Q&A with ‘The Paw Man’ (403) – Alsations??? Faye Bellamy Why do the forces use Alsations for attack dogs mainly, any idea? Paw Man Alsations? Wow I haven’t heard them called that for years. Up until about 10 years ago the humble German Shepherd Dog (occasionally referred to as an Alsatian) has been the dominant and preferred breed for Police Dogs all around the world. Given the many and varied uses for Police Dogs the breed used must be versatile and suitable for a multitude of tasks. The GSD is a guarding breed and quite intelligent as well as being suited for working in a wide range of climates. The breed has what is known as ‘command presence’ which means that the very sight of it commands serious attention. However the fiasco that was caused when the breed standards for the British, European and US versions of the GSD (some of whom were referred to as Alsatians by those who had anti-German feelings at the time) were combined basically created Hip Dysplasia in the breed to the point today where the condition in the breed is beyond recovery. The working life of a working line GSD dropped to about 8 years before the dog’s hips caused physical impairment to some degree, usually causing the dog to end its working career. About 15 years ago another breed of dog began to gain popularity in the Police Dog sphere. The Belgian Shepherd Malinois began to outshine its GSD cousin by virtue of the fact that they have no hip problems, live on average 5 years longer and are faster and more agile than the GSD. There is no doubt that Mals as they are known have a much greater stopping power than the GSDs. From an organisational standpoint the Malinois represents great savings just by virtue of having to replace it every 12-14 years as opposed to every 8-10 years. Many other breeds of dog have been trained up to Police Dog standard over the years and in fact any breed of dog can be trained up to that standard…… but an attack trained Toy Poodle has no command presence whatsoever……. I know that for a fact as I trained one Even the humble Labrador can be trained to attack but again it has very little if any deterrent effect. Great Danes and Giant Schnauzers can also be trained as Police Dogs but then we come up against issues like shorter life span for large dogs and the logistics of transporting large dogs around. So you can see that for the role of Police Dog the chosen breed has to meet many different criteria, some that are only relevant to the handler and others that are relevant to the organisation as a whole.
Posted on: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 14:18:09 +0000
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