I Want A Good Gaurd Dog But...

[jacqui835]

Bella always barks when people come to the door, Casper stands next to her, wagging his tail, waiting for the visitor to come pat him. If it is a stranger at the door, I leave the security screen locked and talk through that, with both dogs standing next to me. I think they find Bella intimidating, she has a glare that can make your knees buckle whereas Casper has a big goofy grin.

From what I read here, it looks like girls are more into alert barking than boys! ;)

This is interesting. My male doberman is an ok watch dog, to be honest, you can sometimes sneak in through the back gate and he doesn't even notice (we have a massive yard). That said, if he does notice something, he puts on a decent display. Rather than bark, he does more of a low growl and intent stare thing, then a couple of barks to call us (and if we don't come he comes and finds us in the house and leads us back to the 'problem'). But more than bark, he growls.

When we lived with my sister and her two papillons, the female was a brilliant watch dog. She was always the first to notice anything, and barked the most. My dobe and the male papillon would come running to back her up, though when the dobe got there they kind of both stood back and let him handle it.

Seems like what you need is a small female dog to be your watch dog, and a big male as the deterrent.

[flame ryder]

We don't live in suburbia, we moved away from the city years ago so my dogs have always enjoyed the country life and can bark as much as they like without upsetting anyone...well maybe me if they kept at it but I've never had a problem barker.

I used to like it with our first ever German Shepard, I knew all his different barks such as dads home happy bark, there's a chook out bark, there's someone here aggressive bark. I think most dogs have their different barks. My previous Shepard used to stand there and bark like "muuuuuuuuum someones heeeeeeeere" then I'd tell her 'time to shut up now' and she'd walk off like 'yep that's my job done'. This current dog I have very occasionally barks at something weird like the cat or a bird. Once and only once she actually barked at our neighbour who came to the door and we both gave her heaps of praise for that but she has never done it again much to my disappointment. I thought maybe it was a confidence thing and she would in time establish here as her territory and guard it accordingly.

Oh well I will wait and see if things change. Perhaps when I get another dog it will teach her to be a decent watch dog. I can only hope