Hello everyone!

If you have a real strong dog like for example Eds dog Otis, will such a dog protect me and my house whitout any training? Shouldn´t a real workingdog be protective by nature when he is fully growned? I don´t expect him to be as skilled like a trained pp dog or a psd, I just want him to do something if someone breaks into my house or attack my family, or is it a risk that he will just stand there doing nothing or maybe even run away? Sometimes you here stories of dogs protecting their owners, and these are dogs whitout any training or even good lines. The chance a dog like Otis will stand and fight even whitout training must be greater, right?

Regards

Stig,

The answer is yes.....and no. With the proper breeding the dog is more likly to stand a fight. Depending on the other training the dog has had. With a dog with that type of training, even with proper socialization, the dog will have to have been taught not to bite. As a result the dog may or may not break that training to deal with an intruder. That training will have come about based on the fact that things come up during a dogs life that will have required teaching it not to bite.

The other real problem is that the gentetic history of the dog may include several dogs that will stand and fight, but with out testing it you will never know. Counting on a dog to defend you with no training is like counting on a gun you don't know if it is loaded. It may work, it may not as a result you are probably going to get hurt. With an untrained dog you are never going to know what will trigger the thresh hold for the dog to attack. A person comming in may not trigger that threshold and the dog may do nothing.

If you want a dog to protect you, train it to do it. Properly trained it will not affect the dog's personality and it will make the dog more reliable in all situations. A dog with the proper genetics is likely to guard whether or not you want it to. As a result of this you are much better of knowing what the dog will do in a given situation, teaching the dog what constitutes a real threat, knowning that you can control the dog's behavior in any situation.

Thanks for your reply Richard. I´m planning to buy a GSD or a dobe, and it would great fun to do protection training. The problem is that in my country, sweden, you can´t go to a workingdog club and say you would like to train a PP dog. Thats only allowed for police and people in the security buisness, not for civilians. I could train IPO or SCH but as you know that is not close to real life and in my opinion SCH is a bit boring and repetive, also it take a lot of time to do all the exersices that is needed in the sport. I guess most people don´t need a PP dog anyway, but it would be fun to train both for me and the dog, and it would be an extra bonus if the dog really would bite if something should happen. What we also could train in sweden is a protectionsport that originally comes from the police and military. It includes policestyletracking,obedience, and protection half of the exersice done on a soft sleeve and half done in a muzzle. I guess this sport are closer to PP-training than SCH, but is still a sport with the exersices done in the same order, just like SCH. Another sport that a few people are training in sweden is mondioring, this sport seems really fun, bitework on a suit and you and the dog never know in which order the exersice is going to be. But like IPO, mondioring is a sport where you don´t want to have any aggression in the dog, it´s designed to be just a fun game for the dog, so a mondioringdog, I guess, wouldn´t work as PP dog either, even if the bitework is spectacular.

Regards

Stig,

Schutzhund, Mondring and other dog sports can be a great foundation for a protection dog. With the proper training it is possible to just finish off the attitude of the dog towards the agitator. Many of the top competitors do that to increase the points than can get.

Another option is to look at the breed you are selecting. Dogs that do not come from a sport tradition will carry more balanced drives and be more likely to carry over the basic training to real life. By selecting on of these breeds you will more likely to have the dog do "real" protection based on the training it has had. Plus you still have the control over the dog. Even if a dog sport is less than ideal it can be used to train a real protection dog. It isn't the contest, but the training that goes into preparing that creats the proper protector. For instance you can still do muzzel wor for the ring sports to increase their working ability.

Damn fine answers Officer Cannon.

Richard,

Which breeds doesn´t comes from a background that isn´t so influenced by sports? To me it seems like only the checz GSD is breed for servicework, all the other breeds have SCH,IPO,knpv,ring titles in their pedigress several generations back. Is it true that the popularity of the dogsports is a bad thing because the impact it has on our workingdogs? I mean, because most sports dogs mainly works in prey, the breeders breeds dog whit a very high preydrive because that is what is needed for the sports. They are not looking for dogs whit some degree of sharpness, high fightdrive and other traits that is a good thing for a servicedog. Also you sometimes hear about dogs whit hectic drives, is that a dog whit extreme preydrive, or could a dog be "hectic" whitout having extreme prey? I don´t want a dog who is so high in drive that it climbs the walls if it´s not allowed to work all the time. Are some breeds less influenced by breeding for sports? I had an GSD before but I would rather have a dog who doesn´t shed so much, more practicall as a housedog. Therefore I´m looking for dogs whit less coat, I know some good dobe and rottiebreeders, who breeds for balanced drives, selecting dogs not only from the dogsports but also from police/service work. The giant also seems like a nice dog,but is hard to find a good one.

Regards

Having SchH, Ring, or other sport titles in a pedigree is NOT a bad thing. It doesn't automatically mean the dog is of the best working quality, but it also doesn't mean that they are only prey dogs. There are many, many breeders that breed real working animals and title them in dogsports. These same breeders also have many dogs that are doing police/military service. You have to rate each dog on an individual basis, as well as a bloodline, or a breeder/kennel. A SchHIII title only means that the dog has earned a title. You can train dogs in a realistic way and get titles or you can title dogs in only prey drive. Don't knock dogsports as a whole. There are many, many great dogs doing sport work.

The Czech lines have just as many sport titles as any other good working line. What do you think zvv1,2,and 3 are? Many of the best stud dogs that the Czech border patrol lines used were outside sport animals that were selected because of their real working ability. Take Ben z Bolfu for one. His title line reads: IPOIII, zvv2. He is the sire of Grim z Pohranicni Straze and a number of dogs that are certified police animals.

I didn´t mean that sporttitles in the pedigrees makes a dog bad. What I´m thinking about is breeders who breeds dogs just because they won a big sportcompetition. Some of these dogs may be excelent dogs, but others are best suited for sportwork. I think ed said that he hadn´t seen any real good dogs from Ferro v. himmelreich, he´d seen some pointdogs but no real strong dogs,suited for policework, but still alot of breeders use ferro in their breeding. That´s what I´m against, when titles are rated higher than the total workingability of the dog.

Regards