Guard Dogs (farm, coyote, barn, light)

[my54ford]

Originally Posted by mississippimagnolia

We have two very large, protective German Shepherds. I sleep very well at night.

Us too! I make sure to wear a cop uniform or current ACU's when I beat them with a stick! They hate those cloths.....

[Dusty Rhodes]

Two full grown GSD's a father/daughter combo and one brindle GSD puppy, almost 6 months old that Dreifus, the large male, is teaching the ropes, Dreyson is a quick study.

[Cali BassMan]

We have 2 dogs both herders, a sheltie and an Aussie. The sheltie is so hyper she's "on duty" all the time. Anything moves she makes a racket, when the Aussie makes noise I know someone is there. They both sleep in the house at night and if you move the sheltie will stand there and watch until you go back to sleep.....the Aussie just sleeps

[Wartrace]

I've got six- five are beagle/American eskimo mixed and one is a black lab/cattle dog mix.

They all bark at anything strange/out of the ordinary. They have their "people bark" (They bark at EVERYONE but me) and then they have their "Very large bird flying overhead bark" they got from their mother who was said to have lost a few pups to predator birds.....

The Beagle/eskimo mixes have healthy barks but "Lucy" (the black lab/cattle dog mix) has a downright scary bark. I am 300 yards off the road and any intruder is going to have to walk in. The dogs are enclosed in a fence surrounding just the immediate area around my house (I have barbed wire cattle fence and a gate at the road).

All I ask from the dogs is to let me know there are intruders- I can handle the rest.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by 1957TabbyCat

Any thoughs on watch dogs.

You threaded it as "Guard Dogs" and now you're asking about "watch dogs."

Not the same thing.

In an Armageddon environment, geese are probably best for any number of reasons. The ignorant and uninformed of course will laugh, but militaries use them. The US Army used them for security at nuclear weapons storage facilities. That wasn't the only form of security (it's layered).

If you want a guard dog, you'll have to train it, preferably in a language other than your native language. If your family members can get near the dog, then you have failed in your training. That dog should only respond to commands of maybe 1 or 2 people, not a tribe of 3,000 people.

I would train it to detect firearms, especially handguns. Shouldn't take you more than 5-6 months to do that. That's an added bonus for a guard dog.

If you live in an idiot community, then get a Belgian Bouvier. We had to put one down, because it bit its handler (so what does that tell you?). Train it to be nice, and it will be; train it to be protective and it will be. The problem with that dog was that it was initially trained as a patrol dog, then trained as a guard dog. I think that's confusing for the dog. It should be trained to patrol, or guard, but not both. You can train it on one additional task, like finding bodies, or drugs, or bombs or firearms, so that you have a patrol dog that finds bodies, or a guard dog that finds drugs, but a patrol dog that is a guard dog that finds firearms just doesn't work out.

Probably the best small watch dog is a Schipperke. They're quite intelligent, easy to train, but kind of a handful.

[Aptor hours]

Whatever you get keep them in the house and at night and treat them kindly. I have never met a bad breed of dog I happen to have a most amazing German Shepherd Dog right now though!

[Delta-SSiPP]

Trust me Presa Canarios or a Bann Dogge! Now what happen in San Fran was really because those dogs should have been muzzled! They're very loyal and great with kids! I had one and I've trained them, great dogs!

[snofarmer]

A guard dog can be part of the family, it can listen to everyone in the family.
A loyal dog will not listen nor take food from strangers only from it's pack.
Dogs are pack animals they will protect the pack "family"
You can train a dog in any language you wish or you can even use a different word for the command.
A dog does not know what the word "sit" means. You could teach the dog to sit when you say the word pancake.

Folks who are training dogs in bite work don't put them down when a accident happens. The dog is a student the trainer/handler are at fault.
Poor training practices.



I Train & handle K9’s,
I’ve taken many dogs all the way to SchH III
( while competing in Germany)
I’m a member of the SV & a member of the United Schutzhund Clubs of America
　
Schutzhund is a combination of
Obedience, tracking & protection.


"You can train it on one additional task, like finding bodies, or drugs, or bombs or firearms, so that you have a patrol dog that finds bodies, or a guard dog that finds drugs, but a patrol dog that is a guard dog that finds firearms just doesn't work out."

BS.
Any dog can search for any object or person.
You don't teach a dog to track or search, it is a instinct in the dog that as a trainer you work on. You teach the dog how to respond to the sent.

If you want a guard dog, you'll have to train it, preferably in a language other than your native language. If your family members can get near the dog, then you have failed in your training. That dog should only respond to commands of maybe 1 or 2 people, not a tribe of 3,000 people.

I would train it to detect firearms, especially handguns. Shouldn't take you more than 5-6 months to do that. That's an added bonus for a guard dog.

If you live in an idiot community, then get a Belgian Bouvier. We had to put one down, because it bit its handler (so what does that tell you?). Train it to be nice, and it will be; train it to be protective and it will be. The problem with that dog was that it was initially trained as a patrol dog, then trained as a guard dog. I think that's confusing for the dog. It should be trained to patrol, or guard, but not both. You can train it on one additional task, like finding bodies, or drugs, or bombs or firearms, so that you have a patrol dog that finds bodies, or a guard dog that finds drugs, but a patrol dog that is a guard dog that finds firearms just doesn't work out.

Probably the best small watch dog is a Schipperke. They're quite intelligent, easy to train, but kind of a handful.

[1957TabbyCat]

Thanks, for the ideas on Watch Dogs. We had along period of time with no pilferage of tampering thanks to the noisey lttle dog. One of the more memorable times was when the drug abusing/ex con/current con was walking away in terror in the middle of the night when went to investigate the noise.

That may not have benn such a good idea to leave the house to confront the threat. But opening the door was fun. The family of the the con was not happy. But then that is the way we wanted it. We would rather be feared and hated by worthless people like that then liked. Machiavelli was right on that one.

Had it been more the a low grade skell hoping for a sneak theft, I could have been the one in a jam. If it had been a planned robbery......

A serious guard dog may have been a life and death tipping point.

The ideas on guard dogs were good and appreciated also.

There so many ways to protect life and property.

[donsabi]

Why would you want a guard dog? A guard dog is a dog that has had extensive and expensive training to be a guard dog. A watch dog is a dog that will alert the owner when something is wrong. The great thing about dogs is that they are all natural watch dogs. Guard dogs are good but can be easily outsmarted by a human unless the guard dog is paired and operating with a human. A watch dog operates on it's own with no training at all. I believe that all we can ask from our canines is a warning.
One of the best dogs for sounding an alarm and a dog that was breed as a watch dog is a miniature schnauzer. As a long time owner of this breed I have found them to not only be alert to sound but also to smell and nothing escapes their eyesight. All I ask is for them to sound the alarm and they do.
I got the shotgun.