In the daily mail today I have read an article that says the police are changing from GSD's to Rottweilers because the GSD is now being bred as a  "family" dog, not a "police dog" and the Rottrweiler packs more of a bite per square inch GSD's 750lb's and inch Rottweilers 1000lb's a square inch. Any views from GSD owners or Rottweiler owners?
Karen

Our local police force were in the local rag the other day with two new recruits- both Rotties :-)

Stacey x x x

To be honest I was appalled to see the item in the paper.  The piccie of the calm GSD and then the piccie of the Rott slavvering and teeth shown - very sad.  The comment about their temperment annoyed me as well,  they said Rotts are aggressive and Jealous which is rubbish.  Having owned Rottweilers for 19 years and trying every day to portray them in a positive light its very disappointing to see this in a national newspaper.  I'll get sooooo much grief when walking my Alfie  :(

My niece who is 10 was staying here and this morning looked at the paper and said "thats not fair showing a happy dog and an angry dog," I too feel sorry for Rottweiler owners they seem to have a hard enough time already without this being added.
Karen    

Warwickshire police dogs kennels / offices are based on the same premises as where I work. They don't have any rottis that I'm aware of. I recently went to West Mids police kennels for the day. They had loads of dogs there mainly GSD's / spaniels a few labs and a few unusual breeds, but when I was there I only saw 1 rotti who was a beautiful dog.  :)

Heard it on the TV yesterday and thought how sad for the breed it will do nothing to help the responsible owner and encourage the irresponsible to own one for the worst of reasons.

You took the words right out of my "fingers" Jackie.
Karen

Sorry Kazz :) happens to me all the time because I have to do a spell check :D

the police will more than likely swap back to gsds again though just as they did from bsds back to gsds.
We have on our firm a couple of rottis but mainly we have gsds, the rottis are great but more often than not have what we call 'having a rotti day' by this we mean they dont wish to do anything that they are told to do, a dog that will normally clear a 6ft scale will sit at the bottom and refuse to budge, which can be embarassing for the men esp if we are giving a demo :D  for this reason the men that have the rottis tend to have a gsds in case of a 'rotti day', but id also like to add all our rottis are approachable and live with and have contact with kids on a daily basis, they are lovely family dogs and the breed will without any doubts suffer because of the high profile publilicity that they are getting at present :(
tanya

This is such a stupid thing. They are changing from GSD to Rottie because they have a bigger bite??? I thought that the dog was to 'hold' the suspect not 'bite' them, maybe Im wrong but is that not different?

kat

In Edinburgh the newest police dogs are Malinois so we must be behind the times. Our local man has a lab sniffer dog ( ex stray) an older GSD and his recently licensed Malinois while his missus now has a house dog as he calls her a PJR also a rescue. His little girls tell me solemnly that Millie (PJR) is a house dog for playing with and Daddys dogs are working dogs :) 

I disagree totally with the Rottweiler being used as a police dog as it will only fuel the bad image they currently have.  Articles that have appeared over the last few days have amply illustrated it.

Having said that, it's up to us as owners to go out and prove their nature (e.g. PAT work).  Complaining to the press achieves nothing other than stereotype the owners, we need to put across positive aspects. 

Sadly my PAT girl Doris is no longer with me but that is my ultimate aim for Grace above anything.

I know my local police force has tried Dobes, Rotties, Mals etc & have always gone back to the GSD

All the Rotties(with one exception but that was the owner not the dog)would be too soft to be effective as service dogs. They deserve a much better press than they get

My cavaliers have several rottie girl/boy friends who are so gentle with them when my boys get rough(& yes they do get very rough)

I ujdged a lovely Rottie from scotland in obedience who was such a sweetie he could ofetn be seen under several layers of BC/WSD at shows being used as a pillow

German Shepherds are used because a good one is a fabulous all rounder.  Has courage, can hunt, track etc... and fulfill all the requirements of a pd.  However, they are becoming more and more difficult to aquire despite breeding programmes and have notorious health problems. Other breeds are being considered predominantly for this reason.

I understand what you are all saying, but why do you all see the police using Rottis as such a negative thing?
I think they are so intellegent & if they can be trained to be useful dogs within the police force, then why is that so bad?
The dogs they will be taking on, pressumably (sp) will be youngsters that have become available for rehoming, which have been "gifted" to them - so if they can give them a good working life then why not.
I don't think it will give any worse impression of the breed.
The GSD is a fantastic all purpose dog, used for agility, police work, Guide dog work, assistance dogs, obedience & on & on, but people know that most GSD's are of a sound temperament & people don't think all GSD's are temperamentally unsound - just because they are used by the police.  :)

Because of the way it is publisised.

Whatever breed of dog used by the police should not attract bad press.  Police dogs have to have a steady temperament to be able to mingle with the public in crowds like football matches etc... without lunging and snarling at everyone who walks past.  A lot are approachable and usually swarmed over by kids after displays/demonstrations etc.... when they get a chance to 'meet the dogs'. 
The Rottie already has its reputation and the breed being used by the police will neither add or detract from that.  The military have been using them for years.

Lara you and I know that but the media present a different picture. I hate what the media do they use such emotive language not just when dogs are news but all the time. Nothing is dangerous it is lethal, a dog does not bite it savages, people are not concerned they are devastated, they are not worried they are distraught.

As some one who has in the past had several of my dog's progeny bought by the police I'm suprised at these health problems the GSD is supposed to have, if the police only used gifted dogs I could understand as apart from VW, haemophillia & HD you cannot really test for health problems such as Cancer MD etc

My local police force have only GSDs & the gundogs for drugs etc work. They are testing BC's for the sniffer dogs work as the springers etc seem to be retiring earlier & earlier. They have no problems with health as they use mainly dogs from known pedigree backgrounds & have very few long coats now(a few years ago they were nearly all long coats & gift unknown backgrounds)

One prison I know prefers BC's for the sniffer dog work as they can be trained to protect themselves & the handlers after one paring of ESS & handler was attacked & the dog injured

The prison service is drawing away from using border collies because of temperament problems.  They are generally not accepted any more for passive work due to the number of bites on the public.
Cost cutting is what it boils down to generally when I'm talking about health problems.  Most dog sections are controlled by budgets and xraying and testing costs money.  A lot of dogs are found to have hip or elbow problems later and retired early or do not complete their training costing hundreds of pounds and have to be replaced.  A gift dog is free but can have problems - a dog from a working strain breeder can be a safer bet but hundreds of pounds versus free is often an issue.  False econonmy - yes but ours is often not to reason why :rolleyes: 
Sniffer dogs are not trained to protect their handlers unless they are dual purpose patrol dogs.

Not the prison unit I know They have no temperament problems at all with their dogs & after a knife attack on a handler by a prison whose ESS was also knifed & which then stopped working they only have BC's(bought not gifted from working lines)They are trained in protection & the oldest which is still working is 11. The ESS & Labs are retired long before this age so on a buget basis the BC work out a lot more cost effective. They retired three labs at 5 with PRA & two ESS were retired at 6 & 7 hardly cost effective to get 3 & 4/5 years working.

7 is the normal age for a dog to be considered for retirement whatever it's breed.  There are no guarantees with any breed as to how long it will remain working.  German Shepherds will be taken for training up to age 2 and retired aged 7 so 5 years working life is perfectly normal :)

Not for the police dogs that were by my dogs nor their puppies either The prison unit I am speaking of took on the labs at two at a very high cost I must add & all three had to be retired at 5 becuse they had all developed(not the same time)PRA(I think is is GPRA that Labs have. The springers were expected to retire at 8 but they seemed to just run out of steam & turn offworking all together. On the other hand the BC's according to the handlers anyway seem to go on forever.

However I bow to your obvious total knowledge of all the prisons in the UK & Ireland Lara. ;) who am I to counter what you say

Unusual for them to have taken Labs on at 2 to train for sniffer dogs Moonmaiden.  They must have been desperate.  Most handlers would rather start off with a much younger dog at around 6 to 12 months :)

Yes the press does tend to dramatise everythingto get a reaction from the public Jackie :rolleyes:
The dog a lot of dog handlers would like to work is the Malinois.  They tend to be tougher and more hard hitting than any of the others.  They aren't for everyone though as they CAN be quite a handful to live with and control. So Edinburgh is not behind the times having this breed.

if the police hadnt have gone about publicising in the way they had about using rottis, there wouldnt be such an uproar,
2 of our semi retired rottis are excellent dogs, they are as good as if not better all round dogs than gsds, but as i said they do have 'rotti days' one of our rottis was beaten around the face and head as a youngster in order to make him aggressive, as a result you have to earn his trust before he will let you in hte same room as him, but he is an excellent work dog, he can scale walls etc do agility, track and he is a trained cadaver dog, in fact when Danielle Jones went missing, reisers services were used to help search the fields and ditches near to where she lives. The other of our semi retired rottis was rescued from a house were she had been left with a staffie to fend for herself when they were found somebody had food on them and the two dogs had a fight as a result a rotti that was the size of a springer was taken bleeding and just able to stand in to the vets where it was discovered she was pregnant, she had the pups and the pups are on still on the firm, Gucci can also track and is trained to find firearms, but again she trusts very few people,
rottis do make all round dogs but bad press does them no justice
tanya

GSD's also have those 'days' when they switch off Tanya :D  That's when you're likely to hear 'He's never done that before' :rolleyes: :D
I think it's more like a dog thing rather than breed specific unless Rotties get it more often :)

the rottis tend to be the worst for it at work, Tefa being the main culprit, he can scale, and do the hurdles etc, but if he is having a rotti day then he will run at the jump and run in to it rather than over it :D, then is normally the time he is put away to save injury, on the other hand the gsds love it, obviously i dont know whatthey are like on sites but up the training field you cant keep them off the agiltiy course and all scream with delight on approaching the field, we were doing a demo a couple of weeks ago and in the training before hand, Tefas handler was saying to him that Emma his gsd is showing off and can jump higher than him, (hoping to make him feel bad :D ) but tefa refused and it was decided that as he was having a rotti day as far as agility and general obedience was concerned that he was taken out of the demo, much to his disgust, but of course most dogs do switch off but we have found rottis can more than most :)
tanya

I saw the advert and as a lot already have said, the advert again is typical of the tabloid press!  Slavering vicious Rottie and a  awww cutie  looking GSD!  What are they trying to prove!!!  Infuriating!

I have also heard that the Malinois is more suitable for policework, faster, sharper and a more allrounder than the Rott. Let s hope they don't start overbreeding them now!! 

I have 2 beautifuls Rotts, big huge teddy bears, made for cuddling. Incredibly people friendly but I do believe as with any breed, what you put into them, you get out of them!  I have had GSD's as well, trained them myself to policestandard, and still they were the most beautiful pets you could have. 

There is a story I have heard about my own breed, it is said that during the war the RAF tried using Elkhounds as guard dogs because they look the part and have a big and carring voice, and as far as warning of any strangers on camp went they fullfiled their role. But they had to get rid of them as there was no way they could be persuaded to bite the intruder :) Don't know if it is true but it is typical.