Seeing that they are watch dog breeds I think this might be a good place to ask. What do you all think of owning a protection dog. I mean a dog that one buys and takes to a PROFESSIONAL trainer to be trained to attack on command. I am not looking to get one in the near future, I'm not old enough yet. I'm a runner and love the company of a dog, right now I run with my doberman, I feel sooo much safer with him. When I pass someone whom I feel threatened of, the doberman picks up on it and watches the person carefully. The doberman has no protection training. Do you think training a dog to be a protection dog is too much and people should leave it to the natural bond between a watch dog breed and its owner?
for the average person, just owning a dog is all of the protection that they need. 99.999% of bad guys are going to go for an easy target - just owning a dog (even a lap dog) that barks and makes a fuss is going to deter most criminals. That last tiny percentage will not care that you have a protection-trained dog and will have a plan to take the dog out.
If you DO decide to get a protection trained dog in the future, I would make 1000% certain that the trainer is reputable and on the up and up. There are a lot of people who just work to make the dog distrustful of others and aggressive to humans and call it protection training. They are 'professionals" and they charge a LOT of money but what they provide is actually a time bomb.
I've heard of a girl being kidnapped as she walked her two huge Alaskan Malamutes. It seems like most criminals would know that the average dog isn't usually all that big of a threat. The training videos of the dogs I've seen seem like it would take a gun to take out the dog. Do you guys disrespect protection dog trainers? Are they looked down upon in the dog world? I would love to learn how to become one and work with a reputable company. I don't want to start "training" protection dogs and have them attack someone randomly. I would definitely make sure that I was being mentored by a real professional. Is there a lot of liability in training protection dogs? If one of the dogs you trained does attack someone randomly, is that the owner's fault?