Chapter 15    Commentaries

While the show dog enthusiast, the exhibitionist, is a politician to the very core of his soul, the typical sport or police trainer is in denial, just wants to train his dog in oblivious ignorance.  But grasping politicians control and define affairs on the sport field as well as in the show ring,  and the consequence is the watering down of all trials and all breeds under the auspices of a conformation oriented national or international entity such as the FCI or the AKC.  It is not a coincidence that the most conspicuously prospering lines are the Malinois under the KNPV in Holland and the NVBK in Belgium , both independent organizations by and for the most serious working dog people.   Beyond the success in the major national suit style venues, the KNPV and the NVBK, the Malinois is beginning to predominate at the major IPO championships, anyplace there is open competition, forcing the German Shepherds to retreat to their private venues, such as the SV National Working Championship and the various WUSV events. 

More fundamentally the robust character of the second rank of working breeds, those beyond the GSD and the Malinois, is being incessantly trivialized and eroded as a direct consequence of national organizations in the hands of the canine exhibitionists and politicians.  These once noble breeds — these Dobermans, Riesenschnauzer and Bouviers—are becoming pathetic caricatures of the visions of their founders.  Even  the German Shepherd is protected more by enormous numbers than responsible leadership, for most of the German show lines are on a par with the mediocrity in the lesser breeds.  If you doubt any of this, go to a major AKC beauty show and watch the German Shepherds slink around the ring.  And if you think the cancer is contained, that we can coexist, go to Germany and witness a major SV conformation show.  

Political manipulation is at the core of conformation exhibition, every judge is essentially a political agent because that is what is necessary to obtain a license and more to the point judging assignments.  In America professional handlers are important not because of skill in presentation, but because they are political brokers and manipulators, trading money, favors and influence for the ribbons and tin cups of value only to those whose lives are so empty that such trinkets have meaning.  Political control of the conformation show process goes hand in hand with control of the registering entities, and play and show dog control of these organizations is how the Schutzhund trial is becoming emasculated with ever shorter courage tests, the removal of the attack on the handler and a scoring system that has gone from focus on the courage test to the point where a dog, at the championship level, can fail to engage on the long  bite and still only lose three points and thus rate excellent, obtain the coveted V.  Complacency is how breeds such as the Doberman and Bouvier des Flandres are being pushed over the edge with European bans on ear cropping and tail docking.  By allowing national and international organizations run by little old ladies, many equipped with vestigial male organs, and Cocker Spaniel and Poodle exhibitionists control over our working trial rules is how we wind up with so much emphasis on control that a dog touching a sleeve at the wrong moment is to be dismissed rather than given a minor point deduction.  If you leave the rules to the politicians, do not complain about the consequences.

The Euro Cabal

In the advent of our national working dog awakening we looked to Europe for dogs, leadership, knowledge and the helping hand up; and this was right and good for it was in central Europe — Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands — where the transformation of a millennium of evolving herding dog service and culture into our protective heritage breeds had taken place.  It is because of the foresight and leadership of men such as  Konrad Most and Max von Stephanitz in Germany and Earnest van Wesemael and Adolphe Reul in Belgium that we have the police, service and military dog culture of today, which has taken the canine partnership with mankind to new levels.

Little did we know in the seventies and eighties as our idealistic quest gathered momentum that the new generation of leadership had feet of clay, that even then betrayal was lurking in high places of the Verein für Deutsche Schäferhunde (SV), the mother club of the German Shepherd.  These heirs of von Stephanitz, these Germans on our pedestal, were abandoning his credo "form must follow function" in favor of their own new credo: "beauty is what we say it is and good enough rather than excellence is to be the motto for work."  And, of course, should good enough get to be a problem they can always further water down the Schutzhund trial, for they hold the keys of the kingdom for good or for evil.

The result of all of this was the gradual but incessant and now far advanced division of the German Shepherds of the mother land into show lines and the working lines.  Cavalry Captain von Stephanitz would without doubt roll over in his grave.

Thus during the later half of the twentieth century the world of the SV, the German Shepherd, was increasingly dominated and transformed by a cabal of new men focused on the form, structure and external appearance of the German Shepherd with a concurrent, gradual, incessant loss of focus on the working origins of the breed. 

Perhaps the penultimate instance of this were the Martin brothers, Walter of the von der Wienerau kennel and Herman whose kennel was vom Arminius.  Walter was the guiding light, the architect of the new German Shepherd, and Herman was SV president from 1984 until 1994, only two years before the passing of both brothers within weeks in the fall of 1996.

Incest was endemic at the top, for when Walter’s dogs became Sieger it was Herman in his role of SV president who was making the selections and handing out the trophies, when he was not actually selecting his own dogs, as in these Sieger selections:

1986 & 1987         Quando von Arminius           SZ 1547134

1992                   Zamb von der Wienerau       SZ 1696277

1996                   Visum von Arminius             SZ 1789549

Like the passing of the King naked from the waist down with no one having the courage to point out the lack of pants but one small, innocent boy the Shepherd community, especially the fawning American conformation dilettantes,  incessantly glorified and deified these self serving bureaucrats who had inherited the mantle of von Stephanitz and used it for their own aggrandizement. 

From the beginning the test of work, the Schutzhund trial, was the foundation of the German Shepherd Dog.  But in the second half of the twentieth century, slowly, subtly at first but with ever gathering momentum, the Schutzhund trial was incessantly made less demanding for an increasingly predominant conformation oriented segment of the breeding community.  The process was insidious, subtle in the beginning; pressure was put on judges to be a little bit lenient, on the helpers to moderate their intensity, to go easy on a weak dog because of his promise for the show ring.  In the eighties the export market, especially the American market, for titled dogs put a cash value on even mediocre or less titled dogs, creating another group with an interest in a watered down trial.  The rules were modified a number of times, decreasing courage test distances, making the scoring less demanding, introducing the padded stick and entirely eliminating the attack on the handler.  Thus both the letter of the law and the spirit of the law were incessantly weakened.

A primary factor was that any local club can run a trial, selecting their own judge, their own trial helper and their own trial field.  Sometimes this is blatant with unannounced, essentially secret, mid weak trials.  In America we have had instances of Schutzhund judges showing dogs owned by others in Schutzhund trials for payment, an obvious and blatant conflict of interest.   (These were German DVG judges and trials, USCA has always had strict non professional rules for their judges and in general been much more diligent in this area.) Shopping for the lenient judges became more accepted, and judges not going along did not get along, found their judging engagements decreasing.

Historically the SV system depended on an over all sense of integrity and peer pressure to maintain sufficient standards of correctness and rigidity in the judging system.  SV officials could and did monitor the performance of judges and maintain standards.  But as the upper levels of SV administration became more and more show oriented there was an ever diminishing tendency to maintain standards.  When the leading conformation kennels are those of the SV president and his brother, our old friends the Martin boys, the opportunity for lowered standards becomes obvious.

In contrast to the SV system, the Dutch police trials are region or province wide public events with three certified judges and two certified trial helpers, usually from outside of the particular province.  If you want to certify your dog, there are one or two yearly opportunities,  there is no such thing as shopping for a friendly environment or lenient judge.

At a German Shepherd conformation show in this country, presided over by a German SV judge, I saw the American helper doing the attack on the handler test in a professional, normal and entirely fair way.  After the second dog showed marked insecurity there were complaints, a quick conference with the judge and the helper was instructed to go easy on the dogs, that these were "show dogs." This is not an aberration or an unusual occurrence but rather business as usual.  We never saw the helper again.

There were in Germany in the eighties well documented cases of breakfast table trials, where all of the paper work was made out and sent in, producing Schutzhund titles for dogs never stepping foot on the field.   Much of this was for exported dogs as well as the conformation breeders, the Americans being seen as too ignorant to know the difference, which was only partially true in that some knew but just did not care. 

In the nineteen eighties I witnessed a German SV judge pass two dogs bred by his host, the German owner of an American kennel who was also the trial helper, which did not receive stick hits.  Now one could give the benefit of the doubt and postulate that the helper "forgot" and the judge did not notice, but when it is two dogs bred  by the helper and all of the others were tested it became quite obvious.  At the time I was still new and naive enough to be astonished by all of this.  On another occasion I witnessed another German dog importer beat a bitch unmercifully in full view of an American judge and then walk the thirty feet that separated them to report for the obedience exercises.  The judge pretended that he just didn't see, for the man's place in the Schutzhund world was such that he was afraid to challenge him. The "club" which is in reality the commercial adjunct of a business enterprise has been an ongoing and increasing problem. 

The final plea of von Stephanitz had been "Take this trouble for me: Make sure my shepherd dog remains a working dog, for I have struggled all my life long for that aim."  But these arrogant and self centered men, this evil cabal, had watered down the working requirements and culture; under their stewardship this noble breed had been openly divided into two lines, their beloved conformation dogs on the one hand and the working lines upholding the heritage of the breed in police service and on trial fields around the world on the other.  The dike has been breached and the Malinois waits in the wings.

Thus over the past forty years control of Shepherd affairs in Germany has been increasingly in the hands of the show breeders, who have taken control of the SV and dominated its leadership positions.

This trend has not been without resistance and there has been increasing strife within the Shepherd community.  Working advocates such as Dr. Helmut Reiser have struggled to fight back, gone to the membership to seek club office, winning office, and then being sabotaged by the entrenched show line establishment.  Reiser has significant support, enough to elect him as national breed warden of the SV which meant that he would judge the females at the Seger show.  This struck fear and panic into the heart of the  SV elite, which found a way, legal or illegal, to remove him from his office.  When you start striking at your own you are in serious trouble.

Much of the resistance has been passive, men breeding their working dogs in the old ways for the old reasons, still valid, still in the spirit of von Stephanitz.  Enclaves of the original heritage held out in the old East German Democratic Republic, the Check republic and among elements of the Belgian breeders and trainers.

Numerically the Shepherd in Germany is in free fall, registrations falling by half in the past decade, and the SV bureaucrats and office holders are floundering, for their cushy jobs and prestigious offices are at stake.

This discussion is focused on the German Shepherd for good reason: the huge numerical predominance of the GSD in Germany and around the world.   GSD German registrations for 2006 were 16,908, which is ten times larger than any other working breed, and the predominance on the trial fields is even more overwhelming.

The sheer power of the SV in Germany and its influence around the world through the WUSV, the export of breeding stock and the foreign service of SV Schutzhund and conformation judges is from an historical perspective without compare.   But this power and this prestige and this influence is waning, both in numbers and in moral authority, for the corruption, arrogance and hubris at the top of the SV is increasingly apparent.  It is as if Judas had staged a coup and installed himself as pope in the place of Peter.

In the Netherlands the KNPV prospers and the dominance of the Malinois on its trial fields continues.   The Schutzhund style IPO training has been taking root and expanding in popularity since the nineteen seventies,  and much of the  training and competition is at a world class level.  While the KNPV dogs and training are increasingly gaining respect, and profit, around the world the FCI affiliated Raad van Beheer and the Dutch conformation community is every bit as oblivious to working character as the AKC world in America .

The Belgians have always been animal trainers, and at the forefront of the protective heritage working dog movement.  They led the way in the police dog application and the Belgian Shepherds, particularly the Malinois, were on the trial fields and police forces as soon or sooner than the German Shepherds.  The Flemish created the Malinois which became the basis of the French working dog world and the KNPV and the Bouvier des Flandres with a population base of approximately six million compared to a German population over eighty million, and twice in the twentieth century were subjected to a German atrocity which severely damaged all aspects of Belgian society, the canine community included. 

But in a way the Belgians have been lost in the shuffle.  The Malinois has gone on to stardom in the French Ring and on Dutch KNPV fields, but the Belgian ring trial has fractured into three organizations, none with any serious international visibility.  The NVBK people are belatedly beginning to seek an international presence, particularly in America , but the Belgians have always been a day late and a dollar short.

From many years of personal experience I know well that the three main Bouvier des Flandres clubs in Europe have never been the least bit serious about the working heritage.  The Dutch club is in a way the most honest; although they pay a little bit of lip service, the typical breeder could care less about character or work, and would rather sweep it all under the carpet as an impediment to pet puppy sales.  My involvement came at a time when the Bouvier was the fad dog in the Netherlands , for a couple of years registering over ten thousand pups in such a small country.   The Belgians and the French spout noble words, but it is nothing more than lip service.

The Malinois and other Belgian Shepherds are interesting in that thinking back over the years I can not recall anybody mentioning a breed club in any country.  They are there of course, you can look up names and address on the internet, but they just don’t seem to matter.  Perhaps we need to look into this and see how it works, having national breed clubs disappear from sight would be an enormous blessing in most breeds — perhaps there is something we could put in the drinking water at the various conformation specialty shows.

Although for many years dominated by the German Shepherd, beginning in the 1960's the Malinois came to dominate the upper echelon of the French Ring, which is a world onto itself with perhaps the most purely sporting character, in the good sense, of any modern system.  The French are certainly much more idealistic and much less greed and money driven than the Germans, and partially because of this much less successful in projecting their dogs, trial system and canine culture beyond their own border.  While this sporting nature is in general admirable, the world also has a need of well rounded lines of police dogs, and increasingly this means dogs capable of searching, tracking and substance detection, that is, duel or multi purpose dogs.  The fact French Ring ignores  this olfactory capability completely is a serious limitation in the evolution of functional police capable lines.  For these historical reasons, the French have had much less influence on would wide police deployment practice than the Germans, Belgians and Dutch.

Twenty or thirty years ago there was talk of the SV breaking from the FCI and leading the world’s Shepherd clubs, in the WUSV, on their own course.  At that time there was more difference between the Schutzhund and IPO trials and the world union was strong.  This opportunity was allowed to pass, probably because of fear on the part of the national clubs and fear that it would interfere with the profitable export market, especially the lucrative American market; for weak and greedy men in Germany and elsewhere would have leaped at the chance to make new clubs and yammer about "dissident" clubs; and the AKC would no doubt have hung  tough.

This was a fateful decision at a critical moment.  In Belgium courage did  prevail, and in 1963 the serious Malinois and Ring people spurned St. Hubert and the FCI to launch their own registry and their own ring trials system under the NVBK banner.  I have great personal admiration for these NVBK Belgians, for their courage and for their love of their breed and their working way of life.  In the years to come, this may be seen as a turning point.

Thus while  the KNPV and NVBK have stood true to the heritage,  remain as organizations devoted to working character and realistic on the field performance, the Germans have been in decline and denial, with GSD puppy registrations in free fall, dropping by half in a decade. Corresponding drops also are taking place in the other protection breeds.

Historically there were significant differences between the German Schutzhund trial and the FCI IPO, with Schutzhund putting more emphasis on a hard core breed suitability test of the dog and the more show oriented IPO emphasizing control and obedience.  Under political correctness pressure and plummeting GSD numbers these two systems have become virtually equivalent, but this has come about by an incessant and continual lowering of standards seeking an ever sinking lowest common denominator to accommodate show line breeders and play trainers who just do not want to deal with hard core dogs and hard core people; would rather peddle soft commodity level dogs to pet owners and play trainers.

And as the FCI has become more like the AKC, the SV has become more and more dependant and controlled by the FCI.  As the FCI has watered down the IPO rules, the SV has in lock step made similar changes to Schutzhund.  The ever shorter courage tests, the incessant increase in points for procedure and obedience rather than courage and initiative, are watering down the culture.

The removal of the attack on the handler from the Schutzhund I protection routine is a perfect case in point.  Why was the attack on the handler removed?  Because no matter how much pressure they put on the decoy to ease off weak dogs were increasingly failing the exercise.  Now the way it is supposed to work is that the trial reveals the weaknesses in the breeding stock and the breeders go home to solve the problem through breeding and training, fixing the problem and allowing everybody to live happily ever after, or at least until the next weakness crops up.

But increasingly the European show breeders, who want to sell more and more pet dogs for more and more money, are through the political process changing the program so that weaker dogs can pass rather than breeding better dogs.

The result is that an era of increasing demand for serious police and military dogs, especially in the wake of the nine eleven atrocity and the prolonged middle east engagement, more the urban guerrilla war police action from hell than a classic military confrontation, the traditional working lines under the unholy alliance of the SV show dilatants and the FCI are falling out of favor.

The ever increasing presence and prestige of the Malinois, standing in the wings for a century, is the consequence of this incessant watering down of the German Shepherd.  The modern heart, the driving force, of this Malinois surge comes not from Belgium but from the Dutch police training fields.   Even in Germany police trainers and administrations are becoming disillusioned ;  in a competition that has always been theirs to lose, the SV leadership is finding ways to lose.

Thirty years ago the Belgian Malinois was almost unknown in America and particularly in American police service.   Today it is increasingly becoming the dog of choice, for a number of reasons both good and bad.  Although in the pre WWII era many of the original dogs coming to America were Belgian shepherds and even a small number of Airedales, and in the twenties and thirties there were Dobermans in police service, prior to the nineteen sixties the over all numbers of police dogs were extremely small.   When the real build up came in the sixties the GSD was fully recovered from the war with for instance 23,000  puppy registrations in 1965. The SV membership at the time was at about 45,000.  The other breeds have always been numerically much smaller, with the Doberman for instance in the 1500 yearly registration area in the nineties and much less than a thousand today.  But even these numbers do not tell the real story, for since in order to be bred the Shepherd must be Schutzhund titled a far higher proportion of Shepherds are worked and titled than the other breeds.  Not only does this enhance the over all quality off the Shepherds, it provides significant numbers of trained dogs potentially for sale, a source tapped into heavily as the Americans expanded their police canine programs and the popularity of Schutzhund expanded.

The Malinois basis was always a full order of magnitude smaller numerically because Belgium and Holland are so much smaller than Germany , and because the brunt of the two German atrocities fell on these small, virtually helpless nations.   Until almost the end, the Second World War was not fought in Germany but rather in the invaded nations, and Hitler’s policy was to keep the German standard of living as high as possible in order to maintain support during what he believed was going to be a quick and easy victory.  It is true that urban air raids as in Dresden were great hardships, and from 1943 onward the Russian front for the German infantry man became a living hell, but the civilian  population was substantially protected until relatively near the end.  In occupied Belgium and Holland the Nazis were actively looking for Jews and taking whatever they wanted for their war efforts, including dogs in large numbers.   In Belgium particularly the post war recovery was slow and difficult, with canine activity, as reflected in registrations and trial records, greatly suppressed through the nineteen fifties.

As the quality and availability of the West German Shepherds declined in the eighties, and as world wide demand grew incessantly, attention shifted to other, more robust and traditional, sources of Shepherds, primarily in East Germany and a little later in the Czech Republic.  Times were hard in both of these nations still behind the Iron Curtain, and western currency, especially the American dollar, spoke with a loud voice.

The Dutch police canine world had always been much different from the German model.  This was not really a sport program in the Schutzhund sense, for once a dog obtained his Police Dog one certificate he could compete once, that year, in the national championship, but a "competition career" was an unknown concept.  Most of these trainers were working class people in a very crowded nation who could only keep one or two dogs.  Many dogs achieving a title were immediately sold into police service.  Although in the pre WWII era German Shepherds and Dobermans had a presence, in the post war era the Malinois and the Bouvier des Flandres became predominant.  For a number of reasons which I have discussed elsewhere, by the seventies the Bouviers were fading and the Malinois, often without official papers, was strongly predominant.  When American police departments and dog brokers began to bring these dogs to America they became very popular very quickly, aided by the fact that in general they were similar in appearance to the German Shepherd and thus looked like a police dog to the American eye.

A Shrinking World

Thirty or forty years ago when I was first exposed to foreign lands and life continental Europe was a strange and wonderful new experience; but today  it seems hardly different from just down the street.  While one no doubt tends to become cynical and jaded, this is only a small part of the story, for the fact is that over the intervening years there has an been enormous cultural melding:  affordable air travel, plummeting telephone rates, the internet and the ubiquity of American television and movies have all contributed enormously to the breaking down of cultural, social and economic barriers.  English has increasingly become the language of the world, even among Europeans from neighboring countries. 

In earlier years ordinary Americans were unable to afford casual European travel, expensive both in terms of time and money.  Prior to economical air transport, which gradually became available in the nineteen sixties and seventies, a European tour was by ship and thus a matter of weeks or months, beyond the reach of a working man of modest means with a job and a need to provide a living for his family. Such men did not dream of casual European travel; this access to importance and prominence was largely in the hands of those of independent means. The internet was a quarter century in the future, telephone calls were extremely expensive, and even if you had the money you did not really know who to call.  The better trainers were generally unaware of and not especially interested in American canine affairs and, being on the whole working class people not especially English speaking.  The American who had actually been to Europe became an instant authority figure in his breed and European visitors were unusual.  As a consequence our leadership tended to consist of class based shallow dilatants on one hand and financial opportunists on the other.

A fundamental problem with this was that in the homelands the working dogs were in the hands of working class people, and while the upwardly mobile Americans were importing breeding stock the culture, the essence of these breeds, was being left behind by people who viewed much of it as below their dignity.  While the dogs were coming over the culture and tradition was left behind, because the working class hands on people were separated by distance, money, language and most of all control by a social class dominated by British values and attitudes fundamentally at odds with serious canine protection functionality.

Although the flow of breeding stock was more or less continuous, except during the war years, the working character was taken for granted, assumed to somehow be inherent in the breed.  Actually, nobody really knew what these dogs were, or should have been, capable of, for American police service and especially commercial guard dog services were incredibly primitive, and there was no high level amateur training.  We were like children with a complex digital camera set up in automatic mode, some things were easily accessible, but the ultimate capability was in general beyond our experience or comprehension. There was no perception of any need or reason to test and select for character, dogs were proven in the show ring, or so we thought.  And of course because of all of this dogs of questionable character became prime candidates for a one way trip to America .

Starting in the early nineteen sixties the American German Shepherd world, previously dominated by German imports, turned inward. The import went out of fashion virtually over night and the whole American breeding community, like lemmings over the cliff, began breeding incredibly tight on the new wonder dog, the recently crowned Grand Victor Lance of Franjo and his ever more inbred progeny. This dog became the prototype for the new American shepherd, extreme in angulation, slope of top line and side gait. The entire AKC oriented Shepherd world just turned on a dime down a side road and never looked back.

Just as the AKC Shepherd people were turning their backs on Europe, an entirely new genera, the Schutzhund style working dog, was beginning to emerge in America .   The sixties and seventies were times of great change.  There was prosperity in both America and Europe and air travel became increasingly affordable for the more affluent working man.   This meant that a couple of Schutzhund clubs could pool finances and fly a German Schutzhund judge or trainer over for a week or more to hold trials and training sessions.  This also meant that the man of ordinary means could go to Europe and see for himself, and perhaps purchase a good dog.  The emergence of the internet in the nineties was the final stage in the transformation of the canine world into one big neighborhood.  This shrinking world was to prove to be a double edged sword.

Creeping Commercialism

Early on it became apparent that a Schutzhund titled German Shepherd, having reached his limits in the homeland and with his original trainer, not among the top dogs destined for extensive breeding, destined for a life in retirement or a "pet home," could in American transform a beginning or intermediate trainer into a player, a big deal competitor on the novel Schutzhund field. Dogs purchased in Germany for a few hundred dollars could through a simple airline shipment become a commodity worth several thousand dollars for service in North American police departments or to a would be Schutzhund competitor. The working dog world was rapidly shrinking, and becoming much more commercial. The dog broker’s day had come, and many, German and American,  were quick to seek the easy importance and money.

But there was a major down side to this commercialization, this easy access to trained and titled European dogs.  In the ideal world the sporting aspects of Schutzhund focus on the club, the local community of trainers and competitors.  There are younger people acquiring a dog, perhaps from an uncle or family friend and within the club community learning the skills and achieving beginning titles.  There are older club members who, while training and competing with their own dogs take pride in the accomplishments of the newer members.  In Europe it is still quite common to see the club listed along with the name of the owner and the dog in a trial catalog and the club was a center of social and family life. As the dogs moved up the ladder to Schutzhund III some were retired to become family companions or the house dog while the new candidates lived in the kennel and others went on to compete at a regional and eventually national level championships.  Some dogs became in service police dogs and a sense of connection and community was enhanced.

The idea that someone would just buy a titled and trained dog to enter trials and collect tin cups to decorate the living room would have been a violation of the spirit, a bit vulgar, like buying pumpkins or live stock to exhibit at a county fair to take the blue ribbons away from the thirteen year olds. 

Think for a moment about the young man or woman, drawn into the excitement of the sport, perhaps coming along as a helper in training, finally entering a trial, or advancing to a higher level title, and finding that all of the trophies are going to fifty something year old guys with a pot belly and a newly imported dog with a name he can almost pronounce.  In America we did not shy away from vulgar.   In our relative prosperity we have been quick to throw money around, and we have been able to bring a few of the best, and so many of the mediocre dogs home, but we have failed to plant the culture and make it grow.  Sure, we send a few of our imports on a nice visit to Germany to compete in a championship, but our club level training withers on the vine and the Schutzhund or Ring club gradually evolves into a commercial enterprise rather than a gathering of friends.

Sure, this is an exaggeration. Europe is not and never was quite as idealistic and innocent as this and the Americans with other people’s dogs are not quite this crass and vulgar, sometimes younger than fifty, or female or with a waist size less than forty four. But the essence is there, and we are failing because we have not been able to build from a solid foundation, on a basis of home trained dogs.

The current situation benefits mostly the dog brokers who profit by selling European bred and/or trained dogs in America, the European trainer who has seen the price a well trained dog rise dramatically, especially if he is able to sell more directly to this country, and the judges and trainers we are forever bringing over to teach us.  Furthermore, the first shot at the best dogs goes to the on the scene Europeans —trainers, breeders and police officials who have working relationships of many years standing.  It is true that the price an American is willing to pay may get some of the better dogs, but this is always because it is a price the Europeans passed at. Nobody in Europe needs to spend eighty thousand dollars for a dog to play in Schutzhund trials, for only in America are we childish enough to take such things seriously. Furthermore, relative European economic prosperity is constantly improving, and the advantage of the American dollar may never again be what it was in the mid to later twentieth century.   There was always a touch of arrogance to the Americans over the years, a sense that we could buy anything, did not need to struggle for excellence.  Our relatively less powerful place in the canine world in the face of European prosperity will, if we respond correctly, be to our long term benefit in that perhaps we will grow up and begin to seriously breed, train and deploy our own dogs.

Very early in the game people such as Phil Hoelcher became big names over night by purchasing and competing with dogs which had been trained, titled and successful at high level competition in Europe, transforming this new sport for the common man into another money game almost before it gained traction.  Novices were buying a high level titled import one year, exhibiting it in a few trials, collecting some  cups and conducting seminars the next year, the blind leading he blind. Others, such as Tom and Holly Rose, were equally or more successful the old fashioned way, by purchasing German line pups in America and training them themselves and going on to success at the highest levels of American Schutzhund competition.

The fundamental reality is that there are those who make a very good living, become in their circles much admired wealthy men, by selling a few minutes on the podium. For ten or twenty thousand dollars, or more, they will sell you a dog and provide the training, for a price of course, that puts you instantly at the head of the pack, gives you the inside track to the big trial.  There are reliable reports of dogs purchased in Germany for as much as eighty thousand dollars going on to win major USCA national events.

The irony is that while we have been able to send teams of six or ten dogs to Europe to compete, sometimes at the highest levels, this success has been built on smoke and mirrors, on purchased dogs and a few quasi professional trainers, rather than a growing base of amateur trainers, breeders and competitors. 

The reality of the situation in America is that we are dead in the water.   Schutzhund USA has a little over five thousand members and the DVG America in the area of perhaps five hundred, relatively few are active trainers and in terms of ground up American trained dogs we are probably producing about a hundred Schutzhund III dogs a year, two per state. There is virtually zero connection and synergy with the police departments, which are dependant on European imports.

In the big picture, all of the American suit sport simply don’t matter, are simply irrelevant.  French ring has a couple of hundred members but is producing but a hand full of American titles a year and is increasingly dominated by the commercial trainers and the imported titled dogs, following the Schutzhund precedent.  All of the other organizations, the Mondio Ring and the various American organizations such as American Street Ring and PSA continue to come and to go, with the same old names with this year’s new wonder sport that is all set to take off.  But they never quite do, and when you consider all of the overlapping memberships the whole American suit world is no more than a couple of hundred trainers growing old wandering in the wilderness.  Over the years there have been dreams of creating organizations in America affiliated with the KNPV or the NVBK, but they never get beyond a paper membership of a couple of hundred people, a fan boy web site.  All have been more or less still born.

Clearly the fundamental cause for the stagnation of the working dog sports in America is that very few young people become involved and take up our cause on a life long basis. Look around any club and you will find mostly older people, often frustrated and unhappy older people at that.

Many reasons are put forth, ranging from the age old refrain that the youth of today just don’t have the character and resourcefulness we remember from our own youth to the observation that the internet, television and electronic games have rendered a whole generation who don’t even imagine that people can actually go outside and do things. 

Although dog training has never been enormously popular in America , a generation ago in cities such as Chicago group sports such as softball were enormously popular, with many men being active well into what we would call middle age. Such evening social outlets beyond the home have indeed diminished over the past fifty years.  This means that a new activity, such as Schutzhund dog training, must succeed in the face of social and economic factors which are causing rapid decline in even the most historically popular social sports.

The primary obstacle to Schutzhund participation is a simple lack of access to convenient, affordable training.  In most areas of Germany , the Netherlands or Belgium , the potential trainer has seen active training fields his entire life, as or more common than ball diamonds in America .   He probably has a family member or acquaintance that can make an introduction, or he can just show up and show an interest. These resources are there because they grew up with the working breeds, acquired a little bit of land for a field and club house and gained membership before television let alone cars, video games and the internet provided competition.  I Holland it is quite common for municipalities or other agencies to provide park land for training fields and club houses, just like little league baseball fields are a standard feature of every American town.

In America , the typical newcomer has about as much chance of a walking distance training opportunity as he has of a stranger walking up to him and handing him a winning lottery ticket.

All of these factors play  a role, but the primary reason for the lack of youth participation is that Schutzhund has become a very expensive sport, in terms of time as well as money. The for profit Schutzhund club, that is, the club maintained as an adjunct to a commercial dog training operation, has increasingly become the norm, and the truly amateur club has been on the decline. 

Training opportunities have certainly diminished over the past twenty years, and increasingly become commercial operations that people of modest means simply can not afford.  Relatively few young men with a family can afford a $1500 puppy and a long drive for helper work at $25 to $40 a pop two or three times a week.

The immediate and most apparent crisis in American working sports is simply the lack of young men interested in the helper work. Increasingly the helper is over worked, harassed and taken for granted.  Club members who think nothing of taking a couple of sessions off are incensed  if, on their return, no helper is available. Not only is the helper under appreciated, over worked and physically beat up, no excuse for an absence is really accepted.  And at the end of the day, when everybody is packing up to go home, he notices that there is no one of quality to work his own dogs.

In compliance with the age old laws of economics, a scarce commodity demands an increasing price, and many helpers have abandoned the original amateur club concept to strike out on their own as part time or full time professionals. This takes a number of formats, such as the Schutzhund club run strictly as an adjunct to a professional dog training operation to the outside helper being hired by a club.

Let me hasten to state the obvious, that it is the absolute right of any person to work dogs professionally, for whatever price and terms he can get.  The causative factor for the trends we see today is not the greed of individuals, but the breakdown in the fundamental amateur infrastructure of the sport.

Thus the vicious, descending circle.  The lack of young and willing helpers has continually reduced training opportunities and increased the distance traveled and time spent to have a dog worked. Existing trainers are mercilessly overworked and burned out, and at the end of the day there is all to often no quality helper for their dogs.  Quite naturally there is the tendency to think in terms of direct financial compensation, both as an end in itself and as a way of pushing aside those who are not really serious about training, but want to come out and work their dogs anyway, often endlessly and with no real progress. Often the dogs are weak and lacking in drive, something apparent to all but the pet owner at the end of the leash. For the helper, this is boring, time consuming, frustrating work, and in the end he knows that, openly or behind his back he is going to be blamed for the failures of the dogs and the handlers.

It was an exciting time when I became involved in Schutzhund at the beginning of the 1980s. It was a thrill to see that our dog really would bite and follow the track, an accomplishment to get the first Schutzhund I.  We were not very good and did not know very much, but we could see progress and the future seemed bright.  In a way we were naive, perhaps very naive, but we were idealistic too.  We were mostly struggling amateurs and anything seemed possible; but somehow, somewhere, we went off the tracks.

The German Shepherd, An American Saga

For a century now the German Shepherd in America, the promoters, the advocates, the pretenders and the fan boys, bound together in their national organizations and international affiliations and relationships, have been a bizarre conglomeration of noble intentions and high sounding slogans that in practice all too often degenerate into hypocrisy, stupidity and greed. These American enthusiasts bask in the police dog aura and Rin Tin Tin persona, but have systematically molded the American lines into grotesque, insipid caricatures of the vision of von Stephanitz.  Nothing Alice found down the rabbit hole could even begin to compare to this Machiavellian saga.

Least one object to this focus on the German Shepherd in a police dog book, the simple fact is that in the perception of the public at large, and to a major extent in reality, the police dog is not only personified by the German Shepherd, much more often than not the police dog is a German Shepherd Dog.

And for very good reason; at his best the German Shepherd is a marvelous animal, truly  capable of police or military patrol service of the highest order, a faithful companion for the civilian and one of the most inspiring visual sights the hand of man has ever created.

In training my Bouviers over a quarter of a century most of my fellow trainers have had German Shepherds, and I have come to have enormous respect for this noble breed.  Were I to train another sort of dog it would be a Shepherd or a Malinois, which is after all a Belgian Shepherd.  So when I disparage and heap contempt on German Shepherd breeders and politicians, it is not out of a sense of competition, but rather anger and frustration rooted in love and respect for this noble breed.

In terms of numbers, the police dog is the German Shepherd.  In Germany there have been more than 15,000 pups registered yearly, often substantially more, often over 30,000, while the other breeds, the Dobermans or Giant Schnauzers, have been mostly less than a thousand,  most often much less.  And this is only the tip of the iceberg, because all of these registered GSD pups are out of Schutzhund titled and tested stock while no other breed has such requirements, and most of these other breeds are producing soft, insecure, grotesque dogs every bit as bad as the Americans.  Since in Germany only the GSD must be Schutzhund titled in order to be bred, on the sport fields his numerical predominance is much greater than even the large registration numbers would suggest.  

It is true that the Belgians and the Dutch have a strong police canine heritage, based on the Malinois, a Belgian Shepherd, and earlier in the twentieth century the Bouvier des Flandres.  And it is also true that the Malinois is coming on strong in every venue, giving the German Shepherd strong competition in every arena in which they are willing to maintain a presence.  In the long run this is good for the German Shepherd as a breed, knowing that there is an alternative in the wings gives the Germans the incentive to maintain their heritage.

But Holland and Belgium are small countries, with many fewer immigrants in America to promote their native breeds.   And these nations and breeds suffered grievously under German atrocities in two world conflicts.  Belgium particularly was devastated, was at the epicenter of the actual combat in both wars, and canine breeding and training was at a tremendously reduced level well into the nineteen fifties.

It is certainly true  that in the Netherlands, Belgium and France the Malinois is increasingly predominant on sport fields, but this is a more recent development and even in these nations GSD registrations far outstrip any of the other working breeds; in France there are almost as many GSD registrations as in Germany, and if current trends continue we could soon see more in France.  In terms of popular perception, the Malinois is a relatively minor breed in France and indeed the entire world.

Another point might be to question the relevance of politics, canine or otherwise, for the police dog breeds, training and service.  But this is naive, for politicians control every aspect of our lives, such as whether E collars are legal, which breeds are banned and where you can take and train your dog.  Others might question how much real effect dog enthusiasts and canine organizations have on issues of public policy.  But they are important, on several levels.  In the first place entities such as the AKC and FCI take significant amounts of the money paid into the system to influence the national politicians.  Some of the European national organizations aided in the banning of cropping and docking for instance.  The fact of the matter is that AKC and the FCI, and their affiliated national and breed entities, do not represent the interests of the police style canine, will betray us as a matter of expediency whenever convenient, as in the ear cropping and docking in Europe.  And many of the working oriented organizations such as the KNPV and the Ring limit the acceptable breeds by the simple device of maintaining a list of breeds eligible to participate.  You may choose to ignore canine politics, but you can not escape living with the consequences.

Although this will focus on the American side of the Atlantic, as the situation in Europe was covered previously, there is much overlap in that the SV has been deeply entangled in American affairs for many years, because there are three times as many Shepherds in the United States as in Germany and because there are a group of Americans much more in resonance with the actual heritage of the GSD than the SV bureaucrats and show breeders, which is seen as a threat and has awakened within the SV the natural propensity of the German soul to control, dominate, manipulate and above all else profit.

Prior to the advent of the United Schutzhund Club of America, USCA, in 1979 the American working dog movement was seen as more or less harmless, irrelevant and impotent by the real players, the bureaucrats and show boys at the AKC, the American German Shepherd establishment and the Europeans with dogs to sell.  Prior efforts had been a group of quaint Americans at NASA with their own rules and their own self appointed judges or groups totally subservient to the Europeans.  And the perception was pretty much on target; I once saw a NASA judge allow a handler to put down a blanket for a Doberman on the long down in obedience so she would not get cold, or miss her blanket, and that was kind of characteristic of the organization.

Early in 1979 the Schutzhund movement in America was in shambles.   The AKC had just slapped the GSDCA down hard for their tentative involvement in Schutzhund, forbidding all future association like you would chastise a child for using naughty words.  The American based DVG activity was awash in confusion, recrimination and power struggles and NASA was basically just lame and irrelevant.

When as a result of this USCA came into existence in the fall of 1979 it sought and obtained affiliation with the mother club in Germany , the SV. This provided immediate legitimacy, international recognition of titles and official access to German judges both as teachers and to conduct trials.   Thus from its inception Schutzhund USA was a German Shepherd breed club, and it was never any secret for it was spelled out in the constitution from the beginning.

In retrospect this was the watershed event, for USCA was destined to become much more than a dog training organization.  It would emerge as much larger, much more relevant and much more resonant with the reason for the breed than the GSDCA, was to threaten the AKC in the only way they can ever really understand, money, and was to enmesh the German bureaucrats and canine politicians in a never ending international political morass.

The fact that the words German Shepherd do not appear in the name of the organization has had ramifications to this day.  In a certain sense, this has been a little bit deceptive, for there was a need and desire to support those with other breeds, who have over all been about a third of the membership, and thus about a third of the incoming money. Thus there was the tendency to portray the organization as the big tent, the home for all people who just wanted to train their dogs.

While the national organization never quite made any overt effort to conceal its GSD nature, many local clubs promoted themselves as all breed oriented.  This has sometimes generated anger and confusion over the years, as people who are drawn into an apparently all breed local club sometimes feel betrayed when they eventually discover that they are members of a national German Shepherd breed club. The perception of USCA as the big tent, the home for all people who just wanted to train their dogs, never had any basis in reality.

On a personal level, I have been a USCA member for over twenty five years, and this is the only canine organization I continue to believe in and support. There was a really rough patch in the leadership in the early nineties, the word crisis would not be inappropriate, but going forward I have admired the leadership for honesty, diligence and enthusiasm.  The USCA judges program in particular has been an enormous benefit, bringing honesty, competence and a sportsman like attitude to the trial fields of America , something often not true of the German SV judges in all three areas.

In recognizing USCA the SV created a monster, for suddenly they had two children in America where ultimately only one could become blessed and the other thus declared a bastard and cut off to die.   Forty years later this is still playing out, being cut off to die has turned out to be a long, drawn out and ugly process.

The German Shepherd Dog Club of America, the GSDCA, is perhaps the strangest and most self conflicted entity in all of the canine world, and that covers a whole lot of ground and an enormous amount of hypocrisy.  Coming into existence early, in 1913, in a world basically ignorant of and vaguely hostile to civilian police style breeding and training, it was in conflict from the very beginning, trying to serve, placate and manipulate two masters, the German breed founders at that time very serious about work and the  American Kennel Club fundamentally hostile to the very purpose of the breed. Thus the reality is an organization of deeply split personality, and thus fundamentally conflicted, self destructive and dangerous, a loose cannon on the deck of world wide canine politics. The GSDCA was, for the better part of the century, the ugly American of the Shepherd world, breeding soft, spooky dogs with extreme exaggeration in physique, that is the extreme angulation and slopping top line, to the point where these American Shepherds were virtually another breed.

In the nineteen eighties as I gradually became aware of the history of the GSD world my naive expectation was that, since the USCA was very serious about character and working functionality, the natural consequence would be for the SV to use this as a lever to bring America into line with the historical purpose of the German Shepherd as a serious police dog.

In this I was wrong in the most grievous sense.  The fundamental error was in believing that the SV was a serious working dog organization, the legitimate heir to the legacy of von Stephanitz.  But behind the facade this was no longer true, for in the big picture over the time span from the twenties to the eighties the GSDCA did not become transformed to something in resonance with the working heritage, but rather the SV itself had been subverted and corrupted, was behind the false exterior metamorphizing into a pet and show oriented entity in general and fundamental ways the German equivalent of the GSDCA.

All of the strife and conflict in the GSD world over the past thirty years can not be understood until this fundamental and counter intuitive fact is grasped.  For as time moved forward, it became increasingly obvious that the rock, the foundation, was at its core and in its leadership corrupt, unfaithful to the dream of von Stephanitz.

In spite of the corruption at the top, the GSD has maintained its place as the premier working dog world wide because there are so many dogs, so many really good dogs, so many independent breeding communities.  While the SV show dog elite took control, many grass roots Germans remained faithful and bred and trained the old way, according to the heritage.  And there are significant GSD communities, working oriented sub cultures, such as the Czech lines, in Belgium and Holland and even in America .

Although there was never any real point to it, the GSDCA maintained membership in the international Shepherd community, that is the WUSV.  By 1970 they had what amounted to a different breed, and there was very little practical contact; few imports, little use of German judges and no returning to the motherland to compete in either conformation or work.  As the USCA came into the picture and increasingly wanted to participate in international affairs, send dogs to Europe to compete, the fact that WUSV membership was limited to one national entity per nation became a real sticking point.

The GSDCA quite naturally adapted the role of the dog in the manger, for although they were not in the spirit of von Stephanitz really a German Shepherd club at all, out of spite and opportunity for profit and aggrandizement for individuals they clung to their seat.

For USCA the real attraction was the ability to send teams to the FCI and world union international competitions.  Much of the reason for the USCA support for the AWDF, for instance, was to gain FCI recognition and to some extent sidestep this, but this has not come to pass.

The relationship between the American GSDCA and the German mother club, the SV, has been one of crass convenience and advantage rather than shared ideals about abstractions such as the good of the breed.  For much of this time the Americans have had the  money and the numbers; because of the size of America there have been   three to four German Shepherds bred in America for every one in Germany .   Starting in the twenties many of the Siegers, male winners of the SV national conformation specialty, have come to America because the Americans were prosperous and had the money, and times were hard in a defeated Germany .   During the second world war there was of course no contact, and it was the early fifties before the Germans began to reestablish their organizations.  By this time the Americans were beginning to have ideas of their own and were blending in the imports rather than just emulating German trends. 

Beginning in the sixties the American GSDCA show community was going its own way, virtually creating their own breed.  While the rest of the world was to some extent gaining unity of type and culture through the world union, the WUSV, the GSDCA was a member in name only.

As Schutzhund began to gather momentum, the dilettantes and politicians high up in the SV and the GSDCA discovered a new common ground, or a common threat, for the USCA was in fact emerging as the advocate of the serious working Shepherd, putting the lie to both the GSDCA and the SV.  So as with the strange bedfellows spirit of politicians everywhere, the GSDCA began to pretend an interest in working character and taking a more active role in international affairs. 

In order to compete with USCA, in1982 the GSDCA spawned an affiliate "Working Dog Association," whose only real asset and leverage point was the WUSV membership of the GSDCA.  This has led to a bizarre duel universe where the same organization on the one hand holds conformation championships, a national specialty, for the novel American variety of German Shepherd, which never brings in German Judges,  and then puts on a WDA hat to run an entirely separate set of shows, which always use SV judges or a few American's trained and ordained by real Germans.  And they both go on and on in their own other dimensional universes, oblivious to the absurdity of it all.

A primary motivation for the GSDCA was of course to gain control of USCA, force them into subservience, force them to go through their officers in dealing with the Germans, force them ultimately under the dictates of the AKC. 

One fundamental issue was the composition of the American team which yearly goes to Europe to participate in the WUSV Schutzhund championship event.  Originally this was under the auspices of USCA, in the time period when GSDCA more or less represented the conformation aspects and USCA the working events.  But under the banner of unity GSDCA began to flex its muscle and demand control, resulting in a series of compromise solutions, usually involving some sort of split team with each organization having so many slots to fill.  The result of course was USCA members participating in some sort of GSDCA qualification trial, since WDA really had very little in the way of serious trainers and competitors.

There have of course been an endless stream of noble sounding cant about "working together for the good of the breed."  But the reality has been an escalating set of rules concerning which judges are eligible officiate at particular events and who is eligible to participate in activities of the competing organization.  In the latest go round USCA members can not be concurrently WDA members.

The result of all of this is that only German SV judges are eligible to do all Schutzhund trials, which is exactly what the Germans want.

So USCA is going to remain a quasi legitimate part of the world shepherd community because that is exactly where the show oriented elements of the SV leadership want them.  Sure, they will throw them a bone from time to time, they can send teams to the world union championships, or have some of their judges given SV status, but America is going to remain divided and weak as long as they are able to make it stick.

The overriding fact is that to be a full fledged player in the German Shepherd world it would be necessary for USCA to become a member of the FCI, which was a primary reason for Paul Maloy’s interest in the AWDF back in the nineteen eighties.  But this was never really in the cards, for the one thing nobody in Europe is going to do is cross the AKC and risk all the money coming in from imported dogs people perceive as needing eligibility for AKC registration in order to be legitimate.

But real participation in either the WUSV or the  FCI is only open to a single entity in any country and the GSDCA was there first.  They don’t really care about either European organization, but they do want to keep USCA under their thumb, illegitimate as a real GSD entity.

The fact of the matter is, politically if not morally, The GSDCA has the upper hand, and shows precious little concern for either morality or the breed.  The reality is that the SV politicians want to keep the American Shepherd community divided because that makes them easier to control and manipulate, and like European powers everywhere in their heart of hearts want colonies rather than partners.

So USCA is between the proverbial rock and hard place; in order to be a player on the world scene they would have to somehow merge with the GSDCA, but since the GSDCA does not really care it would be on their terms, which would mean repudiating everything they have ever stood for.

And in a way all of this is moot, for real participation in world GSD affairs means linking the registration systems. The fact is that the AKC is never going to give up its power and the registration cash flow and the FCI is never going to seriously contest this.  Any sort of FCI affiliation through the AWDF or any other mechanism is and always was a pipe dream.

All of this is a huge obstacle in the way of the emergence of a real over all self sustaining and independent police dog breeding and training  community in America, since the first requirement would be a clear leadership structure which could deal with government entities across the board, as for instance exists in the KNPV in the Netherlands.

Crusade Adrift

From the beginning, prior to the First World War, when a very small number of American police personnel were making inquiries to Belgium and England and importing dogs, the North American protection oriented working dog movement has been dependant on European breeders, trainers and organizations for dogs, training methodology and deployment strategy.  But progress was slow and erratic, for police, military, sport and civilian protection programs have struggled largely in isolation rather than in synergistic cooperation and mutual support as exists in much of Europe.

This was of course natural and necessary, for it was these Europeans who were creating the protection breeds and building the infrastructure and certification and deployment programs under which they have prospered, made fundamental contributions to many European police programs. 

As Americans became aware of the quality of the better European working lines in the nineteen seventies and the eighties, and the sophistication of the breeding, training and police deployment practices, we gradually came to comprehend and respect the German Schutzhund trainers, and a little later the police trainers and breeders in the Netherlands and the NVBK community in Belgium .   All of this was well and good, and it was quite natural to see these people on a pedestal of our own making.

But there were consequences of this pedestal building, sometimes with a down side.  First, the money Americans and others were able to spend began to change the fabric of the European world, gradually made dog brokering more attractive and more profitable.  In Germany Schutzhund titled dogs became an export commodity, and a support structure of accommodating judges and brokers, used dog salesmen if you prefer, came into place.  Another example was a commercialization of the Dutch police community, where increasingly dogs were trained for the export dollar.  This tended to produce a profit driven motivation for quick and superficial training, the minimum to slide through for the certificate and thus another pay day.  As a consequence more care was required in the purchase of such a titled dog, which was not a serious problem for most Dutchmen with personal contacts but a very important consideration for an American or other foreigner interested in a sight unseen acquisition, which put even more importance on the reliability of the broker providing the dog.

The Belgians and the French were much less involved, mostly because their numbers are small, although the Belgians in the NHSB have made belated but generally ineffective attempts to gain an American presence.  The French Ring community has had a sporadic interaction with the American enthusiasts, and exported Ring line Malinois have gradually become the backbone of American activity, where novices with another breed almost always end up seeking out a Malinois.  But this has resulted in virtually no real involvement with or effect on American police canine practice.

A further consequence was that we came to believe that the general police program quality carried over to everything European, that their canine world was fundamentally superior, that the ideals of von Stephanitz predominated, that preservation and enhancement of working character was a general priority.

But this was an illusion — the FCI entities such as the Raad van Beheer in the Netherlands , St. Hubert in Belgium and the corresponding national clubs in France and Germany are in no fundamental way superior to the AKC or truly supportive of working breeding.   Indeed, the superiority of the Dutch and Belgian police training programs is directly because of those with the wisdom and courage to break free of these FCI organizations.  In actual fact, the European mainstream is, ultimately, about dog shows, pet sales, cushy jobs for bureaucrats and the opportunity to play expert by engaging in the political manipulations necessary to become a conformation judge.  Exactly like the AKC. 

It might seem that the IPO program and the working dog class at European conformation events represent a commitment to working functionality.  But this is illusion — smoke and mirrors — the reality is that IPO and Schutzhund are being metamorphized into a sham, are now in the grasp of show and pet oriented people, including the SV leadership, and are being incessantly watered down.  Real commitment to working dog character would not be simply the inclusion of a working dog class as an option, but rather the elimination of any sort of open class, any adult conformation recognition, without prior demonstration of the actual working capability of the various breeds. The open class has been the primary mechanism in the loss of the secondary breeds beyond the Shepherd and the Malinois.  The Malinois has prospered because so much of their breeding and training is beyond the auspices of the FCI, and the German Shepherd holds its ground only because of the huge numbers and the many regional groups training and breeding in the old way, particularly beyond Germany itself.

Thus when examined critically, these Europeans are in general no more supportive of working functionality than the American mainstream. The primary consequence is that just buying a dog in Europe, or out of European lines, does not mean that you will get a better dog, or even a good dog, no matter how clever the salesmanship.  Furthermore, as long as we are dependant on Europeans for breeding and training we will always be paying more for lesser dogs.

A further consequence of protection sport domination by show oriented and all breed canine political structures is incessant watering down and political correctness.  Instead of evolving to emphasize enhanced performance in practical aspects for police service, such as longer distance bites, call outs on remote pursuits and search exercises demanding initiative from the dog and relating to practical police operations, Schutzhund and IPO are evolving into tracking obedience, trick obedience and  protection obedience where irrelevant exercises are increasingly the core of the trial.  French Ringsport is totally devoid of any test of olfactory capability in an era where area search and substance detection such as drug, accelerant and explosive detection are rendering the one dimensional biting dog irrelevant and obsolete.  Dogs walking between the legs of a waddling agitator are absurd on the face of it and irrelevant to any conceivable practical function.  FCI control in Europe is the primary cause of the ever increasing irrelevance of the working dog sports to practical police application and unchecked will lead to primarily commercial police dog breeding and training or the over all erosion of police canine service.

Much of the success of the European police dog community has come from close cooperation between police personnel and civilian trainers and breeders, making good dogs of varying levels of training from green pup to certified police dog available at relatively reasonable prices, as exemplified by the Dutch KNPV program.  In America , for historical reasons ,  this spirit of cooperation and community has failed to materialize.  Police handlers, trainers and administrators in general have very little contact with the sport oriented training programs such as Schutzhund or Ring, and virtually all of it informal, that is individual police trainers or handlers participating on their own time in sport training clubs.  In contrast to the open KNPV trials in Holland, American police trials and organizations are generally closed to civilians, and police participation in civilian organizations is minimal and unofficial.

While European programs have prospered, America has been dependant on European dogs often obtained through brokers, which has meant that the dogs are not only expensive, but that they are often purchased sight unseen.   Importing working stock is not bad because it puts money in the pockets of Europeans rather than Americans, but rather because when you buy a dog from Europe all you get is a dog— police handlers and trainers do not gain access to the knowledge and experience of the breeders and trainers, which could contribute so much to effective utilization. 

To gain perspective imagine a training program in Northern Illinois which produced a thousand well trained police dogs a year, dogs passing a most demanding comprehensive certification.  Further imagine that the leadership of this organization was made up of police administrators and civilian trainers and breeders.  Imagine even further that this organization had a special relationship with of the state of Illinois that provided for cooperation and the use of state resources, particularly training and tracking fields, for training and trials.  An individual trainer — police handler or his civilian brother — might well have a dozen or more training clubs within a short driving distance, and could visit most training clubs with a two or three hour drive.  The poor breeder, handler or instructor would be perfectly obvious in the midst of so much activity, and gradually forced to improve or become marginalized.  Can there be any doubt that such a situation would result in greatly enhanced and more cost effective police dog deployment?

In light of this, perhaps it would seem that we should emulate European ways, that is establish programs for cooperative training, encourage local working dog breeding and in general recreate the social environment and synergy existent in the various regions of Europe.  But unfortunately human beings and social structures simply do not work that way, nobody knows how to formulate legislation mandating local training clubs and instructing the police to be willing and comfortable in participating.  The European structure which evolved over the past century will not just grow up in America, to whatever extent we succeed in more effective police canine utilization it must come through the evolution of business and training modes and department programs adapted to American circumstances and needs; if we are to do it at all we will have to develop our own way.  If such things fail to evolve then usage of police canines will stagnate or wither, as it has at various times in the past.

This lack of native English or American police breeds and the consequent lack of a training heritage has been detrimental to police canine operations, the vitality of the working sports and the domestic breeding and training of these dogs.  What we lack is critical mass; those who develop genuine interest much too often find that they simply can not sustain the hours of travel and cost for training and competition.  This is especially the case with the younger people who should bring the enthusiasm of youth, particularly those with families, too many of which discover that they simply can not afford to participate. 

In contrast European training flourished because the common working man, even the married man with children, could train in a family friendly environment; the club was accessible, affordable and could function as a center of family social activity.  In southern Holland, if you want to train a dog, you can train a dog.  There is a nearby club, and if you do not fit in there is one down the street or in the next town.  If your dog is not good enough, there are many good dogs obtainable at affordable prices.  In America it is exactly the opposite, for the vast majority of us training is not sustainable because of a lack of available and affordable training resources.  

In reality we may be approaching a tipping point where the twentieth century culture of amateur and semiprofessional breeding and training as the basis of police service canines becomes obsolete and goes out of existence.  Very little else in modern society is on such an altruistic basis, the basic tenants of capitalism and free enterprise give little expectation that such activity should persist in the long term.  The truly amateur Schutzhund club in America is increasingly giving way to another model, one based on the business of a professional trainer providing dogs, training and guidance to clients, much as the golf course professional provides instruction to amateur golfers.  Indeed, from the beginning the American Schutzhund movement was based as much in commerce as the amateur spirit, the purchase of a trained and titled dog was very often the path to becoming a player, an important person.  For many it was a professional opportunity, the American entrepreneurial spirit trumping the European pride in the amateur status, the sense of doing something in life beyond money.  In the larger view, American entrepreneurial opportunism has infected Europe much more effectively than the European amateur spirit has taken root in America .  

Just as competition relentlessly reduces brands of automobiles or airliners to one or two, a consequence of this commercialization process has been the withering of the secondary breeds —  those beyond the German Shepherds, Malinois and a few Dutch Shepherds — which are rapidly becoming irrelevant and unlikely to ever again play a significant role, relegated to the role of ever less capable pretend police dogs, like children's toys which emulate adult activity but never actually step up to the real thing.

Someplace today in high school or a mundane job may lurk the young Sam Walton of police dog production, the man who can put together a really big time program of breeding, training and marketing and thus gain the economies of scale to drive all current kennels and training operations out of business, just like Mr. Walton shut down much of main street across America, sending the people to the mall with the big parking lot. The simple reality is that the whole concept of amateur police dog breeding and training hangs in the balance, that the future may well lie in the commercialization of breeding and training. 

Public agencies such as  the military facility at Lackland Air Force base have made periodic efforts to begin breeding programs, perhaps it is just a matter of time before the right program evolves and acquisition goes commercial or internal across the board.  If this comes to pass, serious sport training will pass into history, and the amateurs will have to content themselves with fly ball, agility and dancing with dogs.

Viewed from the perspective of a century, the decisive factor defining police dog service in America is the virtually total separation between the police establishment, from the national police canine organizations and police administrators right down to the canine officer and his dog, and the amateur working dog community, from the national organizations down to the breeders, trainers, and competitors.

From the beginning, the working dog organizations and their leadership, and I include myself, have focused on the wrong things:

·        fixation on appeasing European bureaucrats and their organizations.

·        looking to the wrong Europeans, the show elements of the FCI and SV, rather than the entities actually run by working dog people for working dog people, such as NVBK and KNPV.

·        fantasies of working with and converting the show dog community, American and European, rather than reaching out to a new generation of domestic trainers.

·        sending a small number of elite competitors, often dominated by imported titled dogs, to European competition rather than grass root levels of training infrastructure.

American police canine programs have had difficulty making headway because politicians and police administrative leadership have not had the experience and knowledge to effectively build programs, and a general lack of supporting structures and traditions for those attempting to set up new canine units.  None of this has anything to do with inept or bad people, but rather reflects the enormous difficulty of pulling effective programs up out of nothing by the bootstraps.  As a consequence, there has been reliance on European dog brokers and commercial training, both with good people and bad people, whose common factor is making money out of the dependence of police units.  These people are agents for the status quo, for they have no reason or motivation to encourage the emergence of more self sufficient and reliant canine operations. Indeed, the cost savings of increased police program efficiency, independence and effectiveness would come directly from their collective bottom lines.

The consequence of this history for the American amateurs, the trainers and breeders, is that ultimately all of the effort, all of the work, all of the struggle in the end means exactly nothing.  On the street police canine service is not effected or improved, no breed is stronger or better, the only people to benefit are the dog brokers, professional trainers and Euro judges on a perpetual free tour of America , like a scene out of Ground Hog Day.

The only way in which we can evolve into something that matters is through the creation of a stand alone American heritage, linking police service with civilian breeding and training, free of the existing establishments, European and American, which have manipulated us, profited from us and patronized us, often not even bothering to wait until our backs are turned to laugh at us.

The foundation of American greatness was the American revolution, the throwing off of English control and oppression.  Many were afraid, many counseled caution. But in the aftermath we evolved into a nation of consequence on the world scene, and forged new commercial, social and diplomatic relations with England , which became our greatest friend and most reliable ally.  

We must do likewise in the canine world.

In order for the American working dog community to rise above subservience,  humiliation and patronization we also must have our revolution, for only then can we aspire to a mature place in the canine world, and the possibility that in the end our work and effort will provide an ongoing contribution to the working police dog heritage, and to the police breeds.