this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2025
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I hope I'm understanding your angle of approach on this.
Crowd control dogs are highly trained and don't go out on a rampage unless commanded to. It's their handler that triggers the response. Otherwise, the dogs do not exhibit arbitrary aggression behaviour. Even military trained dogs must not demonstrate aggressive tendencies; if so, they would be a danger for their handlers and other allies. The attack behaviour is developed and triggered under specific conditions and commands.
You can train a dog in the same manner. Dog trainning is an open knowledge base and I personally think everyone should work with their dogs in order to give them the best outcome possible for their lives. It's the closest symbiotic relation our species has with another, in my understanding. And it's fun.
From this point forward, I'm going to talk from personal experience.
I was lucky enough to have the perfect dog in a very bad point of my life. That dog forced me out of my house, to go on long walks and think on something other than my misery. I never taught a single thing to him beyond sitting and laying down on request. I never taught him to wait for me, keep an eye out when I was foraging for something or being protective of my family.
This was dog that, still not fully grown, took on two other, bigger than him, to protect my infant child, out of his own vollition. And that when called by name returned. This would be the same dog, that years later, would stare down another> , known for being unreliable around children, into submission, a dog the person responsible for feared and kept chained. I had a lord by my side and I was lucky for it.
When that dog died in my arms, of old age, I lost a brother and a son. I'm crying as I write these words.
Today I have two dogs of the same breed but I have severely failed them, by allowing another person to force me to take them to under the wrong conditions: separatly and too early. This created a vicious beggining for their lives, making them fearful and wary of everyone, which made them prone to be aggressive out of fear and aggressive towards each other. Things have been better with some measures but I feel as I failed them.
Most dogs show aggressive behaviour out of improper care, be it by negligence or abuse.
I've been studying and working, actively, to be a dog trainer. I have scars, from my own dogs, for mistakes I've done. I hold no anger against them. It was my mistakes that made them react to the world as they do today. I've helped other people not make the same mistakes with their dogs; it's my small contribution for a better world, I hope.
I've only met two dogs beyond any reach. One diminished from birth causes, making the dog effectively uncapable of acquiring any modulation to his behaviour; besides eating, nothing mattered and he would attack anything he viewed as potentially edible and attack to keep others from food, even after being fed to satisfaction. The other had been severely abused, being given alcohol as a pup, which stunted his development, both physical and mental. The dog would attack out of nothing, anything, and would not calm down until passing out of exhaustion. I believe he suffered from allucinations. Both had to be put to rest, as their lives would never be happy.
So, you can have a dog prepared to defend you. You just need to prove you can take care of the dog properly.
That's a very touching story, and something tells me you had German Shepherd dogs. I agree they can be some of the most loving and loyal companions, but you should know their breed has a huge variety of personality traits, and some of them are just naturally skittish, aggressive, or untrainable. If they were abused, it's basically impossible to undo that trauma. I've had a lot of experience working with many breeds, and you shouldn't blame yourself for their problems.
Azores Cattle Dogs
The girls I currently care for were taken, one too early from her mother, at six weeks old, and because I was to overprotective of her, as there was a declaration of an infecto-contagious disease, fatal for puppies, and for which she could not be vaccinated before being six months old, in the least, she lost that very important early socialization window and became a very stressed and fearful dog. Even today, some gestures like rubbing her belly can trigger a growling reaction. She is lovely, otherwise and will bark and lunge but will gladly run off at first chance.
The other one, was the last one leaving her mother, at 12 weeks, but she was very underweight and skittish when coming home. Even today she stresses over food very easily. I risk she was poorly fed and had to fight for every piece she managed to get. She is very territorial and often is the first aggressor when they fight as she does not trust her sister around the family when she starts barking or fretting over anything.
Things have been easier later, as we introduced somw grounds rules to the family, especially my kids, that easily get into panic mode and start screaming for anything, which is a very clear trigger for them. If the kids are scared, there is a potential danger. When they don't find it, they turn on each other and these are vicious dogs when engaged in a fight.
My male would enter a full kill-or-be-killed attitude when any threat presented itself. I never had any problems with him because we worked very well as a unit and I was always ready to take the first step to send away another dog before things got out of control. But this breed has gladiator spirit: outnumbered, out muscled, they fight to the death, if need be.