Hello all, glad to join this community.

My interest is in having a protection dog for the home. I lean towards a natural protector and before this term gets confused what I mean by it is simply that my main concern is the temperamental package the dog comes with from birth. Agitation/bite training is right now of secondary importance to me. The reason for this is that I've seen enough dogs work wonderfully in planned situations but fail to respond in more complex real life situations. Anyways, all that is old news.

All the tough dogs that I've known that would react aggressively at "more or less" appropriate times were adult when I came in contact with them and most came with their own set of problems. I did not have an opportunity to watch them develop and display the early indications of their future abilities nor to steer them away from the undesirable behaviors. I only remember one pup years ago that displayed very promising behavior. Having a young daughter now I am no longer in a position to experiment with adult tough dogs so I'm starting with a pup.

This is my fourth pup in the last 1.5 years and I finally think I'm onto something, to the point I feel like sharing it and generating a discussion. To provide a contrast I'll mention that I have another potential that I'm working with but this dog is 1 year old. A dog who's got the look, and some good working drives that I can take advantage of, yet shows no interest in the approach of strangers and is completely oblivious to threat even from another dog that wants to clobber him. The only reaction is a wagging tail and a sniff. One could argue that this is a good start and that I have a stable dog which exposed to the right experience would do the job.

Yet when compared to the 4 month old there is a world of difference. The younger pup is alert to his surroundings yet not in the same way as nervy jumpy dogs. His exposure to the world around him is progressing and when there is a sudden interruption in the routine, for example on a walk at night, a car stops a short distance away and a person will exit slamming the door. This pup immediately assumes a stance facing the situation and lets out a couple of barks that carry the tone of forward intention. After a brief looking over, I suppose seeing that there is nothing of interest in the situation he resumes interest in the walk. The next time a car door is slammed there is no such reaction.

I've searched this board for threads dealing with sharpness. The first thing I see is that people get hung up in semantics. The best thing for me to do then is to define what sharpness means to me. I've thought about it for a while and came up with this: "Sharpness is the degree to which a dog is in constant awareness of developing situations in his environment, and how ready he is to get off his butt and react to these situations" What happens afterwards I think is dependent on other aspects of his temperament and I'm sure that this quality of sharpness is independent of fear, stability and the drive to defend oneself.

Would someone like to comment with similar experiences and help me define more clearly the early indications of this in a puppy/young dog, how to know when the dog is overly sharp, or any other thing they can contribute to the understanding of this aspect of the dogs temperament.

Thanks,
Dan

Beside what I've read here, I found this interesting.
Sharpness defined

Hello Steve and thanks for the link. I see that you have a rott in your sig so this is a good time to mention that my dogs are rottweilers.

I read the article. Armin Winkler's premise seems to be that sharpness is based on the dog perceiving a threat, more specifically a threat from a human as he calls it "man sharpness". I'm not sure I agree. What I have in mind is kind of like an automatic aggressive reaction to a disturbance, a disturbance is not necessarily immediately identifiable as having been caused by a person. Is a disturbance the same as a threat? I'm thinking that it may go along the same lines as a dog that automatically responds aggressively to pain no matter what it is caused by.

Stability and socialization may temper the dog's final reaction, ie. to stop after the bark or to make a full out attack.

Hey Dan, I was following this on the other forum before it got yanked and I wasnt able to see what answers you were getting. Are you trying to decide if your pup would be safe with your family if you train in protection or how to evaluate a puppy for protection?

Steve, At first I didn't understand what you were talking about but then I figured it out. I was surprised that you made the connection between this post and the rott forum I posted there because I thought I might get a more accurate gauge making the question breed specific. The responses I got there were what can be expected, pure drama. From the stand point of an experienced dog person, training and behavior discussions there are ridiculous.

That aside, my interest is in evaluating a puppy. My premise is that for my purposes, without the dog possessing the right degree of sharpness there is no sense building it up in bitework. I want to know other's opinions on how the right degree of sharpness expresses itself during the puppy's development. I've defined sharpness as the missing component in dogs that I worked with previously. Being stable and capable of doing good bitework, I knew that they lacked the trigger which will make them react on their own when the right time comes. Using agitation as a substitute to natural sharpness to ensure an aggressive reaction from the dog in various situations dulled the dog's reasoning and resulted in a dog that attacks at the wrong time. This is apart from dogs who were sharp but had other temperament problems. Sharpness wasn't so important before because I was content with having a dog that will react on cue. Since then my philosophy on what personal and home protection is has changed. That is why now I am focused on identifying sharpness in a pup, and of course the other necessary aspects of a working temperament, those I feel pretty comfortable in recognizing.

Have you visited the "Ability to problem solve" thread? That may be your answer, or a component of it.

Debbie, I looked into it thank you. The coincidence surprised me but I don't understand the correlation. I posted there regarding my pups behavior which is exactly what they were talking about. Do you understand the relationship between these temperament traits?

I doubt I can be any help Dan, My dog was tested and evaluated for me and it was mostly with an eye towards obedience and no thought at all towards protection. Andy has always been very alert to everything and more than willing to investigate without having to be encouraged. Loud unexpected noises always seem to draw him forward but not out of control just what looks like a little higher curiosity, tail up and walking a little taller. One difference from what you said about the car door slamming is if you slam it 20 times he won't ignore it on that 20th time. I'm not experienced enough to describe exact degree's of sharpness or hardness or the different drives but for myself any more then what Andy has would make it too tough to live with. If you want to PM me I will try to answer any specific questions you may want to ask about my dog.

It sounds like what you want is a dog who can reason like a person and will use aggression only in the correct situations when you aren't there to direct him. (A lot of humans couldn't do that job, let alone most dogs.)
My only exposure to working lines of dogs is what I have learned here, so I would have a hard time picking a sharp pup with the correct amount of aggression and confidence, or helping anyone else do it.
If you start with the working lines and then find the most intelligent one you can you are probably on the right track. I think that problem solving ability is one of the best gauges of intelligence.
Your direction and teaching is going to have a tremendous impact on the dog's skills later (to state the obvious). If you can figure out how to maximise the reasoning powers of your intelligent working line dog you might be able to shape the dog into what you are looking for.

Sharpness, in my opinion, is the tendency to be reactive to stimuli. In the dogs I have experience with seeing from birth to adulthood, the dogs that tend to be sharp and have natural aggression as adults may actually show shy or aloof behavior as pups. Many times they are the pups that get their hair up quickly, bark a little bit too much in response to a new person or situation, or actually appear a bit lacking in self confidence in certain situations. Being patient and having an understanding of young dog development is the key to nurturing a dog like this properly.

NOTE...this is where you need to know your bloodlines and know the different phases pups go through on their way to adulthood. Handled incorrectly, these dogs can grow up to be either very nervous (if unjustly corrected for showing these behaviors)or complete monsters (if inappropriately rewarded at the wrong time)

there are MANY pups that show all the things I listed above who simply have poor nerves, but the pups I have experience with go through phases as they grow up that if misunderstood can ruin the dog.

I have no experience raising Rott pups, but do have extensive experience with Dobermans, GSDs and Malinois.