Fun Poll--What would your dog do? - Page 7

GETAREALDOG, I like the controversial post, and feel that most people have a confidence in their dog protecting them by actually biting/attacking someone, without any real proof. We absolutely cannot compare working on the Schutzhund field with a real life scenario- that is ridiculous. What is one of the major things that we try do when training or trialing? We try to maintain some decent amount of confidence and calmness- why? b/c we all know that the dog's read/smell/sense these emotions that we are having. If we are the confident, strong pack leader...then the pack is also confident and strong, right? But in your scenario, the "pack leader" (me/you/whoever), is being beaten down basically. So, what happens in the wild when someone challenges/attacks the pack leader..... do the dog's in the pack eventually jump in on the weaker/losing dog? If it's their pack leader that is losing, do they jump in to defend him? I am no expert, but I have never seen them jump in to defend the pack leader if he is losing, I have only seen the pack eventally jump in on the weaker animal. Just more food for thought. I soooo wish I could test this out!! Theresa

Funny story, I had a situation like Hodie describes. I saw a man lying prostate on the ground. I was worried he needed help, so I went over to see if he needed me to call an ambulance or something. Imagine my surprise to find he was having a great time with himself (if you catch my drift). I ran away!

LOL OMG good thing it wasn't me with my hot dog driven pup. He wouldn't have been having such a great time then! =)

sueincc, That is a funny story. Thankfully, he was having a good time with himself rather than wanting to grab you or someone else. Running away and calling the police if possible would be the smart thing to do!

ROFL............

I must respectfully disagree with folks who do not think a normal temperamented GSD will protect them from a serious attack. Having a GSD that will do the job in real time in my view is only one part of a security plan for a family. The other parts involve the family members knowing how to fight and defend themselves using various means, some including lethal force when appropriate. I have owned a number of GSD who were rock solid arounf family and friends and welcomed guests or non-threatening strangers in public. But these dogs would immediately meet any threat with an appropriate measured response, based on a natural protective drive to dominate and subdue any real threat to itself, it's owner/master or it's territory. I call this raw protective instinct and I view it as a required basic drive in a sound GSD. This exists in adition to prey drive, and converges at times with basic defensive drive, and is in additional to dominance drive (dominance drive is the drive to assume pack leader position or move as close to that as allowed). This protective drive is the basic drive that causes GSDs to instinctly want to protect the herd, his master and family, his pack, and his personal space and territory. This drive is rarely discussed and most don't really understand it. It is what causes a GSD to go off the sleeve and make a serious attack on the handler before he learns it is "just a game" and not for real. In a GSD with correct and normal temperament this drive is mediated by by the GSD's need to react only proportionately to the threat and maintain a level of control of himself. Years ago myself and some other local GSD breeders and enthusiasts argued about this same subject. We then decided to test most of our dogs using acquaintences in padded suits making a full range of "attacks on us from pretend to serious hits and pushing. Those GSDs with any protection training all did the job beyond expectations. Of those GSDs which were under a year old and kennel dogs with no protection training, about 1/3 very successfully protected their owner/master at the first trial. Most of the others then learned to do so watching the other GSDs do their job successfully when the master/owner was "attacked". Repeat trials with the same attackers resulted in almost all the dogs muting their response and acting as if it was just a game (I believe that they were smart enough to recognize the scent of the attacker again and realized it was just a game). One time anonymous attacks by an aggressor never before seen by the GSD typically resulted in a real time serious protection effort by the GSD. We typically would go into a dark warehouse and have the aggressor jump out and "attack" us, sometime using sticks to hit. We also had the aggressor open the door of our home jump in and hit us quite hard with a rolled up newspaper, or open the door of our car with us and the dog in it and do the same. Only about 10-15% of the dogs tested wouldn't fight to protect us (these dogs seemed soft in general and had low prey drive). There were some surprises however as we had one spook that did the job 100% but only if there was a serious threat, otherwise he shied waway from people. Conclusion, find some one experienced in protection work to test your dog with you in real time if you need to know. I was surprised just how hard a fair proportion of the GSDs we tested did the job when they believed the attack was serious. One local older GSD with no protection training of old W. German bloodlines was shockingly proficient (extremely fast, hard biting and totally fearless and was one of the hardest biting GSDs I have ever seen). This GSD during his long life never experienced any fear and made his family feel confident in his protection of their home and them.

Well I am glad to see y'all are not ready to burn me at the stake! I want to start off by saying the purpose of this post is not to discredit any individual dog or breed of dog. Thinking in extremes or over generalizing is not good. I also don't want people to jump on the Dog Whisperer ding a ling bandwagon and think pack rank is the end all solution to dog training. I hope that most of you will not find this topic silly or unimportant. Vehicle stops are something that LE K9 handlers do every single day. Almost 90% of all physical altercations involving LE officers end up on the ground. I'm sure almost all physical fights end up with one or both parties on the ground at some point. The scenario abouve could happen to anyone. How many of us take our dog with us for an evening stop at the ATM? Imagine if this happened in real life and your dog bit you. Talk about a situation going from bad to worse. Blitzen I am glad your little beagle( my first dog was a beagle) helped you out but here in lies the problem, people think a display like this is real protection. Protection is anything from growling, to barking, to biting someone's shirt just don't fall into the belief that this will stop someone with serious bad intentions. Unfortuanatly, may people see a dog bark, show teeth, maybe bite a person wearing equipment as real protection. I can't tell you how many k9 officers unknowingly go to work everyday with a dog that is a liability to their personal safety. This is why I try so hard to bring this information to people. I have taken some serious heat in the past from this scenario and subject. Sheesh and 1doggie training to prevent this is really about making handlers aware that it is likely to happen and prepare for it. Teaching them how to read the dog to see who it is going to bite, giving commands to slow down the dog's entry and help identify the handler, etc. I should have some time on Saturday to discuss some training and/or testing for this scenario.

I don't breed or show and have never trained any of my GSD's in any type of protection work. All I have to draw from are a few real time experiences. I've already told one of them on this board, so won't belabor it. Briefly, my first GSD, the world's friendliest GSD, tried to take down a man coming into our campsite swinging a knife. Dylan barked and leaped at him with bared teeth and he ran off never to be seen again. I can only guess his intent. This was a dog that never showed one bit of aggression to any human, he never even barked at strangers in the 7 1/2 years we owned him. He was not in good health at that time; had just undergone extensive chemo for cancer. He was in a debilitated state, but still did not hesitate for one second to rise to the task. Had he not been on a lead I am convinced he would have taken down that intruder. Wishful thinking? Maybe. Blitz has also given me reason to think he would also defend my husband and/or myself. This was another camping experience. We were sitting outside with Blitz lying between us when a man suddenly jumped from a golf cart and walked into our site reaching over my head to hand my husband a flyer. Blitz leaped to his feet barking and would have most likely taken that man by the wrist if I didn't prevent it. Another possible tragedy saved by a leash. Blitz is a dog that tries to walk unthreatening strangers out of our driveway by taking them by the wrist and pulling them. He has never put one mark on the 3 people he had done this to. I by no means think either of my GSD's are unique in any way, but I really do think they would have done what they could have to protect their family. Before GSD's I had Malamutes and those dogs would have protected no one, no time. My house was robbed twice with 2 Mals sleeping inside the front door. The robbers had to step over them to get inside. If another dog were breaking in, they'd have been swiftly dispatched. Humans were welcomed with wagging tails. I am certainly no expert on the temperaments or training of protection dog, so I have to say that I could have have misinterpreted what these 2 dogs did. To me it looked like they were defending us from threats. At the least it makes me feel really wonderful to think so.

One thing to remember is that many people here have better quality GSD'S likely much better than the average owner.

Get a real dog, I think I finally understand what you are trying to get acrossed here. While none of the dogs I mentioned here would ever be considered "real" protection dogs, they were good enough to keep me from getting mugged and maybe worse. That guy sure ran damned fast when my beagle mutt ripped that shirt from his back and the guy with that long knife kicked up a lot of dust too. A long coated 126 pound barking GSD is a great crime stopper at that level of threat. May I ask what breed(s) you own? Thanks for a stimulating topic.