Best dogs for protection

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

I have a chihuahua/whippet mix

lol

....,.... wrote:

Cody, wrote:

I would like some opinions on the best dogs to get for protection,

how loyal would the suggested breed be to the family, and how vicious would they be towards outsiders

Any dog that barks will work equally well for unarmed burglars.

Zero dogs work well against guns.

We are putting a fence around our house so the dogs will be outside. They will have the drive in, fire at least 2 shots to kill the dogs, which means my neighbors (which are home during the week) will know it came from my house and it wont be long before the police are there. The alternative: An expensive security system which does not work as well as dogs. Because they bark when the mailman comes down the street.

A UPS guy came to the door and I opened the door a crack and instantly my 2 dogs stuck their mandibles out the door with their deep very loud woof woof woofing. I saw the look of fear in his eyes. Its very hard to both shoot at a dog and run away from them. And your window for hitting them is very small, especially 2 dogs. Crooks know this and if they dont even have a chance at robbing the house arent stupid enough to discharge a firearm (especially multiple times) just to get into the house. My sister spent a lot of $ and installed a web based remote monitoring security system that alerts her. But our dogs provide a lot of love also, and give me exercise and teach me to how to run very fast, i;e. I have good speed, sprinting ability.

suit up wrote:

US World Cup in 2018 wrote:

GSD is a German Shepard? I've never heard of that abbreviation yet everyone here is using it. My neighbor has a German Shepard and I've never heard her call it a GSD. I guess I've been living under a rock.

I assumed GSD was a Glock model. That's my recommendation anyway. Maybe a GSD-19 would be nice :p

All your abbreviation questions answered here:

And...just in case:

Belgian Malinois (the smartest breed on the planet) or Rhodesian Ridgeback (strongest bite force of any dog). Malinois are used by the military to hunt down terrorists. Ridgebacks were originally bred for lion hunts in Africa. Both are fiercely loyal and like all good guard dogs, a little needy. Whatever dog you get, you are tied to it for their life. Both breeds are extremely intelligent and need stimulation and training.

ghjjhgh wrote:

We are putting a fence around our house so the dogs will be outside.

And when they turn on you because they are poorly socialized, they go to the pound to get killed.

Do us all a favor and just get a security system. Dogs are not toys.

Cody, wrote:

I would like some opinions on the best dogs to get for protection,

how loyal would the suggested breed be to the family, and how vicious would they be towards outsiders

My solution: get a yappy dog that alerts you to intruders and then shoot the intruder.

Hard core attack dogs who are trained to be aggressive can be a major liability.

joedirt wrote:

Belgian Malinois (the smartest breed on the planet) or Rhodesian Ridgeback (strongest bite force of any dog). Malinois are used by the military to hunt down terrorists. Ridgebacks were originally bred for lion hunts in Africa. Both are fiercely loyal and like all good guard dogs, a little needy. Whatever dog you get, you are tied to it for their life. Both breeds are extremely intelligent and need stimulation and training.

The Malinois is not the smartest breed on the planet. They are one of the smarter breeds, but on average a border collie, golden retriever, or shelty is smarter. They are generally more trainable because they have more interest in people and obeying commands.

A sound, well-trained Malinois is a good dog, but they tend to be snappy and aggressive toward other dogs if you don't get a good one and/or don't train, socialize, and exercise control over them. There are also some that are semi-indifferent to people, which is not good. It's not a dog to get, neglect, and leave in your yard hoping it will be "vicious to outsiders," which is how I take OP's question. If you don't know what you are doing you are asking for trouble.

I've got a female Malinois. Awesome dog! Do not get one if you don't know what the hell you're getting into. They are a lot of work and have huge drive and energy. They must have something to do, or they will find their own entertainment. With everything they do they go from 0 to 100 in an instant.

My girl is very sweet and has never bitten anybody or anything, but people get out of our way when we're walking her. We have a German command (pass auf, or 'watch out') that we can use which will make her instantly aggressive to a stranger. We've never had to use outside of training.

https://imgur.com/a/drXqj

My personal opinion... don't get a "guard dog" unless you own a shop, yard, warehouse, etc. off of your personal property which needs eyes in your absence. I grew up in a trucking family and we always had at least one watch dog at the shop/yard. No one but my dad was able to get near them. None of our watch dogs ever came home, they had a purpose and that was to watch the yard, not socialize with our family. As an adult I own a landscaping company and I too have a watch dog at my companies yard. No one but me is interested in getting within 20 feet of him and I don't blame them. My three children aren't allowed anywhere near Bruce and neither are my employees. We own a second dog for our home who is not a watch dog, but a family dog.

Homeowners who have dogs for protection are looking for trouble. Guard dogs have a place in society and it's not at home. It's a shop/yard type area where they are free to roam after hours within a heavily fenced area. BTW you can't say guard dogs don't work. My family and I have never had a break in at any of our yards and I know it's because of the nasty ass dogs we have always had there. No one in their right mind would want to breach that fence!

Regarding breed, our dogs are mutts, picked up at the pound. The kind of dogs no one wants and will eventually be put down due to their aggression. Then you just train them to hate humans, which is pretty easy to do, by rewarding them for aggressive behavior. It usually takes three months of two hours a day work riling them up and rewarding them for aggressive response before they are good to go. After that theres only one person they'll be nice too.... the one who feeds them.

Mastiffs are great dogs. Intimidating as hell, super loyal, but when it comes down to it, pretty darn soft. They look the part and will protect the house, but are fairly timid and decent around kids.

another gun owner here wrote:

Regarding breed, our dogs are mutts, picked up at the pound. The kind of dogs no one wants and will eventually be put down due to their aggression. Then you just train them to hate humans, which is pretty easy to do, by rewarding them for aggressive behavior. It usually takes three months of two hours a day work riling them up and rewarding them for aggressive response before they are good to go. After that theres only one person they'll be nice too.... the one who feeds them.

+1

What post-apocalyptic wasteland do you live in that people are driving up to your house, shooting your dogs and than raiding your home.

you must have pissed a lot of people off.

Karl Hungus wrote:

Chihuahuas may be girly dogs (I have two) but they patrol the house and are loud in the middle of the night if they hear someone on the lawn. Plus they’re loyal. If the idea is to have a dog that will rip out a throat, they are not it. But if they hear someone at the door they will be loud and allow me to get my gun.

Do you jump out on all your visitors toting your gun.

Doclove wrote:

Karl Hungus wrote:

Chihuahuas may be girly dogs (I have two) but they patrol the house and are loud in the middle of the night if they hear someone on the lawn. Plus they’re loyal. If the idea is to have a dog that will rip out a throat, they are not it. But if they hear someone at the door they will be loud and allow me to get my gun.

Do you jump out on all your visitors toting your gun.

Duh. What else would I do?

compressed wrote:

....,.... wrote:

Any dog that barks will work equally well for unarmed burglars.

Zero dogs work well against guns.

Most burglars, armed or not, prefer to skip houses with dogs (especially loud dogs), according to a prosecutor and several cops that I know. So I would say that your statement is only half correct. A dog will have a large effect on most armed burglars - they'll stay away from your property in the first place.

So why not just get a motion detector hooked up to a recorded dog bark and save the time and expense of a mutt?

if the world were to suffer some sort of apocalyptic event where it came down to survival I would most certainly want my pitbull by my side

Cody, wrote:

I would like some opinions on the best dogs to get for protection,

how loyal would the suggested breed be to the family, and how vicious would they be towards outsiders

If you just want a mean dog, then it doesn't matter. Just get whatever kind of dog you like the look of, don't socialize it, treat it like shit, and voila. You'll be a terrible person with a terrible dog.

If you want a highly trained, reliable working dog, then go with what the pros use. Police, military, and private security around the world overwhelmingly use German and Belgian shepards, with occasional Dutch shepards, Dobermans, and Rottweilers. There's a reason for this.

The second option, however, is very expensive and very time consuming and you won't do it.

This is kind of a complicated question.

I used to train in Schutzhund, which is a protection dog sport based out of Germany. I've known many internationally known protection dog trainers and competitors as well.

Likewise I've had german shepherds and belgian malinois.

Your question totally depends on how much you actually expect your dog to do. As most have said, and most in the dog world will agree. If you really need to protect your family. Get a gun.

That being said, what you need to understand about protection dogs is that when you're talking about finding that dog that will truly go after an attacker, and still be a good family dog, that's a very rare animal.

All due respect to all the other dog owners here. But I don't get the sense many train in the protection disciplines.

Many many dogs will pretend to be aggressive. Like someone said, a Labrador will do that. If that's all you need that's totally fine. Nothing wrong with that. But when you're asking your dog to defend your life, that's a very different situation.

What most don't understand is that protecting you, is asking the dog to fight. And just like people, most dogs aren't fighters. They don't have the confidence for it, they don't like getting hit, they aren't controllable in that situation, etc etc. It's a great deal to ask of the dog.

Dogs only basically have 3 drives: Food, Prey, Defensive drives. Food drive is obvious, prey drive is what makes them chase balls and is basically how you train almost everything that requires them to do it quickly. Defensive drive is what makes them want to fight back. In order to train that, you have to literally make the dog think he needs to defend himself in some fashion.

It's something most trainers/helpers (the guys wearing the bite sleeve or suit) are not very good at. Do it too harshly or to early in life, and you DESTROY his confidence for life. Additionally, most of the defensive drive is being bred out of dogs today. And any decent trainer, can train a dog in prey drive, and make it look super flashy and wow you. But to the trained eye, you can tell the dog is in prey drive. And you can see that with REAL pressure, he'll cave.

If you go looking for a protection dog from a good trainer. Realistically you'll have 2 options: The German Shepherd Dog (GSD) and the Belgian Malinois. There are more obscure options, like dutch shepherds, dobes, rotties, etc but no one uses those seriously. And it's not breed bias. There are real reasons. Within GSD, there are show lines, and working lines. Within those, you'll have American vs German/European of each. You'll want working lines. Show lines are shit, on both sides of the pond. Period. The working lines are the ones that are typically sable colored. Show lines are your classic saddleback color. Within the working lines it's pretty much all European lineage. All the stuff in America is bred from European stuff. If you want to get into it, you have many sub lines of european working GSD's. You've got your german dogs, which are further divided into West German vs East german Lines. Czech lineage dogs that go back to the old Czech border patrol kennel. Etc.

I wanted to touch on 2 more facets.

Back in the 90's a lot of people/police depts/military moved to the Belgian Malinois. Which are more akin to a border collie that likes to bite. But in truth, many are going back to the GSD.

The mali is a very sharp dog. Which means he's very sensitive and on edge to things. He comes at a million miles an hour, but it's a trade off with environmental stability. They can be handler aggressive under stress, more so than that GSD as well. They're far more athletic than the GSD though. So in the sport world, they're easier to make look good. They do everything quicker, flashier, etc. But in the police/military world they're more hit or miss.

If you go buying. It's easier to find a good GSD than a good mali. And when I say good. I mean one that has most of it ALL. Good malis are out there, but malis in general are a different kind of dog.

The last big facet I wanted to touch on deals with dog types and expectations.

When you start talking real protection dogs, they basically fall into 2 categories: Sport Dogs and Protection/Police dogs.

Being a sport dog usually means the dog has more flash, MORE CONTROL, more prey drive, but may lack some of that true defensive drive. You can teach this dog to do it all. Good obedience, wants to be with you and work with you, will bite the helper with confidence, etc. But you're not truly asking this dog to protect your life. Not that they necessarily wont, but you're not hinging its worth on that.

The protection/police dog is usually very different. They usually are hard to motivate in ways other than what they want to do. They're usually more head strong and stubborn. But they're defensive drives are very good. These are the dogs that are true "fighters". They like it, they fight harder after they get hit. But this is a trade off. These are the dogs that you see police pulling off of a perpetrator cause they wont let go (they don't want to listen under stress/in drive). This is the dog that will challenge YOU as the owner if it doesn't agree with you. These are the dogs that you do some stupid "alpha role" shit and he'll rip your face off. It's really not for most people, and not for the uneducated.

A well known trainer used to tell me that he went to a european club once where they'd take a green adult dog. And to test them. They'd line the guy in a bite suit up across the football field with some chains. They'd send the dog. As the dog was coming they'd be swinging the chains and screaming and running at the dog. As the dog bit they'd hit the dog with the chains a few times. Then go grab the dog and do it again. If the dog came at the helper a second time. They'd stop and decide he was worthy of continuing training. A bit old school but it starts to paint the picture of the expectation.

Hopefully no body tries to nit pick everything I just wrote. Just trying to give you the perspective from someone who was involved with real protection dog "stuff" for a while. Please recognize that a lot of the qualities are talked about are generalities. There are exceptions to everything of course. But hope that helps.

Very accurate post. I have a working line german shepherd. Though I don't do Schutzhund training the breeder we got our dog from does. He has told me a lot of what you said except he said the Malinois is a poor mans version of the german shepherd. A properly bred German Shepherd is confident and very stable mind. I could not believe how fast she responded from training with a competent trainer. The trainer was really for me and the family since we did not know the proper way to train a dog.