Amax-1

Good choice!! Realistically, dogs are an issue for people up to no good and bad guys make it their business to know the breeds most likely to give them grief. GSD's are the most widely used breed in protection roles globally and even if the individual dog isn't that good in a protection role, the bad guy never knows the training that could be on that dog. Perhaps a seemingly calm GSD may let the bad guy over the fence, and then nail him when he's in the yard? Bad guys are always wary of GSD's by default and they don't have to show hostility where other breeds often need fence fighting hostility to be taken seriously. Straight back GSD's are predominantly working lines and the reputable breeders work test them. A good rule of thumb in working line breeding's is looking to see how far back the bitch lines go without Sch/IPO titles. If grandmother isn't Sch/IPO titled is a good indicator they are making puppies and not breeding trait tested dogs. Unfortunately many working line breeders don't train and work females to determine breed quality.

Anyone noticed entire "black" male Labs for some reason are generally more on the slimmer side?

The breeders of working line dogs need a reason for particular mating's ideally to enhance trait weakness in their base stock and then linebred back onto that. Many simply put dogs together and make puppies creating further trait weakness and degrading breed quality away from the breed standards. A good working line breeder will know the bitch inside out, what her weaknesses are and why a particular sire was selected and how they envisage the litter will produce better than the bitch. :)

What are you after, a pet or working dog, Monsimbee breed both show and working lines by memory? I'm just looking for a family pet! You are best with a showline GSD and there's probably about 50 puppy listings on the main Dogzonline page, most are showline. Best advice is DON'T buy a BYB GSD, a papered pup from reputable breeders experienced in the breed is worth the money IMHO. Working line GSD's can have high drive and are hard to handle in some bloodlines taking dedicated training to mould them into desirable pets.

What are you after, a pet or working dog, Monsimbee breed both show and working lines by memory?

Being a breeder doesn't necessarily mean they are on the level and over the years I have experienced many duck for cover when something goes wrong particularly if a refund or payment for medical costs is looming in supply of a faulty pup. Personally, I think the breeder is best empowered to keep it off a forum by addressing the buyer's concerns in a professional manner and sadly not all breeders are accommodating once the sales transaction is made.

Funny thing is, crims most fear GSD's and Rottweilers who don't need to show any aggression as they are never sure of what training may be on these breeds. Bull breeds need to be aggressive to be taken seriously by crims knowing they are not historically trained for defensive manoeuvre. Bogans with aggressive bull breeds annoy the hell out of me when they could have a stable GSD or Rotty for intimidation in the back yard with a greater margin of public safety. Machoism presented though bull breeds, my default thought is ^%&*head :laugh:

Pure breed Dutch Shepherds can be ANKC registered if their paperwork is ANKC compliant and a lot of dogs competing in KNPV sport are FCI registered dogs, but the Dutch crossbreeds are they typically call KNPV bred Malinois and Dutch Shepherds are not. The two FCI Dutch Shepherds I have come across were chronic yappy barkers in their back yards, not sure if it's a breed characteristic, but the neighbours I doubt would enjoy this pair much in suburbia?

Dutch KNPV bred dogs are crossbreeds consisting mostly of Dutch Shepherd, Malinois, GSD and sometimes guardian breeds used on outcrosses then bred back into herding breeds, so the Chris Jones Dutch Shepherds can't be ANKC registered. Pure bred Dutch Shepherds generally have more drive than a working line GSD but less than a Malinois. Often breeders of cross breed Dutch Shepherds sell them as Malinois when the pups are fawn with black muzzle and the coloured one's in the litter sold as Dutch Shepherds and are usually bigger dogs than pure breed Malinois standards. Some are great working dogs if you don't need typical kennel club registration.

You don't know until the dog bites. The epic failure of a police dog is one albeit trained to bite doesn't bite at it's first live deployment. Realistically, you can have an educated guess that a dog showing strong territorialism is likely to bite to employ extra vigilant management, however a relative calm dog generally good with people, can't really be predicted.

Dogs are pretty good at relieving stress and neutralising anger, anxiety and sadness and they good at causing stress when they are playing up too :laugh:

I would be hard pressed to believe there were not carrying on behind the fence and were more than likely not enjoying the attention from the kids. It's quite possible the victim or friends were teasing the dogs firing them up more.......kids often do that on my side fence albeit there are no gaps for little hands to protrude into my yard for the dogs to make contact, but it's not uncommon for kids to wind up dogs behind fences and think it's good fun.

Many severe dog bites particularly involving children often occur with dogs assumed to be bullet proof causing the dog owner to lack supervision in child/dog interactions and this bullet proof dog suddenly bites out of character usually from a child doing something stupid with the dog. In most cases when a dog is known to be of aggressive tendency, the dog owner is extra vigilant with the dog and human interaction, so in actual fact, less actively aggressive dogs cause biting incidents than the assumed bullet proof dog who bites out of character. The point is, any dog can bite particularly children who don't easily read the body language of a dog that adults read. Would any of us here stick our hand under the fence with a dog showing territorialism? Of course not, but this poor little girl did?

Bidability and high prey drive in combined trait is what gets a dog intense on handler induced prey items and makes the training of handler focus easy through distractions. Dogs high in prey drive for live prey who will barely chase a ball and have little interest in prey item reward for desired behaviours, the prey drive they have is in the wrong place to support a training in drive foundation. Prey drive without bidability is more a training hindrance than an advantage.

Familiarity with human interaction dilutes aggression towards humans, but a dog doesn't have a sensory inhibition to bite because someone is human or a child. Dog aggressive dogs can be fine with a another dog they live with, yet tear a random dog apart given the opportunity, so the dog in this instance may have bitten from either prey drive or territorial aggression albeit a human hand under the fence didn't belong in the dog's territory.

I agree, handler stress makes a big difference! That is one reason I really liked LAT, it really helped to reduce my stress levels. Previously I had been trying to correct aggressive behaviour, which made me stressed and looking at her behaviour through the lens of do I need to correct her, but with LAT my mindset changed to look for opportunities to reward her, and it made a huge difference in my attitude and stress levels. The only problem with LAT is that it's an avoidance exercise which doesn't teach the dog that aggressive lunging isn't tolerated and because you cant train every scenario where the dog may react, they can revert back to aggressive lunging in circumstances they feel insecure. You can successfully train in LAT for causal walks and average environmental challenges, but fix lunging dogs properly, they need to fear correction as a consequence. Having said that, the level of leash correction isn't pleasant and loving dogs, hard corrections isn't something you feel good about doing so, yes, that does elevate stress enormously. Ecollars and prong collars reduce handler stress in correcting dogs creating their mass popularity in aversive based training methods. Slip collars are better to remove reactive drive from a dog is what Cesar Milan does with "his leash".....as the dog starts to take a reactive mindset, he applies an air block if you watch closely, the dog's mind is then on breathing and not reacting at the other dog. The dog learns over time that the thought of reacting aggressively he/she develops breathing issues....primal instinct determines the dog shall breath above all else is how air blocking correctly timed eliminates reactive behaviour.....however it's not something an in-experienced handler/owner can easily get right. LAT has it's merits as a good compromise to lessen reactivity episodes in general handling of the dog. :)

The other scenario is the thief knew the dog well.........owner may not be saying that, but you never know? Thief may have threatened to take the dog over a disagreement and when he did, the owner published the video and reported it to get his dog back? I don't know how someone could randomly roll up at any house leash in hand and waltz out with someone's dog. Every single dog I've owned (which includes one GSD) and every dog I've ever fostered would have happily walked off with any person who gave them an ear rub or a treat. The average pet dog is not some highly trained guard dog, taught to reject food from strangers or aggressively defend itself from theft. I don't know how anyone could assume otherwise. Unless a GSD has been purposely bred to eliminate protection trait, no stranger will enter it's yard and walk off with the dog......a bitch (show dog)who finished in 3rd place at the GSD Nationals a couple of years ago nearly bit me the other day until the owner came out to calm her down. There are a couple of male show dogs I know who will do the same.......these are good stable dogs anyone could handle in the owner's presence but a stranger getting them out of their backyard, good luck with that

Handler stress has a lot to do with it.....years ago I had a GSD I thought I had fixed in reactivity, he was fine with me but he continued to lunge when my wife handled him.......problem was, my wife at 46kg was lighter than the dog and she stressed about controlling him if he really went off...she was worried about him biting someone ultimately. I put a muzzle on him and of course my wife's stress level reduced by half and the dog was fine. It was an eye opener at the time 18 years ago now how much effect that handler stress had on the dog's reactivity threshold. Another stressor is a handler tightening the leash when someone approaches......obviously the handler wants to make sure they have good leash control if the dog does try to act out, but keeping the leash loose with the dog at heel ignoring the approaching person or dog will raise the reactivity threshold. Here comes someone, so pull the dog in tight on the leash suddenly and stress about it alerts the dog to potential threat that the dog is already insecure about with the handler's actions intensifying the dog's insecurity.

Personally at 4 months I would expose her to more people.....take her to the shopping centre and start out around the perimeter and slowly move her in as she gains confidence but keep her under threshold. Shopping centres are great for exposing pups to people and environmental factors, cars, noise it's all there to put to good use. Over time, you will be able to walk her around the footpath amongst people and she will take it all in her stride. Shopping centres are one of the best places I have ever found readily available for desensitising reactive or nervous dogs to environmental elements and people. :D

No, pups at 4 months old are not mature enough to be protective and in actual fact especially in working breeds what people think is protective, is usually the dog acting aggressively from insecurity and weak nerves. Aside from territorial aggression, a Shepherd breed shouldn't act aggressively untrained unless directly provoked or they sense handler fear. What often happens with reactive dogs who initially show aggression from insecurity is the handler fears the dog will light up or lunge at someone making the situation worse. The situation where the dog is a bit short on nerve and feels insecure at the approach of strangers or other dogs, then the handler tenses up worried about the dog lunging aggressively, the dog thinks it's a real threat to be dealt with and then you potentially have dog who wants to take everyone's head off on a casual walk around the street. When the dog is a Shepherd or a protection breed, people often misconstrued which is essentially fear biting as police dog candidate of toughness and strength. Tough hard nerved dogs couldn't care less what's happening around them as they have the genetic confidence to override fear and you have to train them to bite people or apprehend offenders. The same dog on a different training path could be a therapy dog at a children's hospital as the toughness and nerve strength in such a dog caps aggressive reactivity. :)

The other scenario is the thief knew the dog well.........owner may not be saying that, but you never know? Thief may have threatened to take the dog over a disagreement and when he did, the owner published the video and reported it to get his dog back? I don't know how someone could randomly roll up at any house leash in hand and waltz out with someone's dog.

Poor Beau doesn't meet the breed standards and neither would his parents. Territorial aggression although unfitting for a reliable pet is what a GSD must have to comply with the breed standards. A GSD who could pass breed suitability testing would have instinctively bitten the thief and caused him injury in those circumstances. Great to see he was found and reunited with his owner and is safely back home

This was one of the 'similar' pairs I was thinking of. Also SBT and Amstaff or Pit Bull. It's funny when you actually get to know the breeds in question how you realise what the differences are. I can understand how people who aren't familiar with either mistake them, but on even looks alone if you saw a Mal side by side with a GSD it would very obvious they are different breeds! I have always loved GSDs though, ever since I was really little. But now I have experience with both breeds I know GSDs wouldn't suit me that well. You haven't experienced the "right" GSD's yet.....albeit they are hard to find, but there is not much difference between them in a working capacity and general behaviour. Having said that, my next will probably be a Malinois given the right traits in a Mal are more readily available :)

I agree Amax but prong collar and correction chain is a dirty, horrific word to some people because the label says it like it is and is not a marketing scheme. We see horrific car accidents in the media on a regular basis demonstrating what happens when cars are not driven properly, yet we continue to drive cars, but we don't use check chains and prong collars for what reason is mystifying when you know how to use them properly? Sure they can injure a dog when misused just as a head collar can

Fair enough, but that's the least of your worries if a protection trained dog bites someone causing injury. QLD, VIC & SA protection trained dogs are considered dangerous dogs which therefore must be housed accordingly with that of dangerous dogs which are effectively no use in home protection.