To all, All good points. Yes, the the poodle was a very dominant dog. The Schnauzer probably is too. I'm not a trainer, I thought this was just a natural instict that a lot of dogs have, to protect. But, true, it probably all amounts to dominance. Both dogs were my parent's dogs and we tease them (my parents) that every dog they have act the same way...aggressive towards people they don't know.

Thanks for your views on this!

Ok, how about this senario: Once I was walking my dog near a lake (he was 10 mo. at the time) and suddenly two men with fishing poles popped out of the bushes about 8 ft. in front of us. My dog instantly went to alert, hackles up, pulling forward, growling and barking like mad. I was able to put him in a sit at my heel, but he never took his eyes off these two guys, and continued a low growl, as they tried to skirt around us as far as they could get. They thought he was gonna eat them, I don't know what he would have done. I didn't correct him, but did tell him quiet, with slight success (no barking, only a growl). After they left our sight we continued our walk. The next person we saw after that, (a lady walking) he started to low growl, no hackles. I corrected him, he stopped, and has never growled at anyone again on any walks.

Would this be protective behavior?

IMHO, he wasn't so much protective as a bit defensive, having been startled. If the men were deliberately threatening or appearing so, I would say it's possible it was protective. JMO.

OK, that makes sense. They were sure scared, and he was sure pissed, that's all I know. I hope we never get into a situation where I need him to protect me, but I hope he will if it ever happens. Ya know? He is a big boy, of powerful build, so most people look at him apprehensively and will ask if he is friendly, not too many walk up to him.

Really, there is no way to test if a dog will be protective, is there? I mean if you are not doing protection training? And would this be something you would want to test, or could this lead to problems?

Like Ed says 99% of dogs will not defend there owners, they see you as pack leader there to defend them, unless trained other wise.


When people ask me my hobbies and i say dogs and schutzhund i get 'oh my dog would do that to protect me etc'.

Several years ago in a little village a few miles away a lady was walking her two gsds and was raped. Sorry if this shock but its true.

My parents took a gsd rescue that was found living wild in the Brecon Beacons (mountain range in Wales). Believed to have been dumped there as a pup and had survived off road kill, rabbits etc. Once rehomed he killed a neighbours yorkshire terrier i thinks so rather than put him down my dad offered to take him and managed to resocialize him with our gsps. Dad kept him as a guard dog for the kennels and at night he had free roam of the pereimter grounds. When the kenels were broken into damn dog did squat ( i rekon he could have licked the intruder to death at least).

When i was a smal child my dad had a german shoirt haired pointer rescue from scottish lines so was a very big boy, large rott size. This was 100% my fathers dog, incredibly gentle with me and my sister. Parents used to have tickle fights, but once my mother screamed (very ticklish). Glen smashed through a heavy wodden door, got into the bedroom and pinned my father down, unsure of what was going on. Now german shoirt haired pointers are barkers, great for alarming but ive never known another one to stand its ground never mind do this.

so breeds can have gaurding tendacies like the rott/gsd but imo unless trained and tested you just never now.

So what would be an example of protective insticts, in y'alls opinion? Ive seen it mentioned here but I havent heard of any examples, I take it it isnt used in Schutzund (dog takes helper on command through drives..)

My understanding is that schutzhund (protection dog) is to look desirable stable dogs. But it is a sport.
To move a dog into defensive drive is something i dont really know about but i think the same traits are needed.
The dog must be brave and confident, will not turn and run from a on coming helper, or be scared by gun shots..
Im out of my depth here so will let some one else explain.

The actual word "Schutzhund" means protection dog. The original purpose of the Schutzhund testing was to identify traits in a dog in order to access whether it was worth breeding. To this day, in Germany all dogs must pass a Schutzhund evaluation before they are allowed to breed with other desirable dogs.

However, Schutzhund has had many things happen to it over the years. There are cases upon cases of dogs being passed by crooked judges, payoffs, not understanding standards, etc. It has turned more into a sport rather than an actual evaluation of a dogs ability to pass on genes that will ensure a 'protective' spirit in the breed.

Not to say that there aren't any good dogs, good judges, good evaluations out there because there are. I also believe many a Schutzhund dog would protect if commanded to but just like anything else you never know.

My trainer has stated many times that most dogs wouldn't take any 'REAL' pressure given them in Schutzhund. To get a passing grade is easier now than it used to be. This can be attributed to many things. One, such as, helpers not really knowing what they are doing when working a dog. For this reason it is important to work your dog with someone who really knows what they are doing. It takes more than putting a sleeve on your arm and having the dog bite it to be a good helper.

There is also controversy over whether a dog that is trained in Schutz could be a protection dog because of what is called "equipment dependency" meaning the dog won't bite w/o the presence of a sleeve. It can happen, then again, depending on the dog...if you send it, it just might bite like it always does. These are some of the variables and controversies involved in Schutzhund dogs today.

Now, if you are training strictly for protection, a dog will be tested under many different scenarios with many different types of equipment. It will also have alot of pressure put on it testing it's threshold for courage. This can include going over a car, through a chair, or even the probability of someone hitting it to get it off! All these things ensure that the dog will bite anywhere and whenever it is commanded to OR if and when physical harm comes to it's handler. It's not all about biting either, alot of time is dedicated to obedience because to have a dog that will bite is also a huge liability. One last comment, there are many dogs that do both protection and Schutzhund work at the same time. It's really about the dog and the time the handler has to put into its training. Hope this helped make things clearer.

When a dog warns off a potential attacker or even bites an actual attacker ---- why is that assumed to be in defense of the human?

Why not defense of the dog himself?

Regarding the alpha thing - in most cases a dog that is not naturally dominant or is naturally submissive and you are an established alpha will not protect anything, including itself because it has no reason to do so. But the alpha is not the one protecting the entire pack, an alpha pair cannot protect many other members from say another pack or multiple intruders, etc. Other pack members will fight and defend the territory and the pack but this is without the presence of the alpha or with permission of the alpha(if the alpha is around) there is a rank called a Beta, there are usually several of them in a pack, they are the "enforcers" they are usually the largest and do most of the scrapping and handle territorial issues, scout, mark territory, etc.

A dog can be lower in rank than the handler and still show actual protective behavior, whether trained or not. What happens is the dogs natural inclination to move forward depends on the reaction of the handler and the action of the "bad guy" if the dog has never been officially trained and has too much pressure put on him, he will more likely than not, back down, unsure of what to do. Some dogs are naturally forward moving defensive dogs that will follow through and either become too stressed/lose the fight or actually move into fighting with this 'assailant.'

I imagine what happens with a lot of sport dogs is they are only trained in a specific area with specific equipment and specific people and specific circumstances. Not saying all of them by any means, but a fair amount. The point is to pass the tests and the dog may be able to handle the stress put on him by the helper in a trial and break down in a back alley when someone jumps out with a knife. Training has a lot to do with it but natural ability comes into play also - the drives are considered natural ability. Prey, Defense, Fight. Etc. Those are "natural" aspects of protective behavior.