| David,
For your information, police and military dogs live with their handlers' families everyday. K9 police handlers take their service dogs home all the time, once they are off-duty, to share their lifes together with the family (normally with children).
See, to train a dog in personal protection the candidate has to be a dog with an even sound stable temperament. A "flash fire" attack dog is not a personal protection dog. An attack dog is a guard dog (a.k.a. "junkyard" dog). This kind of dog has no comparison to a protection trained dog at all, and it has no place in a family setting (you can do an engine search on the "guard dog" issue by using this board too).
Thousands and thousands of personal protection dogs live with families including children. Is a protection trained dog safe with a family? The answer is an unequivocal YES! Providing, of course, that you got a well-bred dog, from the right pedigree lines, and it's properly trained by a real pro. That's the whole key to it.
Protection dogs are not vicious overly aggressive dogs, those are "junkyard" dogs and, obviously, they have no place in a family environment. This is where the confusion comes from: most people erroneously believe that personal protection dogs are attack dogs. They are not the same and should not be confused knowing the differences between the two.
[This message has been edited by German Vanegas (edited September 06, 1999).]  |