What is too high, medium or low working drive for a German Shepherd not to be considered for a service dog?

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Riopool24

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I mentioned my needs for a possible service dog, mostly true companion. This breeder places dogs into families, but says her dogs are too high drive to be service dogs. German Shepherds are working dogs, wouldn't that make them versatile?
 
murph said:
The answer to this question completely depends on what you need the service for. First I would need to know what tasks you need the dog to do to determine if they would be a possible good fit for the task.

There is a reason GSD are no longer considered apart of the fab 4. I would need more information.
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Well anxiety. What is the Fab 4?
 
Riopool24 said:
Well anxiety. What is the Fab 4?
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The fabulous 4, or the "fab 4" refers to what the service dog community considers the best candidates for service dogs. The fab four consists of collies, poodles, Labradors, and golden retrievers. There is a reason these dogs are considered the best candidates for service dogs. Anxiety in particular is usually not a good combination for GSD as a candidate because there is a high wash rate, but each dog has to be looked at as an individual, especially depending on what tasks you need the dog to do.
 
The true reason GSD are not good SD for anxiety is because they are very sensitive dogs that pick up on your emotions and if you are anxious that is going to make the dog anxious and they are not going to be able to preform any task effectively.

There is a difference between Service Dogs, Therapy Dogs, and ESAs. You can read about it in my post here.
 
murph said:
The true reason GSD are not good SD for anxiety is because they are very sensitive dogs that pick up on your emotions and if you are anxious that is going to make the dog anxious and they are not going to be able to preform any task effectively.

There is a difference between Service Dogs, Therapy Dogs, and ESAs. You can read about it in my post here.
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Well having an anxiety disorder, or any other disability speech delay, auditory processing, ADHD, etc. Does existing with learning disabilities, especially an anxiety disorder disqualify qualities to be fit for the German Shepherd breed?
 
Riopool24 said:
Well having an anxiety disorder, or any other disability speech delay, auditory processing, ADHD, etc. Does existing with learning disabilities, especially an anxiety disorder disqualify qualities to be fit for the German Shepherd breed?
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Again, every dog is different and you need to test the individual dog's temperament and keep in mind what task you are asking the dog to do.
 
murph said:
There is a reason GSD are no longer considered apart of the fab 4.
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We used to get a lot of GSDs in SAR that washed out of service dog training because they were too high drive. Not so much anymore. A lot of handlers liked them be they didn't have to go through the puppy phase and the dogs had obedience training done. They funny thing about them was that a lot of handlers, myself included, thought they were too low drive. They weren't necessarily great for a first time handler either because they either didn't have some traits you usually want in a SAR dog or those traits had been repressed in SD training because they are undesirable there.

My friend had one that washed out of guide dog training because she was too high drive. She ended up being a great SAR dog but she didn't like to range and worked somewhat slowly which is not what you really want. We also had to teach her how to play because she had never gotten to do that.
 
PopeHolySmoke said:
We used to get a lot of GSDs in SAR that washed out of service dog training because they were too high drive. Not so much anymore. A lot of handlers liked them be they didn't have to go through the puppy phase and the dogs had obedience training done. They funny thing about them was that a lot of handlers, myself included, thought they were too low drive. They weren't necessarily great for a first time handler either because they either didn't have some traits you usually want in a SAR dog or those traits had been repressed in SD training because they are undesirable there.

My friend had one that washed out of guide dog training because she was too high drive. She ended up being a great SAR dog but she didn't like to range and worked somewhat slowly which is not what you really want. We also had to teach her how to play because she had never gotten to do that.
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I task trained Murphy for SD stuff at around 4 years old after she had already been public access trained for a year or two, so she got to be a regular pet before I made her do a bunch of tasks.
 
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