. It is relatively easy to gather some
associates, form an organization and become an affiliated club and thus gain the
privilege of sending a check to the bureaucrats every year; but it is virtually
impossible for an outside group to gain acceptance as a member club and thus share
power and influence.
By 2012 there were still less than 500 member clubs and approximately 5000
second class affiliated clubs; and the AKC has become increasingly secretive and
reluctant to reveal detailed registration, financial or other information. Since the
member clubs tend to be small, elite and exclusive even the ten to one ratio of non-
voting to voting clubs seriously understates the disparity in representation.

1
There is in fact a smaller and less prestigious United Kennel Club based in Michigan
which does register most breeds. The roots of the UKC were in our American hunting
breeds, such as the Blue Tick Coonhounds, whose interests were, in the eyes of their
advocates, ignored or subverted by the high and mighty of the AKC.
2
All statistics cited from the Member Club list in the January 1990 edition of the AKC
Gazette.

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This table summarizes AKC revenues comparing the The International Kennel Club
years 2008 and 2009. Registration fees, the bulk of of Chicago, as an example, is a
the revenue, saw a drop of $425 million or 13.3%. All member club and one of the best
of this has been going on for fifteen years and more, known and most powerful and
the people are voting with their feet. influential organizations in the
All figures in thousands of dollars. show dog world, running among
the largest and most prestigious
AKC Income 2009 2008 shows of international interest.
Registration fees $27,743 $31,933
What is much less well known is
Recording and event fees 10,031 10,162
that this is actually a private, for
Fees and certified pedigrees 6,990 7,951
Royalty and sponsorship income 6,258 6,815 profit entity with closely guarded
Contributed airtime and print space 4,939 2,776 membership and no financial
DNA and other product services 4,670 4,912 transparency. No one outside the
Enrollment fees and microchip sales 3,931 3,992 inner circle can fill out an
Publications 2,915 3,345 application and join, or even
Other income 966 581 have access to the lucrative
Interest and dividends 224 245 financial records.
Contributions 5 252
Assets released from restrictions 316 27 The reality is that a
TOTAL REVENUES $68,988 $72,991 controlling majority of the voting
AKC member clubs are small,
elite eastern clubs in the hands
of socially correct people. Many of these clubs are exclusive, for profit and with fewer
than ten members, sometimes all related. Elitism and corruption in the AKC is deep,
old and well entrenched and fundamentally hostile to working dogs of all varieties
but especially those of the protective heritage.
The primary function of the AKC has been record keeping; that is, maintaining
breeding, studbook and litter records. They also license conformation and obedience
judges, specify the rules under which conformation shows and working trials are run
and record the results so as to issue the appropriate certificates and publish an
announcement when a championship or obedience title is earned.
But their real agenda has been to turn every breed into show dogs where the
original functionality – be it hunting or police style protection – is irrelevant or even
to be purposely subverted where it conflicts with the belief of our betters of how
things are and should be in America.
Most, but not all, breeds are represented by a national parent club. If this were a
matter of one breed, one vote it would still approximate a democratic process. But
the influence of the breed clubs is swamped by the other member clubs, some with
only a handful of members. As an example, the First Company Governor's Foot
Guard Athletic Association of Connecticut is a member club, and its membership has
as much representation in AKC affairs as the entire Bouvier or Doberman Pincher
communities! Clearly this club serves no other purpose than helping to insure control
of the AKC to the sterile, effete eastern elite, one of the last vestiges of the once
predominant American eastern upper class, Protestant social structure.
The real power is in the hands of local member clubs, often legally for profit
corporations, sometimes with fewer than ten members. Although these clubs
typically do nothing more than hold one or two conformation shows per year, they
wield immense aggregate power in that they control the selection of judges for their
shows and send a voting delegate to AKC meetings. To the best of my knowledge,
the size and legal status of these clubs is not publicly available.
In addition to the disproportionate power in the hands of small, private, exclusive
local clubs, representation is heavily biased in several other ways. The east coast
clubs far outnumber other regions. Only a handful of obedience clubs (41, less than
10%) are represented.

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 The heaviest bias is against the continental protective heritage breeds, that is,
the German Shepherd, the Doberman, the Rottweiler, the Bouvier and the Belgian
herding breeds. In spite of fact that the AKC member club roster is full of local terrier
and hunting dog clubs (each with a vote) there are no – zero – local or regional
member clubs for these protective breeds. The Beagle, on the other hand, is
represented by twelve separate clubs, in addition to the national club. This is not a
matter of a lack of interest, for many of these breeds have a network of strong clubs,
every single one locked out of representation or power.
Although they have become less robust in recent years, the German Shepherds
have a large and active network of regional and local clubs, so predominant that over
many years it was difficult or impossible to find major points offered at an all-breed
show; to become an AKC German Shepherd conformation champion it was necessary
to compete and win at the specialty shows on this circuit. The Doberman club was
almost as strong and independent, and some of the regional Rottweiler clubs have
upwards of a thousand members and rosters indicating a legitimate national scope.
Locked out of AKC power and influence, the enthusiasts for these breeds have built
their own stand-alone structures.
The mechanism of this discrimination is based in the fact that most member clubs
were established before these breeds became popular, and thus represent east coast
interests and the breeds which were well established by the early years of the
twentieth century. In every other area of American life the newcomers – the Irish,
Polish, Germans and African Americans – have gradually been able to share power
because of their access to the vote. The AKC establishment has neatly side stepped
this processes by allowing virtually no one outside of the old boy network to
participate.
This has enabled the AKC elite, the exhibitionists, to hold tight rein on real
power, leaving only token representation and pretense of power to the breed clubs.
The most important aspect of this is the appointment of judges, which is totally
under AKC control. This and the fact that the vast majority of judges for
conformation shows are selected by local all-breed kennel clubs means that the
national and regional breed clubs have little influence or control over who is given a
license or receives judging assignments. (The exception is the German Shepherd
clubs, for the reasons explained above.)
The most detrimental aspect of this process is the emasculation of the national
breed clubs. Although they supposedly have influence on the standard for their
breed, they cannot impose their own championship requirements, such as a working
test, or exert any control over who serves as judge and designates champions. This
has led to a system of generic breeds all judged more or less the same way, by the
same people.
In spite of all of this, in some ways the power of the AKC is fragile. Until a few
years ago one had to have a license to be a professional handler, and more than one
breeder was harassed for handling dogs out of his own lines. This came apart when
one pro, upon having his license suspended, replied by in effect saying "Hell no, not
only do I refuse to accept your suspension, I withdraw your right to license handlers.
Shall we discuss this in court?" The AKC immediately backed down and gave up the
handler licensing system. Although the bureaucracy historically took in staggering
amounts of cash, and even today continues to wield immense power over the
American canine scene with no real mandate from the people who actually breed and
train dogs, its deep pockets and secretive ways created an immense fear of the
courtroom.
The American dog fancy, reflecting British roots, has always been about passive
companion dogs serving as surrogate family members, animated teddy bears. The
dog is expected to be cute, subservient and entertaining, the playful friend of the

409
children. Support of real functionality has been at best ambivalent and at worst
overtly hostile, for instance banning any sort of association with training or practical
breeding selection for police or military service. (They are always prepared to
glamorize and associate with such service as promotional ploys, but seem oblivious
to where such things actually come from, like believing that babies are delivered by
a stork rather than originating in sex acts.)
This has always been the essence of the AKC persona and propaganda, where
more active working roles are persistently marginalized. Dogs kept primarily for
specific utilitarian functions, such as the functional hunting dogs, have largely
evolved separate cultures and organizations. For these reasons the police breed
affairs have been in conflict on multiple levels throughout their American experience.
The underlying appeal of the police dog has always been the aggressive persona,
the aura of Rin Tin Tin and Strongheart on the movie screen, the tough dog for real
men. The German Shepherd or Doberman was a statement, a projection of a
perceived place in the world. This has been in conflict with the broader canine
community, which has tended to portray the nice dog image, emphasized that these
were family dogs, the friends of the children, that things are different in America.
The clubs and breeders incessantly marginalized the working culture and bred ever
softer, more compliant dogs, police dog replicas for all practical purposes.
Although the attitude of the AKC establishment toward the police breeds has
been generally condescending and negative, it has varied according to circumstance
and events. While there was some early toleration toward Schutzhund, perhaps
benign neglect, involvement was eventually slapped down.
On June 18th, 1990 a formal edict banning any member club from sponsoring
Schutzhund and other serious tests for our protective heritage breeds, largely in
response to events in the Doberman world, that is to stop the increasing involvement
of the national Doberman club in Schutzhund activities. The wording could have
easily been interpreted to also prohibit the ATTS1 temperament test and precludes
any club from supporting police service dogs.
The AKC has always been conflicted in this area, for this edict went out when
Louis Auslander was both AKC president and board chairman. Only four years earlier,
at Mr. Auslander's personal invitation as President of the International Kennel Club of
Chicago, one of our Bouviers des Flandres and an excellent Rottweiler had done a
well-received Schutzhund demonstration as a highlight at the 1987 International
Kennel Club show in Chicago, one of the largest benched shows in America, second
only to Westminster in prestige.
AKC policy concerning work tends to be sporadic and event driven, for a little
over a decade later, there was an abrupt change in direction. In May of 2006, after a
number of years of internal bickering, the AKC Board of Directors approved a new
AKC WDS Working Dog Sport, on a provisional basis, open only to four breeds. The
program itself was an emasculated version of Schutzhund. Never mind that there
were no judges, no base of knowledge and no real credibility, and they were
certainly not going to let anything like this become a breeding requirement and
interfere with the flow of puppy registration money.
In reality this program was a much-reduced version of an all-breed program
which had been promoted for several years but rejected by the delegates two years
previously. What this really illustrates is that at its core the AKC has no real
principles or values, little real interest in the breeding of better dogs, but rather is
dedicated to the interests of the insiders.

1
Founded by Alfons Ertelt in 1977. Ertelt was also a NASA founder.

410
 AKC registrations peaked in 1992 at roughly 1.5 million, falling precipitously to a
total of 563,611 registrations in 2010. That is a whopping 63% decrease, and a huge
vote of no confidence. This in spite of the fact that moving from a policy of painting
commercial breeding operations as "puppy mills" they now actively encourage and
cooperate with these same operations in a desperate effort to somehow sustain the
revenue flow. Beginning in 2008 the AKC ceased publication of annual registration
statistics on a breed by breed basis, thereafter only rank ordering based on
popularity.
Based on published figures of very roughly sixty or seventy million dogs existing
in American homes and average lifespan is six or seven years, only about five
percent of American dogs are actually AKC registered. The AKC response has been to
stick their heads in the sand, that is, cease to publish any registration data,
apparently in the hope that it is all a bad dream that will end when the people wake
up and resume sending in more and more money for phony registration papers that
mean absolutely nothing. The value of the AKC brand is rapidly approaching zero.

GSDCA
The German Shepherd Dog Club of America, the GSDCA, came into existence
early, in 1913, in an American cultural environment unaware of and vaguely hostile
to civilian police style breeding and training. It was thus conflicted from the
beginning, attempting to serve, placate and manipulate two masters, the German
breed founders, at that time serious about work, and an elitist American Kennel Club
regarding working dogs in general as lower class and unsympathetic to public
manifestation of aggression. The consequence has been an organization historically
conflicted about the essence of the breed, gravitating to the abstract police dog
persona but denying and distancing itself from the practical realities and necessities
of breeding and maintaining sufficient aggression for this function. The GSDCA was
for the better part of the twentieth century disengaged from the European
establishment, breeding increasingly soft, spooky dogs with grotesque physique, that
is with extreme angulation and sloping top line, to the point where these American
Shepherds became virtually another breed.
Surging in popularity as the troops returned from WW I, American enthusiasts
built their own infrastructure, with the GSDCA providing national leadership and
services, with strong regional and local clubs, mostly conformation oriented but
many specifically obedience focused. Although increasingly struggling in recent
years, historically the GSDCA was robust, independent, and politically astute;
maintaining distance from the AKC, putting out an elaborate magazine and
conducting extravagant national and regional specialty shows. In their heyday, the
1950s through the middle 1990s, regional clubs were strong and aloof, holding their
own specialty shows rather than supporting the larger all breed AKC shows. Even the
obedience people tended to congregate together in their own clubs, with their own
judges, trainers and events. Yet even within this community the underlying tension
was palpable, these were people in denial, drawn to the protective heritage yet
deeply ambivalent about canine aggression. Over the first seventy years of the
American experience the Schutzhund trial, the defining ritual of the German
Shepherd in the homelands, was ignored, treated as a slightly embarrassing family
secret.
Although the GSDCA, and all of its regional and local clubs, are AKC affiliated and
work within the system in terms of the formalities of registration, conformation
standard, judge accreditation the dog show process, it has from the beginning stood
apart as much as possible, with emphasis on their own magazines, exclusive
specialty shows and European connections. Over most of this history the GSD show
world was an annual circuit of specialty shows with its own set of judges,

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professional handlers and participating dogs and owners. Only specialty judges are
selected and, because of the point system, for many years it was difficult to find a
major and thus become a champion at an all-breed show.1 This has meant that to
gain the championship a dog usually had to win at the specialty shows.
While yearning for independence, or at least the illusion thereof, the GSDCA was
always an extension of the domestic AKC canine culture, with emphasis on the
conformation winners as the driving force of the breeding process. Over the
twentieth century there was only transient and informal interest in Schutzhund, and
the lip service to performance competition consisted mostly of insipid obedience
trials as obscure side shows for those lacking the resources to aspire to show ring
prominence. The most important yearly event is the national specialty, where a
Grand Victor, Grand Victrix and an elite group of select dogs are designated, with
obedience and other casual entertainment events off to the side for the lesser
people. The dream of every Shepherd enthusiast was to breed or own a select dog or
even a Grand Victor, and thus become an established part of the elite. The club
magazine and web sites are primarily media to glorify these show dogs, and the ROM
or Register of Merit program maintains an elaborate point system to record and
venerate each winner according to the show ring success of their progeny, with
minor consideration of other factors such as obedience titles, so that each owner,
and their envious friends, can know exactly how they stack up, how important they
really are.
The focus on independent American lines, breeding and judges began in the
1960's, with the anointing of Lance of Fran-Jo as Grand Victor in 1967, in retrospect
an important demarcation point. Lance and a few related dogs came to dominate the
show ring through intense inbreeding, creating the extreme side gait and rear
angulation defining the ongoing American lines and the waning of German influence.
German judges, historically brought over to judge at major shows, disappeared
entirely, along with the import. The period of predominant conformation oriented
German imports, such as Troll vom Richterbach, in the later 1950s and early 1960s
came to an abrupt end, as the American conformation community increasingly
looked inward.
The relationship between the American GSDCA and the German mother club, the
SV, evolved as one of convenience, canine politics and advantage rather than
legitimate commitment to breed heritage and founding philosophy. Over much of the
twentieth century the relatively robust economy made the American market a
predominant international factor; there have been three to four Shepherds bred in
America for each one in Germany and a very lucrative export market. Starting in the
twenties many of the Siegers, male winners of the SV national conformation
championship, have come to America because we were a nation on the rise,
relatively prosperous, and times were very hard in a defeated Germany. During the
Second World War contact abated and it was the early fifties before the Germans
began to reestablish their international prestige and influence. By this time the
Americans were beginning to have ideas of their own and were blending in the
imports rather than just emulating German trends. Beginning in the 1960s the
American GSDCA show community was going its own way, virtually creating their
own breed. While the rest of the world was to some extent gaining unity of type and
1
The AKC conformation show offers championship points for each sex in each breed
according to the number of dogs or bitches entered. In order to become a champion, a
dog must win two 'majors,' that is shows with a minimum number present in the
particular sex. The number of points for a major win – 3, 4 or 5 points – varies
regionally according to entries in recent shows.

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culture through the world union, the WUSV, the GSDCA was for practical purposes a
member in name only.
Historically the GSDCA had looked to Germany for dogs, guidance and approval,
but this was one dimensional, seeking the appearance and macho aura of the police
dog but eschewing any involvement in the actual training or practical application. In
spite of this philosophical disconnect, over the years the GSDCA maintained ties to
the international Shepherd community, becoming a charter member of the WUSV. By
1970 they had for all practical purposes gone their own way, and there was very
little international influence: few imports, little use of German judges and no
returning to the motherland to compete in either conformation or working events.

The SV Empire
In the great nineteenth century colonial empire building era Germany, which
emerged as a major European power only with the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, was
aggressively expansionist. In seeking parity with existing powers they were
relentless in building military and industrial potential and in seeking colonial territory
on a par with the French and British empires. Wilhelm the Second and Adolph Hitler,
prime movers in this expansionist zeal, have passed into ignoble history, and post
WWII Germany has generally played nice on the international scene, achieving
European dominance through hard work, economic productivity and prosperity rather
than war. Germany was aggressive and on the move, but distance, culture and war
delayed direct entanglement in American canine affairs through much of the
twentieth century.
In the early years, through the 1970s, German influence was driven by American
solicitation, that is Americans taking advantage of relative prosperity to purchase
and import innumerable German Shepherds for breeding and exhibition purposes,
often among the best dogs in Germany. Occasional German judges were also invited
to serve at conformation shows, but there was little overt attempt to directly
influence American affairs.
Beginning in the 1980s, the SV1 gradually sought increasing influence in the
affairs of other nations in furtherance of their own agenda. The primary impediment
to SV expansion in America was and is fear of AKC retaliation, which in the most
serious form would involve restrictions on registering imported German Shepherds.
SV interests have focused on control of the American market, the evolution of the
breed in terms of character and structure and the money involved in dog sales and
registrations. This is, however, a struggle over an ever shrinking world, as annual
GSD registrations have been falling precipitously in both nations for twenty years.
The greatest German dream, and the worst AKC nightmare, would be direct
worldwide SV registration of all of these dogs, and the lucrative registration fees, and
revenue from conformation and working events, flowing into Germany, bypassing the
grasping AKC bureaucrats. Since AKC registrations have been three or more times
those in Germany, total SV control over American GSD affairs would effectively
quadruple their size and power. The fact that the AKC is not an FCI member nation
gives the Germans a freer hand, but fear of AKC reprisals in the form of restrictions
on registration of imports, when AKC registration remains as the standard of quality
in the public mind, for the moment limits overt German interference.
Over most of the twentieth century losing two catastrophic wars and persistent
push back from the FCI and its affiliated national clubs generally thwarted SV
ambitions for international control and power in Europe as well as America. They had
1
Verein fur Deutsche Schaferhunde, the German Shepherd Club in Germany.

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always believed themselves entitled to control of German Shepherd affairs, and their
real agenda was the desire to operate colonial offices – national distribution
subsidiaries – responsible directly to Germany, in all other lands. This was the
primary reason for the WUSV,1 which emerged in this time period.
Through the latter 1970s the American working dog movement had been
perceived by the establishment, that is, the bureaucrats and conformation people at
the AKC, the American German Shepherd community and the Europeans with dogs
to sell, as essentially harmless, irrelevant and impotent. Prior attempts to establish a
working culture had consisted of a group of quaint Americans at NASA with their own
rules and self-appointed judges or groups subservient to the Europeans such as the
DVG. This perception was largely on target; on one occasion a NASA judge allowed a
handler to put down a blanket for her Doberman on the long down in obedience so
she would not get cold, or miss her blanket, and that was generally characteristic of
the organization.
By early 1979 the fledgling American Schutzhund movement was in shambles.
The AKC had just slapped the GSDCA down hard for their tentative involvement in
Schutzhund, forbidding all future association, like you would chastise a child for
using naughty words. The American based DVG activity was awash in confusion,
recrimination and power struggles and NASA was increasingly perceived as lame and
irrelevant.
At this point the movement was on the brink of failure, well could have
floundered and passed into oblivion. Instead there were a series of meetings in
California leading to the foundation of the United Schutzhund Clubs of America
(USCA) in the fall of 1979. In a move of great consequence, foreseen and
unforeseen, they sought and obtained affiliation with the SV in Germany. This
provided the immediate perception of legitimacy, international recognition of titles
and access to German judges both as teachers and to conduct trials. Thus from its
inception Schutzhund USA was a German Shepherd club, and there never was any
secret, for it was spelled out in the constitution from the beginning.
As so often happens, significant historical movements emerge from the
confluence of seemingly unrelated trends and social imperatives. The AKC and
GSDCA had for many years been predominant in canine affairs, effectively buffering
German influence. By the 1970s Americans were breeding their own German
Shepherds, and German imports and influence had dried up, was at low ebb. But
new currents were flowing, and American police canine activity was stirring and
emerging just as burgeoning Schutzhund interest put the focus on German imports
emphasizing working character rather than show credentials. This unexpectedly gave
the Germans a powerful new mechanism for extending influence in American affairs.
For the next several decades, it would be German Schutzhund judges and working
line breeders that would come to have influence in America, changing the dynamics
of the American community in unforeseen ways. The GSDCA may have turned their
back on Germany, but in the end the Germans would regain influence through newly
found friends and advocates in the Schutzhund movement, outside of the GSDCA
show community.
In retrospect the emergence of USCA was a watershed event, for they were
destined to become much more than a dog training organization. It would emerge as
substantially larger, much more relevant and much more resonant with the heritage
of the breed than the GSDCA, or the SV for that matter, and was to threaten the
AKC in the only way they can ever really understand, money. It would enmesh the
SV in a perpetual international political morass. The third of the USCA membership
1
World Union of German Shepherd Clubs

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with other breeds were convenient and useful because the primary need was
increased participation to achieve economy of scale, to grow the organization in
terms of building local clubs and thus minimizing travel distance and expense.
The fact that the words "German Shepherd" do not appear in the name has had
ongoing ramifications. In a certain sense, there was an element of deception: there
was the tendency to project the big tent, that building the American dog training
culture was the important goal, that we were all in this together, that this was the
home for everyone who just wanted to train their dogs. Those were the days of
camaraderie, of everybody working together to build our own culture and traditions.
While the USCA leadership never quite overtly obscured the German Shepherd
affiliation, many local clubs were explicitly promoted as all breed oriented, and in
spirit generally were. This sometimes generated animosity and confusion, as people
who were drawn into an apparently all breed local club sometimes felt betrayed
when they eventually came to perceive that they were members of a national
German Shepherd breed club, that in reality they were welcome as long as useful
and needed, but expendable when expedient in terms of German Shepherd politics.
The perception of USCA as the big tent, the long-term home for all trainers, was
never a realistic expectation but only temporary expediency, and the perceptive
among us always knew this. This was one of the primary reasons I and others
eventually created the AWDF.
The emergence of USCA had immediate repercussions. The AKC affiliated national
club, the GSDCA, became severely insecure and threatened, and under the guidance
of George Collins shortly thereafter, in 1982, spawned an affiliated Working Dog
Association (WDA), in order to compete with USCA. The primary GSDCA-WDA
leverage was the WUSV membership, the formal relationship with Germany. This led
to a bizarre duel universe where the same set of people with one hat on continued to
hold AKC conformation shows for the old American lines, which never used German
judges, and then with a WDA hat run an entirely separate set of shows, which
virtually always use SV judges.
WDA commitment to work was never real or sincere, was superficial at best, with
member clubs running very few Schutzhund trials, some going years without holding
one. The primary motivation for the GSDCA in forming the WDA was to project
dominance, gain control of USCA, force them into subservience, force them to go
through GSDCA officers in dealing with the Germans, ultimately bringing them under
the domination of the AKC. This set the stage for decades of strife and conflict. The
GSDCA thus became the proverbial dog in the manger: although they were not in
resonance with the spirit of von Stephanitz, spiritually not really a German Shepherd
club, for reasons of politics, profit and individual aggrandizement they clung
tenaciously to their WUSV seat.
During its first quarter century USCA was essentially what its name said it is, an
organization devoted to training for and competing in Schutzhund trials. In this era,
although USCA was technically a German Shepherd organization, in practical reality
other breeds, about a third of the dogs being trained, were equally comfortable and
well served.1 But in 2011 USCA repudiated the rest of their membership when they
ceased issuing score books for other breeds. (Adding insult to injury, they were quite
willing to issue a book without indicating a breed, essentially a book for mongrels or
cross breeds.)
This was a turning point, for USCA was in reality being transformed from a
working dog organization into little more than a marketing agency for the SV show
1
I was a USCA member for thirty years, and only gave up membership in 2011 when they
ceased issuing score books for the other breeds.

415
dog cabal, in effect SV Show Dog Distribution America, GmbH. More and more
emphasis on German style conformation shows, and ever more embarrassing
performances in the protection tests prior to these shows, as seen widely on the
internet, seriously eroded the credibility of the breed and of USCA. It became
abundantly clear that the Schutzhund titles on many or most show line Shepherds
were fraudulent, there is simply no other word, and the fact that USCA leadership in
the Lyle Roetemeyer era increasingly condoned and participated in this eroded
credibility.
This was a difficult period, for although there had been rough patches in the
middle 1990s, the word crisis would not be inappropriate, and then later during the
Roetemeyer tenure, for many years the leadership was generally admirable in terms
of honesty, diligence and enthusiasm, and tended to resist the corrupting influence
of the SV. The USCA judges program in particular was of real value, bringing
honesty, competence and a sportsman like attitude to the trial fields of America,
something often not true of the German SV judges in all three areas. Beginning
about 2008 this began to erode as the leadership became more elitist and
entrenched, more responsive to the SV than the membership and gave ever-
increasing priority to the promotion of the emasculated show lines, betraying the
original working culture.
When this all began, in the early 1980s, the expectation had been that, since
USCA was a working trial organization, much more serious about character than the
GSDCA, the Germans would use this as a lever to enhance working character as the
expectation in America, promote German Shepherds as actual police service capable
dogs rather than play dogs for pet homes. This expectation turned out to be
unfounded: our perception of the SV had been an illusion, based on naiveté and
wishful thinking, for by this time SV commitment to every German Shepherd being a
serious police candidate had long since eroded, primarily because the money and
fantasy prestige were in the show and companion dogs. When all of the posturing
and propaganda are stripped away, the SV and the GSDCA were then and are today
birds of a feather, both show and companion dog driven, using the police dog
persona as a promotional facade without any real commitment to the working
heritage.
Interestingly enough, when you take a long look back, it was the incipient
American Schutzhund movement which provided the wedge for SV intrusion into
American canine affairs. As USCA gained momentum and prospered into the 1990s,
the WDA languished as an irrelevant backwater. USCA was emerging as the largest,
most active and most prestigious German Shepherd advocate in America, putting the
hypocrisy of both the GSDCA and the SV in the spotlight. Over time these
organizations gradually came to perceive USCA as both an evolving threat and an
opportunity; so these strange new bedfellows, the SV opportunists and the old line
AKC establishment, were feeling increasingly threatened and impotent.
Thus there was a relatively quiet period until the middle 1990s, when the
emergence of the Internet and more affordable international travel began to create
renewed interest in the German show lines. In Germany the SV elite, under the
Martin boys, became more overtly commercial and much less committed to work and
character. They saw a golden opportunity, and began playing the WDA and USCA off
against each other to force promotion of their show lines, the banana dogs, and
show line infrastructure such as the Koer reports.
The SV began to push USCA hard to promote their banana dogs through
increasing emphasis on conformation shows with SV judges (who were also dog
salesman traveling on USCA funds), Koer classing, and German style registry
activity. The WDA began to push its own German brand of conformation show, with
SV judge/salesmen in abundance.

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 Somehow, the old line GSDCA people could not see that their own bastard child,
the WDA, was poisoning their well, undermining the credibility of their AKC show
lines and American conformation shows by promoting and conducting their German
oriented shows. It literally became a three ring circus, with ongoing GSDCA American
style shows, USCA shows and WDA with yet another set of Germans running their
shows and sales fairs. And the SV was the ring master, cracking the whip.
Over the years the most persistent and antagonistic conflict came to be the
selection of the American teams for the WUSV IPO championship. Although the SV
had recognized two WUSV member organizations, USCA and GSDCA, this did not
entitle each of them to their own teams; only one was permitted per nation. This
became a real sticking point.1 In the early years working affairs were de facto under
the auspices of USCA, which designated the teams to go to Europe. But under the
banner of unity, meaning asserting their authority, the GSDCA began to flex its
muscle and demand control, resulting in a series of compromise solutions, usually
involving some sort of split team with each organization having so many slots to fill.
The result was often USCA members participating in a GSDCA qualification trial to
make up part of the team, since WDA had little in the way of trainers and
competitors. The result of these conflicts has been escalating hostility and political
maneuvering, with more rules concerning which judges are eligible to officiate at
particular events and who is eligible to participate in activities of the other
organization. In 2010 USCA for all practical purposes declared warfare, banned WDA
members from concurrent membership, meaning that the numerous duel members
were forced to choose one or the other, the infamous and provocative "Johannes
Amendment" named after the prominent USCA politician, Johannes Grewe.
The result of this is that only German SV judges are eligible to do all Schutzhund
trials, which suits the Germans perfectly. Thus USCA seems destined to remain a
quasi-legitimate part of the world shepherd community because that is exactly where
the show-oriented elements of the SV leadership want them. Sure, they will throw
them a bone from time to time, allow them to send teams to the world union
championships, or give some of their judges pseudo SV status, but America is going
to remain divided and weak as long as they are able to make it stick.
The primary reason the GSDCA became involved in SV and WUSV affairs was to
marginalize the USCA, which in terms of membership numbers, public perception
and links to the original heritage was beginning to eclipse the legitimacy of the AKC
establishment. This became an increasing threat to the ongoing credibility of the
GSDCA. These manipulations were intended to keep control of American affairs, that
is portraying USCA as illegitimate as a national German Shepherd entity. Politically
the GSDCA has the upper hand because of their AKC status. While this convoluted
situation is awkward for the SV, it is the lesser of alternative evils; a divided
American community is relatively easy to control and manipulate. Throughout history
European elites have had a preference for dominating colonies rather than sharing
power with partners.
So USCA is between the proverbial rock and hard place; in order to be a player
on the world scene they would have to merge with the GSDCA, but since the GSDCA
has no principles to preserve it would be on their terms, which would mean
repudiating everything USCA has ever stood for. And in a way all of this is moot, for
real participation in world German Shepherd affairs would mean linking the
registration systems. The fact is that the AKC is never going to give up its power and
the registration cash flow and the FCI is never going to make this an issue, or
1
There have come to be a number of these peculiar and irregular situations: Belgium,
Ireland and other nations also have two WUSV member organizations, and the British
have three.

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seriously rock the boat in any other way. Any sort of full FCI affiliation through the
AWDF or any other mechanism is and always was virtually impossible.
From a long term strategic point of view, the desire of USCA to be recognized and
establish European links was a twofold problem. One route to Europe, discussed to
this point, was establishing a link to the SV through the WUSV, which would provide
recognition and access to the WUSV Schutzhund or IPO championships. But since
America is not an FCI affiliated nation, and since in the working dog world the FCI is
the highest common denominator, USCA would still be on the outside looking in as
far as FCI affairs went. In particular, the FCI IPO championship was emerging as by
far the most comprehensive and prestigious event in the working dog world, and
American trainers had an increasing desire to compete.
Thus in order to become a full-fledged player on the European working dog scene
it would be necessary for USCA to, somehow, gain access to FCI activities, directly or
indirectly. Which of course was a primary reason for Paul Maloy’s interest in the
AWDF in the later 1980s. But direct USCA affiliation was never in the cards, for the
one thing nobody in Europe is ever going to do is challenge the ultimate AKC control
over American canine affairs. No matter how crass and commercial the AKC may be,
most Americans continue to perceive AKC registration eligibility as the prerequisite to
legitimacy. The SV as a standalone entity might be willing to go against the AKC,
because the attraction of the control and registration money is enormous. But they
are afraid, with very good reason, of FCI reprimand, that is that the FCI would expel
the SV or the VDH (the German AKC equivalent), resulting in a second German
Shepherd club in Germany, one with FCI affiliation.
Although they were slow to comprehend it, for the GSDCA all of this ultimately
turned into their worst nightmare. Ultimately the German dominated WDA
conformation shows – and the conformation events forced on USCA by the SV – put
the dagger in the heart of the AKC show lines, regional clubs and breeding tradition.
Thus in recent years the GSDCA has become smaller, older and much less influential
as conformation events run by USCA and the WDA, under heavy SV (German)
influence and generally using SV judges, became much more popular, especially
among younger enthusiasts. The GSDCA regional clubs especially have faltered and
their shows have withered, become fewer and much smaller.
This German Shepherd family quarrel has had far reaching consequences, for
historically it has been a serious impediment to the emergence of a vigorous self-
sustaining and independent police dog breeding and training culture in America. This
has helped prevent the emergence of a clear leadership structure which could deal
with government entities across the board, as for instance exists in the in the
Netherlands where the KNPV has very close cooperation and formal ties with the
amateur training community. The consequence is the emergence of the Malinois as
the increasingly predominant police breed in America.
In recognizing and encouraging USCA the SV created a dilemma, for they came
to have two children in America, USCA and the GSDCA-WDA, where in principle
ultimately only one could become blessed and the other thus implicitly declared a
bastard and cut off to die. Forty years later this is still playing out; being cut off to
die has turned out to be a long, drawn out and ugly process. Currently USCA and the
GSDCA-WDA are in direct conflict: both running conformation shows, both
conducting IPO trials, both seeking to place members on European competition
teams, both seeking to outdo each other in groveling for SV favor. As a
consequence, Schutzhund/IPO in America is increasingly stagnant and elitist: ever
more out of reach financially for the ordinary working class person, especially the
younger people, ever more irrelevant to on the streets police dog service, less and
less an influential factor on the national working dog scene.

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The American Working Dog Federation
The decade of the 1980's was a time of expansion, progress and transition. The
United Schutzhund Clubs of America, under the leadership of President Paul Meloy,
made major strides in bringing structure, order and stability to the sport of
Schutzhund in America. The training and certification of American judges was put on
a firm foundation, bringing new levels of competence and integrity to our sport
fields. USCA, under German pressure, also began to provide breed surveys and other
conformation events, thus evolving from its original working heritage into a more
comprehensive canine organization. These events, for German Shepherds only,
emphasized the changes going on within USCA as it evolved from an organization
primarily supporting Schutzhund training and trials into one much more focused on
German Shepherd affairs. But change brings consequences, and the emergence of
USCA as a conformation and registry organization was a direct threat to the AKC and
the GSDCA, for if USCA was to run conformation events based on German judges
how could the AKC and GSDCA not perceive it as intrusive and eventually react?
Were the USCA registration system to gain traction and credibility to the point
breeders began to forgo AKC registration it would have immense international
repercussions, likely causing the AKC to demand of the FCI that they bring the SV
under control and restore the mutual respect of national registrations. Increasing
unease among those participating with other breeds was also a less than surprising
consequence.
Make no mistake: the emerging USCA activity in areas traditionally the function
of national entities such as conformation evaluations and particularly registration
systems has been of serious concern to the AKC bureaucracy. On one level their
introduction of an ill-fated working dog program, in about 2004, a diluted copy of
Schutzhund, was lame, pathetic and predestined to wither; but the fact that they
would so easily abandon their historic scruples concerning overtly aggressive dogs
demonstrates the pressure they perceived.
There were from the beginning sound reasons for the inclusion of all breed
trainers within USCA: the motivation had been pragmatic, for the working movement
has struggled in America primarily because of distance and a lack of knowledge,
experience and organizational infrastructure, that is, truly effective local training
clubs, the basis of the culture. When you are struggling to achieve critical mass
every participant is vital and needs to be accommodated. But SV pressure on USCA
incessantly increasing German Shepherd orientation created questions and anxiety in
the minds of those with other breeds as to their future within USCA and the canine
world as a whole. As USCA became more intimately entangled in international
Shepherd affairs, the sense of those with other breeds of being expendable guests
rather than real members increased, and questions about the future came into
increasingly sharp focus.
Thus USCA, having emerged as the dominant American working dog organization
and making real progress in many areas nevertheless suffered from fundamental
internal contradictions and divided loyalties. There were four key issues:
 Was USCA ultimately to be under the control of the SV, rendering America
subservient to the Germans, or to evolve into an independent organization by
and for Americans dealing with foreign entities according to our own national
interests?
 Was USCA going to continue emphasis on police level breeding and training or
emulate the SV in diluting the German Shepherd in favor of companion and
show markets?
 How was a single breed organization, increasingly foreign controlled, going to
deal with the substantial portion of its long-term membership with other
breeds?

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  How was the unstable, adversarial situation of two diametrically opposed
entities, USCA and the GSDCA-WDA, coexisting as petulant children
competing for the favor of a distant, manipulative mother club going to be
resolved?

Although the rhetoric is about noble breeds and preserving the heritage of the
founders, ultimately these conflicts are about money and power. In the canine world
the fundamental conflict usually revolves around those perceiving themselves as
breed founders or their legitimate heirs and the various national and international
registration organizations. These prevailing registration bodies generally dominate
because of their relative size and entrenched nature; and the inherent tendency of
all bureaucrats everywhere to perpetuate themselves and protect their own fiscal
security and wellbeing.
Because of the enormous early popularity of the German Shepherd and the social
status and autocratic intensity of von Stephanitz the SV more than any other breed
club has been able to control their own affairs and act independently of other
national and international canine bodies. This has been limited and to some extent
diminished over time, as in the example of their losing control of the Schutzhund
sport as it transformed into IPO under FCI control. Were the SV to have their own
way entirely, they would control absolutely conformation and character standards
and evaluations, appoint all judges, and have absolute administrative control. Not
only would all German Shepherds worldwide be enrolled in a single SV registry, with
all fees going to the SV, they would appoint administrators to act for them in the
various foreign nations. Although they will not be able to push the AKC aside in the
area of registrations and the formalities of American breed club structure, or upset
the delicate balance of power between the FCI and AKC, it is remarkable how much
of their agenda they have been able to implement in America, and how much
success they have had playing off the AKC, GSDCA and USCA against one another in
order to gain influence and control.
Paul Maloy, as USCA president, was the most aggressive and innovative player in
this era. His position was difficult and complex, for USCA was the upstart
organization in a world where the other entities – the FCI, AKC, SV and GSDCA – had
well established formal and informal relationships, held all of the real power. The
most vexing problem was that the GSDCA, as the long term AKC breed club and
charter WUSV member, was legally and practically the authority for all American
affairs. They were inherently hostile because they were afraid of everything USCA
represented, particularly the fostering of overt aggression. Their every move in the
political chess game, as for example the foundation of the WDA, was at root intended
to preserve and enhance this power, and to marginalize the USCA. The primary
USCA leverage was the desire of the SV to gain power and influence in America, and
their willingness to bend the rules and condone initiatives in the grey areas of formal
relationships and international custom. George Collins, USCA president and WDA
founder, and another shrewd politician, was in many ways Maloy's nemesis in these
ongoing conflicts.
By recognizing and encouraging USCA, by gradually extending more formal
recognition and particularly by encouraging SV judges to preside at USCA trials, the
SV was with calculation pushing the envelope in advancement of their own agenda,
encroaching on the territory of the AKC and GSDCA, risking adverse reactions. As
these conflicts unfolded beginning with the founding of USCA in 1977, there were
likely general expectations that these issues would be resolved within a few years,
that there would be winners and losers, old wounds would heal, old enemies or their
successors would reconcile and stability and order in a realigned era would return.
History has many examples of nations reconciling and moving forward after bitterly
fought wars. But some differences are irreconcilable: the Palestinians, expected to

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AWDF Member Clubs & size move on and make new lives after the
As of 2014 foundation of the state of Israel, to
conveniently disappear into neighboring
Federation of American Bulldog 22
lands or quietly die out, persisted for
Wording Dutch Shepherd Association 26
American W Black Russian Terrier As 27
untold decades, ever more determined,
Working Riesenschaunzer Federation 42 ever more hostile. In a similar way, the
Working Pitbull Club of America 45 conflict in America between the AKC
North American Working Bouvier As 69 culture of replica working dogs, with the
Hovawart Club of North America 109 motto "things are different in America,"
United States Boxer Association 121 and the passion behind the incipient
American Herding Breed Association 135 Schutzhund movement of the seventies
United States Rottweiler Club 140 and eighties has proven to be
United States Mondioring Association 188
irreconcilable.
American Working Malinois Association 216
Cane Corso Association of America 300 The ultimate irony is that as time
United Doberman Club 324 went on USCA continually became larger,
LV\DVG America 872 more dynamic and more relevant than
United Schutzhund Club of America 3645 the GSDCA; which created increasing
Total 6281 anxiety, fear and hostility in the
American establishment. This emerging
vigor of USCA provided the leverage for Meloy to act. His strategy was to sidestep
both the GSDCA and the AKC by seeking direct FCI recognition, thus gaining political
presence and ultimately enticing the Germans to deal with the American working dog
movement on its own terms rather than as a client of more easily manipulated AKC
entities. Recognition of a new organization in America as a full FCI partner was and
is extremely unlikely because even a hint of this would precipitate full out war with
the AKC; but the desire was a practical relationship concerning working trials and
affairs that would remain under the radar of more traditional kennel club affairs such
as registration, breed standards and conformation judges and events.
Thus Meloy needed a multi breed national organization in order to seek an FCI
relationship and as a way of resolving the complexities of a German Shepherd
organization having so many long-term members involved in other breeds. A new,
national level, all breed American working dog entity, with individual breed clubs,
had the potential to solve many of these problems, that is, provide a suitable place
for all breeds and create a national entity that could represent the American
community with a single voice on the international level with the FCI and internally,
perhaps with the AKC and potentially with governmental and police canine service
agencies.
Paul Maloy was a dynamic and controversial figure on the American working dog
scene, a man who looked to the future and took bold actions to get there, and also
made enemies and serious errors in judgment. In my personal dealings with him, as
long-term leader and president of the Bouvier working club and AWDF secretary, he
was straightforward, direct and helpful; if I had a problem he was a phone call away.
I regarded him as a friend, and was deeply saddened by the conflicts and events
toward the end of his leadership tenure.
In retrospect hopes for FCI affiliation for any American organization were most
unlikely to have been realized, but this was not quite as apparent then as now, and
Paul was a man willing to take major risks for big ideas; if at times judgment failed
him then for me he still stands taller than those who do did not fail because they did
not strive; but perhaps this is a perspective more apparent to those who have
personally known failure.
While USCA under Paul Meloy was stabilizing the Schutzhund movement and
putting it on a solid footing, determined men in other breeds, such as Ray Carlisle for
the Doberman and Erik Houttuin and myself for the Bouvier des Flandres, were

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working diligently for change from within the establishment and their own national
AKC breed clubs to make a valid place for working dogs within the AKC scheme of
things. Magazines such as Dog Sports, to which I was contributing editor for a
number of years, played a key role in the era before the internet, and the various
breed club magazines provided a venue for discussion and promotion.
This work within the existing system approach was not self-evidently viable, as
the earlier efforts within the German Shepherd community had resulted in the AKC
coming down hard, forbidding any protection related activity, eventually leading up
to the formation of USCA. Why should those in the other breeds have expected a
different result? The short answer is we should not have, but many of the people
involved had deep AKC roots and a strong belief that America needed a unified
national system open to and accepting of police level breeding, training and
competition – that we needed to make the best possible effort for unity before
setting up competing and potentially hostile organizations. Ultimately entrenched
AKC opposition was insurmountable, so even though some progress was made within
the Doberman, Bouvier and other AKC communities working within the system was
in the larger picture impossible. Looking back, this was for the best, for although
attempts to include primarily show and companion oriented breed enthusiasts were
often favorably received, inevitably as they began to realize that their champions
were on the whole inadequate in character and a new canine world order would
require that they discard much of their breeding stock and adapt new ways of
training and selection their resistance would stiffen, as seen in the evolution of the
GSDCA-WDA as a counter force to USCA.
Over time it became obvious that viability for the working movement demanded
that it stand on its own: allowing conformation and companion-oriented
organizations and people a voice in working dog affairs is to predestine failure. It
was these events and experiences that led me to change direction, to champion,
primarily in my Dog Sports column, a new, national level working dog entity
independent of the AKC and its affiliated, conformation oriented, national breed
clubs.
But much of this is more evident today than at the time: in the later eighties
there were indications – or perhaps illusions – of progress and change. In 1987 Louis
Auslander, AKC board member and future president, was so impressed with a
Schutzhund demonstration at the Medallion Rottweiler Club near Chicago that he
invited the dog, Centauri’s Gambit, a Bouvier des Flandres, and an equally
accomplished Rottweiler, Pete Rademacher’s Dux vd Blume, to put on a Schutzhund
demonstration at that year’s International Kennel Club show in Chicago. And so they
did. Both of these excellent dogs, both AKC Champions of Record as well as
Schutzhund III, put on memorable performances before the brightest spotlights the
AKC world can provide. (Unfortunately I was in the hospital recovering from back
surgery, and my dog Gambit was handled by my wife Kathy at the International
demo.)
Men and women in each of the other breeds were gathering together in order to
establish their own working dog heritage, preparing to stand separate from the AKC.
One consequence was that in 1986 the North American Working Bouvier Association
was formed at the annual championships in the Chicago area, and similar new
working organizations were being explored by advocates of the other breeds. An
exception was the Doberman community, where the AKC affiliated Doberman Pincher
Club of America, largely under the influence of Ray Carlisle, was prepared to serve as
the national working entity.
Beginning in the middle 1980s there was increasingly serious discussion of a
formal structure for the American working dog movement, something I highlighted
and promoted in my various Dog Sports articles. The needs and desires of the

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working dog community, which could only be realized through such a national level
organization, included:
 International conformation and working event rules and standards.
 Access to international working and conformation events.
 Recognition of European working titles, especially the Schutzhund title.
 Work related conformation and breeding eligibility requirements.

Finally, on June 17, 1989 a founding meeting was held in St. Louis, in the offices
of the USCA. Present at the creation and representing their various breeds and
organizations were:
 Paul Meloy USCA President
 Vernon Crowder USCA Vice President
 Erik Houttuin NAWBA President
 Jim Engel NAWBA Secretary
 Eckart Salquit USRC
 Jacqueline Rousseau USRC
 Ray Carlisle DPCA

All are familiar names on the American working dog scene.

After lengthy discussion, the American Working Dog Federation (AWDF) came
into existence as an alliance of national breed organizations dedicated to the
preservation and advancement of the police style breeds. Charter members were:
 United Schutzhund Clubs of America (German Shepherd)
 Doberman Pinscher Club of America (DPCA)
 North American Working Bouvier Association (NAWBA)
 United States Rottweiler Club (USRC).

Because of his leadership and experience in dealing with the European working
dog community, and the predominant position of USCA, Paul Meloy was elected
founding AWDF President. Jim Engel became founding secretary and Ray Carlisle the
first treasurer.
There were immediate repercussions. The original AWDF Doberman member club
was the AKC affiliated Doberman Pinscher Club of America. This affiliation, the
increase in Doberman Schutzhund activity and the growing acceptance of the
membership panicked the AKC old guard. A year later, almost to the day, this
precipitated the infamous AKC edict of June 18, 1990 forbidding Schutzhund and all
similar protection sports and trials. By this action the AKC demanded that national
clubs for these breeds repudiate their heritage; thus exacerbating the already
emerging rift within these breeds, with the AKC clubs moving to the solidification of
their concept of working dogs as passive companions and show dogs devoid of their
working functionality. This generated ever-increasing pressure for the emergence of
serious, protection oriented national clubs for each breed. As a result of the
withdrawal of the AKC Doberman club from the AWDF, there was an immediate
formation of the United Doberman Club, which became a full AWDF member in
January of 1991.
In the early years, the primary AWDF function was the annual championship, a
Schutzhund trial with three teams designated by each breed club, with the aggregate
team scores determining the winning team. Later this format was abandoned in favor
of an open trial where entrants competed as individuals rather than members of a
breed-oriented team, primarily as a mechanism of selecting teams for international
FCI competition. The first AWDF team Championship was held in St. Louis on March
16-17, 1991, hosted by NAWBA, the Bouvier des Flandres working club.

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 Although USCA emerged in 1977 as a German Shepherd club according to its
constitution, as indicated by the absence of a breed designation in the name this
affiliation was not prominent in the promotional rhetoric of the era. Many local clubs
projected a strongly multi breed culture, and a third of individual USCA members
were advocates of another breed. This affiliation was essentially an accident of
history, a response to the need for an immediate, credible European affiliation and
reliable, formal access to European judges. None of this was an especially prominent
issue in the early years, with the excitement of a brave new world to conquer, and
those with a strong preference for a multi breed format had the option of forming a
DVG club. But eventually this split persona began to generate ongoing complications
in terms of events and other functions; for example the institution of a German
Shepherd only national championship was greatly resented by many long standing
members with other breeds, belatedly bringing into sharp focus that there were two
classes of membership. In more recent years this was exacerbated by SV pressure
on USCA to evolve into their American distribution subsidiary, promoting the German
Shepherd show lines and other breed specific aspects of mother club programs.
A primary reason for creation of the AWDF was to resolve the conflict within
USCA, which began and functionally was an all-breed organization but had become,
almost through the back door, a German Shepherd breed club through its
entanglements with the SV. The AWDF was intended to provide an orderly transition
to a new organizational structure for individual breed oriented national working
clubs, clearing the way for USCA to emerge openly as a primarily German Shepherd
entity, yet providing for existing all breed aspirations.
Although there was a great deal of initial enthusiasm, over time these alternate
breed clubs failed to prosper, could not maintain and expand the initial momentum.
A significant reason for this was the desire to gain size and presence as rapidly as
possible, resulting in the tendency to draw in people by offering something for
everybody, such as agility events, herding, carting and various styles of obedience.
Drawing on personal experience, leading up to the formation of the Bouvier
working club in the middle 1980s the argument was that with an overt hard core
working agenda such a club would have no more than twenty members; it was said
we needed to attract existing Bouvier enthusiasts, unfamiliar with the working
culture, in order to build numbers. This turned out to be an unrecoverable error; for
the pet owners and show breeders soon had control and drove working enthusiasts
out, usually to other breeds.
Recruiting membership not previously committed to serious work meant
conformation shows and fun events such as lure coursing for the pet owners and the
inclusion of AKC style obedience. The problem was that rather than being converted
to Schutzhund these conformation breeders, pseudo herding enthusiasts and play
trainers eventually became the majority and took over the organization, at one point
a NAWBA president actually refusing to endorse a protection potential as a necessary
character attribute in a legitimate Bouvier des Flandres. We fell into the trap of
emulating existing national breed clubs – European as well as American – and
emerged as minorities in our own organizations. The net result was the emergence
of AWDF member clubs dominated and controlled by people not committed or only
weakly committed to the protection or police dog culture. Interestingly enough –
although the primary pressure came from Germany rather than the membership –
this applies to USCA as a German Shepherd organization almost as much as the
other, newer clubs.

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 Thus as USCA emerges as a German Shepherd breed club – only tangentially
committed to a universal police dog character – in everything but name, the other
AWDF breed clubs have struggled to build viable cultures and structures. Currently
the American Working Malinois Association (AWMA) is the most vigorous and
successful, running very strong national IPO championships with for instance 18
credible IPO III entries for the 2011 event in the Chicago area, reflecting the vigor of
this breed in Europe and the evolving American enthusiasm. The Malinois is pretty
much every discouraged alternate breed trainer's second choice, and the refreshing
absence of posturing show people creates a more focused atmosphere in AWMA
affairs.

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 The Rottweiler club, the USRC, is probably the next most vigorous, but had only
four Schutzhund III entries at their 2011 National championship, not counting a
couple of no shows. Current USRC membership is about 100, especially discouraging
after the enormous popularity in the 1990s.1 From personal experience, the Bouvier
club, NAWBA, has been in disarray for a decade, with very few championship entries,
several times cancelling the event outright because of a lack of interest and support.
In 2012 a dissident board group staged a coup, simply expelled the president, vice
president and another officer and installed their own administration, making it
unclear who the legitimate leaders are. None of the other AWDF clubs have evolved
a strong national presence, and a proliferation of AWDF breed and sport oriented
clubs even more marginal, empty shells created for political purposes, has diluted
the integrity and credibility of the organization.
As an illustration of the fundamental cultural disconnect, one need look no further
than the aborted AWDF conformation show planned for the fall of 2001 in the St.
Louis area, strongly promoted by Ray Carlisle of the Doberman club. In the
circulating information sheet the working requirement was to be specified by the
individual clubs; only the Shepherds and Rottweilers were to require a working title
for eligibility. The Dobermans and the Bouviers were to be shown, to be eligible for
recognition as the best working dog, based on superficial temperament tests and
there were virtually no working requirements for the other breeds. The Malinois was
not to be included at all. Many, including myself, were strenuously opposed, for the
evils of conformation competition without meaningful working prerequisites was one
of the fundamental reasons for the American working dog movement, specifically the
AWDF, in the first place. The events of September 11 provided a convenient excuse
for canceling this show, and apparently it put a well-deserved dagger in the heart,
for it has never come up again.
There is of course a place for formal conformation and structure evaluations, for
a reasonably uniform and compelling appearance within a breed is conducive to
public recognition, in the same way police patrol officers are in uniform. But
competitive rankings as an end in themselves, especially in sub populations within a
breed lacking a tradition and expectation of real working capability, are on the whole
counterproductive. To be credible, conformation evaluations demand a serious
working prerequisite, and they should be breed specific only; comparing dogs from
various breeds and rank ordering them is pointless and absurd, part of the circus
mentality of the show dog set.
The primary reason the AWDF breed clubs have withered is that they were built
on a foundation of sand: European breed communities that – in spite of propaganda
espousing a working culture – had long since degenerated into show and pet
organizations with very few police level dogs, breeders or training clubs. The FCI
affiliated national breed clubs in reality provided little more support than existed in
America, are in fact little if any better than the corresponding American versions.
Serious working elements within these breeds, as for instance the KNPV Bouvier
community in the Netherlands, for many years estranged from the FCI and show
communities, constituted essentially different cultures and in the longer term tended
to evolve into virtually different breeds.
Beyond the lack of a supportive European community, most of these AWDF breed
clubs have lacked real focus on serious protection or police level work and tended to
offer play training activities such as lure coursing and agility in order to gain
popularity and critical mass. Conformation competition, lacking rigorous working
prerequisites, has been particularly popular; the possibility of a placement and praise
1
There was a dissident national Rottweiler entity founded by Eckart Salquit some years
ago, but this does not seem to be a factor in the low USRC numbers.

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from an exotic Euro judge seeming to have irresistible appeal. All of this has tended
to weaken these clubs, making them superficial alternatives to the AKC national
clubs without projecting any real excitement, any working persona. Although it is
human nature to blame outside elements, it must be noted and emphasized that the
failure of the these clubs to prosper was neither caused by nor hastened by any lack
of support from USCA or the German Shepherd community; in the Meloy era, when I
was involved in active leadership roles both within the Bouvier movement and as an
AWDF officer, every effort to provide support and extend cooperation was
forthcoming.
In the early years the American alternative breed Schutzhund enthusiasts
suffered from an exaggerated idea of the vigor and relevance of these breeds in
Europe: for instance in recent years only about 700 Dobermans and 1500 Rottweilers
have been registered annually in Germany.1 Given that most of these pups are
produced by show breeders, the small numbers and fragility of the respective
working cultures comes into focus. In retrospect the European resources for building
a strong Rottweiler, Doberman or Bouvier working culture in America were greatly
exaggerated in our minds; we had chosen to believe their rhetoric and propaganda
about working character rather than observe closely how vigorous their programs
were what they were actually doing.
The experience of the past thirty years has demonstrated that it is very difficult,
if not impossible, to build strong infrastructure in America when there is not an
active European community to provide support in terms of proven stock, cultural
identity and leadership. Even though the SV has been increasingly unsupportive of
real work, there have always been enormous resources in terms of individual
German Shepherd breeders, trainers, judges and local working clubs – prospering in
spite of the SV – to provide support to the incipient American German Shepherd
enthusiasts. The fact that among the alternative breeds independent European
breeding and training cultures were generally too small, dispersed and weak to
provide the necessary support was a significant factor in their failure to prosper. In
general, all of the FCI affiliated breed clubs in Germany, Belgium or the Netherlands
are not serious about work, in reality little if any better than the AKC national clubs.
For those involved it proved very difficult to find good breeding stock, trained dogs
or trainers and breeders able to serve as mentors. The major exception has been the
Malinois, which prospered in later years partially because of weak FCI affiliated
organizations, their primary origins and support structures being in the KNPV and
NVBK, beyond FCI influence.
Within America a primary reason for AWDF was to provide access to training
resources, judges, score books and all other infrastructure elements in a way
balancing unique breed requirements of camaraderie and support through specific
breed magazines, web sites and national events with the economies of scale that a
national level umbrella organization can best provide. On the international level the
reason for the AWDF was the perceived need for an American organization able to
speak with one voice for the working community as a whole, particularly through
some sort of hoped for FCI relationship. A specific immediate need was to advance
USCA aspirations for a place in the international German Shepherd world
independent of the AKC and the GSDCA. This international initiative has met with
limited success in that AWDF teams regularly compete in FCI international trials,
such as the annual IPO Championship, but has not advanced beyond this level.
Unfortunately, in retrospect the AWDF was able to do relatively little to resolve
German Shepherd world political problems, for the impasse between GSDCA-WDA
and the USCA is ongoing twenty years later, with little evident expectation of

1 See detailed yearly numbers in the appendices.

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resolution. Given the fragility AKC / FCI relationship the likelihood of an expanded
role for the AWDF in FCI affairs in the foreseeable future is vanishingly small. My
opinion is that on the whole we need to deemphasize European dependence and
focus on building American infrastructure, culture and traditions according to our
own ongoing needs and circumstances.

England and Canada

Although the FCI has become enormously large and powerful, significant national
entities have remained outside or broken off to establish independent national
organizations. The most important of these are the independent kennel clubs in
English speaking nations – Great Britain, the United States and Canada.
In England, the Kennel Club, founded in 1873 in London, had been in existence
for half a century by the time the FCI began to prosper after WWI, and, just as they
have remained largely aloof from continental Europe economically and diplomatically,
the Brits have largely ignored the rest of the canine world, hiding behind excessively
severe restrictions, based on the rabies threat, making importing difficult and dog
show participation back and forth difficult. Denial was their specialty, referring to the
German Shepherds as Alsatians for years in avoidance of directly recognizing the
German origins.
In the overall scheme of things British institutions and breeds have played a
minor role in the evolution of the modern police canine breeds and organizations;
and are thus not especially important in the context of this book. It is true that there
were efforts to establish a police and military canine presence in the first half of the
twentieth century, based largely on the Airedale Terrier. But these efforts came to
very little and current British police canine operations are today based on European
breeds and practice. Even the Airedales of early efforts were largely imported from
the continent.
The primary importance of the British influence for our purposes is that American
institutions and attitudes were strongly shaped by British influence, with the effect of
delaying and weakening the emergence of police and military canine service in North
America.
The Canadian Kennel Club is very similar to the AKC in terms of organization,
programs and procedures. There is a great deal of cooperation and it is common
practice to show dogs, compete in obedience trials and so forth across borders.
Judges commonly function in either nation.
Schutzhund, French Ring and Mondio Ring have organizations parallel to those in
America, and recognition of titles in is generally international, things are set up so
that it makes little difference where you live or trial.

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18 Irreconcilable Differences

In our American working dog awakening we looked to Europe for dogs,

leadership, knowledge and the helping hand up; and this was right and good for it
was in Europe – Belgium, Germany, northern France, the Netherlands – where the
transformation took place, where a millennium of evolving herding dog service was
transformed into our police breeds and working dog culture. It is because of the
foresight of men such as Konrad Most and Max von Stephanitz in Germany and
Ernest van Wesemael and Adolphe Reul in Belgium that we have the police, service
and military dogs of today, which has taken the canine partnership to new levels,
made police service a vibrant reality.
But there was a concealed flaw in our crusade. Little did we know in the 1970s
and 80s, as our idealistic quest gathered momentum, that a new generation of
leadership in Germany had feet of clay, that even then betrayal was lurking in high
places. The SV leadership, these heirs of von Stephanitz, these Germans on our
pedestal, even then were abandoning his credo "form must follow function" in favor
of their own new credo: "beauty is what we say it is and good enough rather than
excellence is to be the new standard for work." And, implicitly, when good enough
became difficult they were always prepared to further weaken expectations rather
than breed stronger and more willing German Shepherds.
While the show dog enthusiast – the exhibitionist – is a politician and a
manipulator to the very core of his soul, the sport or police trainer is typically in
denial, wants to train his dog and remain oblivious to the world at large. This cannot
end well, for grasping politicians control and define the sport field as well as the
show ring, and the consequence is the watering down of all trials and all breeds. The
driving force behind this is always the FCI or the AKC and their affiliated breed clubs.
It is not a coincidence that the most conspicuously prospering working lines are the
Malinois under the KNPV in Holland and the NVBK in Belgium, both independent
organizations by and for serious dog trainers and breeders. Beyond the long standing
predominance in the various national ring sport and police trials, the Malinois is more
and more dominant at the major IPO championships, anywhere there is open
competition, forcing the German Shepherds to retreat to their private venues, such
as the SV national IPO championship and the various WUSV events.
Furthermore, the robust character of the second rank of working breeds, those
beyond the German Shepherd and the Malinois, is being incessantly trivialized and
eroded as a direct consequence of national organizations in the hands of the canine
exhibitionists and politicians. These once noble breeds – these Dobermans,
Riesenschnauzers and Rottweilers – are becoming pathetic caricatures of the visions
of their founders. Even the German Shepherd is preserved more by enormous
numbers than responsible leadership and breeding, for most of the German show
lines share the mediocrity of the lesser breeds. If you doubt any of this, go to an
AKC show and watch the German Shepherds slink around the ring; and if you think
that Europe is immune, go to Germany and witness an SV conformation show, or
watch the insipid preliminary protection exercises on the internet.
These conflicts and compromises – between serious trainers and conformation
hobbyists, police service intensity and companion dog softness, foundation working
dog ideals and commercial exploitation – have been ongoing for a century, almost
from the beginning. Ultimately, these are irreconcilable differences; the police dog
culture will prosper to the extent that real control over breeding selection, trial

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procedures (especially judging expectations) and registration requirements passes
into the hands of a community of police level trainers and breeders in active
cooperation with police agencies. Permanent separation from existing purebred
organizations, most especially those under FCI and AKC auspices, is essential for
ongoing viability. The winds of change are there, FCI and AKC annual registrations
are plummeting and the Malinois more and more is the IPO winner and the police
dog of choice.
Political manipulation is at the core of conformation exhibition, every judge is
essentially a political mediator, because that is what is necessary to obtain a license
and more to the point judging assignments. The SV conformation judge is a broker,
trading placements and doing favors in the expectation of future benefit. In America
professional handlers are important not because of skill in presentation, but because
they are political players and manipulators, trading money, favors and influence for
the ribbons and tin cups of value only to those whose lives are so empty that such
trinkets take on meaning. Political control of the conformation show process goes
hand in hand with control of the registering entities, and play and show dog control
of these organizations is how the Schutzhund trial has been emasculated, pussified,
with ever shorter courage tests, the removal of the attack on the handler and a
scoring system that has gone from focus on the courage test to the point where a
dog, at the championship level, can fail to engage on the long bite and still only lose
three points and thus rate excellent, obtain the coveted V rating.
Complacency is how breeds such as the Doberman Pincher and Bouvier des
Flandres are being pushed over the edge with European bans on ear cropping and
tail docking. By allowing national and international organizations run by and for pet
dog marketers – Cocker Spaniel and Poodle exhibitionists – control over our working
trial rules and administration is how we come to have so much emphasis on
subservience that a dog touching a sleeve at the wrong moment is to be dismissed
rather than given a minor point deduction. If we leave the rules to the politicians and
dog sellers, we cannot complain about the consequences.

The Euro Cabal

During the latter portion of the twentieth century the SV, the German Shepherd
community in the homeland, was increasingly dominated and transformed by a cabal
of new men focused on ever more fashionable external appearance, with a
concurrent, gradual, incessant loss of focus on the working origins of the breed. The
consequence was the cleavage of the breed into increasingly grotesque show lines
and working lines less and less competitive in the real world. Collateral damage has
been the ongoing weakening of the Schutzhund trial, rebranded and trivialized as
IPO.
Perhaps the ultimate example is the Martin brothers, Walter of the von der
Wienerau kennel and Herman whose kennel was vom Arminius. Walter was the
guiding light, the architect of this new German Shepherd, the banana back dog, and
Herman was SV president from 1984 until 1994, only two years before the passing of
both brothers within weeks in the fall of 1996.
Incest and nepotism was endemic at the top, for when Walter’s dogs became
Sieger it was Herman in his role of SV president who was making the selections and
handing out the trophies, when he was not actually selecting his own dogs, as in
these Sieger selections:
1986 & 1987 Quando von Arminius SZ 1547134
1992 Zamb von der Wienerau SZ 1696277
1996 Visum von Arminius SZ 1789549

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 Like the passing parade of a king without pants, with no one having the courage
to point out nakedness but one small, innocent boy, the Shepherd community,
especially the fawning American conformation dilettantes, incessantly glorified and
deified these self-serving bureaucrats who had inherited the mantle of von
Stephanitz and used it for their own aggrandizement.
From the early years the test of work, the Schutzhund trial, evolved as the
foundation of the German Shepherd Dog. But in the latter years of the twentieth
century, slowly, subtly at first but with ever gathering momentum, the Schutzhund
trial was incessantly made less demanding for an increasingly predominant
conformation oriented segment of the breeding community. The process was
insidious, subtle in the beginning; pressure on judges to be a little bit lenient, on the
helpers to moderate their intensity, to go easy on a weak dog because of his promise
for the show ring. In the eighties the export market, especially the American market,
for titled dogs put a significant cash value on mediocre titled dogs, even dogs with
false certificates, creating another group with an economic interest in a diluted trial.
The rules were repeatedly modified, decreasing courage test distances, making the
scoring less demanding, introducing the padded stick and entirely eliminating the
attack on the handler. Thus both the letter and the spirit of the law were incessantly
debased.
Historically the SV system depended on an overall sense of integrity and peer
pressure to maintain standards of correctness and rigidity in the judging community.
SV officials could and did monitor the performance of judges and maintain standards.
Over time, as the upper levels of SV administration became more and more show
oriented and corrupt, there was an ever-diminishing tendency to maintain standards.
When the leading conformation kennels are those of the SV president and his
brother, our old friends the Martin boys, the tendency to lower standards becomes
blatant.
The final plea of von Stephanitz had been "Take this trouble for me: Make sure
my shepherd dog remains a working dog, for I have struggled all my life long for
that aim." But these arrogant, self-serving men, this evil cabal, has diluted the
working requirements and culture. Under their stewardship this noble breed has
been split asunder, into their commercial conformation dogs and the working lines
upholding the heritage of the breed in police service and on trial fields around the
world. Even now the working lines are yet again dividing, for play sport and real
police level work.
Thus over the past thirty years control of Shepherd affairs in Germany has
gradually fallen into the hands of an elite group of show breeders, who have
increasingly dominated the SV and its leadership positions. This trend has not been
without resistance and there has been increasing strife within the Shepherd
community. Working advocates such as Dr. Helmut Raiser have struggled to fight
back, gone to the membership to seek club office, winning office, and then being
sabotaged by the entrenched show line establishment. Raiser had significant
support, enough to elect him as national breed warden of the SV which meant that
he would judge the females at the Sieger Show. This struck terror and panic into the
heart of the SV elite, which found a way, legal or illegal, to remove him from his
office. When you begin striking out at your own serious trouble is on the horizon.
As in the Catholic church, the person at the top has traditionally held office for
life and been able to project and conserve power into the future by those he puts in
the position to succeed him. In both organizations this extreme concentration of
power allowed for sustained growth and consistent policy over time, was in some
ways necessary for survival and prosperity in a difficult social and political setting.
But power does corrupt, and both organizations are evolving into top-heavy
bureaucracies increasingly irrelevant to those at the bottom. Inexorably the Malinois

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has crept into the working role historically the forte of the German Shepherd,
dominating the international IPO competitions and more and more prominent in the
military and police forces. When the Defense Department in the United States began
a breeding program for military dogs it chose the Malinois rather than the German
Shepherd.
Much of the resistance has been passive, men
German Annual
breeding their working dogs in the old ways for the old
Registration Trends
Breed 2011 1997 reasons, still valid, still in the spirit of von Stephanitz.
GSD 13,339 29,824 Enclaves of the original heritage held out in the old
Boxer 1,579 2,659 East German Democratic Republic, the Czech Republic
Great Dane 1,336 1,853 and among elements of the Belgian and Dutch
Rottweiler 1,414 3,168 breeders and trainers; a few good men everywhere
G Schnauzer 1,151 1,998 hold fast. Numerically the Shepherd in Germany is in
Hovawart 1,152 1,479 free fall, registrations falling by half in a decade, and
Airedale 890 1,423 the SV bureaucrats and office holders are floundering,
Dobermann 616 1,577
for their comfortable jobs and prestigious offices are at
Malinois 494 385
stake.
See complete table with all yearsThis discussion has focused on the German
in the appendices.
Shepherd for good reason: the huge numerical
predominance of this breed in Germany and around
the world. German registrations for 2011 were 13,339, which was an order of
magnitude larger than any other working breed, and the predominance on the trial
fields is even more overwhelming. (See the table for more complete data.)
The sheer power of the SV in Germany and its influence around the world
through the WUSV, the export of breeding stock and the foreign service of SV
Schutzhund and conformation judges is from an historical perspective without
compare. Today this power, this prestige and this influence is waning, both in
numbers and in moral authority, for the corruption, arrogance and hubris at the top
of the SV is increasingly blatant. It is as if Judas had staged a coup and installed
himself as pope in the place of Peter.
As the quality and availability of the West German Shepherds declined in the
1980s, and as worldwide demand grew incessantly, attention shifted to other, more
robust and traditional, sources of Shepherds, primarily in East Germany and a little
later in the Czech Republic. Times were hard in both of these nations still behind the
Iron Curtain, and western currency, especially the American dollar, spoke with a loud
voice.
Twenty or thirty years ago there was talk of the SV breaking away from the FCI
and leading the world’s Shepherd clubs, through the WUSV, on their own course. At
that time there was more difference between the Schutzhund and IPO trials and the
world union was strong. This opportunity was allowed to pass, probably because of
fear on the part of the national clubs that it would interfere with the profitable export
market, especially the lucrative American market; outsiders in Germany and
elsewhere would have leapt at the chance to make new clubs and yammer about
dissident clubs; and the AKC would no doubt have supported the new FCI affiliated
play shepherd clubs. In retrospect this was perhaps never in the cards because the
SV leadership even then wanted to separate themselves from Schutzhund and police
service and focus on the pet and show dog market.

The Rest of Europe

As the Germans reemerged from the devastation of war and reestablished their
national programs, the desire to promote their canine cultural and commercial
interests in neighboring nations resumed, with emphasis on links directly to the

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German bureaucracy, to an extent bypassing the national clubs in the neighboring
nations. This had the tendency to produce conflict and exacerbate resentment as the
canine establishments in nations such as the Netherlands began to push back against
direct SV intrusions in their internal affairs, through the FCI and in the courts.
A half century of war interspersed with adversarial peace had created deep-
seated resentments and hostility in the peoples of Holland, France and especially
Belgium, many of whom suffered grievously under German occupation. Germans had
of course also suffered, but their homeland was never occupied in WWI and in WWII
they were not occupied under the wartime conditions of forced conscripted labor and
enormous civilian oppression and suffering as they had inflicted on the Belgians and
Dutch. Post war allied occupation of Germany never even began to approach the
brutality, exploitation and inhumanity of Nazi occupation. Belgium especially suffered
and Belgian breeds, police programs and training venues were cast into obscurity for
a generation, some never to recover.
These other nations, adversaries in war for most of a century, historically had a
much different training regimen and culture, focused in the protection work on their
full body suits, making the entire man the target for the dog rather than an offered
arm. The creation of IPO as an international version of Schutzhund was a Trojan
horse, a means of projecting German influence, power and authority to the rest of
the world. Although IPO had been in marginal existence for a relatively long time, as
with all things German there was resistance and resentment on several levels. KNPV
and Ring trainers were the elite of their nations, and had little interest in another
round of subservience to the Germans. But even in these nations the German breeds
were enormously popular, and the German Shepherd establishment especially was
able to project influence and some control even into the internal affairs of these
recent military adversaries. IPO was and is as much a political gambit as a canine
sport.
Historically IPO and Schutzhund emerged from different cultures for different
reasons. Schutzhund, taking on its current form after WWII, had evolved primarily as
a breeding eligibility assessment. The function of the judge, explicitly and implicitly,
was to evaluate the intangibles as well as add up the points. In the protection phase
he could award up to ten points for courage and hardness, entirely according to his
own opinion, and throughout the entire process he had and was expected to exercise
real latitude to reward demeanor and enthusiasm as well as the letter of the rules, to
look for the real dog as well as the apparent. The IPO was more of a sport, the role
of the judge more to count up the points rather than trying to discern and reward or
penalize the underlying nature of the dog. This disparity in role was relative, was a
continuum between strictly point counting on one end and incorporating a subjective
evaluation of the nature and value of the dog. Schutzhund put more emphasis on
being a staunch breed suitability test and the more show and companion dog
oriented IPO emphasized obedience control and precision.
Over the years philosophical and practical distinction between the SV Schutzhund
program and the FCI IPO abated as the SV, in reaction to political correctness
pressure and plummeting registration numbers, became increasingly show oriented
and exhibited diminishing commitment to police dog character in favor of appealing
to a softer civilian market. IPO and Schutzhund grew increasingly closer together as
differences in rules and procedures were eliminated and the Schutzhund judge no
longer had the ten points for courage and hardness to award. From the serious
trainer's point of view this has been an incessant and continual lowering of
standards, seeking a lowest common denominator to accommodate show line
breeders and play trainers who do not want to deal with hard-core dogs and hard-
core people. Increasingly the SV wanted the Schutzhund trial to be easy for the show
dogs to pass and to accommodate commodity level dogs appealing to pet owners
and play trainers.

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 As the SV came increasingly into line with the spirit and reality of the FCI
mainstream, became just another show dog organization, the convergence of IPO
and Schutzhund was an ongoing process of dilution: the A frame replacing the
traditional wall, the padded stick replacing the bamboo stick, ever-shorter courage
tests, the elimination of the attack on the handler, increasing emphasis on
subservience in the obedience.
The removal of the attack on the handler from the Schutzhund I protection
routine is a perfect case in point. What was the reason for this? Because no matter
how much pressure they put on the decoy to ease off weak dogs were increasingly
failing the exercise. The process, the original concept, was that the trial should
reveal the weaknesses and the breeders would take steps to resolve problems
through breeding and training. As increasing emphasis on conformation and pet sales
evolved, the tendency was to weaken the rules to accommodate softer dogs rather
than reemphasizing serious working character in breeding selection.
Germany and Belgium had from the beginning been prominent in working dog
affairs as pioneers in police dog deployment and as the nations of origin of the
predominant police breeds. The Germans, especially the German Shepherd
advocates, were aggressive promoters of their breeds, training methods and national
canine culture. Von Stephanitz in particular had been much more than a breeder or
club leader; he was a promotional and marketing genius of the first magnitude.
The irony is that it was the Belgians who were the pioneers, and it was Belgian
rather than German Shepherds that American police departments in cities such as
New York and Detroit were importing in the decade beginning in 1900. But this was
obliterated by the German invasion and occupation of 1914, and it would be most of
a century before these Belgian dogs, trainers and breeders would again begin to gain
international attention. Although the breeds were nominally Belgian, the Belgians
who created and nurtured them were culturally and linguistically Dutch. In this
Flemish countryside the Dutch border hardly matters, and the Dutch trainers and
breeders took up the cause, were enormously successful in breeding, training and
deploying these Malinois, and in lesser numbers Bouviers, through their community
of active civilian and police trainers. Although the Dutch have primarily been involved
with the Belgian breeds, their Dutch Shepherd is now gaining traction as a slightly
larger and more massive alternative, in a way a middle ground between the Malinois
and the German Shepherd.
The key to Dutch success has been the close civilian and police cooperation, from
the trainers on up through the ranks to the administrators of police agencies and the
KNPV, often the same men. This is in contrast to the general tendency of the SV to
marginalize the partnership with the police and military in favor of pursuing the show
dog illusion and the popular civilian or pet market. The underlying difference is that
the Malinois has not ever been especially popular as a companion or show dog and
thus not been cursed with strong kennel club affiliated national breed clubs and their
incessant pressure to water down the character to pander to a popular market or the
propensity to breed for the grotesque extremes of the conformation show ring. Show
dogs have never been an overpowering revenue source; there are no Americans,
Japanese or Chinese standing just outside European Malinois show rings ready to
write a check for half a million dollars or even more for a "winner."

America
Beginning with the surge of German Shepherd popularity in America in the 1920s
and the promotional program for the Doberman Pincher slightly later, leading up to
the much-publicized participation with the Marine Corps in the South Pacific, police
and protection dogs were universally perceived in terms of these German breeds. In
the aftermath of WWII military canine activity nearly ceased, with the Marine Corps

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dropping their program entirely until the Vietnam era. In the early 1950s the last
known police canine program of the era, in New York, was abandoned as the radio
equipped squad car became the routine for police patrol. American dog training
consisted of AKC obedience and tracking, a lot of hunting dog activity and a small
number of personal protection or guard dog trainers, regarded as slightly suspect by
the mainstream canine community. The 1950s were a lost decade.
As police programs began to reemerge and the first interest in Schutzhund began
to awaken in the later 1960s these German breeds and training regimens were so
well entrenched and so pervasive that few people in America were even aware that
there were other breeds and traditions in other nations.
For all of these historical reasons, the first period of the modern American
working dog era, from the 1960s through the 1990s, was about German breeds,
training methods and deployment strategies. The first hints of change came in the
mid to later 1980s when a small wave of French Ring enthusiasm surfaced. In spite
of a certain amount of publicity and activity in the canine world, this had only modest
long-term impact; the American Ringers were destined to quarrel incessantly without
ever gaining any real traction. Halfhearted efforts to transplant KNPV to America, the
Mondio Ring offshoot and numerous home grown programs such as PSA diluted
energies; it seemed like the same 200 people continually going from one great new
thing to the another. The French, lacking a national breed to promote, training
venues perceived as relevant to police service and any apparent flare for public
relations in the American environment were destined to remain irrelevant, as were
the American ring-training enthusiasts.
But real change was coming, for a couple of emerging trends began to make
inroads on this German monopoly. By the early 1980s a few pioneers were taking
notice that it was possible to purchase KNPV certified Malinois in Holland for very
reasonable prices, which could then be resold in America with a significant profit.
Police administrators are by their nature tradition oriented and conservative;
acceptance of an unknown breed from a nontraditional source was slow, and some of
the imports were of marginal or worse quality and could be difficult for the typical
American police trainer or handler to deal with. But in spite of some poor dogs and
training issues the good dogs were very good and acceptance gradually increased
until the Malinois emerged as a serious factor in American police service.
The second major factor was a gradually increasing cadre of Malinois pioneers in
Europe crossing over into IPO and Schutzhund competition. In Germany kennels
such as von Löwenfels of Peter Engel (no relation) were beginning to produce
Malinois making a splash on Schutzhund fields, in America as well as Europe. There
were problems, for IPO participation required an FCI registration, which often had to
be conjured up with a little creative paper work. The Malinois star was nevertheless
on the rise.
January 1, 2012 was the day Schutzhund as a standalone German program
ceased to exist, and was replaced by IPO under FCI administration and regulation.
This was a turning point in several ways. On one level it was a brave new world of
opportunity, celebrated as a unified level playing field on which to build for the
future. On another level it marked a great German political victory, for their program
and culture prevailed over the full suit based national venues, so many years of
tradition, in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Less understood or celebrated, but perhaps most significantly, January 1, 2012
was the day complete control of FCI working dog affairs passed, probably forever,
out of the hands of working dog people. The consequences are ominous, for Europe
is awash in passivism, green party extremes and an ever-expanding spirit of
government intrusion into every detail of life. Even giving a ten-year-old boy a Boy
Scout pocketknife on his birthday, a rite of passage in middle America, has become

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illegal in many places, and seen as a perversion in the more politically correct circles.
Ear cropping and tail docking were banned, but the other breeds let it pass. Laws
restricting prong collars, radio collars, testing dogs with the padded stick and
banning many breeds with a fighting background became more and more pervasive.
Much of this spirit pervades the general show and pet dog community and every
bump in the road will be the occasion for further restriction, further pussification of
the working dog culture.
The gradual demise of Schutzhund in favor of the more pet and companion
oriented IPO program, the reduction in emphasis on German Shepherds suitable for
police and military service, was in response to societal changes, an evolution toward
an ever more pacifist, regulated, emasculated social order taking hold in Europe.
There is a certain element of irony in the fact that this time period also marked the
emerging era of increasing demand for serious police and military dogs, particularly
in the wake of the September 11th atrocity and the prolonged Middle East
engagements. These urban conflicts and guerilla war engagements in rural and
remote areas created an enormous demand for military patrol dogs at a time of ever
increasing demand for police patrol dogs in America and elsewhere, especially in
response to out of control drug distribution on the streets of America. Diminishing
supply and escalating demand can mean only one thing, the opportunity for new
sources of serious dogs to come to the forefront. The new era for the Malinois was at
hand.
The increasing presence and prestige of the Malinois, as the consequence of the
ongoing dilution of the German Shepherd and the enormous increase in demand for
serious dogs post 9/11, is an ongoing trend. The modern heart, the driving force, of
this Malinois surge comes not only from Belgium but also from Dutch police training
fields. In the 1980s the Belgian Malinois was virtually unknown in America and
particularly in American police service; today it in the process of replacing the
German Shepherd as first choice for serious trainers.
This is the culmination of a long and arduous journey, from the pioneering days
in Ghent, and a tribute to the perseverance of these Flemish people from among
which the Malinois arose, who endured so much in a century that saw their nation at
the epicenter of two world wars, neither of their making. Perhaps a moment of
reflection on the courage and tenacity of these few men in this small nation,
forgotten for most of a century, would not be inappropriate.

A Shrinking World
Beginning in the early 1920s wealthy Americans sought prominence and status
by importing winning show dogs, German Shepherds particularly but also other
breeds. John Gans was an example, importing many prominent German Shepherd
show winners or their progeny for his Hoheluft kennel in New York, such as Pfeffer
von Bern. These were not necessarily naïve Americans being sold over rated dogs,
although that went on, but often the best dogs in Germany in the prime of their life.
Pfeffer von Bern was actually taken back to Germany to become Sieger in 1937,
something almost beyond imagination today.
But dogs were not the most important thing Gans brought over, for he hired
German born Ernst Loeb to be his kennel manager and secure the best dogs
available in Germany. Loeb, eventually in the importing and handling business for
himself, was enormously influential for many years, until well after WWII. In this
entire era the dog world, primarily show dogs, was dominated by those with access
to serious money or canny enough to take advantage of stud dogs imported by
others. The direct purchase and import of European dogs was difficult for the typical
working class enthusiast, and would be so until well into the 1970s. Prior to this time
the vast majority of imports were show line dogs, with very little contact between

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working line European trainers, mostly working class themselves, and American
amateurs who were just beginning to have a serious interest in the training and
application of police style dogs.
When I first went to Europe in the early 1980s it was a new and mildly exotic
experience, for until this time Americans had found it relatively difficult to afford
casual European travel, expensive in terms of both time and money. Prior to
reasonably priced air transport, which gradually became available in the 1960s and
70s, a European tour was by ship and thus a matter of weeks or months, beyond the
reach of a working man of modest means with a job and a need to provide a living
for his family. The internet was a quarter century in the future, telephone calls were
expensive, and even if you had the money you did not have the personal
relationships, know who to call. The better European trainers, on the whole working
class men themselves, had little contact with or conception of American canine
affairs and were not especially English speaking; significant importation of dogs
based on working credentials and character was in the future. The American who had
actually been to Europe became an instant authority figure in his breed, and
European visitors, even those with relatively sparse knowledge or experience, were
regarded as all knowing experts.
Although importing dogs for conformation exhibition and breeding was an
ongoing process, except during the war years, the working character was taken for
granted. It was implicitly assumed that every German Shepherd or Doberman was
an incipient police dog; all it would require would be a little training to let lose the
internal beast. In reality, nobody actually had any comprehensive idea of what
exactly such a dog should be capable of, what the requisite character attributes
were, how to identify the suitable dog to train and how breeding selection related to
all of this. American police service and especially commercial guard dog services
were primitive, there were no military dogs until the WWII programs, quickly
abandoned after the war, and there was no ongoing high-level amateur training. We
were like novices with a complex digital camera set up in automatic mode, some
things were accessible, but the ultimate capability was in general beyond our
experience or comprehension. There was no perception of any need or reason to test
and select for character, dogs were proven in the show ring, or so we thought. And
of course, because of all of this, European dogs of deficient or questionable
character, gun shy for instance, became prime candidates for a one-way trip to
America, which meant that our domestic breeding resources were always suspect.
Starting in the early 1960s the AKC oriented American German Shepherd show
dog world, previously dominated by imports, turned inward. The import went out of
fashion virtually overnight and the entire American breeding community, like
lemmings over the cliff, began breeding incredibly tight on the new wonder dog, the
recently crowned Grand Victor Lance of Fran-Jo and his ever more inbred progeny.
This dog became the prototype for the new American shepherd, extreme in
angulation, slope of top line and side gait. The entire AKC oriented Shepherd world
just turned on a dime down a side road and never looked back.
Just as the AKC Shepherd people were turning their backs on Europe, an entirely
new sort of dog, the Schutzhund style working dog, was beginning to emerge in
America. The sixties and seventies were times of great change. There was unfulfilled
curiosity and desire in America and Europe and air travel became increasingly
affordable for the more affluent working man. This meant that a couple of
Schutzhund clubs could pool finances and fly a German Schutzhund judge or trainer
over for a week or more to hold trials and training sessions. These judges became
vital links for those seeking dogs of European lines, and while some were focused on
self-importance and even profit on the whole they were honest, well-intentioned men
primarily interested in advancing the sport and the breed. This also meant that the
man of ordinary means could go to Europe and see for himself, and perhaps

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purchase a good dog. The emergence of the internet in the 1990s was the final stage
in the transformation of the canine world into one big neighborhood.

Evolving Trends
In Europe, the Belgian Malinois is in ascendance. This breed and this police dog
heritage, which emerged in Ghent in 1899 only to be crushed by the German
invasion and occupation of 1914, after a century wandering in the wilderness, is
rising from the ashes, emerging as the predominant worldwide police breed. An
important causative factor in this resurgence is that the Malinois has been virtually
free of show breeder control and influence, and that they flourish outside of grasping
and suffocating FCI control. The year 1963, when the men of the NVBK summoned
the courage to break free, may well ultimately be seen as the turning point for the
overall working and police dog movement. The three primary Malinois cultures – that
is the KNPV lines, the NVBK lines and the French Ring lines – are relatively diverse
and serve as mutual reserve genetic pools.
Although the working German Shepherd community is in the midst of a crushing
identity crisis, caught between the SV led show dog establishment and the Malinois
surge on the sport fields and police rosters of the world, a long and noble history and
enormous worldwide numbers provide a cushion, the possibility of redemption. In
the broad picture, the rise of the Malinois over the past thirty years has been the
blessing in disguise, for the competition may be the only thing that can give the
German Shepherd working community the courage to rise up in the spirit of 1963
and take their fate into their own hands. The German Shepherd working lines, for all
of the problems of recent years, are still numerous, historically deep and diverse.
These resources of integrity and courage, human and canine, include the Czech lines,
the old East German lines, remnant working lines in Germany itself, breeders in
Holland and Belgium and other small but persisting pockets of excellence, resolve
and courage.
In America, beginning prior to the First World War, when a very small number of
American police personnel were making inquiries to Belgium and England and
importing dogs, the North American protection oriented working dog movement has
been dependent on European breeders, trainers and organizations for dogs, training
methodology and deployment strategy. Progress was slow and erratic, for police,
military, sport and civilian protection programs have struggled largely in isolation
rather than in synergistic cooperation and mutual support as exists in much of
Europe. This was of course natural and necessary, for it was these Europeans who
were creating the protection breeds and building the infrastructure, certification and
deployment strategies under which they have prospered, made fundamental
contributions to many European police and military programs.
As Americans became aware of the quality of the better European working lines
in the 1970s and 80s, and the sophistication of the breeding, training and police
deployment practices, we gradually came to comprehend and respect the German
Schutzhund trainers, and a little later the police trainers and breeders in the
Netherlands and the NVBK community in Belgium. All of this was well and good, and
it was quite natural to see these people on a pedestal of our own making.
There were, however, down side consequences of this pedestal building. First, the
money Americans and others were spending began to change the fabric of the
European working dog world, gradually made dog brokering more attractive and
more profitable. In Germany Schutzhund titled dogs became an export commodity,
and a support structure of accommodating judges and brokers, used dog salesmen,
came into place. Another example was a commercialization of the Dutch police
community, where increasingly dogs were trained with an eye on the export market.
This tended to produce a profit driven motivation for quick and superficial training,

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the minimum to slide through for the certificate and thus another lucrative sale. If
the dog was marginal, it did not matter so much, for it would never be seen again,
and many Americans were not canny enough to tell the difference anyway. As a
consequence more care was required in the purchase of a titled dog, which was not a
serious problem for most Dutchmen with personal contacts but a very important
consideration for an American or other foreigner interested in a sight unseen
acquisition, which put even more importance on the reliability of the broker providing
the dog.
The Belgians and the French were much less engaged, mostly because their
numbers are small, although the Belgians in the NHSB have made belated but
generally ineffective attempts to gain an American presence. The French Ring
community has had a sporadic interaction with the American enthusiasts, and
exported Ring line Malinois have gradually become more common on American sport
fields, where novices with another breed often end up seeking out a Malinois. This
has resulted in virtually no real involvement with or effect on American police canine
practice.
Although Americans caught up in enthusiasm for Schutzhund and the police
breeds over the past decades have rightly come to regard Europe as the foundation
of police service in terms of breeds, training methodology and deployment strategy,
they have in general failed to fully appreciate that even in Europe this culture is
increasingly separate from the mainstream FCI oriented world of companion and
show dogs, which is primarily concerned about conformation shows, pet sales,
secure jobs for bureaucrats and the opportunity to play expert by engaging in the
political maneuvering necessary to become a conformation judge. In the FCI scheme
of things, support of police level character is only a public relations ploy, giving lip
service primarily to enable companion dog customers the pretense, the illusion, of
owning a real police dog.
This distinction is most evident in the Netherlands, where the KNPV requires no
registration and police departments are much more concerned about performance
than breed identification. The Raad van Beheer, the Dutch equivalent to the AKC, has
generally been indifferent to working dogs, but has implemented the FCI IPO
program, which has had increasing popularity since the 1970s. In Belgium the hard-
core ring trainers broke away from the national FCI club to form the NVBK in 1963.
In both Belgium and Holland the IPO program has grown in popularity since the
1970s, drawing some support away from the full protection suit oriented national
programs. The necessity of registration papers for IPO competition has been a
complication, and there has been a significant amount of falsification of papers to
overcome this. The advent of low cost DNA testing technology capable of sorting this
out makes future trends increasingly difficult to foresee.
The emergence and enormous immediate popularity of the German Shepherd,
and the personal commitment of Max von Stephanitz to working character, as
exemplified by his emphasis on herding and police working titles, made this breed
the ultimate police dog in the mind of the public worldwide. This was much more
than rhetoric and public relations, these dogs were in the forefront of military and
police service internationally after the crushing of the incipient Belgian foundation,
the only potential contender, in WWI. But the chasm under the façade was there
almost from the beginning; by the early 1920s the division into working and show
lines was well established. (Humphrey & Warner, 1934) Over the years there was
periodic variation in focus in the German show lines, to some extent according to the
influence of the SV president in office. In the post WWII period there was an
emphasis on hip dysplasia, resulting in the endurance test (AD) for breeding and
formal radiographic examination requirements. Tightened requirements for
Schutzhund titles for conformation show placement and breeding took place in this
era, and a brief protection examination immediately prior to the Sieger Show was

439
instituted. Toward the end of the twentieth century there was a widening separation
between working and show lines and while the Schutzhund title continued to be
required judging standards for show line dogs were significantly weakened and
sometimes falsified. Even in Germany, the separation of the German Shepherd into
virtually two breeds is today well advanced.
The aggregate result is that worldwide the police and military dogs have become
increasingly separated from the mainstream purebred canine world in terms of
breeding, training and particularly people. Recent years have seen an increasing
number of Malinois based on Dutch and Belgian lines, almost entirely separate from
FCI influence, a small but increasing number of Dutch Shepherds and working line
German Shepherds, with emphasis on the East German and Czech lines. If the
increasing preference for the Malinois persists as a long-term trend the police and
military will in effect come to have virtually their own distinct breed, with much less
civilian involvement. The fact that the Malinois is so similar in general appearance to
the early German Shepherds seems to have prevented a surge in popularity among
the general public similar to that of the Doberman or Rottweiler, both of which were
propelled to the top in popularity largely because of a strikingly new, bold
appearance and the German promotional genius. This lack of civilian popularity
would seem to have been a blessing in disguise, for neither the Doberman nor the
Rottweiler have gone beyond image to significant numbers in actual police or military
service.
The other breeds which historically played a role in police service over the years
– such as the Doberman Pincher, Giant Schnauzer, Bouvier des Flandres and
Rottweiler – have ceased to be relevant as practical police breeds, and are unlikely
ever again to serve in significant numbers.
Until about 1980 Schutzhund was directly under the control of the German
working dog community through the SV rather than national or international all
breed control; rules and judging standards were in general maintained at a high
level. IPO was in these earlier years much more of a peripheral, amateur sport
oriented program in nations such as France and Belgium where the elite dogs were
on ring sport fields. The convergence of the rules and the recent elimination of
Schutzhund has been much more in line with the IPO heritage, and represented an
important reduction in the influence of the more serious, police oriented training
community. Instead of evolving to emphasize enhanced performance in practical
aspects for police service, such as longer distance engagements, call outs on remote
pursuits and search exercises demanding initiative from the dog and relating to
practical police operations, the program has been evolving into tracking obedience,
trick obedience and protection obedience where exercises and especially judging
expectations irrelevant to actual police service are increasingly the essence of the
trial.
Much of the success of the police dog in Europe has been the consequence of
cooperation between the police canine community and civilian trainers and breeders,
making good dogs of varying levels of training from green pup to certified police dog
available at relatively reasonable prices, as exemplified by the Dutch KNPV program.
The gradual evolution of Schutzhund into IPO has exacerbated the separation
between police and FCI/SV breeding and training, a trend that has gone hand in
hand with the emergence of the Malinois as the preeminent police dog. In America,
for historical reasons, this spirit of cooperation and community failed to materialize.
Police handlers, trainers and administrators in general have very little contact with
the European oriented sport programs such as IPO or Ring, and virtually all of it
informal, that is individual police trainers or handlers participating on their own time
in sport training activities. In contrast to the open KNPV trials in Holland, American
police trials and organizations are generally closed to civilians, and police
participation in civilian organizations is minimal and unofficial.

440
 While European traditions have prospered based on a flourishing domestic
breeding and training culture, America has been dependent on European dogs, often
obtained through brokers. The cost of the middleman and transport across an ocean
has been significant, but the broker evolved as the pragmatic solution. Police
agencies have and sometimes still do send over experienced trainers to purchase
dogs, but this is a great expense in terms of time and travel, and even the best
police trainer has difficulty in knowing the rapidly varying European lines, where the
appropriate dogs are and what the current price structure is. For the police
administrator a reputable broker can be the practical choice, provide good dogs as
needed at a price reflecting the cost of the service but on the whole reasonable.
In an ongoing relationship the better brokers come to understand the type of dog
likely to succeed in a particular department, as there can be significant difference in
the appropriate intensity of the dogs according to the experience of department
trainers and handlers. The experienced broker can line up dogs according to
departmental needs and expectations and stand behind his product, that is, replace
dogs which do not work out, even in the occasional instance where the problem
might be more the situation than the dog. There are of course dishonest and
incompetent people entering the dog brokering business, and the established people
do not have to cut corners to make the sale; it is as always a matter of buyer
beware.
There are important intangible disadvantages to the imported dogs beyond the
cost of overseas transport and the services of the broker. When you buy a dog from
Europe all you get is a dog – police handlers and trainers do not gain access to the
knowledge and experience of the breeders and trainers, which could contribute so
much to effective utilization. If there were local breeding and training communities to
supply young dogs the potential police trainers and handlers would have the
advantage of seeing the dogs in action with the original trainers, and better
understand the breeding, selection and training processes. An active community of
amateur trainers would mean that a significant number of police officers would have
relevant training experience from civilian life, as young protection sport trainers in
many instances tend to gravitate to police service.
Evolution of an effective, indigenous quasi-amateur police dog training and
breeding community in America, comparable to the European experience, seems
unlikely at this point in time. A small cadre of Schutzhund enthusiasts has gained
little real traction over forty years, particularly since there has been virtually no
interaction or synergy with the emerging police dog community. It would be very
difficult to create a national training and breeding culture as a matter of top down
policy, nobody knows how to formulate legislation mandating enthusiasm for local
training clubs and instructing that police departments become willing and
comfortable in participating. The Europe where this all began a hundred years ago
was vastly different from today because of emerging middle and working class
economic prosperity, exemplified by common automobile ownership, television and
the internet, have transformed the fabric of society. This cannot and will not just
replicate itself in America; to whatever extent we are to succeed in establishing more
effective police canine utilization it must come through the evolution of commercial
and training traditions and department programs adapted to American circumstances
and needs; if we are to do it at all we will have to develop our own way. If effective
traditions fail to evolve then usage of police dogs will stagnate or wither, as it has at
various times in the past.
It is entirely possible that we are approaching a tipping point, where the century
old European culture of amateur and semiprofessional breeding and training as the
basis of police service canines becomes obsolete and fades from existence
worldwide. Little else in modern society is on such an altruistic basis; the basic
tenants of capitalism and free enterprise give little expectation that such activity

441
should persist over time. The truly amateur Schutzhund club in America, never very
numerous or prosperous, is increasingly giving way to another model, one based on
the business of a professional trainer providing dogs, training and guidance to
clients, much as the golf course professional provides instruction to amateur golfers.
Indeed, almost from the beginning the American Schutzhund movement was based
as much in commerce as the amateur spirit, the purchase of a trained and titled dog
was very often the path to becoming a player, an important person. For many it was
a professional opportunity, the American entrepreneurial spirit trumping the
European pride in the amateur status, the sense of doing something in life beyond
money. In the larger view, American entrepreneurial opportunism has infected
Europe much more effectively than the European amateur spirit has taken root in
America.
Prior to the American Civil War manufactured goods were produced by individual
craftsman in small shops. Firearms and watches, among the most complex items in
common use then, were made one at a time, with the parts carefully adjusted to
compensate for variations in the manufacturing process. The quality of the product
was the direct result of the skill, passion and pride of the craftsman. The Industrial
Revolution was largely a process of building products on a large scale by putting
enough precision in the individual components to make them interchangeable; the
skill of the watchmaker or gunsmith gradually gave way to the efficiency of the
production line. Today virtually everything is mass-produced, and it is unimaginable
that a single craftsman could build a modern automobile, camera or firearm
beginning with the raw materials. For untold centuries the small farmer prospered
according to his skill in breeding, training and working his horses or other draft
animals, but because of mechanization, particularly the tractor, this has given way to
larger and larger farms. The farmer was akin to the craftsman in that his success
was to a large extent the result of his skill in acquiring, training and using his horses,
and this did not easily scale up to several teams, limiting the size of the family farm.
The advent of the tractor, and the demise of the horse, took away a fundamental
limit on farm size, for tractors and related implements can become larger and more
powerful almost without limit and thus enable one or a few men to farm enormous
tracts.
The police patrol dog is one of the very few remaining essential commodities
primarily produced by the skill, passion and pride of individual men, small-scale
breeders and trainers. For well over a century this has worked well in most of Europe
because from the beginning there was a community of such men, and because many
police handlers were involved in amateur sport activities. But this has been a serious
impediment to the growth of American service, because our police agencies have had
to pull themselves up by their bootstraps at all levels, especially in knowing how to
find and select dogs and train handlers. Our police administrators have typically been
men who balance budgets and set up programs to acquire needed resources from
reliable, cost effective suppliers. They are used to purchasing things such as squad
cars and radios from competing vendors with well-established reputations,
knowledgeable salesman and catalogs listing available products and innumerable
options. But when the decision is made to acquire new or replacement patrol dogs
there are no catalogs with neat lists of standard models, allowing the selection of a
specific sort of dog, or ordering an arbitrary number of identical dogs, for every dog
is different in ways that are difficult for the non-involved administrator to grasp and
integrate into the purchase decision process.
To a significant extent the brokers and importers have helped to bridge this gap,
provided the knowledge and connections to match up available dogs with suitable
positions, but importing one dog at a time is inherently an expensive approach. Many
brokers also produce litters and sell dogs varying in age and training, but the
problem remains that these are derivative operations; the real breeding programs –

442
the years and generations of experience – remain in Europe. American distributers
generally lack the depth of breeding knowledge and hands on training experience
that is the long-term basis of a successful breeding program.
General dissatisfaction with this mode of operation is evident from the various
breeding programs established from time to time by diverse government agencies,
with varying degrees of success. Two current examples are the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police breeding Czech line German Shepherds and the American military
with their ongoing Malinois breeding program at Lackland Air Force Base. The key
problem is the socialization and development of the young dogs; they cannot just be
kept clean and well fed in kennel runs until two years of age, for each one requires
individual human contact in order to develop a fully functional working dog
character. The American program in Texas farms out the Malinois pups into volunteer
homes for the critical early months, but depending on local volunteers does not scale
well, that is puts significant limitations on the number of young dogs in the pipe line
at any specific time.
The most difficult aspect of predicting the future of the police dog is the ongoing
evolution of American society, especially our legal system. The police canine surge in
America has largely been the result of our ongoing, all-consuming war on drugs.
American incarceration rates are almost twice those of any other nation in the world,
including Communist China, the primary reason being people imprisoned for drug
offences, many relatively minor. It seems unlikely that we can go on spending more
money on California’s penal system than the educational system; it is simply not
sustainable. Increasing numbers of Americans are coming to believe that just as it
was impossible to prevent the widespread consumption of alcohol as we attempted
through prohibition, it is also impossible to eliminate or even contain recreational
drug usage.
The legalization and regulation of recreational drugs would have dramatic impact
on American police operations, especially canine units which evolved primarily as an
integral part of our war on drugs. Ever tightening budgets would cause police agency
restructuring, with difficult to predict consequences for canine deployment. The
substantial money from confiscation of automobiles and other drug traffic
paraphernalia that today flows into police operational budgets would dry up. Police
canine deployment would likely shrink to that justifiable by other services, such as
building searches, explosive detection and crime scene service.
Over the past century there has been enormous expansion and evolution in police
canine service. Twentieth century technology – vehicle based police patrol, modern
firearms, ubiquitous communication (voice and digital), and computer networks
linking agencies nationally and internationally – has transformed police service,
especially canine applications. The police dog evolved as the partner of the isolated
foot patrol officer on tough city streets, often without a firearm, who came to rely on
his dog to indicate the presence of the potential adversary or criminal and provide
physical intimidation and a fighting partner in a violent confrontation. In spite of
incredible advances in technology, the dog has remained indispensable, but his role
has evolved to put much more focus on substance detection and directed search. In
spite of decades of research, no modern instrument has the detection and
discriminatory power to identify hidden drugs or explosive material, and no practical
alternatives for building or area searches have evolved or appear on the horizon.
Although evolving social conditions and deployment tactics – and amazing
advances in communications, vehicles and weapons – have revolutionized police
service the canine role has continually evolved and expanded. This noble service
would seem destined to persist into the foreseeable future, continually evolving in
response to changing real world circumstances, but ultimately based on the unique

443
blending of human and canine nature that has been the basis of the partnership
between man and dog since the advent of civilization.

444
Appendices:

Konrad Most
I am a bit reluctant to engage in designating particular individuals as the "Father"
of this or that, but if there is to be a Father of the police dog it must certainly be
either Ernest van Wesemael, founder of the Ghent program, or Konrad Most. Forced
to a choice between the two, my opinion would be Most because of the depth of his
contribution and because he was hands on and academic as compared to van
Wesemael, who was primarily an administrator rather than an innovator in training.
Most, born in 1878, had a long and active career. From the Biographical Note in
the English translation of his book:
"Colonel Most was one of the world's most experienced and distinguished
authorities on all types of dog training and a pioneer in the study of dog
psychology. He started training Service dogs in 1906 while serving as
Police Commissioner at the Royal Prussian Police Headquarters,
Saarbrücken. For the next eight years he gave instruction to the
Constabulary on the training and management of police dogs for all
purposes by methods evolved by himself. In 1912 he was appointed
Principal of the newly formed State Breeding and Training Establishment
for police dogs at Berlin and carried out much original research in training
dogs for Service personnel and for the tracking of criminals. At the
outbreak of war in 1914, Konrad Most was attached to the Staff of Field
Marshall von Hindenburg, Commander-in-Chief in the East, to organize and
direct the use of Army dogs on the Eastern Front, and the following year
was put in charge of the organization of all canine services on both the
Eastern and Western Fronts. In recognition of his war service he was, in
1919, awarded a testimonial by the Prussian War Ministry inscribed: "To
Capt. Most, creator of the Canine Service in the World War of 1914-1918."
From 1919 to 1937 he was head of the Canine Research Department of the
Army High Command, and during that period also acted as advisor to the
Government of Finland on the organization of the Finnish Canine Services.
He played a leading part in the formation of the Canine Research Society
and of the German Society for Animal Psychology, both found in 1931, and
in 1938 was elected Honorary Life Member of both Bodies in recognition of
his work on their behalf.
"From 1944 to 1947 Colonel Most was head of the Experimental
Department of the Tutorial and Experimental Institute for Armed Forces'
Dogs and Technical Principal of the North German Dog Farm, a center for
the training of working dogs, their handlers, and the trainers of dogs for
the blind. In 1951 he became closely associated with courses held in the
Rhine Palatinate for the instruction of sportsmen in the training and
management of hunting and tracking dogs for the purpose of improving
their performances in the field.
"In 1954 – the year of his death, aged 76 – Colonel Most was awarded an
Honorary Doctorate of the Justus-Liebig Technical College, Giessen, Hesse,
near Frankfort-am-Main. His manual Training Dogs, A Manual, first written
in 1910, is the recognized standard work on the subject throughout
Europe."

445
 Most bred Dobermans under the kennel name von der Sarr in the town of
Saarbrücken, west of Stuttgart on the French border. Although the photos in the
English edition of the book, taken by the English publisher, are German Shepherds,
the photos on the original German edition included numerous Dobermans, and there
is a profile of a Doberman on the cover.

446
Registration Statistics
Probably because of my professional training as an engineer, I am never quite
satisfied with pictures and words, but rather need the numbers, the statistics, to
solidify understanding. In the canine world, this means, on a country-by-country
basis, how many pups are being whelped, which is usually taken to mean the
number of registrations. There are, however, subtleties to this, for many dogs,
indeed many very important dogs, are never actually registered in any studbook.
Also, most nations at one time or another have competing registering entities, which
means that a dog may be registered by one or the other, with both or with neither.
Sometimes all of the pups are registered and named by the breeder, the usual
European practice, but under the AKC the breeder only indicates the number of pups
with litter registration, leaving it up to the purchaser to select the name and register
the dog, which of course brings to the AKC that most desired of all things, the
money. (It is said only half in jest that the AKC is in the business of selling made up
numbers costing nothing for good hard cash.) It is speculated that some breeders
overstate the number, so that they can have extra forms, "just in case." This of
course tends to inflate the numbers.
Prior to the internet age yearly registration statistics were published in the
various national and breed journals and other publications. Years ago Dog World
magazine printed complete AKC statistics yearly, and sometimes had multiyear
tables for comparison. Gathering this information together, especially if the desire is
for many breeds, becomes a bit of a chore.
The internet age greatly simplified this, and although there is not a great deal of
historical data in convenient formats, most major national entities such as the AKC
and the various European FCI national clubs put yearly stats up on the internet,
often for ten or more years in the past. Historically, the problem of gathering the
statistics was that they were in many different places and formats, meaning that
while the data was generally public getting it in the desire format could be a bit of a
chore. There was no real reluctance to release the data routinely.
Beginning in about 2008 the AKC bureaucrats became increasingly hysterical and
secretive. Rather than the actual numbers, they began to release only rankings, the
actual numbers becoming virtual secrets of shame subject to the great head in the
sands trick. Today the numbers are only released, one senses reluctantly, to the
various national breed clubs.
These registration statistical tables are gathered from various public sources,
mostly web sites of the particular kennel club. Great care must be exercised in
interpreting registration information, as many dogs are not registered or registered
with a competing registry. Under the AKC for instance, each litter registration comes
with the appropriate registration forms, but unless the breeder or owner fills out the
Dutch Police community, registration is unimportant, a dog is what he does on the
field regardless of his background and thus generations of highly regarded dogs can
exist without any paper trail other than the working trial certificates.
Malinois figures are particularly deceptive, for many KNPV dogs are without
registration and NVBK dogs cannot easily be AKC registered. Numbers of non-
registered dogs are of course very difficult to estimate. (In the area of 1000 new
KNPV titles are awarded annually, mostly Malinois and/or mixes.)

447
American

The AKC ceased publication of annual registration statistics after 2006.

AKC Registrations for 2006:
Breed
German Shepherd 43,575
Boxers 35,388
Rottweilers 14,709
Doberman Pinschers 11,546
Collies 4,711
Bloodhounds 3,343
Airedale Terriers 2,243
Border Collies 2,181
Giant Schnauzers 855
Bouviers des Flandres 808
Belgian Malinois 716
Belgian Tervuren 434
Anatolian Shepherd 380
Briards 284
Belgian Sheepdogs 266
Black Russian Terriers 143

Year GSD Rottweiler Doberman

1970 109,198 428 18,636
1978 61,783 2,439 81,964
1989 58,422 51,291
1990 59,556 60,471
1996 79,076 89,867
2006 43,575 14,709 11,546
2007 43,376 14,211

1978 1977 1976 1975 1974 1973 1972 1971 1970

Dobermans 81,964 79,254 73,615 57,336 45,110 34,169 27,767 23,413 18,636
GSD 61,783 67,072 74,723 76,235 86,014 90,907 101,399 111,355 109,198
Labrador Ret 43,500 41,275 39,929 36,565 36,689 33,575 32,251 30,170 25,667
Golden Ret 34,249 30,263 27,612 22,636 20,933 17,635 15,476 13,589 11,437
Great Danes 16,600 17,892 19,869 19,255 20,319 19,314 18,339 16,349 13,180
Boxers 13,248 12,951 13,057 12,063 12,552 12,319 12,002 12,617 11,483
Airedale 6,601 6,745 6,835 6,532 7,088 6,687 6,974 6,976 6,325
Rottweilers 2,439 1,878 1,406 952 883 840 563 508 428
Bloodhounds 1,586 1,578 1,446 1,334 1,337 1,252 1,231 1,041 839
Bouviers 1,301 1,204 1,053 834 735 585 511 367 348

448
German Annual Registrations

Breed 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012

GSD 9766 10202 10523 10470 11092 12786
Boxer 1559 1600 1614 1386 1637 1563
Great Dane 1095 1192 1245 1336 1445 1444
Rottweiler 1561 1633 1524 1566 1543 1409
G Schnauzer 847 1128 849 761 931 1003
Hovawart 836 927 818 863 858 1152
Airedale 753 784 821 792 814 764
Dobermann 491 583 478 635 597 604
Malinois 652 680 589 615 650 619

Breed 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004

GSD 13,339 14,501 15,870 16,854 16,868 16,908 18,278 19,874
Boxer 1,579 1,783 1,681 1,735 1,864 1,722 1,836 1,669
Great Dane 1,336 1,488 1,609 1,699 1,905 1,685 1,807 1,890
Rottweiler 1,414 1,586 1,696 1,876 1,741 1,528 1,559 1,493
G Schnauzer 1,151 970 1,100 1,185 1,299 1,165 1,258 1,333
Hovawart 1,152 1,231 1,155 1,208 1,277 1,146 1,190 1,076
Airedale 890 997 930 958 1,080 1,054 1,206 1,208
Dobermann 616 802 704 773 580 757 750 804
Malinois 494 570 522 505 456 700 580 644

Breed 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997

GSD 19,882 20,352 21,372 20,872 23,839 27,834 29,824
Boxer 1,690 1,704 1,600 1,966 2,106 2,594 2,659
Great Dane 1,771 1,800 1,574 1,641 1,701 1,630 1,853
Rottweiler 1,511 1,488 1,431 1,501 2,192 2,716 3,168
G Schnauzer 1,222 1,190 1,161 1,137 1,171 1,494 1,998
Hovawart 1,286 1,069 1,098 1,289 1,293 1,479 1,479
Airedale 1,089 1,115 1,065 1,056 1,150 1,235 1,423
Dobermann 784 734 712 864 860 1,312 1,577
Malinois 446 490 428 397 440 421 385

Year GSD Doberman Year GSD Doberman

2017 9766 491 2004 19,874 644
2016 10,202 583 2003 19,882 446
2015 10,523 478 2002 20,352 490
2014 10,470 635 2001 21,372 428
2013 11,092 650 2000 20,872 397
2012 12,786 619 1999 23,839 440
2011 13,339 494 1998 27,834 421
2010 14,501 570 1997 29,824 385
2009 15,870 522 1996 30,802
2008 16,854 505 1995 29,805
2007 16,868 456 1994 28,730
2006 16,908 700 1993 27,648
2005 18,278 580 1992 28,000

449
French Registrations

2010 2007 1970

German Shepherd 11265 11025 9020
Rottweiler 1928 4150 1
Malinois 5726 4084 1270
Beauceron 2797 3231 622
Boxer 2137 2270 1128
Tervueren 1421 1232 441
Doberman 920 1120 840
Briard 428 672 317
Groenendael 682 611 636
Bouvier des Flandres 438 388 276
Airedale 232 308 160
Giant Schnauzer 192 303 46
Hovawart 242 263
Picardie Shepherd 160 224 82
Laekenois 28 19 2

In France all Ring competitors must be registered with the national system, so
the Malinois numbers are directly comparable to other working breeds.

450
Belgian Registrations

Breed ranking & average yearly Breed ranking and

registrations (1990-2001) registrations in 2001

1 German Shepherd 2,465 1 2,032

2 Belgian Shepherd 1,857 2 1,774
3 Golden Retriever 1,009 3 1,031
4 Bouvier des Flandres 965 6 764
5 Labrador Retriever 844 4 910
6 Dobermann 832 11 505
7 Rottweiler 820 10 512
8 Bernese Mount. Dog 743 5 793
9 Boxer 697 7 690
10 Great Dane 547 14 353
11 Teckel 519 12 457
12 Beauceron 484 13 410
13 Briard 414 21 256

The Belgian Shepherd numbers include the four varieties.

Many working Malinois lines are NVBK registered and thus would not be included
unless duel registered.

2009 Belgian Registrations 2010 Belgian Registrations

German Shepherd 1363 German Shepherd 1608
Berger Belge Malinois 977 Berger Belge Malinois 1108
Berner Sennenhund 601 Border Collie 943
Border Collie 595 Golden Retriever 854
Golden Retriever 563 Berner Sennenhund 708
Labrador Retriever 544 Labrador Retriever 656
Bulldog 379 Bulldog 487
Rottweiler 367 Bouledogue français 486
Bouvier des Flandres 338 Rottweiler 455
Great Dane 289 Great Dane 415
Berger de Beauce 245 American Staf Terrier 332
Berger Belge Tervueren 243 Bouvier des Flandres 296
American Staffordshire Terrier 235 Chihuahua Pelo largo 292
Australian Shepherd Dog 191 Berger Belge Tervueren 291
Dogue de Bordeaux 162 Chihuahua Pelo corto 264
Boxer 150 Whippet 261
Dobermann 127 Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Ret 249
Shetland Sheepdog 123 Cavalier King Char Spaniel 249
Collie Rough 116 Australian Shepherd Dog 243
Berger Belge Groenendael 112 Boxer 237
Berger de Brie 103 Dachshund 230
Airedale Terrier 86 Berger de Beauce 223
Newfoundland 210
Leonberger 202
Berger Blanc Suisse 195
Dobermann 186
Berger de Brie 179

451
Netherlands Registrations

2004 2009 2011

1 Labrador Retriever 5,107 3491 3529
2 Duitse Herdershond - GSD 3,461 2341 2131
3 Golden Retriever 2,137 1852 1806
4 Berner Sennenhond 1,774 1469 1518
5 Boxer 1,141 1052 877
6 Cavalier King Char Spaniel 1,069 976 730
7 Engelse Bulldog 946 921 780
8 Border Collie 887 838 898
9 Staffordshire Bull Terrier 877 1287 1325
10 Bouvier des Flandres 840 559 420
11 Engelse Cocker Spaniel 810 732 687
12 Dachshund 805 744 805
13 Cairn Terrier 689 319 376
14 Duitse Dog 670 496 470
15 West Highland White Terrier 662 394 317
16 Belgische Herder, Mechelse 644 505 463
17 Jack Russell Terrier 630 386 422
18 Chihuahua 606 437 1365
19 Franse Bulldog 583 770 988
20 Dwerg Dashond, Ruwhaar 578 539 630
21 Flatcoated Retriever 576 823 487
22 White Swiss Shepherd Dog 555 483
23 Bordeaux Dog 548 498 511
24 Rhodesian Ridgeback 536 541 794
25 Dwergschnauzer 526 512 417

TOTAL 49763 43887 43226

NHSB/Dutch Pedigree Book 2011

Breed Pups Import Total
Belgische Herdershond, Groenendaeler 172 9 181
Belgische Herdershond, Laekense 96 2 98
Belgische Herdershond, Mechelse 425 38 463
Belgische Herdershond, Tervuerense 264 7 271

These are NHSB or Dutch Kennel Club records, many Malinois and Malinois cross
breeds competing in KNPV police trials are not registered and thus not included.

452
Dutch 2011 Registrations, puppies & imports

Labrador Retriever 3529

German Shepherd 2131
Golden Retriever 1806
Berner Sennenhond 1518
Chihuahua 1365
Staffordshire Bull Terrier 1325
Franse Bulldog 988
Border Collie 898
Boxer 877
Dachshund 805
Rhodesian Ridgeback 794
Engelse Bulldog 780
Cavalier King Charles Spaniel 730
Engelse Cocker Spaniel 687
Dwergdashond, ruwhaar 630
Zwitserse Witte Herdershond 582
Stabyhoun 512
Bordeaux Dog 511
Flatcoated Retriever 487
Newfoundlander 472
Duitse Dog, alle kleuren 470
Belgische Herdershond, Mechelse 463
Rottweiler 454
American Staffordshire Terrier 453
Beagle 444
Shih Tzu 425
Cane Corso 422
Jack Russell Terrier 422
Bouvier des Flandres 420
Bullmastiff 417
Belgische Herder, Tervuerense 271

Some breeds omitted beyond this point:

Belgische Herder, Groenendaeler 181
Airedale Terrier 156
Hovawart 155
Dobermann 152
Bearded Collie 146
Duitse Staande Hond Korthaar 145
Briard 144
Hollandse Herdershond, korthaar 144
Sint Bernard, kort- en langhaar 130
Beauceron 85
Hollandse Herdershond, langhaar 85
Riesenschnauzer 71

453
Glossary
American Organizations
AKC American Kennel Club
ATTS American Temperament Test Society (Practically nonexistent today.)
AWDF American Working Dog Federation
CKC Canadian Kennel Club
PSA Protection Sports Association - American trial giving organization.
USCA United Schutzhund Clubs of America (a German Shepherd Club)
WDA Working Dog Association,
German Shepherd organization affiliated with the GSDCA
GSDCA German Shepherd Dog Club of America (AKC Affiliated)
NAWBA North American Working Bouvier Association
NASA North American Working Dog Association (No longer in existence)
European Organizations
FCI Federation Cynologique Internationale,
International Canine Federation, the predominant canine administrative
organization throughout the world with the exception of England,
Canada and the United States
SRSH Societe Royale Saint-Hubert
Belgian national canine organization, FCI affiliated
KCB Kennel Club Belge, Belgian national canine organization, not FCI affiliated
SCC Societe Central Canine,
French national canine registration organization.
NVBK Nationaal Verbond der Belgische Kynologen
Belgian non-FCI National Ring Trial & Registration Organization
FNCB Fédération Nationale des Cynophiles Belges French name for NVBK
KNPV Koninklijke Nederlandse Politiehond Vereniging
Royal Dutch Police Dog Association
SV Verein fur Deutsche Schaferhunde,
German Shepherd Club in the German motherland.
WUSV World Union of German Shepherd Clubs
VDH Verband fur das Deutsche Hundewesen
German kennel club, equivalent to the AKC
DVG Deutscher Verband der Gebrauchshundsportvereine
German Schutzhund Sports Association for Police & Protection Dogs
ADRK Rottweiler Club in Germany

North American Titles

Usually there is both an AKC and a CKC version.
CD Companion Dog, an obedience title
CDX Companion Dog Excellent
UD Utility Dog
TD Tracking Dog
OFA Orthopedic Foundation for Animals, hip evaluation

454
European Titles
CQN Certificate of Natural Qualities –
Belgian working test, prerequisite for the Belgian Championship
KNPV Koninklijke Nederlandse Politiehond Vereniging
Royal Dutch Police Dog Association "met lof" means with honors.
IPO Internationale Prufungsordnung FCI version of Schutzhund.
SchH Schutzhund
CACIB Certificat de' aptitude au championat international de beaute
FCI conformation show point designation.
CACIT Certificat de' aptitude au championat international de travail
FCI Certificate of achievement of championship in work

European Registration Books

LOSH Livre de Origines Saint-Hubert Belgian studbook,
ALSH Annexe au livre de Saint-Hubert
Supplementary or provisional Studbook of Saint-Hubert
NHSB Nederlands Hondenstamboek
Netherlands: studbook of Raad van Beheer.
DSaZB The German Registration designation

Dutch Hip Condition Ratings

These appear on the Dutch pedigrees and KNPV certificates:

HD- Negative evaluation, that is free of dysplasia.
HD/Tc Intermediate between negative and light positive.
HD+- Light positive.
HD+ Positive evaluation for hip dysplasia

Raad van Beheer Dutch equivalent of the American Kennel Club.

455
German Terminology

HGH Herdengebrauchshund ( Herding Dog)

PH Polizei Hund (Police Dog) seen on older GSD pedigrees
KrH Kriegshund (War dog)
FH Fahrtenhund (Tracking Dog)
DH Diensthund (Service dog )
PDH Polizei Dienst Hund (Working Police dog)
PSP Polizeischutzhundprufung (Police protection dog)
SV Verein für Deutsche Schäferhunde, the German GSD mother club.
BSP Bundessiegerprufung - GSD German National IPO Championship
BSZS Bundessieger-Zuchtschau World Championship, yearly GSD
ZPr Zuchtpruefung breed survey, recommendation for breeding

Angekoert Recommended for breeding

Rüden Male dog
Hündinen Female dog
Bundesieger Annual IPO or Schutzhund Champion
Körung SV Breed survey.

456
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459
About the Author

I suppose my canine world

persona goes back to the days of my
monthly Dog Sports magazine
column, in the later 1980s. Not
everybody loved me, but even those
who did not turned to my column
first to see what it was that they
were going to be angry about.
Context is important here, before the
internet all one really had access to
was the Schutzhund USA magazine
every couple of months and Dog
Sports, so a monthly column got you
a whole lot of attention. Quite a few
articles also appeared in Dog World.
Now I know all of this is going to
sound a whole lot like bragging, so to
keep it real let us start out with what
I am not. For one thing, I am not a
top-level protection dog training
helper; simply started too late and
was never strong enough or quick
enough to aspire to excellence. Did
some club level training, worked a trial
or two years ago but was always ready
to hand the sleeve over to a better guy.
Nor am I an especially big deal trainer or handler; was always an amateur with a
full time career, which tends to limit the number of dogs you wind up working;
worked with too many real experts not to know my limitations. But we still did
manage to take home the trophies, and all of my dogs were owner trained, many
born on the floor of our kitchen or whelping room.
A great deal of time was spent in Europe, in the Netherlands training with a KNPV
trainer and judge, and in Belgium. In Belgium there was a little bit of work in the old
style Ring jacket, just barely enough to know I was out of my element; but certainly
a learning experience. I have traveled far to see the best, the Cup of France in
French Ring, the champion of Belgian Ring in a regular trial, many KNPV trials, IPO
and Schutzhund many times in the Netherlands and Germany.
Professionally, I hold an MS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and
spent many years in the communications industry with Motorola, primarily with
police and public safety radio systems. Had some fun, did major technical
presentations as far away as Australia and picked up a few patents along the way.
I have trained four Bouviers to Schutzhund III, three of which also became AKC
champions of record and one achieved the advanced FH level in tracking. I was North
American working champion for my breed four times and reserve champion several
more. I have taken a dog to compete in the Bouvier Championships in the

460
Netherlands. We have shown dogs at the Schutzhund III level from California to
Maine, from Florida to Canada and in Europe. I have competed in USCA regional
championships.
Many dogs from our breeding have Schutzhund titles, other working titles
including Bouvier working champion and held numerous AKC conformation
championships. My old Leah was Schutzhund III, Bouvier working champion, AKC
conformation champion and the top group-winning female in the AKC show ring in
1984.
Our Bouvier book was the American breed book of the year and is still the
standard of comparison worldwide. It sold many thousands of copies throughout the
world. I have conducted training seminars for Bouvier groups from Oregon to
Florida; instructed beginning obedience classes in a club situation; and sometimes
consult on problem dogs in my breed. There were various political offices over the
years; I was for instance the founding and longtime secretary of the AWDF, the
American Working Dog Federation.

461
Index
9/11, 179, 359, 369, 383, 390, 397, Battaglia, Carmine, 168
457 Bavaria, 185, 289
A Dog of Flandres, 257 Beauceron, 41, 162, 204, 279, 280,
Adalo von Grafrath, 292 285, 286, 318
Afghanistan, 12, 46, 383, 394, 397 Belgian Ring, 33, 111, 122, 132, 161,
aggression, 61, 63, 64, 70, 76, 86, 98, 164, 180, 191, 213, 218, 219, 221,
106, 108, 110, 113 222, 250, 258, 264, 281, 282, 425
agriculture, 15, 18, 19, 24, 31, 33, 52, Belyaev, Dmitry, 22
76, 256, 399, 404 Berger de Brie, 280
Airedale, 297, 324, 340, 343, 376 Bering Strait, 40
Airedale in Germany, 325 Berlin Wall, 303, 307, 323
AKC, 13, 41, 48, 78, 97, 107, 168, 179, Bernd vom Kallengarten, 312
184, 188, 206, 253, 312, 313, 322, Bill of Rights, 358
415, 418, 421, 422, 427, 450 Bill von Kleistweg, 312
Algeria, 382 bin Laden, Osama, 45, 396
Allgemeiner Deutscher Rottweiler Klub, Black and Tan Terrier, 319
321 Bloodhound, 75, 154, 352, 368, 372,
alpha wolf, 16, 58 392
Alsace, 39, 289 Boerboel, 26
Alsatian, 39, 326, 449 bomb dog, 12, 357, 360, 369
Alt Deutsch Schaferhunde, 293 Border Collie, 27, 34, 35, 36, 38, 44
ambulance dogs, 375, 377 Boston Terrier, 312
American Army, 373 Bouvier des Flandres, 255, 262, 264,
American Bulldog, 26, 27, 29, 328, 330 267, 278, 283, 285, 315, 338, 402,
American Civil War, 238, 374, 463 408, 411, 414, 443, 445
American Indians, 40, 399 Bowles, Edmee, 14, 85, 163, 230, 255,
American Kennel Club, 39, 55, 187, 419, 258, 283
427, 431 Boxer, 270, 310, 323
American Revolution, 26, 238 Brackett, Lloyd, 312
American South, 25, 26, 107, 154, 361, Bragg, Jeffery, 407
372, 373 Briard, 204, 279
American Working Dog Federation, 47, British Isles, 15, 27, 34, 38, 324
440, 444, 482 Bruges, 339
Anatolian Shepherd, 34 building search, 345, 346, 352, 353
Anderson, Myrdene, 23 Bungartz, Jean, 374, 375
Antwerp, 213, 218, 224, 228, 243, 246, Burger, Ken, 354, 365
282, 339 cadaver, 12, 138, 346
Apeldoorn, 369 Caesar, Julius, 208
Apolda, 317, 318 Camp Lejeune, 386, 387
Argentina, 32, 33, 220, 256, 311, 315 Campagne, 286
Aribert von Grafrath, 291, 295 Canada, 190, 241, 311, 406, 422, 449,
Army Quartermaster Corps, 384 482
Assyrians, 371 Canadian Kennel Club, 449
Audifax von Grafrath, 292 Cane Corso, 26
Aus dauerprufing, 305 Canis lupus familiaris, 17
Ausleseklasse, 303 Caribbean, 372
Austria, 57, 311, 320 Carlisle,Ray, 443, 444, 447
Aztec, 372 Cat Island, 384, 385
Baden, 292 Chase et Peche, 228, 402
Baldwin, James, 326 Chastel, Justin, 25, 229, 258, 284
ballistic nylon, 132, 180 cheetah, 20
Balu, Jean-Claude, 173 Chesapeake Bay Retriever, 43

462
Chicago, 186, 365, 368, 430, 443, 446 Dresden, 265, 288, 317
circus act, 20, 21 Drieger, H., 291
civil rights era, 373 drive building, 67, 80, 88, 89, 93, 126
Cocker Spaniel, 451 du Clos des Cerberes, 163, 258, 259
Collie, 343, 374, 376, 400, 403, 421 du Mouscronnais, 281
Columbus, 40 Dutch Police, 270–74
compulsion, 57, 80, 83, 88, 90, 94, 95, Dutch Shepherd, 29, 184, 190, 244,
142, 175, 382 268, 269, 270, 455, 461
conformation show, 401, 407, 409, 413, dysplastic hips, 404, 408, 411
418, 428, 437, 447, 450 ear cropping, 101, 205, 230, 261, 451,
Conquistadors, 372 457
Coppinger,Raymond, 17, 18, 22, 24, 35, East German, 162, 241, 303, 307, 323,
36, 59, 65, 77, 407 409, 414, 453, 459, 461
Coupe de France du Chien d'Utilité, 280 Egyptians, 371
Couplet, Joseph, 217, 218, 229 Eiselen, Anton, 289, 291, 292, 295
coyote, 17, 19, 23, 327 electric collar, 100, 205, 206
crowd control, 32, 111, 345, 361 elephant, 21
Cuban Bloodhounds, 372 Engel, Peter, 263
Czech lines, 308, 309, 414, 459, 461 England, Gene, 311
Czech Republic, 48, 162, 311, 369, 409, English Mastiff, 26, 27
453 Ertelt, Alfons, 176, 186, 430
Czechoslovakia, 185, 307, 308, 311 Eskimo, 23
Dalmatian, 414 Etaples, 376
Darwin, Charles, 35, 52, 404 ethology, 53, 57, 76
de la Noaillerie, 282 European campaign, 387
de la Virginie, 280 Eustis, Dorothy, 51, 298, 299, 340
Debonduwe, Daniel, 280 FCI, 213, 214, 216, 217, 238, 311, 366,
defense, 69, 71, 72, 113, 118 419, 422, 433, 438, 441, 448, 457
Denece, Jean Marie, 285 fear, 68, 69, 73, 113
Destailleur, Leon, 281, 282, 283 fighting drive, 70, 93, 110, 119
Detroit, 48, 340, 455 Fila Brasileiro, 26, 372
Deutshe Demokratishe Republik, 307 find and bark, 354, 355
Diamond, Jared, 21 find and bite, 355
Dickson, Richard, 152 firearms, 26, 39, 45, 66, 108, 154, 337,
dingo, 18, 399 348, 356, 360, 373, 463, 465
DNA, 16, 19, 22, 305, 404, 415, 461 Firestone, Joan, 314
Doberman Pincher, 41, 45, 50, 101, Flanders, 209, 210, 213
107, 186, 241, 317, 318, 320, 321, Fleming, 209, 282
322, 345, 387, 388, 389, 408, 414, Florida, 177, 188, 384, 482
430, 444, 456 food refusal, 56, 93, 104, 205, 272, 333
Dobermann Pinscher Club of America, Fort Belvoir, 385
320 Fort Carson, 389, 390
Dobermann, Louis, 317, 318 Fort Gordon, 393
Dodge, Geraldine Rockefeller, 294 Fort Robinson, 385, 386
Dog Show, 401 Fort Royale, 389
Dog Sports Magazine, 13, 186, 365, Fortunate Fields, 51, 298, 299, 340
443, 444 Fourth Amendment, 358
Dog World, 468, 481 Francoeur de Liege, 224, 258
Dogo Argentino, 26 Franco-Prussian War, 297, 375, 433
Dogs for Defense, 384, 389 Frankfurt-am-Main, 292
Dogue De Bordeaux, 26 French Revolution, 31, 32, 230
domestication, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, French Ring, 55, 111, 130, 132, 180,
52, 98, 399 183, 189, 190, 199, 204, 209, 224,
Donovan, Dominic, 29 262, 263, 272, 280, 281, 282, 283,
draft dogs, 257, 373 285, 413, 425, 456, 459, 460

463
Freud, Sigmund, 53 Himalayas, 34, 230, 400
Funk, Werner, 303, 309 hip dysplasia, 284, 406, 407, 410, 461
Gans, John, 458 Hitler, 239, 265, 301, 384, 420, 433
genetic inheritance, 404 Hoelcher, Phil, 188
German Shepherd, 11, 39, 40, 41, 45, Hoheluft, 458
47, 48, 49, 50, 55, 102, 107, 108, Holland, 163, 181, 197, 199, 216
132, 143, 162, 165, 174, 176, 182, Horand von Grafrath, 291
185, 187, 196, 203, 234, 238, 287– Houttuin, Erik, 14, 42, 201, 443, 444
316, 333, 339, 366, 388, 413, 415, Hull Docks, 325
433, 434, 435, 440, 450, 451 Humphrey, Elliott, 51, 298, 299, 340
German Shepherd Dog Club of America, hunter-gatherer, 19, 20
107, 187, 188, 431 Huyghebaert, 33, 213, 220, 227, 228,
German Shepherd Dog Review, 314 230, 233, 234, 246, 247, 248
German Shepherd specialty, 313 IED, 383, 394, 397
German South-West Africa, 375 Improvised Explosive Device, 383, 397
Ghent, 326, 338, 340, 457, 459, 466 Industrial Revolution, 11, 29, 32, 33,
Giant Schnauzer, 307, 322, 461 37, 38, 52, 159, 208, 213, 219, 231,
Giengen, 291 237, 256, 335, 463
Glock, 364, 366 Instruction School of Service Dogs, 338
Golden Retriever, 75, 93 Internationale Prufungsordnung, 168,
Graf (Count) von Hahn, 288 423
Grafrath, 289 Inuit, 23
Great Danes, 32, 374, 385 IPO, 14, 88, 102, 104, 132, 133, 164,
Greece, 31 165, 168, 177, 182, 205, 213, 250,
Greenland, 23, 384 263, 277, 306, 343, 366, 422, 424,
Greyhound, 43, 154, 318, 319 441, 454, 456, 460
Grief Sparwasser, 290 Iraq, 12, 46, 383, 394, 397
Groenendael, 213, 222, 229, 238, 251 Italy, 26, 34, 230, 241, 311
Gruening, Philip, 318 jackal, 17, 22, 23, 25, 405
Grulois, Felix, 176 Jansen, Jan-Baptist, 235, 243, 244, 248
Grunheide, 338 Janssen, Frans, 424
GSDCA, 187, 311, 431, 434, 435, 437, Jiles, Lee, 14, 254
440 Johnson, John, 29
guardian dog, 32, 34, 35, 215, 230, junkyard dog, 69, 114, 334
349, 400 Justus-Liebig Technical College, 466
Gulf of Mexico, 384 Karlsbad, 185
gunpowder, 373 Karlsruhe, 292
Hanau kennel, 290 Katzmair, Casper, 309
Hannover, 288 Kennel Club (British), 39, 215, 418, 419
Hanrahan, Gary, 311 Kennel Club Belge, 214, 216, 217, 222,
Harold von Haus Tigges, 312 223, 229, 233, 236, 237, 240, 242,
Harras von der Jüch, 300 247, 251, 282, 418, 475
Hasbrouck, Michael, 14, 283 Kevlar, 132
Hecktor von Schwaben, 291, 292 Kingdom of Saxony, 288
Hector Linksrhein, 289 Kippel, Wilhem, 318
Heidenheim, 291 Klep, Ria, 14, 199
Heinz von Starkenberg, 292 Klodo vom Boxberg, 308, 312
Henke, Wolfgang, 309 KNPV, 45, 56, 94, 103, 104, 124, 130,
herding, 15, 23, 24, 27, 30, 34, 35, 38, 133, 142, 164, 179, 184, 203, 223,
46, 99, 149, 215, 219, 220, 226, 243, 258, 259, 263, 264, 270–74, 278,
256, 259, 279, 289, 291, 293, 298, 315, 352, 354, 365, 369, 412, 420,
300, 308, 325, 342, 343, 349, 399, 425, 426, 450, 455, 459, 468
402 Koehler, Bill, 13, 82, 83, 84, 85, 89, 92,
Herrero Campaign, 375 340
HGH, 37, 290, 293, 298 Koer Classification, 303

464
Koler-Matznick, Janice, 18, 19, 21 Miklósi, Ádám, 20
Komondor, 34 mine detection, 149, 382, 387
Kong, 67, 82, 90, 93, 104, 143, 144, Mississippi, 384
149, 383 mitochondrial DNA, 22
Korean conflict, 390 molecular biology, 17
Krisjne-Locker, Caya, 14, 90 Molosser, 25–29, 30, 135, 321, 343,
Krone vom Park, 288 371
Krumpholz, Gustav, 318 Mondio Ring, 191, 286, 425, 426, 456
Kuvasz, 34 Mons, 339
Labrador Retrievers, 12, 149, 383, 392, Moreaux, Edmond, 224, 258, 262
394 Mores Plieningen, 291
Lackland, 116, 202, 250, 366, 367, 390, Morris & Essex, 294
393, 394, 464 Moscow, 18
Laeken, 226, 229, 236, 241, 243, 253 Moses, Jimmy, 313
Lance of Fran-Jo, 312, 432, 459 Most, Konrad, 38, 82, 83, 90, 93, 145,
Landesgruppen, 303 146, 256, 302, 319, 339, 340, 344,
Le Petit Berger Flamand, 282 365, 466
Lechernich, 297 Mouscron, 281
liaison system, 376 Munich, 289, 292
Lichtwalt, Mike, 186 Namibia, 375
Linnaeus, Carl, 17 Napoleon, 282, 287, 372, 373
livestock guardian, 34, 35 NARA, 190
Loeb, Ernst, 458 narcotics, 152, 356, 380
London, 294, 449 NASA, 186, 434
Lorenz, Konrad, 53, 54, 55, 57, 59, 61, Nazi party, 301
71, 72, 76, 77, 371, 404 Netherlands, 40, 160, 164, 181, 197,
Lorient, 280 203, 209, 239, 240, 244, 257, 266,
Los Angeles, 188 267, 302, 365, 438, 454, 460
Low Countries, 28, 38, 46, 215, 219, Neubrandenburg, 288
237, 256, 294 New Orleans, 313
Lowenfels, 263 New York, 340, 341, 342, 455, 456
Luchs Sparwasser, 289, 292 New Zeeland, 33, 38
lynx, 31 night vision, 12, 15, 45, 138, 336, 346,
Malinois, 45, 55, 102, 116, 132, 149, 373, 395
161, 165, 180, 191, 202, 204, 209, Noël, André, 282
228, 246–50, 253, 263, 266, 270, North Africa, 382, 385, 387
280, 284, 307, 310, 339, 364, 394, North American Working Dog
402, 408, 413, 446, 453, 456, 459 Association, 186
Mann, Grant, 312 Northern Illinois Schutzhund Club, 186
marijuana, 151, 152, 356, 370, 393 OFA, 407, 416
Marine Corps, 41, 385, 386, 388, 456 Oldenburg, 297, 375
Marshall Plan, 303 Oregon, 482
Martin, Herman, 309, 451 Orthopedic Foundation of America, 407
Martin, Walter, 451 Ostend, 339
Mass, 238, 298 Otto, Otto, 318, 319
Mech, David, 16, 58, 59 Out of Africa, 22
Meloy, Paul, 440, 442, 443, 444 Pacific Theater, 387
Mesler, Peter, 309 patrol dog, 11, 12, 24, 29, 38, 62, 76,
messenger dog, 336, 376, 378 110, 116, 146, 380, 383, 389, 391,
Messenger Dog, 378 457, 464
Mexican war, 297 patrol vehicle, 46, 110, 341, 345, 350
Mexico, 190 Pavlov, Ivan, 54, 57, 92, 93
Meyer, Artur, 289, 292 Pearl Harbor, 377, 384
Middle East, 19, 112, 116, 179, 359, Peninsula Police Canine Corps, 185
369, 457

465
People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, Saami, 23
205 Saarbrücken, 320, 339, 340, 466
PETA, 205 sable, 308
Peter von Pritschen, 298 Sabra Dennis of Gan Edan, 314
Pfeffer von Bern, 312, 458 Sagen, Betty, 186
Philadelphia, 163, 298 Saltz, Art, 313
Phylax Society, 165, 288, 292, 300 San Jose, 185
Phylax von Eulau, 288 Saphir du Grand Maurian, 280
Phylax von Waldenreut, 288 Satory, 376
Picardy Shepherd, 41, 182, 204, 279, Savolainen, Peter, 22
280, 286 Schellenberg, Dietmar, 186
Pilot III, 292 Schoenherr, 338
predation, 15, 31, 36, 63–67, 75, 76, 98 Schutzhund, 168–73, 174, 176–79, 182,
Preiser, Herbert, 186 185, 186, 187, 188, 191, 194, 196,
Presa Canario, 27 200, 203, 205, 224, 240, 250, 261,
prey drive, 60, 64, 67, 70, 92, 93, 149, 263, 264, 277, 293, 298, 299, 302,
199, 264 303, 315, 322, 328, 423, 430, 434,
profiling, 358 440, 451, 452, 457
prong collar, 91, 100, 101, 457 Scott, Alan, 29
protection sleeve, 115, 119, 120, 124, scout dog, 380, 381, 385, 389, 391, 392
127, 129, 130, 133, 171, 331 Secret Service, 360, 390
punctuated equilibrium, 405 sentry dog, 69, 375, 380, 384, 389,
Purebred Dog, 400 390, 391, 394
Putney, Marine Captain William, 386, Settegast, Otto, 318
387, 398 sheep, 15, 16, 23, 31, 32, 34, 36, 66,
Pyrenees, 34, 230, 400 77, 99, 219, 324, 400
Quando von Arminius, 452 Shoeburyness, 375, 376
Quartermaster General, 385 Siberia, 23
Raad van Beheer, 267, 277, 424, 425, Sieger, 291, 292, 295, 299, 300, 303,
460 309, 312, 318, 320, 432
radio, 12, 45, 104, 110, 336, 341, 345, Sieger Show, 292, 303, 307, 320, 414,
358, 378, 379, 456, 481 452, 461
Raiser, Helmut, 415, 452 Siegfried and Roy, 21
reindeer, 23 silver fox, 22
Remington Arms Company, 294 Skinner, B.F., 52, 54, 59, 340
Reul, Adolphe, 32, 219, 227, 231, 233, South Africa, 25, 26
235, 292, 401, 450 Spain, 31, 266, 311
Richardson, Edwin, 324, 325, 375, 376, Sparwasser, Friendrich, 289, 290, 295
377 St. Bernard, 374
Riechelmann-Dunau, 288 St. Louis, 42, 188, 444, 447
Riedel, Gernot, 185, 187 Strategic Air Command, 390
Roesebeck, Kurt, 309 Stuttgart, 291, 292, 320, 467
Roman Catholic, 209 Supreme Court, 358
Romans, 25, 27, 31, 34, 45, 164, 321, tail docking, 101, 205, 230, 261, 451,
371 457
Rose, Nicholas, 251 taming, 15, 21
Rose, Tom, 122, 146, 188, 194 taxonomy, 17
Rottweiler, 26, 27, 28, 33, 38, 41, 47, Taylor, Lt. William T., 388
50, 101, 102, 107, 159, 188, 191, tending dogs, 34, 36
199, 241, 264, 315, 318, 320, 321, Tervuren, 252, 253, 254
322, 330, 427, 429, 443, 447, 461 The German Shepherd Dog in Word &
Royal Prussian Police Headquarters, 339 Pictures, 293
Rummel, Cristoph, 309 The Koehler Method of Dog Training, 89
Russian Revolution, 26 Third Reich, 181, 301
Russians, 377, 388, 397 Thuringian, 289, 291, 318

466
Thuringian Shepherd Dog, 290 Vietnam, 109, 149, 345, 356, 380, 390,
Tinbergen, Nikolaas, 57 392, 393, 397, 456
Tischler, Goswin, 318 Visum von Arminius, 452
tracking, 137, 138, 140–46, 146, 169, vom Arminius, 451
178, 191, 220, 228, 340, 351, 381, vom Brenztal, 291
392 vom Haus Schutting, 309
trailing, 140–46, 146, 154, 157, 352, von der Krone, 291
392 von der Sarr, 320, 345, 467
Training Dogs, a Manual, 82, 339, 466 von der Wienerau, 451
Treaty of Versailles, 298 von Grönland, 318
Troll von Richterbach, 312 von Löwenfels, 456
Trox,W, 303 von Otto, Ernst, 292
Tulasne de la Genesis, 285 von Stephanitz, Herta, 295
Turkey, 31, 230, 294 von Stephanitz, Max, 31, 40, 162, 165,
Turnhout, 161 169, 176, 182, 227, 237, 238, 288,
Ulk von Wikingerblut, 312 293–96, 297, 300, 301, 302, 344,
under bite, 323 401, 435, 450
United Schutzhund Clubs of America, von Stephanitz, Otto, 294
42, 187, 207, 434, 440 von Thuringen, 318
United States, 294, 297, 310, 311, 328, Wachsmuth, 290, 291, 295
340, 360 Wagner, Anna Maria, 289
United States Air Force, 390, 391, 393 Wakefield, George R., 340
United States Army, 379, 383, 385, 386, Walkie-Talkie, 336, 379
387, 389, 390, 392, 393 Walloon, 33, 208, 209, 213, 218, 238,
United States Coast Guard, 384, 385 251, 281, 298
United States Marine Corps, 41 Warner, Lucien, 51, 299
USCA, 187, 194, 196, 197, 203, 311, Wattrelos, 281, 282
434, 435, 436, 440 Westminster, 314, 430
Utz vom Haus Schütting, 312 Westphalia, 31
van Wesemael, Ernest, 38, 220, 221, wolf, 15, 16, 17, 36, 59, 60, 75, 99,
338, 450, 466 230, 324, 399, 405
Vander Snickt,Louis, 215, 228, 231 wolf and dog crosses, 20
Verbanck,Felix, 229, 255, 258, 416 Wurttemberg, 291
Verband fur das Deutsche Hundewesen, WUSV, 311, 420, 433, 434, 437, 441,
303 453
Verein für Deutsche Schäferhunde, 292 Zalaegerszeg, 310
Verheyen, Alfons, 224 Zamb von der Wienerau, 452
zebra, 21

467