My sister was a police sergeant. One night there was a bit of a riot in the town, so she ordered the dogs to be released.
"How many did you arrest?" I asked.
"None at the scene. But I sent a few officers down to the hospital A & E, and when they turned up for treatment to their wounds, we let them have treatment and then arrested them!"
Her husband was a dog handler. One day we were ascending Pen-y_Fan in the Brecon Beacons. The dog - Zak - saw a sheep about 1/4 mile down the mountain and took off. Just goes to show that no matter how well-trained you can't get rid of the hunting instinct!
One bad guy was surrounded by armed cops but stood his ground. He was terrified of the little GSD. They are, as your sisters story points out, very aggressive and have big teeth.
Jackdaw - my little ones are in my Avatar. Frankie is at the back nd is a good tempered boy. The black one at the front is his sister, Merlin, she bullies her brother and has attacked and bitten people like the postman. She gets muzzled at the vet.
Many years ago when I had a pub in Dover, I bought a G/S for a pet but also for a guard dog.
She was a softie, so I sent her away for 10 days to be trained to guard, attack when told etc.
After 3 days the instructor phoned me, and told me to pick her up, as she was to soft, and if somebody broke into the pub, she would probably lick them to death :-).
She made a lovely family pet, and loved our 4 kids.
Tony - was that an April Fools video? Cats can be trained to do anything a dog can do but they don't do too well when it comes to taking orders.
trt - she was a Lady dog, too refined for all the barking and growling that we expect of a guard dog. She sounds as if there may have been some Lab genes in her somewhere - eat, sleep, eat, play, eat.
I love dogs, well the ones that are not little yappy things or JRs. As a child all that I wanted was a dog but all I got was a little brother.
There was a funny story about a retired drugs dog. Trouble was it didn't know it was retired and would go up to people it "found" in the street and sit in front of them.
Grasscarp, I was thinking about that sort of issue the other day. What if one of your parents have a drugs dog and you want to invite your pals over to have a party. The dog doesn't know that its off duty or retired - it just uses its nose. It is really amazing and they always look so happy.