Fair enough comment IMO.

The thing is, the best of us make mistakes - so how can we expect a dog to never, ever make one?

Also, it's illegal to walk around with a firearm or a knife - and yet a PP trained dog is a lethal weapon! People get into silly fights all the time - can THEY be trusted not to use their 'weapon'?

But people walk around with Dogs all the time - who could also be lethal weapons.....even with no training!

But on that same token, an untrained aggressive dog is also "lethal weapon" in the wrong hands. It is likely that they would present far more of a risk than an extensively trained protection dog.

That being said, I really don't see why the average person would have any need for a personal protection dog. If you were a single person in a high risk area, very rural area, etc., I could perhaps see it. But your Average Joe in pleasant suburbia? I don't get it.

If you listen to the anti-dog brigade, ALL dogs are a lethal weapon.

Did you not read the article I posted? I thought it made it very clear how the kind of 'drive' working dogs have, can be controlled and properly channelled.

Given that the same working strains of the same breeds as used by PP trainers can be bought by anybody, without being PP trained (and no wish to do so), why do you think those who have been PP trained are potentially more dangerous?

.. reminds me of 'he's tasted blood now'.......

Come on you know it's not the same. Having a dog who could attack on command - it's a bit worrying :/

No I missed it - what's the link MM?

Just want to add that I am ambivalent about the whole PP thing - just seeing the amount of numpties doing it lately just made me think about it all.

No - in some ways its worse. It is much more likely if someone has trained their dog to attack on command they will have trained it to stop as well

http://www.suzanneclothier.com/blog/...s-and-steering

It applies to ANY dog with ANY kind of instinctual drive, whether that be guarding, herding etc.

If you own a breed that has a natural instinct to guard, chances are at some point in that dog's life, if you haven't taken reasonable precaution against it via training, or channelled it into something else, it will guard... end of.

That can mean just scaring someone silly, or at the other extreme, misjudge a situation and wade in with teeth. I am not just talking about the 'obvious' guarding breeds here - many breeds can and will guard - toy breeds, terriers, many more.

Same thing might happen if you live in a sheep-farming rural area and take on a breed with a high prey drive. Actually where sheep are concerned, just a strong chasing drive is enough to frighten ewes and cause them to abort, so the cute BC/working sheepdog puppy you bought from a farm might look the part, but is extremely capable of causing a lot of damage.

To the sheep, that's a loaded weapon, unless you understand the breed and take steps to prevent it happening.

The stats on the two sentences in bold.

From your response I'm assuming it is purely just your opinion then? I only ask because the way it was written was statement like, which implies it was fact, rather than just what you personally had witnessed.

There aren't any stats by the sounds of it though, so I guess it's back to the topic!