The
Canine Snake Oil Peddler
and Personal Protection Training
Jim Engel August, 2007
The Snake Oil salesman who prowled the west in his horse drawn covered wagon is a stock part of our frontier literature and heritage. His line was glib and his promises great, he had the cure for sore muscles, snake bite, hang over, tooth ache and whatever else might inflict his audience. Being mostly alcohol, perhaps with some cocaine in the high end product, and tasting really bad it apparently did make one feel a whole lot better, and the peddler was long gone by they time the effects wore off and doubts of real efficacy began to emerge.
Modern pharmacy and medical licensing have done much to ameliorate quackery in medicine, but the spirit of the snake man will always be able to find a new outlet, new marks to fleece. Professional dog training is a prime example.
Anybody can rent a store front, put out a sign, take out an ad in the local newspaper, whip up a web site and be in the professional dog training business. If you work out of your garage or back yard, a hundred bucks can be enough to set you up. They can offer obedience, solve problems and turn your dog into a fearless protector allowing you to walk your neighborhood secure in the knowledge that no one will ever kick sand in your face again. And should you need more, or have lots of money and gullibility, they can secure a dog from their exclusive breeding program or from a vaunted European source known only to themselves.
Often there is a photo of the master trainer with a sleeve and stick, threatening the snarling dog securely held by the faithful apprentice trainer Shane. And a certificate, saying "Master Trainer" right on it with a gold seal, possibly indicting completion of a twelve week correspondence course, hanging right there on the wall.
Today if you need a doctor there are a lot of MDs , Chiropractors and others with specific training and having passed rigorous examinations and practical tests. Sure, quacks sometimes set up shop, but the police become involved and they wind up in jail if they don't get out of town fast enough. But not the quack dog trainers. There are no real standards, no real legal requirements.
Of course there truly are a lot of excellent, experienced professional trainers out there, many operating out of a home or their own business or some other business. Particularly in behavior problems and basic obedience they bring truly successful companion dog ownership, allow a dog who otherwise might be turned in at a shelter and put down to be a successful companion for many years. And there are many people conducting obedience classes and individual lessons enabling beginners to succeed in AKC obedience competition. Often they begin in clubs and become group trainers and expand into a separate private practice. Usually they are active AKC trial ring competitors, or have extensive ring success to back up their competence.
These people build their business on reputation, gain their references through veterinary offices, local training clubs and satisfied, successful students. There is a standard for success, the dog either quits ripping up the furniture or he does not, he comes when called or does not, he obtains his AKC obedience certificate or he fails or never gets to the point of competing. When the success is not there, the business erodes.
Many professionals also offer instruction and decoy work for Schutzhund or French Ring. Generally these people have been successful themselves, and their performance is on record; you can actually go out and watch when they trial.
But these trainers, if honest, as most of them are since they are successful and have no reason not to be, will not claim that a Schutzhund or Ring title automatically makes a dog a good personal protection or police dog. A lot of the higher end people offering police or personal protection training have a Schutzhund or ring background, and there is real training expertise necessary to bring a young dog to the trial ready state, take him on the field and pass. These people never pretend that this makes a dog a police dog or a personal protection dog, whatever that is, but it is a solid foundation. Those who can train a dog from pup to the top title are on the whole going to have a pretty solid foundation. ( There is the obvious distinction between the handling trainer and the bite work helper. The helper is of course always a key to successful protection training.)
A lot of the quack trainers become really shrill about not doing Schutzhund or any other sport, about taking thousands of real bites in the real world from real dogs because they are real men, not effete "sport" trainers. Now it would seem that a real bite would be one where no equipment is allowed to interfere and tip off the dog that it is really "just a game." How thousands or real bare arm bites from real dogs can leave anything more than a stump is kind of the unsolved mystery of quack level personal protection training. When you look into the background, you often find that they have tried Schutzhund or other sport and failed. Sometimes they even buy a trained or titled dog and still fail. Sometimes, they actually do obedience or protection demonstrations with the radio shock collar still on, as if nobody is going to notice. Sometimes, they actually bring out the old pillow suit.
The fundamental problem is that the term "personal protection dog" means everything and it means nothing. It can be and is defined in the context of a particular sales pitch. Sometimes the protection dog never gets off the leash, is lunging and snarling at the helper, but held back like the small boy desperately trying to fight and desperately afraid someone will let him go. Sometimes there is a demonstration of the dog walking on leash and then playing tug with faithful training apprentice Shane when he comes out from behind a corner.
They often go on and on about how many dogs they have worked for so many years. But it is kind of like sweeping the floor, you can?t really have twenty years of experience, but only two weeks of experience a thousand times. If the logic were valid the guy who spent twenty years as a butcher in the local store would be ready to do heart surgery.
There are lots of stock demonstrations, the dog defending the car, snarling and snipping through the window is a favorite. But corner a rat and he will snarl and snap too, he has no place to go.
When the obedience client goes home at the end of a class, he can see if the dog passes his AKC trials or quits ripping up the sofa, but has in general very little ability to tell what he is really getting for all of his money in his ?personal protection? dog. Those who take their newly protection trained dog home often have no idea at all of what the dog really can do, no way to make an evaluation. The temptation of fraud is of course obvious. In general, it is all very much on the buyer beware basis.
There is hope on the horizon. There is a new game in town, a new ?Protection Sports Association? that is very much focused on the more practical aspects of personal protection work and less on the police patrol aspects.
This is their mission statement.
"The Mission of the Protection Sports Association (PSA) is to provide an outlet for civilian competition in canine obedience and controlled protection, and to recognize achievement with titles and prizes, and promote competition with club trials and championship tournaments. PSA will endeavor to set a new standard for training excellence in the protection sports, and PSA shall encourage cross-over from other protection sports, to provide a competitive venue that will test the best against the best, and encourage excellence, sportsmanship, and integrity throughout the dog training community.?
Now the guy who is not interested in training tracking or the long distance pursuits typical of police trials has a venue. If this thing rolls out successfully across the country, then it will kick the crutches out on the self proclaimed personal protection trainers. No trial system is ever perfect, but the ball will be in their court, if they can not train a couple of dogs up through the ranks of this specifically personal protection venue then they will be as suspect as the doctor without a license.
We desperately need American based trial systems with real credibility, will always be second rate to Europe as long as we allow them to maintain control If the PSA goes on to real success and a corresponding police patrol dog system with strong ties to actual police trainers and administration were to come into existence, similar the KNPV, America would be on it?s way to a real place in the working dog world, and the personal protection quack would become as scarce as the medical quack.
Background information:
Working Trials
Training Terminology