I've tried to read most of this thread and not miss any opinions before offering my own. My opinion is that dogs are a responsibility in addition to being the joy of a lifetime.
I have Dobies and GSDs. My dogs are all Schutzhund, which means they have all had arm work. They have been systematically taught attack work. This means *I* have a responsibility both to my dogs and to anyone who has legitimate access to my property--people like postal carriers and meter readers. To address that responsibility, at my last place I put my oversized rural mailbox on the opposite side of the street. The mail carrier didn't mind at all, even though it was supposed to be at the end of my drive and she had to cross over just for me. My gate was locked and there was a sign "Blow horn for access." I spent the few extra bucks and had the electric meter moved to a box outside the fence right next to the water meter, so neither of these folks needed to come inside the fence to do their job.
At this new place, I've done things a bit differently. I fenced off the front of the house from the rest of the property. Now people can come to my front door without crossing through the dogs' territory. To get into the dogs' yard, people have to go through a locked gate that bears a "Do Not Enter" sign. Strangers cannot even see my dogs behind their privacy fencing, let alone put hands over or through the fence. That fence is a good 100' inside the property line, so anyone approaching it is already trespassing before they ever get there--and the NO TRESPASSING signs are prominently displayed along the roadside so there can be no doubt about seeing them.
My neighbors KNOW I have dogs and what KIND of dogs I have. When they pull into my drive, they don't get out of their vehicles even though the dogs have no access to this area in front of my house. LOL I guess they are taking no chances. Probably because of the exercise I put on for the local church in which I put the dogs over fences and did a bunch of down work and finally showed the folks some attack exercises.
I did all this because once inside my house, any one of my dogs would lay down his life to protect me. I don't take that kind of loyalty lightly. It is well worth the expense of a thousand feet of privacy fencing so they can have their own yard to run and play and just be dogs. When they are in their yard, they are safe from all the stupid people in the world.
Yes, my arrangements are expensive. But *I* chose protection dogs. In my view their security is part and parcel of my responsibility to them and to protect the general populace of stupid people out there from their own stupidity. BUT god help the person dumb enough to cross my threshold without an invitation. Because, in my view, I've done everything I can to protect those stupid people from my dogs while they are outside, but once they come inside my home, MY safety comes first. That's why I chose protection dogs in the first place.
There is nothing wrong in keeping a dog that knows how to bite, as long as you acknowledge that you do have a responsibility to the stupid people out there to protect them from themselves AND to protect your dog from their stupidity.
Rusty
