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Location: God's Own County
Joined: Apr 2005
Posts: 7,584
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Originally Posted by
labradork
I was thinking that. It is all very well saying they are a shepherding breed and are not supposed to be 'guard/protection' dogs, but how many GSD's are actually used as sheepdogs? not many I'm guessing. Surely there is a reason they are the dog of choice for police protection dogs, security (with handlers), protection based dog sport...?
Perhaps not here in the UK, especially as sheep are not driven to pasture on a daily basis as they are in Germany, also they are not "strip"grazed here as they are in Germany.
GSDs are not "sheepdogs"as understood here in the UK, even their shepherding trials are totally different to the sheepdog trials seen here in the UK
The UK is not the only country that has sheep & certainly in the Netherlands, Belgium & Germany their native breed sheep are not usually worked in the same way as here in the UK.
Why are GSDs favoured by the Police etc ? because they were bred to be tractable(willing to be trained) They only became popular after WWI before that the armed forces dogs of choice were Airedales, there were no Police dogs before WWI other than Bloodhounds used to track felons.
The Russians developed their own breed for use by the security forces, the Russian Black Terrier & just as other guarding breeds were developed in other countries
If you go back in history dogs that fought alongside the Armies were not the shepherding breeds they were the Mastiff type able to bring down a man or a horse unaided-even the Romans had"Dogs of War"
You have to bear in mind not just the nature of the breed, but also the law & some of the traditional guarding breeds are no longer suitable for purpose-not just because of health issues, but also their distinct lack of tractability & short working life.
If GSDs are a guarding breed why were they the first breed to be used as Guide dogs for the Blind ?? Bad press & poor specimins of the breed here in the UK lead the Labrador/Golden x Labrador etc to become the breed/crossbreed of choice.
The first school for training such dogs was established by the German government after World War I for the benefit of blinded veterans. Schools now exist in several European countries and the United States, where the pioneer Seeing Eye, Inc., founded by Dorothy Harrison Eustis in 1929 and established near Morristown, N.J., in 1932, is the best known. The master spends about a month at the school training with the already trained dog and is usually charged a nominal fee
. Although the German shepherd is by far the most widely used breed for guide-dog work, several other breeds, e.g., the golden retriever, the Labrador retriever, and the Doberman pinscher, have been trained successfully for this work. Approximately 10% of the blind population can use seeing-eye dogs successfully, that fraction including scores of persons who have achieved new independence through their assistance. Applicants may be rejected on the basis of sufficient useful vision, advanced age, poor health, or unsuitable temperament.
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