Grrr...the more I think about it, Gypsy might not make even a halfway decent protection dog. She won't play with her tug outside, you have to pinch her lips to get her to make a noise at you when she DOES play with you, she doesn't bark at visitors, and now I've discovered that she submissive urinates with some people. :rolleyes:

She's three years old and this is the first time I've ever seen her do it (with the exception of once at the vet's). Lastnight four of my husband's buddies came over. She's never met any of them before. After we all got inside, I let her out of the basement and she trotted into the living room to check them out. They were all standing around. She went around the room one time and sniffed them all in passing, and stopped at the last one. She was sniffing his pant leg and he started talking to her and bent over to pet her. I realize this is a dominant gesture, but it's never bothered her before when others have done it, and it didn't bother her when the other guys did it, but when he bent over, she squatted as low to the ground as she could get, tail wagging the whole time, and peed just a little. I didn't scold her or even say anything; I just cleaned it up. She didn't do it with any of the other guys, and she's never done it before. He was talking to her in a happy tone and everything. The only "scary" thing he did was bend over her.


I thought chows were supposed to be aloof towards strangers! lol I guess she just has more pit in her than chow. Guess I'll just have to wait until we can afford a Leerburg dog and he has an adult dog available.

I don't know all that much about protection training (as in first hand experience), but she doesn't sound at all suitable for that job. I'm curiuous about the pinching her lip to have her make a sound. What's that all about? Are you trying to elicit and aggressive response towards you, or is it a play pinch that makes her respond? I'm not understanding the purpose to that at all, but maybe I'm missing something really obvious?

The lip pinching was something the trainer did while he was playing tug with her. He did it when she actually had the tug in her mouth, and said he did it to see if she had any sort of defense drive (she was back-tied) because she wasn't making any noise otherwise. I guess it was just a play pinch, but he was trying to elicit some sort of aggressive response from her.