Dog Security Training
Pricing for trained security/k9/protection dog?
Were talking european imports, fully trained for either estate protection, personal protection, bomb detection, narcotics dog, etc, etc.
If a dog like this were to change hands what sort of price do these dogs go for? We talking single thousands ? or more like double digit thousands? (20- 50, 000)?
Im just wondering what sort of monetary value these dog have once fully trained.
Most places are bums and crooks but an adult import of decent quality is usually about $3,000-$6,000 (not including shipping, ouch!). Then it takes about 2 months of work to convert a sport dog to a Police Service Dog/Personal Protection Dog. You have to teach a Schutzhund based dog how to go for the legs and body, and a KNPV dog that it’s okay to bite a suspect who’s stopped fighting or is completely passive. You also have to teach these dogs in this amount of time that bitework is no longer a game. 99% of sport trained dogs work in mostly prey drive and to them training is just a rough game of tug, they need to be taught that the helper will hurt you if you’re caught slipping, they need to learn that the man, not the sleeve or the suit, is the target of their attention and aggression. You’d be surprised how many dogs will chase the sleeve if the helper takes it off and tosses it on the ground.
So in the end the dog’s price will come out to $7,000-$12,000, if somebody charges more than that you’ve been swindled unless the dog is highly titled (show and/or work) or is of seriously impressive quality, aka a dog that should be studded (most importers themselves don’t have breed quality dogs and wouldn’t recognize one if it bit them in the rear). Some times when people call me for pricing and I say something less than $20,000 they get suspicious thinking I have lesser quality dogs when they were about to pay some other guy $50,000 for a crappy show line Schutzhund washout! Also most Police Departments buy second rate dogs because they have no idea what to look for in a service dog. That’s why a LOT of PSDs are show line dogs, and even worse, American lined dogs. I remember a female K9 officer once who had a WHITE GSD as her DUAL PURPOSE K9. I tried to tell her, she didn’t want to hear it (the bond between a person and their dog some times beats out reason), I even wrote a letter to her department, it fell on deaf ears. About 3 months later (didn’t take long huh?) I get this phone call from her department asking me to come out. The white GSD went after a bad guy, and was tugging at his shorts, the bad guy said “NO”, he stopped, and then hopped in the truck with the bad guy…never to be seen again, LOL! She’s LUCKY it was a fleeing suspect and not a combative one. A $14,000 white GSD adopted from the pound for 55 bucks…wow. Crooks are everywhere. The only dogs I ever sold for anything near 20 grand were highly titled in show and work and specifically requested aka “Hey I want THIS dog that’s in Germany and I also want you to protection train him for us”. Beware the scam! I hope I helped…as you can see this is something I’m passionate about! I hate crooks, and I hate it even worse that they’re preying on PD’s with limited resources and little old ladies looking for protection and end up with Schutzhund washouts and French bred Malinois.
-add- Oh and btw some one here who will remain un-named has a small hobby kennel with 100% pure DDR dogs, the only problem was this person had 4 females and no males and had to buy frozen or chilled semen from other breeders! I picked them up a Sch1 pure DDR male, breed quality, serious dog, a dog I’ve used in my program, a dog I almost didn’t want to sell, for $6,000! So when somebody tells you you’re paying for quality? You’re actually paying for their second yacht!
-re-edit- Oh nooooo, I’d never try to train a Schutzhund titled dog for police work, it’s too much work like you said, I only take green dogs who haven’t undergone forced tracking. Teaching a dog who’s been forced tracked to track in drive = near impossible. I try to get dogs who’ve been on a hard sleeve, have basic OB done, and have never done a track. KNPV and NVBK are much better to pool PSDs from because they don’t have tracking (although training a dog to airscent before tracking causes problems too). As far as biting passive suspects, most KNPV dogs I work with don’t want to bite a suspect who’s laying down and not moving…I usually re-teach them to bite on command and teach them that the helper hurts if you’re not on ‘em!
“Herbie” GSD training as a Police dog at Top Dog Security Ltd