Svensk tjänstehundsavel : en återblick och nutidsbeskrivning samt förslag inför framtiden

Sammanfattning: In 1936 a governmental breeding project was started with aim on military use. The police later came to use dogs from this project as well. In order to utilize dogs that could fit for other purposes training and education of dogs for search of different substances and of guide dogs for blind persons was performed. A political decision to privatize the whole dog programme was taken in 1992. During most part of the time one had serious economical issues since too few of the dogs that were bred could be considered to fulfil the basic demands for service. To satisfy the need of service dogs private bred dogs were bought as well. Among these even fewer were suitable for service. During the 1970's collaboration started with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the University of Stockholm in order to improve the outcome of breeding. Ten years later an evident improvement of health and mentality was stated, and more of bred dogs was measuring up. However, by then the users had become more inclined to buy cheaper dogs on the private market, wich induced a lack of sale market for the governmental bred dogs. There was also a somewhat negative preference for female dogs in service. These two circumstances resulted in that useful dogs some times were given away as pets. For some years to come after the privatization breeding was on-going without any economic foundation for the breeding programme. The conclusion must be that other conditions and approaches concerning breeding and the use of service dogs is necessary to guarantee a vital dog population and a long term access to dogs suitable for service. The long term reliability is indeed a key issue: if a breeding programme is to survive it must be planned and designed in a way that makes it vital over time, politically as well as organisationally and economically. A renewed effort in breeding was realized in management of the military defence in 2005, which primarily is intended to supply themselves with surveillance dogs. The directory of the programme says that it should be developed concidering the needs of the police as well. By the end of 2007 a total number of 286 dogs had been recorded. At this point a big part of building up the breeding programme is already performed. However, earlier governmental breeding has sometimes demanded new solutions and strategies. Among other things purchase of dogs and use of privately owned breeding dogs have been necessary. Contacts and relations with breeders and others within the civil dog organisations will therefore probably be necessary also in the future. To what extent a more active future cooperation will be needed will depend on the outcome of the efforts made, and on possible new political decisions. Hosting dogs in foster homes might also include variants of solutions, designed from the experiences of previous governmental breeding but also from the foster home project for mine detecting dogs of the military defence. Further research can contribute to improvement of health and selection of dogs for breeding.