Is a Protection Dog Right for You?

This is Chapter 1 of my e-book, Raising Your Personal Protection Dog, shared here in full. Before you look at puppies or breeders, these are the questions I want every future owner to answer honestly. – Marilé

PPD stands for Personal Protection Dog, so if you see this abbreviation throughout, that is what it means.

Do you commit?

This is not something to take on if you cannot commit to something and then push through even when you don’t feel like continuing. These dogs, from puppies, take immense commitment and immense dedication. And even once we get to the adult phase, the training continues. Let’s say you trained the dog from eight weeks to two years, and he is an adult now; these dogs are not happy if they don’t train. Can you commit for 14 years? Do you have a two-year commitment to get that dog to a level where it can protect you? That’s how long it takes: two years.

These two years are not once-a-week sessions; in most cases, they are at least once a day. The dog needs to be trained a lot in the beginning, especially as a puppy. There is more training during the day, as there are more feeding times.

It is important that you understand that this is not the kind of dog or puppy that you bring home, leave to just be, and hope that one day he will excel in protecting you and your family. The commitment is intense. If this is not something you can do, you shouldn’t lie to yourself. If you want a Belgian Malinois or a German Shepherd to do this, the commitment is something you must be truly honest with yourself about.

Knowledge

The next point is: do you have the knowledge, and if not, do you have a way to obtain it?

Most of the time, people misunderstand what it takes to raise these dogs. You hear, “I know dogs, I’ve had dogs all my life.” It doesn’t matter how many dogs you have ever had; owning a dog like a working-line Belgian Malinois is completely different. This is exactly why good breeders won’t sell these dogs to just anybody. You must research and be aware of what these dogs need. Dogs like the Belgian Malinois are prone to behaviour problems, and if you don’t know how to give them structure and routine, you will have a very unruly and unhappy dog.

Besides their everyday needs, you must know how to train the dog in advanced obedience and protection. If this were as easy as people think, there wouldn’t be dog trainers making a profession of training these dogs. Trainers with this type of knowledge and experience are only a handful in the world. So, the chance of you training a good protection dog like this alone is zero.

How can you train your dog if you are not a dog trainer? Your best alternative is to take your dog for training. The dog will need at least one session a week, ideally two. During these sessions, a good, qualified trainer can guide you through your obedience. The protection training should then be done by the trainer or the trainer’s decoy.

Time

Do you have the time to spend on this dog?

Firstly, a puppy like this must be supervised 24/7. If you have a 9-to-5 job and can’t take the puppy with you, this will make it very difficult. The ideal situation for a pup like this is to have someone around who has the knowledge to look after the pup.

You cannot leave this puppy alone at home the whole day while you are at work. This will be extremely detrimental to the puppy’s development. Under no circumstances can a small pup like this be left in a yard with an older dog or dogs. It will be very costly if the older dogs kill him.

One of the new trends is to send your dog to day-care. For pets, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But for your young protection dog, it is not a good idea. I can guarantee that your puppy will learn bad or wrong habits during this time. You need someone with the right knowledge to look after these puppies.

New puppies have so many things they have to learn and so much training to do; they need your attention. Skipping the fundamentals that should be trained from a young age will cost you dearly when the dog is an adult. If you do a good job in the first two years, you are set for the rest of the dog’s life.

Besides caring for the puppy, do you have the time to take the dog for training and socialisation? When we start these journeys, we are excited and have all these plans and dreams for the dog, but consistently taking the dog for training is not always possible for everyone. Life happens, and life is busy. Are you prepared to make the necessary sacrifices for the next two years? Are you prepared to say no to family and friends, and to go even when you don’t feel like it?

Support structure

This is such an important point, and people rarely think about or plan for it. People tend to jump in headfirst without thinking things through. They come looking for a support structure or mentor when it’s almost too late. This is something you should think about before buying the dog. If you are a beginner and training dogs like this is new to you, you should have a mentor, club or some support structure to help you raise this pup.

You need someone to phone when you don’t know what to do. You need someone to help you with your obedience training, and a professional to train your dog in protection. The things that blow your mind about these dogs are probably common knowledge to other people. They usually have tricks, management systems and solutions for most problems or challenges.

We cannot stress this enough: these dogs can’t be raised in a vacuum. You will need a community.

Understanding the realities of protection training

Protection training is an art and a science. Protection trainers spend years mastering it, learning how to produce the best possible protection dogs. We know how to build them up to fight a man, where and when to bite, and how to let go. We put them in scenarios as close as possible to what they might encounter. How do people without knowledge think they can slap a suit on the gardener and that it will be good enough to train their dog? Or that they can do their own dog’s bite work? This makes absolutely no sense to me.

• You cannot do your own dog’s bite work, as you will never put your dog under enough pressure or stress. Your dog loves and trusts you. Biting an intimidating stranger takes a whole different kind of courage.
• You need to know how to develop a grip and why we develop it. Why is it not okay for the dog to just bite anywhere? Why is it not okay for the dog to shake while biting?
• Not all professionals will do a good job. The dog world is like the horse world: some people are still stuck in old ways of doing things while there are better, more modern and more humane ways. You speak for your dog; make sure your dog always enjoys training.
• Doing some protection work on a sleeve on the training field does not mean your dog will bite when someone comes into your home. The context is completely different.
• You cannot isolate a protection dog to make it aggressive towards strangers; it will fear strangers.
• You cannot hit your dog to make it aggressive; it will fear you.
• You cannot allow your puppy to bite family members because you don’t want to correct the biting, thinking it will be a protection dog one day. This is madness.