What are the best breeds for outsoor guard dogs with the following requirements:

-- Sara Nealy (keithn@aloha.net), July 30, 1999

Answers

More important than the breed (german sheppard,bull terrier,mastif,rotweiller,doberman,dachshund)is the training.Guard dog training can be very dangerous. It is just as unconscionable to teach a dog to indiscriminately chew the legs off of intruders as it is to rig up shot gun booby traps. I had a co-worker years ago who raised germen sheppards and trained them and competed them in a german guard dog sport.The dogs were trained to,on command,either stand ground snarling and growling with hackles raised,jump up on the "intruder"(wearing german attack dog padding)and get in his face,acting like the dog was about to go on a feeding frenzy,and then,with a final command tear the proverbial new ass hole. I never much liked the guy and all he ever wanted to talk about was his attack dogs and the touraments he went to,so I just nodded and smiled a lot trying to get back to my aikido magazines(to each thier obsession!)and now I can't bloddy buggery bollocks remember the name of the sport. If you're a sick fuck,and just want killer dogs,I've heard,second hand,that one can feed a dog gun powder to turn them mad with pain.Said dogs will atack anything.No human would do such a thing.And any predator in human guise that would,should be destroyed for the good of the human race.peace!

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), July 31, 1999.

There is a training & sport called Schuntshund (spelling) and many of the dogs trained this way go into search & rescue. It's *not* what you were describing, tho as they dogs are trained gently, not with pain.

Dusty

-- Dusty grif (dustyg@indy.net), August 01, 1999.

Zoob,

My wife's brother has trained five such German Shepherds.

Schutzhund competition work is an extension of his and their actual role. He's a cop and the dogs are working police dogs, each with a secondary role as a drug detection dog, a bomb & explosive detection dog or a search and rescue dog. My brother in-law gets to do regular firearms practice and some competitions to stay sharp on those critical skills. The dogs need something more than their weekly workouts to keep them on-top of their skills.

Schutzhund competition is a way to keep their police work skills honed. Usually all the dogs get to do on duty is ride around. To keep them metally sharp, Schutzhund competitions are part of their routines. Basically it lets them do chase, cornering the bad guy and bite work with someone other than their "regular" trainer.

Which is important, because the dog may learn to think the only person its supposed to chase, tackle, hold and if ordered; attack is the guy who usually wears the bite suit or me, if I'm feeling dumb enough to put one on.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), August 02, 1999.