Hi,
my last working Giant died a few years ago and I'm looking for a working line pup, which I will likely be getting from breeders in Germany or Czechoslovakia that I've gotten to know. Although there are a couple of breeders in the US that are pretty good, they don't have pups available at this time.
A new phenomenon I ran into that I didn't notice last time I was getting a dog is the plethora of "trained protection dog" websites. I noticed that even Ivan B. has a site selling "finished" dogs. If Ivan trained it I can believe it's a good dog (but expensive at $45K). At least his site describes a process of learning how to work the dog.
Are most of these sites legit ? How does someone train a dog for you, to what they claim is a "finished" level, whatever that might mean ? I can imagine getting a dog that's been through a lot of yank and crank training. I've always been involved in training my own dogs - why else would they listen to me if I didn't train them myself? Perhaps most of these dogs are sold not to people but to security companies ?
Curious what others think about these pre-trained dogs.
Thanks

I would "think" that Ivan was legit but the web is loaded with :high level: trained protection dogs that, on their sites look like good to the uneducated but rarely show dog working on anything more then a sleeve.

I think anyone looking for a serious protection dog needs to see the dog AND the training methods in person.

Knowing what your looking at is also a huge +.

I think it's often a case of you DON'T get what you pay for.

Thanks for the reply, that was my reaction as well.