Please know that Angelique knows what she is doing. I would not recommend doing this with one of your friends. I am assuming that when Angelique says "helper" she means a person who knows how to work, engage, and back off of a dog. Like Susan said, the dog may be pushed into avoidance and fear and that is something that is not simply forgotten by the dog. Not only will he lose trust in you as a leader, he may become a fear biter that is not easily controllable.
A reliable and professional trainer can tell you a lot about your dog, especially when you admit you do not know about "bite" work. Do you know what types of body language are displayed during the different types of feelings? ie..fear, aggression, dominant, submissive, nervous, happy, upset and so on...
If you cannot correctly read your dog then you will not know if he is displaying the correct confident PPD behavior or he is a nerve ball and bites because he is scared out of his wits.
I truly believe that paying a fee for a competent evaluation should not be an issue since you want this dog to ultimatley protect the one you love most in your life.
You are not being stupid about the issue, but please step back, look at the big picture and do what is best for you, your wife and your dog.

You shouldn't do it because you don't know what you are doing! No offence, & granted, what we do isn't brain surgery, it still requires someone with experience to read & understand your dog. As this is not your field of expertise, you could inadvertently push your dog over the top. Again, before you do anything, PLEASE give your dog some time to bond & adjust to you & your family.

Kelly, my advice to you would be to go to the Leerburg website and order these two DVD's: "The first steps of bite training" and "The first steps of defense".

Angelique knows what she's doing, and so does her club helper. They know what drives to look for and how far to take the exercises. Trying this out without first understanding the very basics of defense training and protection work could be disastrous for your dog.

As the others have said, you could push him into avoidance and turn him into a nervous wreck. You don't even know what kind of temperament he has yet, what if he doesn't have what it takes to do protection work?

These DVDs are excellent - I have both and they will teach you what drives the dog works in when doing protection and how to teach the initial bite work. This way, it will also educate you so that when you do go out and choose a helper or trainer (or even just a friend), you'll know what to look for.
You can avoid having your dog messed up by an incompetent trainer who's trying to pass himself off as an expert (plenty of those kinds out there!).

Watch the DVDs first so you at least know what you're getting into. They'll teach you to look for signs of trouble in your dog as you're doing the work.

Good luck. Don't push your dog too far; if he isn't suited for the work, accept it and get another dog from proven working bloodlines if you really have your heart set on protection work (even if it's just non-biting work).

Yes thnak you we do know what we are doing when we do such exercise but also this femlae has been out to our club and we knew what type of dog she is before we did the test at home, but to do what we did without knowing what type of reaction you are going to get before hand,is not a good idea.kelly I wanted to tell you about the exercise to give you an idea how some exercise are done at home ,I would hope you would not rush to it, and get some experts advise and get some education on any kind of bite work foundation, the drives dogs posesses and how to test such behavior on a dog, that would be healthy for you & the dog.I would never recommand anyone to do it themselves unless they have experience in that department.I hope you think hard about this.

ok ok... no one said that i was going to go out tonight and put a robber mask on and try to be a bad guy. All I was wanting to know if there was any tell tell signs that a dog would be defensive or protective towards its owner and property by doing something at home as an owner. I TOTALLY agree with you all about no doing it myself. AGREED.

So this is where I am at: My main purpose in determining his aggression/protective level is for my own satisfaction. I do not plan on bite training him... or at least I dont think I do. If I DO take him to get evaluated, and he/she says that he would be a good canidate, i would consider, after educating myself more on the whole bite training subject.

SO, from here... Anyone out there know a reputable trainer that does evaluations in the Dallas Texas area. I would be willing to take him and have him looked at and just find out where he stands.... The hard part is finding a trainer that is reputable and not a rip off.... so, any ideas, trainers, searches, etc. I would appreciate.

kk

Unless he's a real badass or a terrible fear biter, then no, he won't bite. Testing the dog with absolutely no foundation in protection is a horrible idea, don't do it. Even with really good dogs, you want to show them what to do and how to do it before you start testing them. That's like sending your 16 year old to a kickboxing match to see what he's made of when he's never fought anyone in his life.

If you enjoy doing stuff with your dog, then sport protection is a good place to start. Otherwise, the best you'll probably get out of the dog is a good bark at strangers.

Hi Kelly, the hardest part is finding the "right" trainer/decoy, the really good ones will be willing to explain everything to a beginner, take your time and talk to different people and look at their dogs, also make sure they trained the dog from a pup or at least a green dog. If you saw me out with my PPD you'd think "wow, that guy knows his stuff" when in reality i bought the dog from Will Rambeau, get my point? The more you do the more you'll learn too.

One more thing, i've seen in this thread a couple of times "a PPD that bites", as opposed to a PPD that doesn't bite , a dog that won't bite for real is not a PPD so i would take their advice with a grain of salt regarding this subject. In regards to an untrained dog being protective, we did a home invasion scenario a few months ago, my PPD did awesome and my non-bite trained male bit high and never let go and it got pretty rough and crazy with 2 dogs fighting the decoy, it was great! (it's a lot different in the house than on a field), so if your dog has the right temperament, have fun. My personal favorite thing is obedience but bite work is a lot of fun too.
Good luck with your dog,
AL

What Al forgot to mention is that both his dogs have bitten before in training Both have some sort of foundation and understanding of how to "win".

Mike,
I am not promoting taking this dog to a trainer to see if he will bite. I am talking about taking the dog to a professional that can test temperament to see if the dog has what it takes to learn.
From what I know, there is a difference.

The OP was asking if the dog had what it takes, and without seeing the dog, we cannot tell. SO the best thing is for him to take the dog to a trainer for evaluation. There is nothing wrong in taking a dog to be tested for temperament.