
Originally Posted by
LuckyOne
I am teaching my dogs to bark because I want them to be guard dogs. Do I need to train them to attack and release on command? I would even have them trained professionally if neccessary. ..
Sorry to derail, but NO!!!
Even teaching them to bark is going to cause you problems later.
Teaching them to attack is a death sentence for them.
From: http://www.savegsd.org/images/RescueNews_Fall07_v3.pdf
Dagwood
S
ometimes adopters wonderwhy we ask
them to go through so many steps – an
adoption questionnaire, a phone interview
and a home visit – before adopting one of our
dogs. German Shepherd Dogs are not the right
match for every home. They generally require
owners who will make them part of the family,
exercise them on a daily basis, and who will
communicate and enforce clear boundaries on
behavior. If those requirements are not met,
behaviors such as excessive barking, jumping on
people, or even aggression, can result.
The GSDs we see in shelters often display negative
behaviors because of owners who were poor
matches for this breed. Our dog evaluators do
an extensive temperament evaluation before
pulling a GSD from the shelter. They then have
to make the difficult decision as to which GSDs
seem safe to adopt out to families. German
Shepherds that do not pass our temperament
evaluation, often due to aggressive or highly
under-socialized (extremely fearful) behavior,
are tearfully left behind.
Even after our temperament evaluation, we still
do not know what issues we will find with any
given GSD. Some are so shell-shocked
from being in the shelter, they don’t
show all their behavior issues until they
have been out, sometimes weeks or even
months later. It is important that we try
to put all our dogs in foster homes before
adopting them out, so we can get to know
them better.
Dagwood is an example of a GSD who
easily passed our temperament evaluation
in the shelter. He was a dream to foster:
submissive, playful, goofy, good with other
dogs and easily trainable. He seemed like
he would be easy to place in many families. But
when one potential male adopter came to meet
him, Dagwood unexpectedly snarled as the man
reached out to pet him.
Nothing in Dagwood’s previous behavior
gave any indication that he would exhibit any
aggressive behavior. He had met several other
men previously and had seemed friendly. He did
not alarm bark even when the foster home dogs
were barking. He even seemed to ignore strangers,
such as the PG&E meter reader. But as a result of
his display of aggression, we took Dagwood to a
professional dog trainer for an evaluation.
Under low provocation, the evaluator made sure
he had Dagwood’s attention and walked a few
steps toward him; Dagwood attacked and tried
to bite the evaluator. Dagwood went through
a few more tests; after each one, the evaluator
noted how fast Dagwood would recover from
his agitated state. According to the evaluator,
Dagwood was basically a stable and good GSD
who unfortunately ended up with a misguided
owner who had made him dangerously and
unpredictably aggressive.
The evaluator thought Dagwood had previous
training in personal protection, but the training
was poorly applied. As a result, Dagwood turned
into a dog that would attack when something in
the approach of a man reminded him of his
previous “training”. The truth was that Dagwood
was about as far from a personal protection
dog as you can get, in fact he was only attacking
to protect himself. Nonetheless, he was too
dangerous dog to live with a family both because
he was strong and unpredictable, and
because it would be very difficult to separate
him from all men (relatives, acquaintances,
etc.) that have access to a typical family.
The professional trainer recommended that
Dagwood be put to sleep.
This was devastating news to those of us who
knew Dagwood and especially those who saw
his goofy, submissive, lovable behavior. However,
all the professionals that were consulted,
from the positive reinforcement trainers to the
police dog trainers agreed he was not a safe
dog; any large, strong dog that attacks on its
own decision is dangerous. It seems odd that
relatively few dogs can be trained to actually
bite a human. The fact that Dagwood would
attack to bite, and only when he felt threatened,
is what made him so dangerous. And so, tearfully,
the decision was made to put this young, otherwise
loving, dog to sleep.
So, why do we go through so much effort to
match the right dog with a potential adopter?
It is for all the Dagwoods out there, and all
the rest of the dogs that we have to leave in
the shelters…almost all of them because of
what their previous owners have done to them.
We want these dogs to have the kind of life
they were meant to have, the kind of life that
Dagwood was meant to have, before he ended
up in the hands of his misguided former owner.
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