Why aren’t Dobermans or Pit Bulls or Rottweilers recruited more by the police and military? Are they just junk-yard dogs?
Actually, more police/military dogs are Belgian Malinois and Dutch Shepherds these days… dogs are chosen from working lines with good health tests that can perform their job well. Most people think "police dog" when they see a GSD or a Belgian or a Dutch so folks will leave them alone and/or not panic when they see them.
Dobes are a working breed but are very, very tall with long legs – hard to fit into a patrol car! Rotts are just too big and the "bully" breeds were never, historically, bred to be as responsive to their handler’s instructions while the herding dogs needed to obey instantly. All of these breeds have and do serve as police/military dogs but there are few breeders consistently producing dogs from these breeds FOR police/military jobs.
The "problem" is self-feeding: police departments don’t look for those breeds because they haven’t found what they were looking for in the past, breeders don’t breed for the working instincts needed for police jobs because police don’t search out and buy these breeds and the drive needed for a working dog is 10x what most pet homes can handle.
The military uses and has used all of these breeds for years (a bully-type dog was promoted in Sargeant in one of the World Wars and most of the marine’s elite canine force were Dobes) but they just don’t make them like they used to (and they just won’t fit into a patrol car like they did into an amphibious vehicle).
Tags: Rottweiler, RottweilersTags: Rottweiler, Rottweilers
Of all dogs, German Shepherds are one of the breeds with the best smelling sensitivity, and they are very intelligent, so they can be trained easily. Therefore, they are perfect for police work in that they can be useful but can be controlled easily. They can be brutal when they need to be, as well.
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i guess cuz they have all around good traits.
like being fast, withstand cold or heat, big, strong.
wow, im turning myself on.
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Dobies have not as strong of legs and bones,theyre finer built,pits,honestly most of them are too much like teddy bears,though you do see one every once in a while,and rots are sometimes used,but theyre very short statured.
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cause they can smell better.. duh
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German Shepherds like to please and are one of the most intelligent dog breeds. But not all German Shepherds make the cut…they have to be really play-oriented. Also they’re pretty intimidating looking…they look like wolves. Police also like to use Belgian Shepherds too!
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german shepherds are very loyal and will do anything possible to please the owners, and they are super intelligent making them easy to train. they also have very strong noses and sense of smell. they are good police dogs because they train easily, are eager to please and can smell very well. dobermans, pit bulls and rottweilers aren’t recruited by the military because they don’t have as strong a sense to please owners, they are more independent.
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Well I dont really know. That is a question we should all be thinking of. Next time I see a police, I will ask. I hear German Shepards can smell real good and other things from there.
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I don’t know it seems like a hound of some sort like a bloodhound or beagle would be better at that sort of thing.
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german shepards are known for the scent capabilities. they are one breed that can be trained to recognize a certain smell. they are used because of this capability. Unlike any other breed, they can tell the difference from many smells and can recognize many as well. Police use them to find drugs, or a lost person. they just smell and object and recognize it as good, bad, or need to find. Like smelling a shirt of a missing child in the woods
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myself vet tech
Honesly they aren’t at least in my area most of them are Mals or Belgian Sheepdogs. You don’t see Dobies or Rotties much in police work because it is becoming harder and harder to find one with the correct temperament and drive to do the work. You still occasionally see a Doberman or a Rottweiler and even the occasional APBT used in police work (not sure if the military still used them or not) but the overwelming majority are Mals, GSD, or one of the other Belgian Sheepdog breeds because those are the breeds that tend to be bred for the work in greater numbers making it easier and cheaper to find dogs with the temperament and drive to do the work.
That of course applies only to dogs trained for patrol work (apprehension, handler protection etc) For dogs trained only as detection (sniffer) dogs a large number of breeds and even mixes are used.
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I bet statistics are out there some place, but I don’t know that it is the case that most are German Shepherds. They do show up in most pictures, but when I’ve seen them live they have been all kinds of dogs, even mixed breeds. As long as they can be trained for the job, a dog would be eligible.
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Contrary to what you may have heard, Shepards bred for police work are f*cking stupid (ask ANY officer how many times they’ve been bit by their own dog), which makes them easily trainable. Most police dogs are bred to perform that one job, and as a result will perform it very well. The main reason, however, is their sense of smell.
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Actually, more police/military dogs are Belgian Malinois and Dutch Shepherds these days… dogs are chosen from working lines with good health tests that can perform their job well. Most people think "police dog" when they see a GSD or a Belgian or a Dutch so folks will leave them alone and/or not panic when they see them.
Dobes are a working breed but are very, very tall with long legs – hard to fit into a patrol car! Rotts are just too big and the "bully" breeds were never, historically, bred to be as responsive to their handler’s instructions while the herding dogs needed to obey instantly. All of these breeds have and do serve as police/military dogs but there are few breeders consistently producing dogs from these breeds FOR police/military jobs.
The "problem" is self-feeding: police departments don’t look for those breeds because they haven’t found what they were looking for in the past, breeders don’t breed for the working instincts needed for police jobs because police don’t search out and buy these breeds and the drive needed for a working dog is 10x what most pet homes can handle.
The military uses and has used all of these breeds for years (a bully-type dog was promoted in Sargeant in one of the World Wars and most of the marine’s elite canine force were Dobes) but they just don’t make them like they used to (and they just won’t fit into a patrol car like they did into an amphibious vehicle).
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German Shepherds do not have the best scent detection. That honor would go to the Bloodhound, but they are not suitable for other aspects of Policing.
GSDs are known to be above average in several different areas, instead of excelling at just one. Plus they are very trainable and intelligent.
Dobermans and Rottweilers with suitable temperment are very difficult to come by nowadays. Those that do are often much too expensive.
I do agree with others that GSDs aren’t the only breed. Malnois and Dutch Shepherds are quickly becoming just as popular.
As for bomb sniffing or other detection dogs, GSDs are used but many other breeds are also used. Labs tend to be very popular for this type of work. Any dog with a suitable drive can be used for such.
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the GSD in my pic is a K9
[BK]: If you are a vet tech, how come you write "german shepard", showing ignorance of the breed’s HERDing function, and ignorance of how to punctuate the English language?
[Garry]: Anyone who is deliberately bitten by his/her own dog is not fit to be a dog owner – sadly, that DOES fit some PD handlers. Especially in areas where they deliberately choose over-aggressive pooches instead of training dogs that have the ability to discriminate between friend & foe. In my country nearly all the PDs are bred in the police’s own kennels (they buy a few to replace PDs killed in action, and accept donations although few donated dogs graduate from the training courses), and all the wannabe PD handlers are trained there – not all of THEM graduate, either!
[paul h]:
Every GENUINE breed was developed for a purpose.
In most cases, the purpose is explained in the breed’s International Standard, although breeds that have lost their function (as have the Toys – they USED to be to punish the fingers of anyone who attempted to grope m’Lady’s "interesting" bits, to attract m’Lady’s fleas off her, plus for m’Lady to talk to) no longer bother listing it – like the Bulldogs and the Dachshunds and the Terriers that have had their functions outlawed they have become show-is-all pooches and/or pet-is-all pooches.
But for the breeds you are interested in, read the Standards in http://www.fci.be/nomenclature.aspx (sorry, the PBT is not a recognised breed, despite being on the banned list almost everywhere that BSL is in place!) For breeds developed in non-English-speaking countries, find them by function and then by country – that site lists breeds by their original homeland names.
It so happens that the sheepdogs – of which I recognise 3 kinds – are the ones required to show the most initiative during their working day.
•• Collies – of which the Border Collie is el supremo – are usually worked under tight sound control, the shepherd being with them and either shouting or whistling his signals. But there are MANY times each day when the Collie must use its own initiative as to how closely to push the "bubble" around the flock, when to dart between 2 sheep so that they go in different directions, when to run across the back of a penned mob because it is needed on the other side. And NZ’s most famous Collie – name of Friday – was left to rustle a mob of sheep while its owner established an alibi getting drunk in a pub elsewhere. As dusk fell, Friday would round up the sheep and muster them through the mountain pass its owner had discovered to a hidden valley, and hold them there to graze and fatten until McKenzie came, whereupon the sheep were driven to a sale & sold. The Sheltie was originally a Collie-Spaniel cross. The Australian Shepherd is actually an Iberian Collie. Collies are VERY trainable, but they are lightweight dogs with fine bone, so lack the physical strength/robustness for police work against felons with bludgeons, etc.
•• Shepherd Dogs, of which the 2 varieties of German Shepherd Dog are best known, followed by the 4 varieties of Belgian Shepherd Dog. As the two breeds were developed to perform the same tasks, with little between them except the River Maas, it is not surprising that they look so similar – their foundation ancestors were almost identical. But being by far the more popular, the GSD has been changed more by show-is-all and pet-is-all and DogSport-is-all people than have the BSDs. Their task was to start and end each day droving like a Collie – taking the sheep along roadsides to wherever they were to graze that day. But for the 8-to-14 hours in between they were left to patrol a boundary line between sheep and unfenced crops while the shepherd got on with other tasks. Sometimes the boundary line was a furrow, sometimes it was marked only by dog & shepherd walking a track in the grass before the shepherd left. The dogs had to protect the crops from the sheep, and had to instinctively protect the sheep from4-legged and 2-legged predators. See why the Shepherd Dogs HAD to have immense initiative? A friend’s GSD stopped a bulldozer that tried to cross the day’s boundary line, and kept the driver there until the shepherd arrived to say that it was okay. Most of them also lived their nights with the shepherd, so became VERY attuned to pleasing their humans – which we call "trainability". That combination of initiative & instinct & trainability is why the BSD and GSD are so versatile, and can do just about ANYTHING that a trainer might ask, whether that be a farm task or a police task or a guiding task or a search-&-rescue task. And both are identical in size the males ranging from 59 to 66cm (23¼ to 26"), the BSD being superior for nimbleness, the GSD for power.
I hear rumours about the genetic background of the Dutch Shepherds, but I know no-one who has them, so won’t comment.
•• The guardian breeds, such as the Anatolian, Komondor, Maremma, Puli. Most of these are designed to blend in with t
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