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May 17, 2011

I have a 10-week pup I want protection-trained. Should I keep people away from it?

Full Question:
Ed, I am raising my puppy to be a protection dog. I heard that you should keep people from petting your dog when you go out in public. My puppy is 10 weeks old and whenever I go out in public everyone wants to come up and pet him and say awh, he's so cute. Should I keep people from petting him? What should I say to these people? What should I do with the pup?

Charles
Ed
Ed Ed's Answer:
Puppies that are being raised as personal protection dogs need to be socialized a lot. This means they need to experience as many different things as possible. This means you take your dog to different places all the time. Try and think of places where the dog will be a little stressed but not to the point of avoidance. Doing this two or three times a week pays off in spades.Owners can take puppies around people but if the pup has good nerves they should not allow people to pet them. We want the dog to look at the handler as the only person in his universe. I don't ever let people pet my dogs - except if a pup is a little sharp. In that case I will ask people to toss him a piece of meat or a treat. In rare situations I will let them pat the dog to show him there is nothing to fear. But the minute I see that the dog is no longer concerned with strangers this stops. It's important that this concept is clear. If the dog has good nerves then no one touches the dog, if the pup is quick to bark at people then I allow human socialization until humans are not an issue and then the socialization stops.The people that told you to keep the dog away from people do not understand dog training. My advise is to stay away from them for future information. To keep a dog away from everyone is only going to produce an unstable dog, a dog that is unsure of himself and as an adult may be a dog that is dangerous to have around. The goal of protection training is to produce a dog that will protect the handler when the handler is being threatened. A dog that has had little human contact is going to either be shy of people or worse (with training) be very aggressive to everyone. Of course we could consider a dog that wants to kill everything and everyone a person protection dog but that is kind of like a body guard going out and shooting everyone that comes near the person he is trying to protect.

If you want to learn how to do proper training on young pups to get them prepared for future personal protection training you need to refer to my video titled Bite Training for Puppies. You should also consider my video Your Puppy 8 Weeks to 8 Months. The first deals with the first stages of bite training for pups that are 8 weeks to 8 months. The second deals with raising and socializing a pup.

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