anastasia: W-o-w, absolutely awesome I think it's an amazing thing to be able to teach/train an animal to be of such service, whether for your own protection, or as a "worker dog". And I totally get the reason for the stick being used - these are by no means your "average" pet doggie & they need to defend themselves against whatever a human might throw their way. Besides, realistically, if a dog like one of these wanted to do a human REAL harm, they'd do it, whether they were in pain at the time or not - after all the work/time/effort on both the human and the dog's part that got them that far, they deserve to be respected for what they are capable of