A friend of mine went to see a litter of gsd pups.The breeder showed my friend the stud dog. As she was talking to him he told her not to be doing any strange movements with her hands because the dog would attack her.Is this normal in a protection dog? Are they supposed to attack that easily?

No, this dog is NOT protection trained. He is just under socialised. This is soo-oo easy to achieve:
You take a puppy (most breeds will do- even poodles) and you keep him in a cage for his puppyhood. No one talks to him no one feeds him but you. A few months later you can test him by sending a stranger to his cage. If the dog doesn't freak you tell the stranger to bang the cage. Voila! You've distroyed a dog!

With a GSD this can occur just as easily if you just never let him be touched by anyone but you.
Again you end up with a totally worthess animal.

This is not a guard dog even in the basic sense because 9 times out of ten he won't have the guts to actually fight someone with any kind of weapon (or loud voice). And if he does have the guts he is still an unpredictable FREAK and will have to be chained whenever you have visitors. He won't BE there to save your children or your life when needed.

A good protection dog does NOT attack unless one out of the 3 below occurs:
1. You threated his family or master.
2. You threaten his families car.
3. You enter the property uninvited.

The rest of the time he should be a kitty cat.

BUT 9 times out of 10 the people who say this about their dog ('Watch out! He bites!') are LIEING and just want to impress you when in reality they own a couch potato. If this dog was so 'nuts' the guy wouldn't have let it loose...

There are as many ideas of what a protection dog is as there are dirtbag protection dog trainers.

Being a dirtbag protection dog trainer myself, in my opinion, that seems a little extreme.

Maybe he was messing with you, trying to make you think the dog is really dangerous and "tuff".

Or he has made a mistake in his training. The dog shouldn't be just waiting around to bite every person that he comes into contact with. There should be clearly defined situations where he has learned to bite without a command. But he also has to learn there are nice people as well.

But, there are always risks involved. It is a dog, you can't rely on him to always make the correct decisions in the human world. Always good to let people know how to behave around them, and always good to keep an eye on them when they are around people.

That is a risk and responsibility you accept when you do this type of training.

I own one similar dog, if what the guy said is true. He is nice around the family (the only reason I still own him), but can NOT interact with visitors. He is our night yard dog that I got from a jerk who took Schutzhund a little to seriously and ruined the dog.

Yea, so I guess that is a good indication of poor training. Also an indication of poor handling in that situation.

Stella M., I find it a little funny that you can make all the determinations you did in the first few pharagraphs with only the little info the other Stella wrote.

I agree with most of the rest.

This guy told my friend that it is a mistake to train your dog in protection because it will attack anyone who talks loud to a family member or even give a pet at the owners shoulder. I guess this is also not true?
Now i realize how many BAD trainers we have here. Mostly all say the same thing.
NEVER protection train a family dog

It's both bad trainers and bad societal attitudes. Everything factors into it, letigious nature of today's culture, refusal of people to take responsibility for their actions, a very large number of very dumb and plain mentally defective individuals in the population (that's what you get breeding just everyone to everyone else). Basically that's the safest thing to advise. I (not being a trainer, though) would never professionally advise a stranger to do anything in a way of protecting himself. It can always come back and bite you.
What I am amazed by is that there are still people teaching self-defense with weapons or w/o, training protection dogs, selling guns, etc. There still might be some hope left.

I have a protection trained family dog (giant) and could not imagine me living without one. It isn't easy to protection train a family dog (or own one for that matter) with complete success and I rarely recommend it even to my own clients.
People who are totally against such dogs have never met a good, stable, properly trained one.
Probably because they are so rare. It takes a very well bred dog, years of training and vigilant intelligent ownership to get there but when you do, it is awe inspiring. Call me weird for never wanting to live with another type of dog -but I sleep better at night. I have 100lbs of guardian angel that I can take anywhere with me who I know will die trying to protect me (and mine) and still be more of a gentleman to my guests than most men I have met. His judgement calls are impeccable and he is totally trusted and controllable.

Yes, there are guard dogs that can only guard your property (like the dogs described) because they can't be trusted too close to strangers but I wouldn't say they are properly protection trained -I would say they are junk yard dogs... Many dogs will do that with NO training at all and they are MUCH more of a liability than a properly trained dog.

As for realising alot with very little info -what can I say? I am very perseptive?

If there is a threat of a bite by simply having the dog out, you keep the dog crated while visitors are over. Period. If a dogs would possibly attack because a person "made a strange hand movement", the dog has serious nerve issues and most likely should not have been bred. This breeder does not sound too bright....

And it's been mentioned before in other posts here. Your dog is an alarm system with teeth. He will give you warning to a potential bad situation, but under a real threat, ie, a home invasion of armed men ( which happens here in Atlanta at least monthly) his ability to defend you is severely limited. He *may* give you enough time to reach for a firearm, which is better than nothing. At least a strong barking dog will prevent most attacks from even happening, just through deterence.
Remember, law enforcement officers enter crack houses surrounded by tough dogs eveyday. They get by the dogs easily using a simple device that anybody can pick up in Walmart to repel the dogs...it always works with no risk to the SRT team. No matter how tough your dog is, he'll run away when faced with it.
So truely depending on your dog as a last line of defense is not wise. He's a tool, just like a firearm, and all tools have some type of limitations. That's just how it is in the real world.

Stella, as for not training a dog in protection because no one can yell at a family member without being attacked its just not true.

Here are some anecdotes after 9 years of living with such a dog.

1. If you yell at me in my house, Magic will growl at you from the pit of his stomach very loudly and very seriously and you WILL stop and he will lie down. He will do exactly the same if you speak mean or curse at me in a very soft voice (but mean it).

2. I you have been accepted as a friendly visitor and yell playfully and even hit me playfully, Magic will seem to be asleep.

3. If I get frightened by you for no serious reason (ex. because you are playing with a knife) he will stand between us and do nothing else.

4. If I tell him to attack and you have done absolutely nothing, he will only bark ferosiously in your face until I tell him to stop (or you walk out the door) and won't bite unless you raise an arm to strike him or me. He will attack (barking)anyone on my command (even people he likes alot) but will not bite unless they fight him or me.

5. In combat on neutral territory (protecting me on the street) he always knocks his opponent to the ground, watches his hand for weapons (will bite if there is one), swerves to avoid kicks and will NOT loose his cool and bite until it is absolutely necessary. This 'cool' saved the arm of a druggie one night who didn't see Magic taking a leak nearby (off lead) and shoved me for not giving him money. Magic shoved him back and growled in his face until I called him off.

6. At home he will fly off the couch and land teeth first on an intruder from the window.

7. He loves all children and loves having friends over - IF I am home.

This is not unbelieveable OR impossible. However, it does take countless hours of socialisation, (that's where he gets the good judgement) and training with different helpers in different places and most importantly it takes a damn good dog. A dog that has absolutely NOTHING to do with a junk yard dog.