How to train a guard dog

You think your dog will protect you if a burgalar broke in? The truth might surprise you. Your big pit bull will probably run. That is the honest truth that many don’t believe.

They want their dog to protect them. When their dog jumps in front of them to lunge at someone approaching them, they encourage this behavior. They dont realize that this is dangerous for 2 reasons.

1) it is not done on command.

2)This creates a lot of nervous energy for the dog.

You want a dog that is confident and does not attack your friend or sister because they walked passed you. These are out of control dogs. Not all dogs will be able to protect you. I will explain what dogs should not be trained in this.

This is a disclaimer: I do not advise anybody try these techniques at home without a professional.

Now I want to tell you 2 quick stories about people who have no idea of the how or the who of guard dog training.

The first one is a story about a young woman who I met who had a pit bull puppy. I can tell she did some research on dog training as she threw some terms around. As I stepped in her house I was met by her dog who barked at me then ran behind her.

Every time I would get close to her dog he would go behind her and cower. I asked her did she try to socialize her dog. She explained “I did not want him to be friendly with everyone as he is a guard dog”. It was her and 2 other women living there so I understood why she felt like that.

The only problem was that her dog was afraid of everything. He wouldn’t get in the crate without a fight and when he did you couldn’t leave him in there too long or he was busting out. This was an example of a nervous dog that should not be a guard dog. This dog had shitty nerves that may have been masked with a great trainer, but in this case it showed really bad. She was putting pressure on her dog to be something it didn’t want to be.

The next story was about a phone call I received. A young man from Connecticut had called me wanting to know if I trained protection dogs.( At this time I was not even considering doing personal protection as I seen it as a liability but things change.) We talked some about his goals and what he was trying to achieve. He told me “my dog will attack only his toy or a cone, but won’t attack a person”. This made sense to me as I already knew his problem. His dog was not taking the work seriously. He didnt understand what a real threat was.

Let define 2 terms:

Prey drive- the desire to chase things

Defense drive- the need to protect themselves or their pack from a perceived threat.

These 2 drives are needed for a dog to be a protection dog. The dog in the first story had defense drive, but was scared and didn’t know how to release the pressure of a threat by biting. The dog in the second story was all prey drive, but didn’t see anybody as a threat.

Protection or guard dog training is mostly about genetics. If a dog doesn’t have the genetics then it should not be a guard dog.

How to train a guard dog

1. Pick a command like “attack”

2. Do prey bite work dog

3. Build your dog’s defensive drive

4. Add intensity

Pick a command

This is a simple step. Just choose a word that you are going to use to communicate to your dog that it should attack.

Do prey bite work

This is done by making your dog chase things. You can use a flirt pole or a bite sleeve with a line on it.

You can also play tug with your dog. Make your dog miss the bite a few times to build frustration and increase the dog desire to want to bite.

I am simplifying this process but it really will take a while before you move on to the next stage. Once you can recognize when your dog is in prey drive and defense drive then you can decide which one you want to use. Prey drive is calming. Defensive drive is stressful. You have to be able to read dogs to know when to encourage one or the other.

Build defensive drive

This is a difficult one. You will need to use an experienced decoy to teach your dog to attack on command. You can not do this work yourself as your dog will not take you as a serious threat nor do you want them to.

The problem with this work is that it is stressful. If you do it too much and don’t relieve the pressure, your dog will try to avoid the decoy instead of fight them. This will lower your dog’s confidence. If you don’t stress your dog at all they will think that it is a game. If this happens you will never get the intensity that you are looking for.

Add intensity

After your dog is taking the work serious you job is to add then maintain the intensity.

Side note: Obedience is also very important as you do not want an out of control dog. If your dog takes the work too serious- do more prey biting activities to calm him down. A dog that takes his work very serious will a lot of times struggle with obedience in the beginning. It is a balancing act.

This is the science and art of protection dog training.

There are many details that will take too long to write. If you have more in depth questions or want to test your dog then leave a comment or fill out the form on my website.

Now this is just an outline. You can research these topics and do some prey bite work yourself, but there will be a point when you need the help of a decoy.

You also might want to look into schutzhund. It is a dog sport to test the courage of the dog. It will help you to better understand this type of work in the beginning.

This article is to inform you and not for you to practice these techniques as someone can get seriously hurt.

Pet dog training vs Protection dog training

If you follow me on instagram you will notice little clips that I post of me learning to work a dog in a bite suit. It just happens that I met good people who introduce me to the sport world. Working with dogs in the sport world greatly helps my pet dog training.

The reason being is that a dog is in the highest drive possible when they love to bite and see a decoy to bite. These dogs still require the greatest control when they get on the field for a trial. For instance, the dog has to listen to their handler with no leash, collar, or even ecollar. These dogs are off leash with alot of space to run, but they choose to obey their handler. It is a beauty to see. If you are interested you can youtube any Ring sport trial or PSA or IPO trial and see what exactly I’m talking about.

How does this make me a better dog training besides the obvious? Well If you have heard dog trainers who are strictly pet dog trainers talk about a well behaved dog, you will hear some sort of

“ you want the dog to be calm and in a low state of arousal”.

At first I agreed with this as I knew nothing else. Now Im not sure as I see dog owners taking this mindset to far. I now see dogs who supress their natural drives. They are calm and docile, but I can’t get them to play or do much because they have been punished too much for getting excited.

I love to see a dog who is in a higher state of arousal, yet will still listen to their handler. That is the real challenge in dog training. I want to keep my dog highly motivated. This is protection dog trainers seem to be great trainers overall. I’m only in my beginning stages of protection work, but I’m already in love.

Also their is a reliability factor that comes into play with protection sport dogs. Depending on the sport no praise or correction is allowed during the routine. This means your dog has to perform the behavior no matter what and will not receive a reward or a firm NO to get them going in the right direction. This is the reliability needed in off leash to train a dog. Most dog owners will not want to do the work necessary to achieve such great results. That’s fine. It all depends on how far you are willing to go. I can tell you one thing. The people that are really doing great in these sports EAT!!! SLEEP!!! AND BREATHE!!! this stuff.

I find myself implementing some techniques that I learn in protection to my pet dog clients. It works. I will continue to grow and dedicate myself to dog training at the highest level to help my clients and those in need.

Bratty dog vs well behaved dog

I love the nature vs nurture idea and it comes into play in what I want to talk about today. What do I mean by nature in dog training? The nature is genetics. Its when the dog comes from good stock with you having to do anything. I used to wonder how some dogs were so muscular only to realize their father was also muscular. Nature plays a big role in protection dog training. Some dogs have “it” and some dogs don't. Sometimes I hear people say that they want their dog to be protective. The problem is that som dogs don’t have a prtective instinct. Sure they bark at strangers, but thats mostly out of fear not protection. The other part to this equation is training. A protection dog can only truly protect on command through training. This is the nurture side of the same coin.

Nurture is how you raise your dog. What type of environment? Is she socialized well? Does she have any fears not due to genetic disposition? I focus mostly on nurture when training dogs. It's the only area I have control over. I can't control what a dog was born with.

I seen a friend with their dog. It was a pit bull that was well behaved and even easily capable of being off leash within a short period of time. His dog was 7 months old. His roommate claimed she was a dog trainer and said the dog needed no training. As much as i feel a dog trainer is needed, I agreed. If my friend just wanted a well behaved dog the dog needed no training. This dog was laid back and calm. I would trust a kid 6 years old and above to be around this dog. My friend began to explain to me that this dog was not like his previous dog. This dog was naturally calm and not pushy whatsoever. His last dog was a brat and if you gave her an inch she would take the whole football field for a touchdown. How do you recognize each?

Laid back dog

Has ears slightly backwards and flat against head

Eager to please

Looks at you a lot for approval

Moves slow a lot

I don't want you to confused this with a dog who has been punished a lot. These dogs can show the same signs yet it's because their natural drive has been suppressed. You would have to know a dogs history to know for sure.

Bratty dog

Pushes head on you to make you pet them

Usually the first one to eat from mother and pushes other puppies out of the way

Possessive over toys, people, and other objects

Rushes out the front door

Never takes in information from the owner

When you correct they tend to redirect as if to say “how dare you”

These are just some ways that you can easily spot this behavior.

I wrote this post with the beauty of variety in dog’s personality in mind. I love it how different breeds have different tendencies. Since society has been modernized we forget that all dogs have a purpose. Some dogs are not made to sit in an apartment with little exercise. Other dogs have a tendency to chase things. This could be the difference between a well behaved dog and a “bratty” dog. The dog might just be displaying natural tendencies that is not beneficial to us in our modern society.

Get a professional dog trainer to help you figure this out.