Family Guard Dog

[Errestaurants 2570]

Anyone have/had an East German DDR Shepherd or Belgian Malinois for a Family guard dog? One that was trained for family protection. Would love to hear pros and cons of these breeds and your overall experience. Thanks in Advance.

 

 

[Chewbacca 7780]

Why do you feel the need for a personal protection dog?  Wonder what that does to your liability insurance premiums?

[Errestaurants 2570]

4 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

Why do you feel the need for a personal protection dog?  Wonder what that does to your liability insurance premiums?

Yea good question. Its more for my wife and young daughter. I travel roughly 150 days a year for work and they are left a home alone. We also stay at our ranch and I would like them to feel comfortable out there alone especially at night. My wife has her LTC but doesn't feel comfortable having a loaded gun readily available in the house---even so she does't have the training to probably do much in that .05% scenario. 

[Chewbacca 7780]

I have a friend who has one.  He's fucking loaded (has his own jet loaded), so I wouldn't be surprised to find out it cost him $50k or something crazy like that.  He didn't even get the dog until it was finished training, but the training is impressive.  If the dog doesn't know you, it will put itself between you and him if you got close to him.  I'm sure there were varying degrees of aggression past that point.  I didn't really want to find out.  But it also seemed kind of strange having a dog like that in your home.  Dogs are supposed to be fun and lovable, not death dealing killers.

[Archer 474]

We had a Malinois that we lost a couple years ago. He was not protection trained but was an awesome dog and had some natural protective instincts. He was much more protective and aggressive when I was  not at home. 

 

I’d do a lot of research before getting a trained dog. The first is cost I’ve seen fully trained going for close to $20k or more. Second is follow up training and cost. Third would be your wife’s suitability to maintain dominance on an aggressive alpha dog. Fourth would be family integration, a friend has a retired service Mal that she has to keep kenneled during the day because it has went through the front glass window multiple times to get after people in the front yard or on the sidewalk. Ours busted our storm door open one day and chased someone down the street. He also jumped and grabbed our neighbors arm when he stuck it over our 6’ stockade fence. This is a neighbor that he was cuddling with a couple days earlier. 

 

When we lose our Border Collie we will probably have another Mal but it will not be fully trained. 

[Errestaurants 2570]

Our plan is to purchase the dog from a kennel that is actually down the road from our ranch in Kaufman County. They place dogs all over the US from law enforcement to people who just want a great dog from a reputable breeder. Then at 12 to 15 weeks it would go to a training facility in Royce City. 

Here is the breeder:

http://www.ccrgsdtexas.com/

[Archer 474]

What’s a dog thread without pictures, he was our goofball  

Edited January 31, 2019 by Archer

[Errestaurants 2570]

Ferocious! lol. great looking dog. 

[Archer 474]

I’d get another Mal in a heartbeat. I’d do a lot of research on the trainer and if I thought the value was truly there for my family. I just googled protection trained Mal and the first site I pulled was $55000-85000 a dog. You have a breeder and trainer picked out so you probably have a more realistic budget for what you are expecting. One options that you might want to explore would be joining a schutzhund club and doing some of your own training  

 

Someone mentioned insurance, I was doing some online home insurance quotes over the weekend. One of the companies specifically listed Mals in their applications. When I got him in 2005 not many people had heard of a Mal and they hadn’t been blacklisted. With their rapid increase in popularity they have found their way onto a lot of naughty list with the GSD. 

 

I don’t remember seeing a Dutch Shepard listed... 

Edited January 31, 2019 by Archer

[Archer 474]

Mals are also clingy and like to cuddle. A pro trained dog may be better but I’ve seen too many pictures of other Mals acting just like ours to think ours was a one off. 

[Archer 474]

If you aren’t dead set on a puppy the rescue is awesome and they have a ton of TX dogs available. This is where mine came from. He was a pedigreed European dog that was imported for K9 work but the officer didn’t go through with the training and gave him up for adoption (something about a pregnancy or divorce was involved). 

 

I can’t check the site or I’d have another which is not in the cards right now. 

 

https://www.malinoisrescue.org/

[LebongJames 1811]

We had a lab/mal mix and she was awesome to me and my wife no kids. But damn was she protective of the house/car/boat. I can’t tell you how many times I thought she was going to kill a homeless person when we lived downtown. 

We were young and didn’t do a great job of training her. But you could not walk into our house unvited. She was great if I introduced you though. Excercise helps a ton.

Just make sure those 150 days you are gone she will still be excercised.

[Archer 474]

Sorry for the diarrhea of post but I really loved and miss our Mal. 

On the protection side at our current house we have a wrought iron fence he would patrol the fence line and make lap after lap. He’d chase bikers, joggers, kids up and down the fence. Luckily it was a ways off the street and he couldn’t get to anyone. Like LJ mentioned he was super cool with people if we let them in the house. We had one party with probably a 5 year old kid climbing all over him pulling his lips and he just laid there. 

He was also super small animal aggressive      no real problems with dogs but everything else was fair game. We found several dead cats in the back yard over the years. Right after I got him he caught a cat in the yard and proceeded to throw it in the air, watch it hit the ground, pick it up and throw it again until it was dead. I buried it and he dug it up the next day and was throwing it around again. 

[Handcruser 2805]

Just get a golden.

Once a bad guy hears a deep bark he’ll go somewhere else. If he does break in the golden will help him carry stuff to the car or help him clean up the blood so it is really a win win for everyone.


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[Handcruser 2805]

If anyone walks in our cul-de-sac mine lets me know with a deep bark. I’ll usually open the door and he’ll take off to find who it is and get some belly rubs then come right back.


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[Errestaurants 2570]

5 minutes ago, Handcruser said:

Just get a golden.

Once a bad guy hears a deep bark he’ll go somewhere else. If he does break in the golden will help him carry stuff to the car or help him clean up the blood so it is really a win win for everyone.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

lol. those are great family dogs.

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

We have a Boxer and an American Bulldog. Both are great dogs, however, our AB is truly a great dog. I have read a lot about the breed and a lot of people do train them for protection type work. Mine is not but her natural instincts as part of the family are incredible. I have two girls under the age of 4 and she lets them crawl all over her, pull ears, tail (of course I tell them not to), poke her eyes on accident, and she doesn’t care. If someone comes to the door she reads my body language and if it is someone I know, I have to keep her from licking the person to death. People who come to the door that are not welcome get the polar opposite reaction.

 

These dogs aren’t for everyone. They are extremely muscular and powerful. She can go over a 6’ fence (and has), they often have a high prey drive (she doesn’t care about other dogs, but squirrels, possums, birds, and cats are chased and often killed (never caught a cat).

 

She is very smart too. Which is great, but she can be stubborn because of how smart she is. She figured out how to open the back gate.

 

Best $20 dog in the world.

 

 

 

[Landomatic 3813]

Probably belongs in the unpopular opinion thread but if I was getting a guard dog and didn’t want to fuck with having it formerly trained, I might go pitbull.  Watch a few episodes of Pitbulls and Parolees on Animal Planet.  Most are of them are cool as shit but people (intruders) are scared shitless of them.  Hell I might even get one from that place on that show.

[High Plains Drifter 11050]

We had some sort of a German Shepherd when I was a boy.His name was Homer. We lived out in the sticks and he just showed up at our house one night as a starved puppy. Some POS probably dumped him. He got too aggressive to strangers and we gave him away to some family friend who lived probably ten miles from us. A few weeks later he showed back up at our door. Somehow found his way back home. He was very protective of me and my sisters. We could climb on him, rough house with him, my youngest sister would ride him like a horse, and he didn't care. I'd sneak him into my room at night and he would sleep at the foot of my bed. He would follow me and my sisters to the bus stop in the morning, then be waiting for us when we got off in the afternoon. He never jumped the fence or tried to follow us when my sisters or I left with my parents in the car, as far as we knew anyway. We eventually donated him to the Air Force (step dad was active AF at the time) to use as a guard dog after he went through the screen door going after somebody on the porch.  I remember the Air Force SP guy doing the gun shy test. Homer passed, he put him on a leash and dragged him away, while Homer barked and yelped hysterically. My sisters and I were bawling like babies. He was probably only about two or three years old when we gave him away.

Damn, allergies acting up now.

 

[texasjacket 289]

What is OPs expectation of a 'family guard dog?' Are you looking for something that will lunge and disarm potential burglars or something to just sound the alarm?

[Errestaurants 2570]

39 minutes ago, texasjacket said:

What is OPs expectation of a 'family guard dog?' Are you looking for something that will lunge and disarm potential burglars or something to just sound the alarm?

More Disarm/attack intruder. Not just bark and run around per se. Also run off coyotes, stray dogs, etc. 

[Grippe 310]

I've had labs, german shepherds, bulldogs, terriers, retrievers, hell mom even had a poodle back in the day.

Fuck you, I'm old.

Best family guard dog I've ever had? Mastiff, by FAR.  In my case it was a Brazilian Mastiff (Fila Brasileiro) - I miss that dog so much.  Friends & acquaintances that have also gotten mastiffs say the same. exact. thing.

By the way, I've seen people stupid enough to think they can handle a shepherd or a pinscher but I have never met a person who would even remotely consider taking on a mastiff.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

Rottweilers were bred specifically to be guard dogs in German nurseries. I'll take one of those or a German Shepherd over a pit bull any day of the week.  

Pits were originally bred as an attack and kill breed. That is in their DNA, and is somehow triggered apparently in otherwise "good pits" every year (or you can tell me why an otherwise nice dog would kill it's master or child of a family) .  Yes I have a high level of distrust of the breed. I've personally been witness to 2 attacks by "good pits" and had direct first hand knowledge of a third.

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

I've had labs, german shepherds, bulldogs, terriers, retrievers, hell mom even had a poodle back in the day.
Fuck you, I'm old.
Best family guard dog I've ever had? Mastiff, by FAR.  In my case it was a Brazilian Mastiff (Fila Brasileiro) - I miss that dog so much.  Friends & acquaintances that have also gotten mastiffs say the same. exact. thing.
By the way, I've seen people stupid enough to think they can handle a shepherd or a pinscher but I have never met a person who would even remotely consider taking on a mastiff.

I like mastiffs a lot too. Well, I think the whole Molosser group of dogs are great, great dogs. That includes Mastiffs, Boxers, various Bulldogs (real bulldogs, not the toy kind), dogos, etc.

And your last point is spot on.

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

Rottweilers were bred specifically to be guard dogs in German nurseries. I'll take one of those or a German Shepherd over a pit bull any day of the week.  
Pits were originally bred as an attack and kill breed. That is in their DNA, and is somehow triggered apparently in otherwise "good pits" every year (or you can tell me why an otherwise nice dog would kill it's master or child of a family) .  Yes I have a high level of distrust of the breed. I've personally been witness to 2 attacks by "good pits" and had direct first hand knowledge of a third.

If your posting about “pits” brings Rex back, I hope you get AIDS.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

22 hours ago, Patricio Swayze said:

If your posting about “pits” brings Rex back, I hope you get AIDS.

Fuck you very much too. Sorry if actual documented facts about your precious baby upsets you.  Come back here when you've witnessed an actual attack by a Pit Bull then lets talk.

Edited February 1, 2019 by Onboard 2.0

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

Fuck you very too. Sorry if actual documented facts about your precious baby upsets you.  Come back here when you've witnessed an actual attack by a Pit Bull then lets talk.

1. I don’t have a pit

2. I didn’t say anything about your facts or experiences. I (and most everyone else on this site) don’t want Rex here. This is a known Rex signal topic.

 

So, you kind sir, can go fuck yourself.

[Kennythetiger 9386]

13 hours ago, Archer said:

Sorry for the diarrhea of post but I really loved and miss our Mal. 

On the protection side at our current house we have a wrought iron fence he would patrol the fence line and make lap after lap. He’d chase bikers, joggers, kids up and down the fence. Luckily it was a ways off the street and he couldn’t get to anyone. Like LJ mentioned he was super cool with people if we let them in the house. We had one party with probably a 5 year old kid climbing all over him pulling his lips and he just laid there. 

He was also super small animal aggressive      no real problems with dogs but everything else was fair game. We found several dead cats in the back yard over the years. Right after I got him he caught a cat in the yard and proceeded to throw it in the air, watch it hit the ground, pick it up and throw it again until it was dead. I buried it and he dug it up the next day and was throwing it around again. 

The Three Burials of Melquiades the Cat.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

1 minute ago, Patricio Swayze said:

1. I don’t have a pit

2. I didn’t say anything about your facts or experiences. I (and most everyone else on this site) don’t want Rex here. This is a known Rex signal topic.

 

So, you kind sir, can go fuck yourself.

Hey you said get AIDS.  Not what I'd call a friendly post.  So again fuck YOU very much...... sir.  

 Now, back to the thread before I drifted it, my apologies.  Get a Rottweiler or German Shepherd, I won't mention certain breeds not to get.

[SimonBolivar 10958]

12 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Fuck you very too. Sorry if actual documented facts about your precious baby upsets you.  Come back here when you've witnessed an actual attack by a Pit Bull then lets talk.

I witnessed a German Shepherd take an ear off of a kid in elementary school getting off of the bus and I've been bitten by another on the hand hard enough to draw blood. Every big breed can be dangerous, but I'd have no problem with a family pit.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

Just now, SimonBolivar said:

I witnessed a German Shepherd take an ear off of a kid in elementary school getting off of the bus and I've been bitten by another on the hand hard enough to draw blood. Every big breed can be dangerous, but I'd have no problem with a family pit.

I've seen dogs bite people, I've been bitten an at least 4 occasions in my life. I've never seen anything that approaches what I witnessed in two pit bull attacks. The owners could not get their "good" dogs to release.  I don't wanna hijack the thread.  Not gonna make another comment about pit bulls here.  It's a very divisive issue for lots of people, me included.

[davidg 4038]

4 hours ago, Grippe said:

By the way, I've seen people stupid enough to think they can handle a shepherd or a pinscher but I have never met a person who would even remotely consider taking on a mastiff.

Ahem.

[Chewbacca 7780]

5 hours ago, Grippe said:

I've had labs, german shepherds, bulldogs, terriers, retrievers, hell mom even had a poodle back in the day.

Fuck you, I'm old.

Best family guard dog I've ever had? Mastiff, by FAR.  In my case it was a Brazilian Mastiff (Fila Brasileiro) - I miss that dog so much.  Friends & acquaintances that have also gotten mastiffs say the same. exact. thing.

By the way, I've seen people stupid enough to think they can handle a shepherd or a pinscher but I have never met a person who would even remotely consider taking on a mastiff.

Honestly, any big dog with a deep growl/bark will scare the shit out of 95% of people.  Our Newfie,  Bruce, terrifies people that don't know him and he's the biggest sweetheart on earth.  But he likes to bark.

[Hellraiser97 181]

There's some monks up in Upstate NY that train GSD for this exact purpose.  It's expensive, but I've met one of these dogs with its family before.  I've been around dogs my whole life, lots of GSD, and that dog, while not unfriendly or aggressive, was fucking intimidating.  

Whatever you decide to do, if you do get a big dog like that for protection, make sure you get it very, very well trained.  It needs to respond to EVERYONE in the family.

[Errestaurants 2570]

 

[Chewbacca 7780]

6 hours ago, Hellraiser97 said:

There's some monks up in Upstate NY that train GSD for this exact purpose.  It's expensive, but I've met one of these dogs with its family before.  I've been around dogs my whole life, lots of GSD, and that dog, while not unfriendly or aggressive, was fucking intimidating.  

Whatever you decide to do, if you do get a big dog like that for protection, make sure you get it very, very well trained.  It needs to respond to EVERYONE in the family.

RE the bolded, that was exactly my experience.  I can't say I wanted to spend a lot of time around that dog even though it was perfectly behaved at all times.  And I'm not sure I would want a dog like that in my house.

[George 492]

55 minutes ago, Errestaurants said:

 

Damnet.  Now I need one of these dogs. 

[Fred Willard 115]

If you want to feed me and if you’re wife pets me I’ll take the job.

[Errestaurants 2570]

7 minutes ago, Fred Willard said:

If you want to feed me and if you’re wife pets me I’ll take the job.

she's got really big titties

[Baboontyme 2812]

9 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

Honestly, any big dog with a deep growl/bark will scare the shit out of 95% of people.  Our Newfie,  Bruce, terrifies people that don't know him and he's the biggest sweetheart on earth.  But he likes to bark.

This. I'm sure we're throwing a bunch of recs at this guy that he's not interested in at all. But it's still fun to talk about our doggos. And I'm gonna do it. 

The avi was a Greater Swiss. 120 lb female whose fake aggressiveness made any normal human shit their pants. She did not like anything out of the ordinary and would bark like crazy and the hair on her back would stand up. It was comical to watch grown men shrink when all she really wanted was some lovin. 

[JohnnyRage 1617]

In my uninformed opinion German Shepherds are so smart that they almost need constant menial or mental tasks to keep them occupied. If they don't get a lot of attention they can can get weird and dangerous.

 

Unrelated, my Dad got one of those pre-trained GS's. I think he spent well over 10k. Within a year its insides got twisted up and before they were able to diagnose the severity of the problem he passed. Pretty random. Just mentioning that anecdote because I'm pretty sure he lost out on his entire investment.

Edited February 1, 2019 by JohnnyRage

[Longhorn94 2448]

16 hours ago, Grippe said:

I've had labs, german shepherds, bulldogs, terriers, retrievers, hell mom even had a poodle back in the day.

Fuck you, I'm old.

Best family guard dog I've ever had? Mastiff, by FAR.  In my case it was a Brazilian Mastiff (Fila Brasileiro) - I miss that dog so much.  Friends & acquaintances that have also gotten mastiffs say the same. exact. thing.

By the way, I've seen people stupid enough to think they can handle a shepherd or a pinscher but I have never met a person who would even remotely consider taking on a mastiff.

the best dog i have ever had was a Bull Mastiff. He was an incredible dog. People would cross the street to avoid him when we went on walks. He looked like a 150 lb pit bull on steroids if you didnt know what a Bull Mastiff is. He was kind and gentle with his family but if you were a stranger, it was a different story. He didnt really bark. He would sit in between us and strangers. If he saw that we accepted the stranger, he would get up and trot off. If he felt we were at unease with the stranger, he would stay there sitting until the stranger made a move in our direction and then would, without barking or growling, take them down with his massive head and neck. Once they were laying on the ground, he would stand over them, show his teeth, and eerily growl the deepest lowest growl you have ever heard. He was amazing. Cancer took him from us when he was only 6. Its been almost 8 years now and I still miss him. His name was Rex and he was the greatest dog of all time.

[Hank Scorpio 17729]

Just get your wife and daughter some guns you pussy. 

[Errestaurants 2570]

7 hours ago, Hank Scorpio said:

Just get your wife and daughter some guns you pussy. 

You obviously didn’t read my second post you dumb motherfucker. Wife is uneasy keeping a loaded gun by her bedside with my 4 year old daughter around especially since it’s just the two of them most nights. My wife is not looking to have a fucking shootout in our house but a dog that is professionally trained to be in the house to stand guard/protect to at least give her a time to call 911. 

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

Dude, you got Scorpio’d.

[immamac 42852]

lmfao, fell for the hank scorpio bait. What an amateur.

I have a GSD/Black Lab mix, extremely intelligent no formal PPD training, but shows all the traits of a great PPD and is obedience trained. She looks much less intimidating than a full on GSD and kept most of the desirable traits - would highly recommend.

IMO the only drawback to any breed of dog that is going to be used as PPD is that almost no one has them so innocuous strangers/friends/kids etc are way more likely to get into an encounter with your dog than if it wasn't trained to be a hardcore killer. Obedience training requires constant work as well vs just a casual breed that only needs exercise - for instance if you don't practice all the commands at least daily for 20-30 minutes they start to "fade" they don't ever go away completely, but the dog will start choosing whether or not it feels like listening to you and when it's PPD trained that's basically unacceptable and a loose cannon of a dog.

[Bigpoppapump 531]

Honestly, any medium to larger dog with a deep bark will pretty much keep everything at bay.  Bonding with the family will give the dog a sense of protection.  The police laughed at me when our home alarm went off (cause of dogs barking) and they met me at the house.  They immediately said no one would be dumb enough to enter our house with the amount of barks.  I had to kennel all the dogs just for them to do a check inside.

[Deej 76797]

^^^^

This. Multiple dogs is a big plus, too. Nobody really wants to fuck with more than one. 

[Gene Parmesan 4007]

Sadly any thief with a tennis ball can walk right in and rob us blind.

 

My dog's reaction, don't care played fetch.

[Fred Willard 115]

On 1/31/2019 at 9:11 PM, Errestaurants said:

she's got really big titties

For me to poop on!