Raising a Guard Dog Without Bitework

In this episode, the hosts discuss the concept of guard dogs, focusing on how to raise a family-friendly dog that can also exhibit guarding behaviors. They explore the balance between allowing natural guarding instincts and ensuring the dog remains social and manageable.

The conversation delves into the importance of breed selection, personality traits, and the role of training in shaping a dog's behavior. The hosts emphasize that a dog's deterrent effect often relies on its appearance and behavior rather than formal training.

They discuss how daily interactions shape a dog's behavior, the significance of socialization, and the management of barking. The conversation emphasizes the need for consistency in training and the understanding that dogs learn from their environment and the responses of their owners.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to balanced training with suburban canine Nelson
loss. Hey, Nelson didn't cut me off
this week. This is good.
I didn't know. I waited.
I waited. How are you guys?
Doing good. How are you guys?
Phenomenal. Good, good man.
Happy I'm ready for a big podcast day.

(00:20):
You guys ready? I'm ready.
I'm ready. So we were just talking like
usual about what the topic is. Nelson, this is your once again,
your baby. You First off, just give
everyone the background. You insisted on this topic.
I actually thought it was a pretty dumb topic when you first
pitched me on it, but it grew onme a lot and it hit a point

(00:43):
where like I, I, I like it now. It just it took some time.
It's. Just a little dwell time, you
know. It hasn't grown on me at all.
Good to know, good to know. I think you're going to like it
when we're done. I like, I like that we're going
to talk about it, but I don't know how much I like the topic
itself, but. Oh, well, I'm a little confused

(01:03):
that you like that we're going to talk about it, but you don't
like the topic. I see a little little contrarian
going on over here. I don't know that it's contrary
because I don't know where. I don't know where Nelson's
going to take this. So I'm intrigued to see where
he's going to take it and then we'll see how.
I don't even know where I'm going to take it.
So, you know, we're all along for this journey.

(01:23):
So we're talking about how to raise a good guard dog, right?
A good household, family, urban,not professional.
Also not in the city guard. Dog See, that's where I hated
the topic at first when you saidurban guard dog.
Like to me, that's like you own a business in a city that's kind

(01:46):
of sketchy. Like you're either selling pot
legally or illegally I guess, Ormaybe like a porn shop or like
maybe a junkyard, like something.
Where like you like junk yards fit into like cotton porn.
Like, well, they always have garden dogs, right?
They do always have. Those, all those places are the

(02:08):
same and you're conjuring up, you're conjuring up images of
German shepherds and Dobermans like, is that your intention,
Nelson? It can be I would say that
German shepherds and Doberman certainly fall kind of right in
there. But when I say urban guard dog,
what I mean, and I guess some ofit comes from like the the

(02:32):
reptile side of all of my hobbies and stuff like that,
where they'll they'll call like big monitor lizards, urban
dinosaurs or, you know, like bigtortoises and stuff like that.
So when I hear urban, I just think like, I don't know,
household, family, I guess. I I guess I think suburban
rather than urban. That's where we ended up last
time, is it? I was like tell me about this

(02:53):
urban guard dog and everything you described was suburban,
maybe even exurbs, but not urban.
Sure. I'm.
Fine with your definition of urban if that makes you feel
better. That does make me feel better.
It's hard to get your approval sometimes.
What so? Oh, go ahead.
What I think of when I think of an urban guard dog or household

(03:16):
guard dog, whatever it is that we want to call it, is a family
dog that exhibits and we allow guarding behaviors.
Things like alarm barking, things like running at the
fence, things like being more intimidating than we might allow
other dogs, but not I, I would, the words that come to mind is

(03:41):
not capitalizing on it. But like, I don't want my dogs
to learn how to bite, how to clean, you know, clean up their
bite on an arm or a leg or and I'm not going to do any kind of
professional level, you know, work on that kind of stuff.
You know, my dogs are not sport dogs or anything like that
either. But what I want from them is to

(04:04):
be very intimidating visually, to sound very intimidating to
throw down if a dog comes after my kids or hops a fence, which
we've had happened in the past before.
You know, I, I want my dogs to be able to throw down and handle
a situation, I guess towards animals for sure.
But you know, again, at the end of the day, these are also dogs

(04:26):
that I take in to appointments all the time.
These are, you know, dogs that Itake out into public.
There is no weird socializing stuff.
It's just what do I allow? What don't I allow?
And understanding that by allowing certain things or
playing with my dogs in a certain way, you know, I have to
be, I mean, I guess careful would technically be the word.

(04:49):
I don't feel like I have to be careful, but I have to be
cognizant of the fact that, you know, allowing certain behaviors
are going to kind of facilitate other behaviors that I might not
want to crop up and I just kind of have to be ready and waiting
for that kind of stuff. Does that make sense?
It it does, I think this might be a good place for a
disclaimer. And that disclaimer would be

(05:11):
that Suburban Canine is not a guard dog training company.
We don't do bite work. I don't think any one of the
three of us trains in bite work.So I don't know, I think it
might be a good place to throw alittle disclaimer about that
when you're talking about how you're envisioning this.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I I think that that is a good

(05:32):
disclaimer. I, I do not train guard dogs
professionally or or anything like that.
I think it's cool, but I don't really have any intentions or or
want to actually start going down that line.
But what I want when I leave my house is that my wife feels a
little bit more protected. I feel better about leaving the

(05:54):
kids at home when there's a dog that looks very, very scary if
some strange person were to approach my fence or approach my
door, that kind of thing. So let's break this down a
little bit and, and we're on thesame page here, but I think for
anyone listening, everyone comesat this differently.

(06:16):
So someone who trains protectiondogs that's listening is
probably like freaking out already.
Like if you don't teach your dogto bite, you can't trust it to
know how to do it right until the time comes up.
Then you have other people that say like if you ever do that,
your dog's this huge risk. And what I would say is there's
a risk no matter but and you have to decide which risk you

(06:37):
want. And if you don't allow your dog
to guard whatsoever and you teach him to be insanely social
and you try to erase all guarding behaviors in the dog.
I mean, First off, that's impossible with some dogs, but
you work really hard at it. The odds of that dog ever biting
someone are going to be lower than anything else we talked
about today, but the odds of it protecting you are also going to

(06:59):
be substantially lower. If you go to the opposite end of
the expect of the spectrum and you train your dog in protection
very seriously, you're going to have a dog who's going to be
really good at protecting you. Someone comes up to car Jack
you. If you've worked on that with
your dog, your dog's out that window in a heartbeat grabbing
them. If that.
If your dog sees someone pull a gun, your dog's going to be

(07:19):
trained how to react to that scenario.
So if you're attacked, you're obviously way safer with a dog
that's trained in protection. We generally go a middle ground
because we look at it as the odds of being attacked, I think
are lower for the average personthan the odds of a protection
dog complicating their life rather than making it easier.

(07:42):
And people that train protectiondogs, the good ones, they handle
their dogs differently than the average pet dog.
And that's not an insult, that'sa compliment.
They know how to work and and handle their dogs.
And for our average client, theydon't want a dog like that.
Our average client does not wanta dog who someone comes over and
you're like, this is, you know, don't pet him yet.

(08:03):
You know, I give him some time like he's in his place command,
I'll free him up, but definitelydon't do XY or ZA.
Lot of them have their dogs up when a lot of people come over.
And once again, not an insult whatsoever.
It's just it depends on, you know, what they want out of
their dog and how they've trained and the people that take
protection really, really seriously, and I don't mean like
a sport like PSA or something, but like, you know, really like

(08:26):
household protection. They live very differently with
their dogs. So today I think we're in
agreement here that we're talking about that middle ground
and we recognize there's a risk that your dog might not protect
you when it needs to, right. But it but it get that most of
our clients want this middle ground.
Yeah. And you know, like what I hear

(08:48):
very often when I look into thiskind of stuff, especially like
when it comes to people breakinginto houses or, you know,
grabbing kids and stuff outside of, you know, the backyard or
whatever, is that it's all basedon perception.
If they can see a dog and the dog looks intimidating or they
know that, hey, that dog likes to bark and that kind of stuff,

(09:11):
they're going to target your house less.
And at the same time, I don't want a super annoying dog.
But one of the big things that Itell people or, and that I hear
all the time is like, oh man, noone's going to break into that
house because the German Shepherd lives there, right?
But if you can't take your dog for a walk, nobody knows that
the German Shepherd lives there.And it doesn't really matter.

(09:34):
I, you know, I've gone to neighborhoods where like I, I
don't hear any dogs whatsoever. And so like, you know.
That's the place to break into. That's the place to break into
of like, hey, OK, I ring the doorbell, no dogs.
And you know, like, I don't see anything looking on a fence or
anything like that. So and.
Family neighborhoods only have doodles.

(09:56):
Doodles. So yeah, you don't have to worry
about a tough dog. Unless you get to an like an
unlucky place and you find a Cocker, you know, hanging out in
the backyard and like, oh man, you maybe you do run away for
your life on that one. I just, I feel like you just
touched on something that I findso interesting of like, you
know, we're, you were talking about breeds that look scary and

(10:19):
breeds that don't look scary. And then you mentioned the
doodles, like how much do we actually think a dog is going to
be enough to scare somebody away, regardless of what kind of
dog it is, right? Like there has to be some type
of line, some type of limit where somebody says, OK, that
dog's scary. That dog's not like.

(10:39):
Is a full size doodle scary enough to scare somebody away?
I think so for sure. And that's how I feel as well.
Like I think a good majority of people who are going to be
scared about any dog would be scared off by a big doodle.
I think it's it does change things though.
So let's say you have a big doodle, a big, you know, golden

(11:03):
doodle who tail is like even with its back, it looks super
happy. It's got a big old smile on his
face every time that it sees people, it's quiet, doesn't
really bark or anything like that.
If you are, let's say a really bad person, you're casing out a
neighborhood or anything like that and you see like kids
running around and there's this happy dog and stuff like are you

(11:25):
going to care about that dog? You know, there's a very good
chance that you could kick that dog and, you know, continue
doing whatever crazy thing that you might have in in plan.
But that would be vastly different from a goldendoodle
who likes to charge at the fence, likes to bark, tail up,
you know, just more confident and all of a sudden you're

(11:48):
looking at that full size doodle, like maybe that's not
the house. I'd rather go find a Yorkie.
You know, that kind of deal. I, I guess I somewhat see the
dog in general as like the security sign that a lot of
people put in front of their house, even though they don't
have ADT or, or whatever or thing, right?
It's like a warning, like, hey, stay away from this house.

(12:11):
There's something here that's going to make it harder to rob.
But for a lot of situations withthe type of dogs we're talking
about, because it's not a real guard dog, it's not actually
going to be the thing that stopsthem, right?
Like if they if it's a professional person who's coming
to rob you, they know how to deal with a dog regardless of

(12:31):
what kind of dog it is if it's anormal household dog.
I disagree. I'd say in many of the
scenarios, the average lab goldendoodle, yes, but not my
dogs. And you know, I'd say for a lot
of people, not their dogs, a lotof my clients dogs, not their
dogs. I work with a lot of dogs that a

(12:53):
dog, a dog trainer who knows what they're doing could come in
and probably calm that dog down and get in the house.
But the average person? Not a chance.
Without, yeah, right. Without a lot of jumping, a lot
of fast, erratic movement, you know, that kind of stuff.
Because I guess I've never broken into a house, but I would
assume that like erratic yet that is true.

(13:15):
Erratic movement. You gotta have a growth mindset
now, so you can't have such a fixed mindset.
You can do it if you put your mind to it.
I could do anything that I set my mind to, but you know, again,
erratic movement probably is just as I wouldn't say
intimidating, but concerning if you're already under stress of

(13:35):
the fact that you're committing a crime Now I the reason I agree
with you've lost is because you're talking about
professional. You know, like house robbers.
What do you even call those guys?
Whatever you're professional criminals, right?
But that being said, if you're talking about some idiot Tik

(13:56):
toker who wants to make, you know, Ding Dong ditch videos at
3:00 AM, yeah, I want my dog to be barking.
And maybe they choose not my house when they're doing that
kind of stuff. There's a trend going on where
they just walk into your house, whether you're home or not and
yell or sit down on your couch or something.
Like, yeah, I would like my dog to scare the crap out of people

(14:19):
trying to do really, really stupid stuff around my house.
It's a really big. I really didn't know where you
were going with that when you started talking about TikTok.
But then like, so that's real. People are doing that and making
videos. That's real.
One dude just just got arrested for killing one senior, shooting

(14:41):
another senior. The other senior got away.
It was 3:00 AM. They were screwing around
pretending to play Ding Dong ditch or something at his house
and he, I, I don't know where. Did he?
First off, what state? I don't I don't remember out at
the. Were they inside when he shot
him or outside? They were outside of his door.

(15:03):
OK. In Florida, that sounds like a
good way to get shot to me. For sure.
Tennessee, Texas, Florida, for sure.
You know when you're shooting people in.
Illinois, though, there's a goodchance you know that someone
would take that risk. You generally don't want to
shoot someone that's outside of your house when you're in it.
That is probably not going to gowell.
Which is, you know, my guess is that is why he is in custody at

(15:27):
the moment. Let's talk about a few things
here. 1 is just to put a pin in this.
The dogs are a great deterrent. So that's the first thing.
If you try to erase all guardingbehavior in your dog, they're
probably not going to be as goodof a deterrent.
So that's something I think everyone needs to think about.
As we're talking here, if you don't have your dog outside

(15:49):
much, then it's going to be lessof a deterrent.
Of course, right. And then I mean, breed does
matter. So for me, I, I'd like guarding
breeds and I want a guarding breed and I'll never, as long as
I'm in good enough health to, you know, manage them, I'll
never not have a guarding breed because without a doubt, a large
guarding breed is a better deterrent than a small non

(16:10):
guarding breed. But it doesn't mean a small dog
can't be helpful because we haven't really got into this
yet. But a lot of times it's their
job is to alert you. And you know most people.
Well, I don't know about most people.
Most people I know own guns. So I don't know about most
people in the entire world or entire country.
But I don't know if I know anyone personally, especially in

(16:31):
this area, that doesn't own guns.
And if the dog is barking and freaking out at 3:00 AM and it's
looking out the front window, you're probably going to grab a
gun and then figure out what's going on.
So they're still serving a greatpurpose there, even if they are,
you know, 8 lbs, right? And a lot of dogs have been bred
to alert and that's their job. It's not to protect, it's to

(16:52):
alert. And you know, small dogs and big
dogs work together, right? Little dogs sometimes are used
to wake up the big dogs and right, it's bed and mastiff is
woken up by a small dog and thenit doesn't thing.
So there's, you know, anyone listening.
Don't rule this out completely. If you're like, oh, my dog's not
scary or my dog's tiny, even allowing your dog to do proper

(17:12):
guarding can help you. And even if you don't own guns,
it can at least get you awake tocall 911.
So there's a lot of, a lot of use in any size dog and I I'm
that's why I'm a huge believer in owning dogs, but also not
allow like not trying to get ridof all of their natural guarding
behavior. For sure, and, and I'm glad you
clarified it. It doesn't necessarily have to

(17:33):
be a gun, right? I mean, if it's just grabbing
your kids and barricading yourself in a room or anything,
calling the cops or you know, grabbing a bat, whatever.
But I mean, having time is one of the more crucial aspects if
you're scared of someone coming into your house, right?
And being able to kind of think and react.

(17:55):
But again, not only that, you also run into just people doing
really, really stupid things while other people are walking
around, right? And so if if I'm walking with my
daughter or, you know, around the neighborhood or anything
like that, I don't know all my neighbors and that's probably

(18:17):
more on me, I should try. But back to the matter is
everybody understands that, yeah, Bulldogs are a little bit
more tenacious than, you know, afun little, you know, Yorkie
that you can kick really, reallyfast.
So. If I had to summarize what the
two of you are saying, you're saying that if you want a

(18:37):
household guard dog, urban guarddog, whatever, whatever we're
calling it here, put it in the. Comments what you what what's
the name that you guys would call this thing right like I
like urban guard dog but. So if if you're looking for
that, the most important thing outs like forget about training
for a second. The most important thing is

(18:59):
choosing a breed that is going to be helpful for that.
Is that what you 2 are saying? Breed and personality 100%.
So I would say just choosing thedog.
And I feel like we haven't talked about personality.
We've talked a lot of the thingswe've thrown out there so far
are breed. So if we're trying to help
people with understanding what we're talking about, what are

(19:21):
some of the personality aspects that they'd be looking for?
So I'd say, fine, let's get intothat and then pretty soon we
should move to what we actually do, right?
And how this works. And I, there's a few things I'd
would like to talk about big picture, you know, to kind of
frame that conversation. But I mean, personality, a lot
of people, you're already going to have your dog.

(19:42):
So this is irrelevant, right? If you already have the dog and
you're just trying to decide howto raise it or what to do with
it. But I like strong willed dogs
personally. That is going to make them a
much better guard dog, but also harder to live with.
So once again, you're on that risk spectrum, right?
Of the more strong willed the animal is the, and the more
drive it has, the more tenaciousit is, the tenacious it is, the

(20:04):
better it's probably going to guard, but it's also going to be
harder to live with, harder to train, harder to manage.
So it's something to think about.
But I always look for a puppy that has backbone and seems like
a a tougher dog out of out of the litter as opposed to.
The most cuddly weak willed dog you can find, but that's up to

(20:26):
the, you know, up to the person.If you said I want that weak
willed dog, but you have a large, you know, like a tough
looking breed, there's still going to be a lot of a lot of,
you know, good that can come from that, a lot of guarding.
And if you choose the right breed, it's hard to find a
German Shepherd that has no guarding instincts at all.
Sure. And I'm not going to say it's
impossible, but it's really hard.

(20:48):
And so if you're picking a breedthat's known to guard, even if
you get a gentle soft one of that breed, it's pretty, I'm
going to go more than pretty unlikely.
It's extremely unlikely to have one who has no guarding instinct
that's been bred into them for so many generations.
Yeah, definitely. The other thing that I would say

(21:09):
even if you wanted not necessarily the most tenacious
dog in whatever litter it is that you're looking at.
I mean, even confidence, I wouldsay is probably a big one
because you want to be able to have a dog that knows they may
get in trouble, but it's worth doing anyways, right?

(21:32):
You know, again, we do work on dogs not barking at absolutely
everything. We do work on dogs not barking
out of the fence at our neighbors and, and that kind of
thing. And so there is a Gray area that
the dogs have to be able to kindof operate and have the
confidence enough to, to test it.
You know, hey, screw it, I'm going to try it.
This looks weird. I'm going to bark and we're
going to see if I get in troubleor not.

(21:53):
But if you have a softer willed dog, you know, they, they might
not take the chance. They're just probably coming
back away from whatever it is, you know, whatever it is that
they're worried about. Yeah, I think confidence is a
great word for a characteristic to be looking for.
You know, you want, if you're looking at puppies, you might
want the one that runs up to thepeople who come to visit the

(22:16):
puppies, not the one that sits there and ignores, not the one
that runs to the corner because it's scared.
You want the confident one. All right.
Well, as we start moving into how to actually do this and how
to raise that dog, I think one of the first things I'd throw

(22:37):
out there, and this would go forevery episode we've ever done
and probably every episode we ever will do.
And I think this is important tothink about is that the vast
majority of your dog's personality and behavior is
created outside of training sessions.
And I don't know what percentagewe want to put there.
I'd say probably 95% of their behavior and their your

(23:01):
day-to-day life with them that is shaped outside of training
sessions. And what I mean by that is
training is such a small part ofyour dog's day and such a small
part of their life. And generally speaking, training
is also about just teaching a series of actions that yes, it
you're going to proof them in real life and start working with

(23:23):
your dog in a variety of scenarios.
But most of the things that happen in a day-to-day basis are
not happening when you're training.
So training comes into this likeyou need a well trained dog and
a dog that guards that's not trained is like terrible to live
with. And that can be pretty
dangerous. But most of this stuff you're
not going to teach in a trainingsession.

(23:43):
You could, but most of this is going to come up in day-to-day
life. And you need to think about that
on what you're encouraging on a day-to-day basis, what you're
discouraging, what you're punishing the dog for, what
you're rewarding the dog for. And I think this, that'll make
more sense as we get into this. But this is about how you're
living with your dog, not putting on your leash and

(24:06):
teaching them something. Because I think the almost
everything we talk about today is going to be in the context of
this happened. How do you react as opposed to
put your leash on and teach yourdog this?
I agree. Agree with that.
All. Right.
Well, where do we want to start?I mean, do we want to start with

(24:29):
a puppy and how we'd raise them and then talk through how to how
we handle this with an adult dog?
Sure. So do you want to take the lead
on that, Nelson? Do you want me to?
You go ahead. So dogs grow into their guarding
behavior. You could get a puppy who
doesn't want to guard at all andhas no, you know, no desire to,

(24:52):
no interest in it. Most puppies don't.
So don't be scared or worried that you got the wrong dog if
you bring him home and they haveno interest in guarding.
That kind of comes through time.One of the biggest hallmarks, in
my opinion, of a dog that's going to make a pretty decent
guard dog is a dog that notices when something's different and
they react to it. And by something different, I

(25:13):
mean silly things like you have a garbage bag in the yard that's
not normally there and your dog's freaking out about it.
That to me is a sign of a prettygood guard dog.
If all of a sudden you have something and whatever yard,
something stuck on your fence like the wind blew a piece of
Styrofoam there on trash day andyour dog is like in the yard
barking, They're not sure if they want to go up to it.

(25:34):
They've got their tail up and they're freaking out.
To me, that's a sign of a prettygood guard dog who you can shape
their behavior into a way you really like.
So don't don't discount those little things.
Those make those are a big deal.It means your dog recognizes
something's different and they're telling you this seems
like it could be a problem because at the end of the day,
that's the guard dog's job is totell you this is different and

(25:56):
this could be a problem. And then you can help figure out
what to do from there. And so the start is teaching
your dog what's normal, what is your life like?
And at the very beginning is youhave to have house rules and you
need to start enforcing those rules from day one.
And understanding your like, some rules might not seem
important on day one. They're going to become

(26:17):
important soon, But you have to know what you want.
So I would, when I did, you know, do this with a client, I
walk through them six months from now, nine months from now,
your dog's becoming an adult. Doorbell rings.
What do you want your dog to do?And if they're like, I don't
want him barking like, well, then he's not going to be ever
be a guard. Like you can't have that.
And, and he's not A, and he's a decent guard dog.

(26:40):
Or like, what happens if they see someone, the meter reader in
your backyard and they're like, I don't really want them to
react to that. Like, well, that's going to kind
of be a problem unless you teachthem the meter readers, the
friend and you somehow have to meet that person enough times.
But we walk through those house rules because I'd make it, I
like to make it clear to the person for this dog to be any
good at guarding when they see astranger, they have to be

(27:03):
allowed to freak out a little bit.
But you need to have the ground rules of what you'll allow in
that moment. So Nelson Voss, what thoughts do
you have on that before we startdigging deeper?
Can I throw 1 semi unrelated before Nelson goes?
So when you were talking about dogs freaking out about like a
piece of Styrofoam in the yard, that always conjures up images

(27:24):
of me of a a greater Swiss mountain dog.
And it's not a breed that many people think about when they
think about guarding. So if you're thinking about
this, that might be a good option for you.
And I'm just going to shamelessly plug it here anyway.
Are you breeding Swissies now orwhat's going on?
I might be. I'd like if if they didn't die
at 5 from cancer I'd have a couple Swiss ease right now.

(27:46):
I agree, good dog. They're cool, they're they're
gorgeous looking, they're big, they bark.
That would be a solid pick for sure.
Nelson, what are your thoughts? Any pushback or things you
really want to add to what I said there?
No, I I really agree. You know a lot of it.
I think that there are obviouslydogs are kind of on a spectrum,

(28:08):
right? You know, a dog that will notice
those kind of things and bark and draw attention to that kind
of stuff is a really good guard dog.
There's no doubt about that, right?
And you can kind of shape that behavior to be what it is that
you want. But I, I don't know if I would
discount lesser reactions or anything like that, right?

(28:29):
Even just excitability can be shaped to some degree of what
you want. It's just what I guess
capabilities, right? What are those dogs actually
going to be capable of doing? And you know, how much how much
do you trust them? Or, you know, that kind of
stuff. Dog that notices those kind of
things and runs up there and youknow, puts on a big show you can

(28:53):
shape to be awesome. But it is going to take a little
bit more work where even let's take like, you know, a golden,
for example, that just barks every time that it gets excited
or sees people, you know, some for there's a lot of families
that they just want a little bitof barking and that's about it.
And and at least you're getting that right.
At least you're still getting some alert to the fact that

(29:14):
someone's coming over someone's close to the fence, something
along those lines. It doesn't always have to look
the same, though. I might want more of a guardian
dog and one that notices every little thing and and charges
over there to investigate. You know, you don't discount it,
especially if you already have adog, you know, their
capabilities of at least barkingand proving to everybody that

(29:36):
there's a dog there and, and letting you know that
something's something's around. But I think a lot of it comes
down to, and, and This is why I agreed with your first point so
much, which is none of this happens in a training session.
This is just living with your dog.
Because how you respond to thosekind of things is what's going
to determine for a lot of dogs how far they take guarding stuff

(29:59):
not serious. But you know, how far are they
willing to kind of practice those behaviors and what they're
practicing, right? Is it actually, hey, I bark and
charge and jump and bite and nipand try and eat and tear
everything that that comes in? Or is it, you know, kind of what
you were explaining that where the dog doesn't necessarily know
whether to approach or not, but definitely wants to draw the

(30:22):
attention. You know, you could calm that
dog down and then kind of just go up to a grab it, you know,
that kind of stuff. But never actually trying to
discourage the fact that it barked, just calming it down
afterwards to be able to kind ofinvestigate.
Yeah. And I think we need to get into
specifics sometime, but it's still at the beginning.

(30:43):
You have to play this out in your mind and think about the
rules in your household. And I like to give people
examples. And so my dogs, I've encouraged
guarding behavior their entire life.
And they're both guarding breeds.
And there's, you know, you couldcall it downsides that come
along with that. They don't.
The downsides don't really bother me.
But last night, for example, this one's fresh in my mind.

(31:04):
My kids are old enough they don't get up much in the middle
of the night anymore. It's pretty uncommon.
But one of them had a Nosebleed in the middle of the night and
got up and came to our bedroom last night.
And one like, one dog sleeps upstairs with the kids and the
other dog sleeps with us. It's just, that's kind of how
it's turned into and it's prettyawesome.
And the one that's by us freakedout at first.
He heard someone and went racingout of the room.

(31:27):
Like, can't get traction quick enough, right?
You know, I'm talking about likeon wood floors, like racing,
barking and growling. And then saw who it was and was
like really excited. Someone was up in the middle of
the night. And it was like, you know, super
cool and they patted them and, you know, went back to bed and
we fixed the Nosebleed and that was it.
But if you scream at your dog inthat scenario or are angry at

(31:47):
them, that's going to be really confusing for them.
So you have to know, like a dog who's not has no guardian
instinct would their first thought might be that's a friend
and would just get up. I don't want a dog who thinks
that. I don't want a dog who when they
hear a, you know, a door openingin the middle of the night that
their first thought is, yay, it's my friend.
I want a dog who's on edge. So, but yet you have to

(32:08):
understand that. And that's, that was my point
earlier about most of this happens not in a training
session. And you can confuse your dog or
start to really hamper their guardian instinct at a young age
if you're giving them really confusing directions.
And then when I say confusing, especially if it's the opposite
of your goal. Yeah, for sure.

(32:29):
And I think having somewhat of aplan is so important because
again, the downside of dogs not speaking English is that you
can't explain nuance, right? It's just what, what patterns
you can create and what rules you can enforce and that kind of
stuff for them to kind of pick, pick all of this stuff up and
see what's, you know, what's allowed and what isn't.

(32:51):
And so it can get really tough if you don't know what you want
to keep a consistent pattern, right?
And it will get pretty pretty confusing.
For sure. So you need to, in my opinion,
you know, what I do with a client is we go through all the
the likely scenarios and talk about things that are going to
be unreasonable to expect out ofyour dog and things that you

(33:14):
should want them to do. And examples I give.
The big ones are you will not beable to have a household where
people just walk in. Right.
And not to mean like, not to sayyour dog is going to maul them,
but their guarding is going to go down substantially.
They're not going to be very good at guarding if they're used
to people just popping in the house.
So I don't want that. I don't want strange.

(33:35):
I don't even mean strangers. I don't want friends and family
just coming in unannounced anyways, like knock on the door.
That's why we have doors and then I'll let you in.
So that to me is not an issue, but I like to walk through that
with people like you. You can't just have like your
son's 17 year old friend who he knows really well from school,
walk in the front door unannounced.
If you're either your dog's going to hurt them or even if

(33:56):
they don't, your dog's going to realize that's normal and now
they're going to be a pretty shitty guard dog.
So you have to have some clear rules.
To me, that's a deal breaker. You, you cannot allow random
people just coming in the house,someone who's as close as
family, then yes, of course yourfamily members.
Or if you say this person's not family, well, your dog doesn't
care if they're related to you by blood or not.

(34:17):
Does it feel like a, a member ofthe family?
If the answer is yes, and of course they can just come in
whenever they want, but it can'tbe a revolving door like you.
You have to have the dog understanding someone coming to
the door is a big deal for sure.That's that's a big one.
And then I would just explain tothem when your dog sees or hears
something outside, you're going to have to determine, is that OK

(34:40):
for you with them, you know, forthem to bark, is that fine for
you? And if it's not, is your feeling
reasonable? And is it going to be confusing
to the dog? How are they going to know what
kind of noise they're allowed tobark at and what they're not
allowed to bark at? And you have to decide, is that
noise obvious enough that they can understand?
OK, they don't like when I bark at this noise, but they seem to

(35:03):
like when I bark at this one. If it's obvious, then sure, they
that's going to be fine. If it's a loud clunking noise
outside and your dogs freak out and then you get angry at them,
that's pretty unfair because someone breaking in your house
is going to make a loud clunkingnoise.
So you really have to determine what's what's OK for you, what's

(35:24):
not, and then make sure you're living that on a daily basis.
Definitely. Anything else before we get into
specifics of how we'd start doing this?
Anything you think I'm missing on ground rules?
No, I think that's good and giveme examples is actually really,
really smart because there's so many things that, you know, we
we've seen people over the yearsjust not really think about, you

(35:47):
know, again, your brother, who only comes like once a month or
something like that, you know, is family.
Your dog does not, especially ifthey've never met them before.
Again, certain certain behaviorslike people, if you live on a
really, really busy St. and theyare, you know, your dog is

(36:09):
barking all the time, also not necessarily a good thing,
because then you'll you'll startto trust the dog less, right?
And just because they bark at absolutely everything, you won't
take the barks serious. So, you know, again, there are a
lot of examples like that that you'll have to think about
making sure you're headed in theright direction.

(36:30):
That's a good point because we hadn't talked about the kind of
the nuisance barking and dogs obviously can learn if you're
clear and it's A and they can differentiate.
My dogs like to chase squirrels.They they think that's fun, but
I don't let them bark at squirrels out the window because
that's not guarding, right? Right.
Exactly. And even if they were doing it
from a guarding mindset, they need to learn.

(36:51):
You don't need to protect me from squirrels.
Not, not a big deal. Squirrels are not the thing
we're scared of. So none of this means you should
allow nuisance barking from yourdogs.
You can absolutely stop nuisancebarking and you're going to be
left with a little bit that you might not have wanted them to
bark at, but it's going to be easy to quiet them down because
we're going to get into how to encourage good stuff and how to

(37:13):
discourage the wrong things. Yeah, definitely.
And again, kind of reinforcing the fact that you can't have a
good guard dog that's not also well trained, right, and kind of
ready to listen to you even whenthey're excitable.
You could, it would just suck and be a risk.
It would, it would suck. It would be terrible.

(37:35):
Without a doubt. And that might come.
We might talk about that when weget to grown up, you know, adult
dogs. But also, I like to point out to
clients, if your dog can't hold a down stay, if you say I like
having this dog so my wife is home alone, the dog's here to
protect. Well, if the dog can't hold a
down stay and has to be locked in a bedroom, it's not going to
do a very good job protecting her at that point.

(37:56):
And if it's on leash and it's barking or whatever and they
can't control it, well then how is it going to be?
Any help? Exactly.
Yep. All right, well, with a puppy, I
start at the beginning when they're young, encouraging the
behavior that I like and I startright away and I don't know how
long it's going to take before they start guarding and I don't

(38:17):
really care. It's not to me it we're not
doing training sessions on guarding, but we're living in
the right way. So I use who's here with my
dogs. That's, you know, a common
frame. That's the phrase for someone's
here. And if I tell my, if my dog say,
hear me say who's here, they're growling and they're running to
the door to look who's there, right.
And that comes through time. But, and I don't care if someone

(38:40):
else uses, obviously use whatever you want.
There's so many ways you could do this.
I'm curious how you guys handle it.
But I use who's here and with a young dog, when someone's at the
door, that's what I'm doing. You know, someone knocks and
it's hey, who's here and we go when we look and we see who it
is, we let them in. I always look who it is.
The dog is never allowed to go in front of me and push their
way through the door. I'm either using obedience or

(39:02):
just body blocking and claiming space.
But I'm getting them back. I'm inviting someone in and then
letting the dog say hi when I'm ready.
Obviously that looks different when they're eight weeks versus,
you know, 20 weeks at 8 weeks atlike if it's the first day I'm
not body blocking them at the door, I'm probably going to hold
them. But you know, that's what we're
working towards. But what I want is when my dog,

(39:22):
every time I go to the door or every time I think someone's
there, I say who's here. And I like when the dog runs
ahead of me and is growling it or starts barking.
But that doesn't happen at 8 weeks or 9 weeks or 10 weeks.
The vast majority of dogs, it comes through time.
Yeah, definitely. Any any thoughts there?

(39:42):
No, I, I do a very similar thing, except I just don't put
words to it. So I don't discourage my dogs
from running to the door. I don't discourage my dogs from,
you know, making any kind of noise, especially when they're
puppies. I'll just kind of calm them down
as people come in. I do work on place command when
my dogs are young. And so, you know, I might do

(40:03):
kind of a combination of the twoand then letting them free to go
say hi and everything because. Again, I want a very well
socialized dog and I know you guys do too, but just for people
that are thinking about this, you know, I want a very well
socialized dog. I just want them to be weary
every time that that you know, if someone is at the door or at
the fence and until they are assured that everything is OK,

(40:25):
you know to be loud and obnoxious.
As you were saying that you mademe think of one of our rules is,
well, I guess I shouldn't call it a rule.
Something that I allow and the dogs understand is if they
haven't met the person and the person hasn't come in, I don't
care if they continue to bark. And actually I'd like them to
continue to bark even if I go outside.

(40:46):
So if someone is at the front door picture like a salesperson
and I go outside and the dogs with a storm door, you know,
like, you know, glass 1 outside of the normal door, I'll shut
that and leave the main door open.
And the dogs, if they're barkingor they're standing there and
you can see their growling and they have their tails up, that's
not bad behavior. This person has not been
welcomed into our family. I don't know this person yet.

(41:08):
You know, why would I want my dog to all of a sudden just
assume this person's their best friend?
I have no idea who this is. So as I'm talking to him, if my
dogs are in there barking, I'm not turning around yelling at my
dogs or saying quiet or getting frustrated.
I'm letting them sit there and to continue and do their thing.
We have ground rules. My dogs are not allowed to put
their paws on the door. You know, like they're not

(41:28):
allowed to jump up. They're not.
And you can make the argument, well, if they need to protect
you, how would they get out? Well, I'll take that risk.
I don't want my dogs jumping at the door and scratching at it.
They're not allowed to like, climb into a window sill.
They're allowed to stand at the door or the front window and
bark and growl. And they learn that through time
by if they try to put their pawsin the window sill, they're
stopped. But when their paws get back on

(41:50):
the ground and they continue to bark, they're either given
praise or nothing, which they understand means they're allowed
to keep doing it. Yeah, and again, you know, like,
that's a really good point. I do a very similar thing where
I try to talk to all strangers through the storm door.
And I would have 0 issue with mydogs being loud and obnoxious.

(42:12):
But that also what I tell peopleall the time is I have to teach
my dogs what's normal for them to be able to start recognizing
what's weird right when they're young and we're inviting people
over all the time. You know, like, I open the door,
I come on down, I get them in, and the dogs start to realize,
like, oh, hey, you know, good people walk in right away.

(42:34):
It's these weird people that he won't let in or, you know, that
my wife won't let in, that kind of stuff.
And there's enough contrast there for a lot of these dogs to
pick up on and where they'll getmore agitated simply for the
fact that they're not walking in, signaling that this isn't
necessarily someone that we like.
That's a really good point. And I think a lot of people,

(42:55):
some people overestimate how smart their dog is and they say
crazy things, but many people underestimate how smart their
dog is. And and not just smart, but they
pick up on things that might notbe important to you.
So earlier, I mean, I said that I tell them who's here.
Well, they're probably not reacting to the word who's
they're probably relax, you know, reacting to here, right,

(43:16):
Bill? If you were to then say to one
of your kids come here and the dogs race to the door freaking
out, that would be why, right? You don't know what they're
reacting to. It could be that when you say
who's here, you always point to the door.
Maybe they're reacting to your point.
It could be that you're walking to the door.
Maybe they're reacting to that. Maybe they're reacting to those
three things together. You don't really know unless you
test it. But if you start seeing kind of

(43:39):
misplaced guarding behavior, things you don't like, I would
make sure it's not your fault from giving miss get, you know,
confusing signals to your dog. And you made me think a minute
ago, Nelson, when you said aboutthe, the person coming in in
that you want them to see that that's normal.
And so when I talk to someone for a while at the door, that's
not normal. What I'll generally do when I

(44:01):
have someone come in, my dogs hold a stay until we I greet the
person. So shake their hand, give them a
hug, whatever we do a greeting, then I free them up.
And I can tell you, even if you think the dog's not paying
attention to that, they are and they're seeing that.
And a dog who's observant and cares about guarding is seeing
that they're like, this is normal.

(44:21):
He just gave the person a hug orhe shook their hand like they're
picking up on that stuff, even if you think they're not.
And if you're standing there andyou're different one day and
you're keeping your distance from that person and all of a
sudden you start acting very different or uncomfortable, your
dog's going to know that right away, without a doubt.
What if they have any guarding in them agreed on?

(44:42):
That. So where have we what we've
covered with a puppy encouragingsome garden, you know,
encouraging them to alert you when someone's out the door.
We've talked through you need rules.
You have to have some sort of rules in place.
If you don't, it's going to be really confusing.
You know, right now we've been talking about inside the house.

(45:05):
Do you want to talk about the yard?
Sure. You and I leave that one off.
You want me to? Yeah.
So, you know, a lot of the timesit's much easier to kind of do
in the backyard if you have a fenced in yard as opposed to
starting in the front yard. If you don't have a fenced in
yard, really doesn't matter one way or another.
You'd probably just be utilizinga lot of long lines and stuff

(45:27):
like that anyways. But I try and set pretty, pretty
clear and pretty early the fact that, you know, my dogs can bark
and charge any time that they see people walking up my
driveway or walking on the sidewalks or anything like that.

(45:47):
However, I don't allow them to bark and charge at neighbors,
right? And it's not especially when
they're a puppy. It doesn't even necessarily have
to be the fact that it's a correction or anything like
that. You could just literally stop
them, get them walking and then wait for them to get distracted
and whatnot. But I don't want my dogs to be
barking at my neighbors. I don't want to piss off my

(46:09):
neighbors. And two, that's, you know, like
they're not concern to me. But one of the things that I've
also learned with living with dogs that like to guard too, is,
you know, you have to be conscientious of every time that
they bring guests over to their own house, right?
Is my dogs will pick up on that and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa,

(46:30):
that's not Jeff over there. And then they will start
barking. And you know, again, there are
few downsides to having a guard dog and kind of annoying things
like that or one of them, but that really doesn't bother me
too much. But it is something to kind of
recognize, right? Is if you tell them not to bark

(46:50):
at certain people, they can absolutely learn that.
But then that won't close off the fact that they're allowed to
bark at everybody else. However, if you stop them from
barking all together, that does that.
You have to stop barking all together.
You're not allowed to bark at all.
And so there are certain places in the fence that they can see

(47:11):
or hear people and and they tendto bark over there.
I personally don't allow any dogto actually be up on my fence
and that's just to minimize any accidents of of them getting too
excited and hopping the fence for the first time or anything
like that. So there are rules.
They're very similar covey to toyou and the storm door, you

(47:31):
know, I don't want them actuallyclimbing the fence and barking
and going crazy. You know, standing there and
looking intimidating is more than enough for me.
Yeah, I mean, I have the same rule.
No, no pause on the fence. It's just it's not going to add
now. I would say, though, if an
emergency situation happened or something that seemed pretty

(47:52):
reasonable and they were doing it, I'm not going to get mad at
them. So sure, if there was something
nuts happening, if there were five people at my neighbor's
fence that, you know, especiallyif it was men that and they,
they were like peering over the fence and my dogs were up on the
fence. I'm not going to get mad at them
and I'm not going to yell at them.
You know, you, you need to thinkthrough what's reasonable, of

(48:13):
course. And, and I don't mean that to
you, Nelson, I'm anyone listening and the scenario
matters a lot. So if my dogs are allowed to
bark at people they don't know in the neighbors yards, that to
me is acceptable. Now I stopped them pretty
quickly but I don't stop them with anger or punishment.
I stopped by acknowledging they did a good job and then calling
them off, which we need to get into.

(48:34):
You said this a few times, but you have to have a well trained
dog otherwise none of this is going to work well.
But if they see someone they don't know in the neighbor's
yard and they're barking, I'm not mad in the slightest.
To me that's that's their job. They told me there's a stranger
there and I can evaluate what what I think about it and every
time so far it hasn't been an issue but I don't know about the
next time. So I would not correct that at

(48:57):
all and I would just then call my dog off.
I praise them for that. Yeah, that's a good point
because I definitely praise themas well.
And I make sure to, I make it a habit that every time that my
dogs are barking at something, Itend to, you know, like tell
them like, you know, what is it or what's going on.
I talked to him quite a bit and I make the habit of going up to

(49:18):
wherever they are to investigate.
And again, there isn't a correction unless it's something
like, you know, crazy foolish, but I would probably know that
before I got there. So yeah, similar concept.
It's I'm allowing that guarding behavior and I'm just setting up
rules to shape it into what it is that I actually want.

(49:44):
One rule we hadn't talked about,I don't let mine bark at
children and that there's a Grayarea there where What's it like?
When do they quit being children?
Sure, but when it's obvious you don't need to bark at them.
So like a like a young child, especially like, you know, the
neighbors have kids over and like there's kids and it's

(50:05):
obviously kids and they can see them.
I would penalize my dogs for barking at that without a doubt.
I don't want them guarding from children.
If they're 17, well, that's not a child.
And if it's a Gray area and it seems reasonable, the dog, I'm
not going to be angry at them, but I might not praise them
either. I might be like, no, get, you
know, and just tell them to stopwhat they're doing and they're
not getting that, you know, thatverbal reward for job well done.

(50:29):
And I think that's, that's interesting too, because other
training, right? Just like their obedience
commands and all of that stuff that plays a role in the fact
of, yes, I don't have to be angry or frustrated or even
correct you. But you know that I'm also not
necessarily encouraging this behavior because I'm not

(50:52):
praising and petting or, you know, like talking or anything
like that. And so, yeah, there's a lot of
times where I have to go over there and like, hey, get, you
know, like get away, go shoot. And they know, you know, my dogs
know after, after a lot of practice, I'm like, oh, OK, you
know, better, better get off of this and just go play because
obviously he doesn't care about this, you know, but it's also,

(51:15):
I'm not rewarding. It's barely a correction just
because it's all verbal. And it's like, hey, no, no, no
get, you know, that kind of thing.
But again, leaving some interpretation for those Gray
areas because again, having a more confident and more stubborn
dog means that they will test more more than that.

(51:39):
And you have to give your dog Grace and some of these
scenarios and understand, picture yourself, if there's a
noise in the middle of the nightthat concerns you when you wake
up and you get that adrenaline dump, you're wired, right?
Absolutely wired. For most people, that doesn't
happen very often, hopefully. But those times that it's

(51:59):
happened, you go from sound asleep to you are ready to do
anything instantly, right? Like that's obviously nature.
Dogs get that very quickly and very easily and you have to give
them grace. If it's somewhat reasonable
they're acting like that. You can't be mad that now
they're then barking and growling and carrying on.

(52:20):
It's you. You have to look at a scenario
and say even though this isn't desired and you probably, I wish
you hadn't guarded here, it's kind of reasonable you did.
And one would be like, if it is a kid, maybe they didn't know
was a kid when they went runningover there and it takes him a
second to chill out. Your dog can't get that
adrenaline dump, go racing over there, freaking out and then see

(52:41):
it's a kid and instantly like, OK, now I'm good and walking.
It takes a second. And then they they might be
still looking like they might belooking past that child.
They might have heard a noise and they're not even thinking
about the kid. They're looking like what's
going on here. And then if you run over
screaming at them, that's going to be pretty confusing.
So you have to really think thisthrough and make sure you're

(53:02):
being fair to the dog. So here's a question that I have
for you then using the kids scenario.
So I'm in my backyard, there's kids in the other yard and then
the dogs can see them and they go over there running.
I go over there and I tell them,hey, no shoe get, you know, and
I kind of back my dogs off. I they will absolutely correct

(53:25):
them if they then just turn around and immediately go back
and start barking and stuff likethat again, right?
And a lot of that kind of comes in my mind.
You know, a lot of that comes from I already told you it was a
non issue. You didn't get in trouble for it
the first time. Again, I agree with you.
There's certainly a lot of gracewhen you're letting dogs have

(53:47):
free rein with their barking. But at the same time, if I told
you to kind of back off and you go back there, I'm now I'm going
to start tugging and correcting and healing if I have to, kind
of doing the whole shebang because I also don't want a dog
that will disregard me in those situations either.

(54:08):
Yeah, I, I feel like now we're getting into how to create this
from a like what training do youdo?
And the, the reason I say that is like, so my dogs and this
isn't like this isn't a brag. I would think this of any dog
trainer. My dogs wouldn't, I wouldn't do
that. So if they went, Oh, and if they
did, if if they went to the fence and they could see through

(54:30):
it and there was kids and they were barking and I said, guys
get and they walked off. If they went back, my first
thought would be, what did I miss as opposed to, wow, these
dogs are being really bad right now, but I've lived with them
for years and they're good at this.
So it's a different story right?Then if I was working with a
client who's new to this right, and their dog doesn't listen

(54:53):
super well, then yeah, very different story.
Most likely they didn't miss something.
Most likely the dog just isn't calm and wants to go back and
bark again. And there's a chance they're
just barking from excitement, not even from guarding.
They just want to like run and bark.
So I think once you have to knowthe dog obviously, and if your
dog is amazing at this and really responds to you well from

(55:14):
a training standpoint and you know, an example I give this
one's a little bit extreme, but years ago at a client, I trained
her German Shepherd up up in Illinois.
And the dog was a really good dog, but had a guarding
tendency. And she was dog sitting for a
friend and the other dog was in the yard and her shepherd was
freaking out on leash. Like, you know, Outback they

(55:35):
didn't have a fenced in yard. The other dog was out trodden
around. Shepherd is freaking out,
freaking out, freaking out. She was, you know, fighting it,
trying to stop it. Finally, the dog managed to get
away from her and there was a coyote in the yard that was
stalking the young dog and the shepherd attacked it.
So did a phenomenal job right inthere.
You know, hindsight's 2020, but her dog was really good.

(55:56):
She should have trusted in her dog.
Her dog was so in, but her dog was really good right, and you
know, in hindsight's 2020 heatedthe moment she's like quit being
bad or whatever's running through her head.
But that dog had a real reason was trying to communicate to
her. But obviously a dog who's not
well trained. If your dog does that for
everything, well, then it's it'sgoing to be pretty hard to trust

(56:19):
in that maybe something's amiss right now.
So for sure, I agree with that. And that's actually a really
good point of kind of that Gray area that I was talking about,
right? You know, I, I need my dogs to
have a little bit more of a backbone, be a little bit more
stubborn, that kind of stuff forsituations like that, you know,
where I see nothing. And therefore I'm telling them
like, hey, no, knock it off. And for them to push that

(56:41):
boundary because they do see something, you know, that that
takes a lot of confidence, that takes a lot of, I say pushback
because technically that's what it is.
But like that takes a dog who's in some situations willing to
disregard what, you know, what the owner is saying because he
knows what he sees and the ownerdidn't, you know, in that
situation. So that's A, to me, that's just

(57:06):
like a great example of why I like not just confident dogs,
but confident, stubborn, hard headed kind of dogs because
they'd be willing to take the heat a little bit to, to kind of
do what they know is right. But again, so going back, you
know, my dogs are a little bit younger and now it's not really

(57:26):
a thing. But I can tell you, you know, my
bulldog, when she was really, really young, I mean, probably
by three months, she was responding to to dogs that were
barking in the neighborhood thatwe could hear and stuff like
that. And that's where you would see
she would go back after I tell her no and get her away from the
fence. She would run back and again, I
would correct, calm and then go from there.

(57:49):
So now it's not really that big of an issue.
She's older now. I mean that that obviously plays
a huge role. But you know, like those are the
things where in the beginning with that puppy, it would be
Grace. I didn't correct her.
I just told her like, all right,come on, sweetheart, let's go,
come on, shoot, get. But then if she went back, all
of a sudden it turned into a correction.

(58:11):
So but you're right. I mean, that is getting more
into the nuance of the actual training.
And if you've said this a few times, but just to expand, if
you're letting your dog guard and you're not training them,
you're creating a danger or there's a good chance you're
creating a danger. At the very least, you're

(58:31):
creating a scenario of your dog is going to be obnoxious to live
with. So nothing good is going to come
from that. You're not going to have a fun
pet if you allow your dog to guard and you can't control
them. So all of this is coupled with a
lot of obedience training because now you have that to
fall back on when needed. Because any of us, if our dog is

(58:52):
at the fence freaking out and wewalk over because we can't see
what it is. And we see, and I say, all
right, guys, that's you know, I pat on my good dogs, like, all
right, let's go. And we walk off.
They're like, OK, let's go. But if I'm working on the client
dog and they're not willing to go, well, then you clip a leash
on them and I'm going to heal them until they chill out and
then I'm going to let them go. And if they race back freaking

(59:12):
out, then I am going to tell them no and go get them clip a
leash on and again, train them until they chill out and until
they're no longer staring and looking back at the fence.
So you and then I'm going to letthem go and practice calling
them off that fence line. If you can't call your dog off
the fence, that's a problem that's going to make it pretty
hard to live with in a fun way, especially if they want to
guard. Definitely.

(59:34):
So all of that to me is just a agiven.
You have to be doing proper training.
Voss, what have we, what have wemissed here?
What do you think? Where's what have we not
covered? I don't think you've missed a
ton. I've been fairly quiet and I I
feel like a big reason for that is I differ slightly from the
two of you with my personal opinion on the situation of I

(59:58):
don't feel the need for the dog to be all that much more
guarding than they just naturally are.
So for me, I generally am not necessarily encouraging any
personal dogs to do that behavior.
Now, part of that might have been, you know, the history that
I've had with personal dogs, youknow, Great Dane, Boxer mix, the
most recent where, you know, both of them just sort of

(01:00:20):
naturally did it and it. I never really felt the need to
do any encouraging, right. If we do end up getting this
doodle going forward, maybe I'llfeel very different where I'll
feel like, man, I really need toencourage this dog to do some of
these behaviors because they're not going to do it on their own.
So for those reasons, I feel like you guys have been hitting
a lot of the important points. The only other thing about

(01:00:43):
training that I can really thinkabout is, you know, if you
should teach a dog to bark on command as a part of this so
that when you see something going on, if the dog hasn't
noticed it, that you can create that sort of scary dog on your
own. What are your thoughts on that?
And neither of my current dogs can do that.

(01:01:04):
I did it with a previous dog when we lived in an area that
wasn't very nice because when Kara walked the dog, I wanted
it. And that was Kina the bulldog.
We taught her to bark from both a voice command and hand signal.
And she was a Scott Tight bulldog.
I mean, you guys know this, but she was pretty intense and

(01:01:26):
drivey. And, you know, so when she
barked, it wasn't like, woof, woof.
It was, you know, everything shehad doing that bark.
So yeah, I mean, to me, that wasessential because we'd have kind
of sketchy people if Kara was out walking by herself, like,
can I pet your dog? And walking up?
And I wanted to make sure if sheever felt uncomfortable that she
could have the dog freak out, look like it was freaking out,

(01:01:48):
and then second, unfortunately, she's not very nice.
And then keep going. So if it's useful to the client,
absolutely. With my own dogs right now, it
hasn't felt useful. But in the right scenario, yeah.
I haven't taught my dogs to to bark on command, but I'm
certainly not opposed. I guess I kind of feel like

(01:02:09):
hubby were I don't want to do more work than I have to.
You know, again, most of my dogswould would bark if I wasn't
healing. Like if there were people coming
really close or dogs that were barking at them or anything like
that and you weren't healing them, they would be more likely
to already start, you know, posturing and chest down, tail

(01:02:31):
up and growling and barking and that kind of stuff.
So for luckily for us, I mean the the most I've ever done is
just not heal my dog right and just let her naturally react
however it is that she wanted to.
Luna was super good at barking on command.
So big Great Dane and you know, she'd look scary, but she

(01:02:52):
wouldn't get all that excited. But if you told her to bark,
man, it would scare people that deep.
Deep. Start bark.
And we used the word watch em with ours.
And so then it felt more like instead of speak, where if
you're saying speak, if someone can hear you say, that doesn't
seem as threatening as when you point at someone and say watch
em and the dog starts. Like.

(01:03:14):
Stomping their feet and barking and your first thought is like
oh man I hope that leash doesn'tcome off.
Now, I don't know how much of a real difference.
I guess it's just different technique maybe, but I don't
know if there's really that muchof a difference between what you
did Blossom, what we did. In my mind, I would say Zilla

(01:03:36):
was kind of a perfect example ofwhat I would have thought an
urban guard dog was, right. I mean, he was certainly willing
to run to the fence. He was certainly willing to bark
and posture. And then, you know, with an
introduction, he was the nicest dog ever.
It kind of agreed, but perfect. But Zilla was that naturally
right with 0 effort whatsoever, but he also was a habitual line

(01:03:59):
stepper. You know you guys were talking
about like rules around the yard.
One thing he always used to liketo do is there was this neighbor
behind us that would always be wedding along the fence and he
would know that she was out there, right?
He wouldn't make a big deal of the fact that she was out there,
but he would watch her and then he would sort of slowly stalk
along the fence and he would scare the everliving hell out of

(01:04:22):
her intentionally. Like you could tell he was doing
it. He wasn't doing it because he
was warning anybody he wasn't doing.
It he was like having fun, living his best life.
He's like. I'm going to make this woman
jump a mile and he would do it. Well, I think you brought up a
good point there of loss. And I don't, I don't think we'd
said this yet, but like my current dogs, if I hadn't taught

(01:04:42):
them who's here, they would still do what they're doing
right because they have a, they both have a strong guarding
personality. I think the advantage to adding
the word is you can use it when you want to alert them and they
haven't picked up on something. How useful is that?
That's in the eye of the beholder.
I find I like it, but because, Imean, I know if I got up, if I

(01:05:03):
heard a bump in the middle of the night and the dog didn't for
some reason, if I stood up and said guys who's here, they'd
both freak out and they'd help me search the house.
So I like it, but they'd still be good guard dogs without it.
So I agree with you 100% and most guarding breeds are going
to grow into a pretty good guarddog on their own.

(01:05:23):
And I find it interesting, whileI say I didn't do anything, I
did also mention how I trained Luna to speak on command.
And I feel like maybe I didn't do that for guarding, but after
she knew it, I was sort of happythat I did, right?
Like it just sort of worked wellfor situations where it might be
needed. For sure, something we could

(01:05:44):
have opened with. I tell a lot of clients when
they say, like new clients, if they don't want their dog to
bark ever, I tell them, First off, that's kind of unfair and
you need to think about what dogs have been bred for.
But also, dogs are a hassle. They're a lot of work, they're a
hassle, they're expensive, they have a lot of downsides.
Why don't you enjoy all of theirupsides?

(01:06:05):
Yes, one is companionship, obviously, like we all have dogs
because we love them. We love their companionship.
But why don't we accept one of their other upsides, which is
they're very good at helping protect.
That's what they've been bred for.
So not only is it unfair to try to extinguish all of that, but
you're also losing one of the biggest For almost all of human
history, guarding was one of their main roles.

(01:06:26):
And now all of a sudden, like, Idon't know, and what time frame
of all of a sudden we've decideda lot of people like I can't
have my dog bark at all. And I don't know if it's maybe
because they've grew up with neighbors whose dog was a douche
and would just like bark all daylong and never stop.
Like that's beyond obnoxious. I would hate that, you know, my
own dog or neighbor, but recognize that this is one of

(01:06:49):
the big upsides of a dog they offer us.
Maybe we should embrace it versus hiding from it or
fighting it. I used to live 2 doors down from
a house that had three chihuahuas and you guys know
that I spend as much time in my backyard as possible and those
dogs would literally bark at me or the kids or my wife.

(01:07:11):
Anyone that they could see in our backyard, they would be
barking there the entire time. And it was.
It was brutal. You can hear it from.
Inside the house, even. I feel like that's a good segue,
Nelson, just to make it clear, very, very clear, we don't allow
that. So hopefully everyone listening,
you've heard this. Your dog should not be a
constant nuisance. It's not barking all day every

(01:07:33):
day. They're not barking 100 times a
day because most likely your neighbors don't have that many
new people over. And if that's the case, then
there's not that much going on for them to bark at, right?
And if you don't have that many guests coming over, it
shouldn't. And it shouldn't be an hour of
barking. Because if so, that just means
you're not supervising your dog.Right.

(01:07:54):
And to the to your point too, again, my dogs never felt the
need to bark back. Maybe, you know, like maybe when
we first moved in, but I mean, very quickly they were like, oh,
that's just the neighbor dogs. No big deal.
And they, they wouldn't even payattention to those dogs
whatsoever because they, you know, again, they got used to
it. They learned what's normal,
right? And when I lived in town with a

(01:08:17):
mastiff mix and a bulldog, they both would ready to rock'n'roll
with a strange dog if needed at any point in time, right?
If a strange dog came up to the fence, they'd be ready to fight.
But they didn't pay any attention to all the neighbor
dogs barking, right? Because like there's, that was
just background noise. They were so used to that.

(01:08:37):
Have we? Is there anything we've missed
before we start wrapping up? I'm sure there's stuff we've
missed, but we've covered a lot.I think we got the good stuff.
I think a normal topic would be,and actually I agree with Vloss
because a normal topic would be what breed, but what breeds are
good, what breeds are bad, You know, that kind of stuff.

(01:08:57):
But I mean, like we were talkingin the beginning, it's not
really necessarily a breed thing, right?
I'd be looking for a personalitytrait more than I'd be looking
for specific breeds. Obviously German shepherds and
Bulldogs and you know, like moreintimidating dogs always kind of
come to mind. But I guess I would just caution

(01:09:20):
anybody not to bite off more than they can chew.
I'd be worried about what dog not to get rather than rather
than what breed you're actually looking for for guarding type of
traits. Yeah, it's a great point,
Nelson. There's a couple ways we could
go from that, right? There's some breeds that I just
wouldn't get even as a dog trainer.
And not to say I couldn't train them or handle them, they're

(01:09:42):
just not for me, you know? But there's breeds that have
been bred to be pets and guard dogs, and they've been pets for
a long time and guard dogs that if they're well bred or like a
known quantity, you like, you know what to expect.
So I'm thinking rats, doves, shepherds, you know, those
mastiffs, these are all breeds have been bred to be pets, but

(01:10:03):
they also have a strong guardingpersonality.
There's others like Corso's thatI've heard a lot of Corso
breeders say, like, yeah, you know, once they hit whatever
age, you know, once they hit 12 months, like you might not want
to have strangers, you know, petthem.
That is, that's not something I want.
I have no interest in that whatsoever.

(01:10:23):
So even if you know a lot about dogs and know how to handle
them, there might be some dogs that you evaluate.
You're like, this is just not a breed that I want.
And it's they take Garden a little bit too seriously.
Yeah, right. And again, you lose the the
appeal in my mind is family dog that guards, you know, family
dog 1st and then that guards as a as a huge plus, right.

(01:10:47):
But if like a corso, like a preso, you know, like any of the
more sporting mastiffs, you know, that kind of stuff, when
you start to get into that, thatworld or those dogs or anything
like that, you're not even worried about shaping the
guarding anymore. You're just trying to not be a

(01:11:10):
liability. Mm, hmm.
Dogos, the same Dogos. Yeah, it's.
Another shameless plug. Greater Swiss Mountain Dog.
Greater Swiss Mountain Dog. And I would put that in with
some of the ones I mentioned earlier that they're good guard
dogs and also good family dogs. Sure, doses are not not nearly

(01:11:32):
as much, but even like new fees,right?
I mean, like, I, I don't see a lot of people really struggling
with new fees, but they bark andthey're big and they're at the
fence. You know, to me, those in
English mastiffs kind of seem darn near perfect just for the
fact that people generally have a good time with them.
And on top of that, you know you're going to get a big dog

(01:11:53):
that barks. For sure.
And you look at what they're bred for.
And English mastiffs were bred to, you know, catch.
One of the big reasons, one of the big things they were used
for is to catch poachers in the King's Forest, right?
And pin people down, not kill them, not RIP their throat out,
but jump, hold, pin down, catch,but not kill.

(01:12:14):
As opposed to another dog that'smeant to be operate on its own
on a ranch somewhere in South America and be willing to make
its own decision and kill if needed.
You know, big, big difference there for sure.
Definitely. So there are some breeds I would
recommend basically nobody get and maybe the Breeders of them
would, you know, hate us. And if you do drop, drop a

(01:12:37):
comment, tell us why. But Tosa would be one of them.
I just, I don't see the purpose for the average person
whatsoever. And then even if you have the
skills, do you want the dog thatis that much of A liability if
it's meant to be a family dog? Yeah, exactly.
But if I lived in a cabin in thewoods by myself, that might be

(01:12:59):
the breed for me. Yeah, if I didn't have a family,
right, And I it was just going to be me interacting with this
dog, and I know how to interact with this dog.
And I don't have to worry about,you know, Taylor being
distracted or my kids being distracted or anything like
that. Yeah, there's a lot of breeds
that I think are cool. And and you might needed to kill
somebody, right? And I might need to to kill

(01:13:20):
somebody. You don't.
You never know again, as I startmy career in breaking and
entering, I may need a big dog. And if you go full on Unabomber
and living in a shack in the somewhere out West by yourself,
you're going to need something to protect you.
Absolutely. Did I tell you I read his
manifesto? No.

(01:13:40):
It's pretty good. It is.
It's called technological slavery and it, if you didn't
know it was written by the Unabomber, You read it and
you're like, this is this makes a lot of sense.
It's a really good, you know, I call it a book, but it's, I
don't know, 100 pages or something.
There's the manifesto he wrote, and there's only a couple lines

(01:14:02):
in the whole book where you'd realize it's written by a crazy
person. I feel like you're both throwing
out things that might be used against you in the court of law
at some point. Why did I read the Unabomber's
book? Yeah, and that Nelson's going to
start breaking into houses, I think.
Yeah, that's my point of view. That's.
Tone it down a bit. That's Nelson, for the record.

(01:14:22):
I'm not going to break into houses or be his accomplice, but
OR. Start bombing people.
No, I don't want to bomb, but I would honestly recommend reading
that book and Nelson, I think you would love it.
It doesn't talk about making bombs.
It's not even a part of the book.
It's about technology, what it'sdone to our society, what it
does to children, the expectations we have on kids

(01:14:42):
that are unfair. It's a really good book.
That is funny because that that it does actually sound very
interesting and things that I think about all the time.
You're like 80% of the way through the thing until he
finally says something like, unfortunately I've had to kill
to get my point across. And if you didn't know it was
his book, you like, you could literally read the whole thing

(01:15:04):
and be like, this guy's A and hewas a genius.
This guy's a genius. He's amazing, Great points.
And like, wait, what? You had to kill?
What are you talking about? This podcast has now put both of
you on an FBI watch list. I'd just like to throw it out
there. For the record, I have not read
the Unabomber's paper. I don't plan on it and I don't
encourage anyone else to either.I think Nelson's probably

(01:15:26):
already on a watch list of some sort.
That wouldn't surprise me, especially living in Illinois.
Yeah, and if you buy the right supplies and have them ordered
to your house, you know, you're on a watch list.
They're like, who needs these water purification tablets?
Who needs this much ammo? Like a couple you order.
A few things. You're you're immediately on a

(01:15:50):
watch list. All right, well, I think we did
it. I would love comments on this
episode. If there's things you think we
missed or we need to pick up on a, you know, on a future
episode, let us know. Absolutely.
All right. Well, thanks for watching
everybody. I see ya.
Thanks everyone.