I called some trainers this weekend and they said the dog doesn’t need to have any genetics, they could teach personal protection. Is this true?

In good old American english, this is 100% bull shit. These people that you are talking to are either inexperienced trainers or rip off artists that are only interested in getting your money.

Genetics is the most important aspect of personal protection training. This is followed by a sound foundation in prey bite development and then a solid foundation in defense to build the dogs fight drive.

A dog’s ability to work in prey is 100% genetic. If a dog does not have prey drive it can not be properly trained in protection work. Prey drive is needed to release the stress of defensive bite training. If a dog does not have prey and a foundation in prey bite work it has no way of relieving the stress that's brought to the dog in defense. Dogs that lack prey but are still trained in defense become neurotic, sick crazy dogs. These are dogs that are dangerous to be around.

For a dog to work as a personal protection dog it must have fight drive. (If you don’t know what fight drive is, refer to my article on the subject). Fight drive, like prey drive, is 100% inherited. It can not be trained into a dog.

All dogs can be worked in defense. Dogs that lack a foundation in prey and a genetic foundation in fight drive will resort to avoidance as a means of defense. If they are not allowed to run but are backed into a corner and forced to fight - most will fight, but later in real life when presented with a stressful situation they will always resort back to avoidance. This is how these guys that call themselves professional dog trainers will train a dog that's not genetically capable of doing the work. They tie them up in the same spot and beat them until the dog fights in fight or flight. But once that same dog is in a different spot and it’s not tied up, it will run.>

With all this said, I will say that most dogs can be trained to bite. If they do not have the genetics needed for the work they can be trained through "avoidance" to bite people. This is a barbaric method of training a dog. The dogs are tied out and basically beat on until they learn that the only safe thing to do is bite a person. Trainers put these animal in the fight or flight mode by adding so much stress that the dog is literally fighting for his life (because they eliminate the possibility of running away through being tied out.) This kind of training usually makes a dog neurotic and a very unstable dangerous animal to be around. Dogs trained like this will often bite their owner and family as well as guests.

My advice is to call these so called trainers back and tell them that you sent an e-mail to a guy who seriously questions their statements, methods and integrity.