Training Your Dog to Protect Your Home

Being comfortable in your own home and having an environment where you and your family feel safe is vitally important. Aside from adding security cameras and lighting, you can also train your dog to become a guardian of your property and family. There are several ways to train your dog, with patience and persistence you’ll have a devoted protector by your side.

Different Types of Dogs

Your dog can be trained for various jobs, including protection. But you should know the difference between a guard dog and an attack dog. If you don’t train your canine correctly or you use the wrong methods, you could end up with an attack dog as opposed to a guard dog.

Attack dogs are mostly used by the police force and army, they don’t guard their owners, they apprehend criminals and take down the enemy. If you are training your dog to guard your home, you don’t want them to attack anyone who walks by. If they harm a pedestrian or a child playing in the street, you’ll have big problems on your hands.

You can get German Shepherd puppies for sale of expert breeding companies who also offer training courses. So, if you don’t want to try and train your dog by yourself, you can enrol them in a specialised programme run by experienced dog handlers. They know how to train a hound to be a guard dog and not an attack dog.

You can always give guard dog training a go yourself, if it fails, you can contact a skilled guard dog trainer. Here are some tips on how to train your pup to protect your home.

Obedience

The most important thing to teach them from the offset is obedience, they must be able to follow commands and listen to your every cue. If your dog is unable to follow basic commands, they won’t make a successful guard dog. The best time to train a dog is when they are young, so start your lessons as soon as possible. Puppies can retain information a lot easier and faster than mature hounds, consider these tips when teaching obedience.

• Keep your cues short and straightforward as not to confuse your dog.
• Always use single verbs such as sit, stay, eat etc.
• Use the right tone, don’t be overly commanding, but make sure you are firm.
• Always stay positive and never use negative words while training.

Barking

You can teach your dog to bark; you just need some proven methods. Most will bark when a stranger arrives, but you want them to do it on command. Use a basic command like bark or speak along with a treat every time he obeys your cue.

Training a dog can be difficult, if it isn’t going right, you could have a dog that is barking all the time annoying you and your neighbours. Before you start training, it is important to do a lot of research on the subject. The other option is to bring them to an experienced training facility that specialises in guard dog training.