My family and I are looking at getting a German Shepherd. We want to do protection training, but have small children. What would you recommend for a beginner? An older dog or a puppy?

I wrote an article on how to prevent dog bites in children. You need to read this article and determine if you and your family are willing to live by that protocol.

Your decision comes down to your willingness to not only manage your new dog (be it a puppy or an adult), but to also manage the behavior of your children. No one can answer these questions for you. There are many articles on my web site that may be of help.

Too often management is a one sided issue, which means there isn't enough management and training of the children. In my opinion, this is wrong.

I recently produced a short video on management for one of our recent newsletters. It’s free to watch if you can watch streaming video on your computer. I suggest you watch it. Good management is just as important as good obedience training when it comes to living with a dog.

Before you make your decision you may even want to consider the online Basic Dog Obedience course we released a few weeks ago. It has 150 videos in it and is a 6 week course. In my opinion, it is way better than a local obedience course. There is a course overview available and a video that that goes over what is in the course.

I hope this helps

Regards,
Ed Frawley