can a dog be to friendly

Vincent M · 10-07-2010, 01:28 PM

my dog is, 4-5 mo old, and he is supper friendly and looks to interact with people as much as he can, and loves attention from anyone that enters my home

is this a sign of good nerve and temperament, or should i be concerned about his future as a pp dog

Lee Robinson · 10-07-2010, 04:34 PM

He can still be a good PP dog given training and CONDITIONING words to PP stimuli, but it may not work too well as a sentry dog.

Dan · 10-07-2010, 06:41 PM

What Lee said.

To me a protection dog is also/mostly a guard dog. With my lifestyle the possibility is very small that I'll need the dog to turn on outside the home. With training, what some people refer to as strictly a personal protection dog, will be dependent on your command or recognizing specific situations that you've practiced before. I prefer 100 times over a dog that feels that strangers coming to its property is wrong. It's very frustrating to have a dog that welcomes everybody that comes to the house, I know because I have such a dog. He's a very strong dog but has no concept that strange people coming to the house can be a threat. Since I'm not into dog sports this dog is useless to me except in one situation, if someone were to become aggressive and attack me or my family he'd stop them. I just don't want things to get to that point, he'd be much more useful as a deterrent by demonstrating a show of force every time someone comes to the house. I'm really past the point of caring whether some kind of training that may get him to be more suspicious may "break" him if it doesn't work, I'll try anything to make him react aggressively to anyone coming to the door. I need like 100 different people to come to the house and hurt him till he F'n learns. You can't do this with a pup.

Matt K · 10-08-2010, 08:34 AM

Dan,

You sound like a good canidate for some type of masttif or maybe even a CO???

Dan · 10-08-2010, 09:52 AM

I know I know. But then when it comes to trainabilty I can't stand how those dogs perform obedience. I don't see why I should have this problem, back in the day there were plenty aggressive rottweilers. A rottweiler is a dog that can combine the power of a molosser with trainability, and be discriminating and a good guard. Anyways I'm now raising a female rott, she's 4 months and looks promising. She's already alerting.

Niomi S · 10-08-2010, 02:28 PM

Hey Dan

Have any of the people that have come over actually been a threat or appeared threatening?

Maybe it's just that your dog has great nerves and can guage the situation and thus far the strangers that have been coming over have not posed a threat so he sees no need to "guard". I like having a dog that is naturally suspicious so I know how it feels to know that your dog is going to alert you to strangers and alert the strangers to the fact that there is a massive dog on your property.

You said that if someone were going to harm you, he would become aggressive - so he would be gauging from the situation whether it required him to be aggressive or not. The same could apply to his "guarding".

If you really wanted to know you could always stage a scenario and have someone actually appear suspicious and threatening - then you could get an idea of the reaction your dog would have.

Dan · 10-08-2010, 02:46 PM

I haven't had someone really weird come to my door, but what you'd call weird like a bum/shabby dressed person is perceived as even less of a threat by my dog, those people while undesirable are not usually aggressive. My dog reacts to aggression from people, nothing more. Bad guys around here don't necessarily appear suspicious and for sure not aggressive, they come with the pretext of offering to sell some crap and in the meanwhile could be scoping out the house. Some bad guys who are dog savvy will talk friendly to the dog. You can't leave that kind of decision making to the dog because it will fail when the time comes, it's vulnerable to being fooled. A stranger is a stranger period, and must provoke suspicion.

David Ishee · 10-08-2010, 04:57 PM

I'd rather have a naturally suspicious dog who's trained to tolerate people on command, than a dog who naturally trusts everyone and has to be conditioned to be suspicious. It's like Dan said an overly friendly dog can too easily be fooled and looses a lot of his intimidation ability. A dog is more likely to trust his instincts in an unknown situation without guidance, you want an instinctive guard for those moments. So I'm a big mastiff fan myself, I don't know about pure mastiffs, but I'm very impressed with the trainability of the bandogs I've seen and owned. Especially the ones with plenty of dane and neo blood. That said I don't like a dog who can't relax around strangers even when accepted by me because that can be a sign of fearfulness. My dog should only seek affection from me and my family. As far as your pup who knows, some dogs are trusting pups and one day their defense drives just kick in, like they realize "oh I'm a guard dog" and start acting like it.

Vincent M · 10-08-2010, 09:05 PM

my last dog was totaly the other way and would destroy any one who entered, i think i would rather have a dog that is friendly until commanded to guard, if someone enters when im not home i have insurance to replace things, i feel the risk vs reward of a dog with a hair trigger is dependent on life style and needs

it will be interesting to see how this dog reacts to agitation, i will keep you guys posted

Dan · 10-08-2010, 09:42 PM

Good point about insurance. Will it replace the dog too?

I don't know if you're a family man. Will your wife or children have the presence of mind or control to turn the dog on and off if necessary when you're not there?

I agree with David. I prefer to have a dog that wants to do his job, and all I have to do is put control on it and make it understand when he shouldn't, and tolerate strangers because I say so. This kind of dog when stable is not a "hair trigger".