Do you really think there are enough experienced people out there to give all those dogs a new home.

Unfortunately , if these dogs have been trained in a certain way , and to respond to "bring down" "bite" on command.

How do you rehabilitate them for the future.

Lets say the trigger word is "cheese" and the new owner, or anyone for that matter happens to say "cheese" at any given time.. and the dog attacks.. what happens then, who do you blame, would the outcry be , the dogs should never have been re homed!!!

I don't know enough about protection dogs, hopefully Shona will be along to give her input.

But my guess is , when you train a dog for such work, you will have to take the unforeseen future circumstances into account.. and maybe , these dogs are just not safe enough to re home.

Or maybe with work they would be, but is the risk worth it... I dont know.

YES, i do believe there are enough. For example lets not forget the amount of ex dog handlers, currently employed dog handlers and also the people who have a vast experience of dog training. Also, the forces will accept a dog as long as it meets a certain criteria.

I do train protection dogs - i have also had to rehabilitate biting dogs and i have also been bitten by working dogs. My gsd is a trained protection dog but you allow for circumstances - my boy will play quite happy with my friends kid or allow himself to be petted by anyone. However, if it's someone we don't know, they are asked not to approach or else we will just avoid the situation. Trigger words are actually pretty easy to de-train. To be honest - in an innocent situation, it would not be construed as a trigger due to the way the dog has been trained.

But you are assuming all those people are willing to take one of these dogs on.

40/50 protection dogs is a hell of a lot of dogs to re home in specialised homes, and I would also assume that mos of those specialized homes will already have 1 or 2 dogs themselves. its asking a lot to expect them all to be found homes.

You have said yourself , they need to go to specialised homes, I am sure you would not recommend a dog that has been trained for attack/protection, being re homed to a normal family home.

To many dogs, to few homes, and sadly only one solution

I do agree but i also disagree i'm afraid. Whats worse - 40/50 dogs pts or maybe 20/30 of them managing to be rehomed?

Also, you can place protection dogs in normal family homes - if the correct retraining is done and it is treated as a normal dog not a 'biting machine'. If you think about it, a large majority of the dogs that you see patrolling are actually integrated into family life - work is work, home is family time. It's only when you get the idiots that want teeth on a chain you are asking for trouble. They don't deserve dogs, let alone family.

Don't get me wrong - NOT every dog is suited to be put into a family but it's worth someone taking the time to find out which ones could be.

What a very sad situation, but it sounds like a fairly unavoidable one I feel.

I volunteer in GSD Rescue and we are really struggling at the moment to rehome any of our dogs who even have small issues, never mind finding homes for dogs trained to bite

But those dogs will have been integrated into family life for a very long time, and will also (more importantly) be with the handler who will (or should ) know that dog inside out, along with the fact many will live in a kennel, so in affect outside the family home.

Owning /training and handling a dog that has been trained to bite is one thing, but re homing one to a "normal" home is irresponsible in my book.

I agree work and home life are two different things, but what happens when the dog hears the trigger word to "attack" /"bite" , can you guarantee a dog can be 100% desensitized to never responding to what triggers it to bite.

Personally I think this is a very sad situation, but there are far worse things that can happen to a dog than being PTS... a sad tale but inevitable

The whole set up of using aggressive dogs as guard personal protection dogs is totally wrong. Any dog that is to be trained to do protection work has to have a 150% temperament, you cannot train a truly aggressive dog to safely do protection work.

The first few police dogs were rehomed agressive dogs & even quite recently the police & service dogs were taught the bite as their first exercise in training. Most now fortunately are trained in control first & when thecontrol is in place then focused protection work is trained.

The majority of "gifted"dogs to the service training centre actual fail on the control & health & are often PTS if the original owners do not want the dog back.

I think looking at how much they want for the dogs for sale on their site(including £500 for a nervous dog !!)& the actual dogs I wouldn't think any would be suitable for pets no matter how much training they receive. I certainly wouldn't want an aggressive dog that had had the aggression channelled into biting humans

VERY TRUE - there are still some people under the misguided conception that personal protection dogs should be aggressive first and foremost - SO WRONG!!!!! The dog has to have a totally stable temperament and should be able to be approached. It reacts to handler or to the situation if it takes a threatening turn. These dogs are a joy to own and life life in the family.

Due to the guard dogs act and others - even dogs used in the security business should be controllable and trained - unfortunately, the system is in a shocking state and this is not the case. Joe Bloggs could take an untrained dog to work and say he was trained. As long as you hold an SIA licence then thats deemed acceptable. There are people trying to change the industry but it will not be in this lifetime i fear.

here in lays the problem, there are plenty of 'normal' dogs looking for homes,

In my opinion you cant re-home a trained attack dog. I have kaos whos trained and wouldnt consider re-homing him,
I have never trained vinnie to attack the whole reason being the implications it has to the dog, I dont think I will ever have another fully trained attack dog,

there are some people who can take these dogs on, but they are few and far between the legal implications of homing these dogs could be massive,

so I guess my attitude is, beware before you train a dog to bite.

Dogs are being destroyed Daily Rescue centres are over flowing with friendly Dogs that cant even be found Homes ... where would these Dogs of Gone if Rescued?