Working with trained Guard Dogs is like any other skill to become good at it you need to become a student of the discipline, in my opinion the best way to do that is to consume as much information as you can on the subject, read books, go to seminars, try to talk to experienced dog handlers before you even consider for a moment going near a dog.

Here are some books on training Guard Dogs that are great places to start your education, if your not prepared to invest the time in reading this types of books ( you cant complain about the price heck 2 of them are under $5 ! ) then quite bluntly you shouldn’t even be thinking about working with Guard Dogs.

In my last post I mentioned that last year I decided to retire my police dog of 7 years and begin the search for a replacement partner. The first thing I would disclose here is that I think the standard for attack dog training has improved a LOT in the seven years since I purchased my first dog, Duke.

Seven years ago there weren’t a lot of breeders that even understood the requirements of a real working dog, in fact most breeders that where advertising their dogs as being of a “suitable type” for protection training  where in reality breeding “breeds” of dogs that long ago had their origin in working lines but generations of breeding down for the show ring or “conformation”meant that they were not really working dogs at all.

Today there are several working dog breeders in the US that are breeding from true working bloodlines based on imported Eastern European bloodlines and I would say that once I got down to a short list of possible suppliers I was extremely impressed with the standard of the breeding lines on offer.

The challenge is that the breeders of show line dogs haven’t gone away and most haven’t improved their lines to offer real working lines, rather there is simply more “choice” available and for a novice this has the effect of only clouding the water more and making the the right choice even more complex.

In the next few posts I will try to cover things to look for in selecting a breeder and then we will move on to attack dog trainers.  I hope you stay tuned.

Last year I decided to semi retire my old police patrol dog ” Duke “, a 10 year old male German Shepherd, after 7 years of faithful service.

I spent 7 years between 8 and 10 hours a day with Duke on 1000’s of varied security assignments and during that time I learn’t a lot about what was required from a “real dog” in the “real world”

Following my decision to retire my old police dog I set out on the journey of finding a suitable replacement partner only this time around I had a much greater level of expectations and I must say that the process has been both incredibly rewarding in the new knowledge I have learn’t and some of the amazing and generous people that  I met along the way, working dog breeders, professional trainers as well as other dog handlers and at the same time incredibly frustrating – mostly because of “some of the people I met along the way” haha – self proclaimed “experts” providing thier opinions and advice on “attack dogs” and “attack dog training”

I think that dog training and dog breeding is just one of those areas in life in which everyone has an opinion and strangely often the people that know the least are the most vocal with their opinions. I can not recall how many 1000’s of times that people I met on duty that felt compelled to regale me with their stories about how their dog was ” “trained to attack on command” or how protective their dog was of them that they didn’t need any training, and don’t get me started on the hooligans that thought their “pit bull” would make a better protection dog because he would “kick my dogs arse” – you have to laugh.

I have always been active in training with Duke, the degree of seriousness to which I pursued it waxed and waned at various points in time, based on my work schedule but I was always actively pursuing it at some level and as a result I feel I am very qualified you assess an opinion or theory, in short weeding out the truth from the myths and misconceptions but at the end of the day I can only offer my opinion an simply hope that you enjoy reading what I have to offer and find this site a source of useful information and references.

Tips and Advice about Attack Dog Training