Man of the house wants his own dog- any suggestions???

I would be very leary of an attack type dog around kids.  VERY.  A gsd can be a great dog with kids, but, proper training of both needs to happen.  And I would NOT train any dog to attack.  Too much of a liability.

 Glenmar made a good point but also consider a guardian type breed is also going to be very dominant and may not get along with your two boxers. and your boxers may not accept the new dog.

you could get a puppy but you still have to wait for it to grow up, TRAIN IT, and any time between now and then someone could break in and it wouldnt matter anyway. 

 you could buy an older guard dog thats already trained to guard and protect but you can expect to pay a pretty penny for it and you still have to worry about the boxers getting along with the new comer.

a lot of guardian breeds tend to attach themselves to one person whether you like it or not. i think thats just in their nature. many of them are herding dogs or drovers(bulldogs, rotties etc) and its bred into them to accept only one master. that DOESNT mean the dog is going to guard your husband or try to protect you from him, although it could. my cousins american bulldog turned on her husband and almost took his arm off when the man tried to hit her. (thats a long and involved story where the husband didnt like the dog anyway and had nothing to do with him, there was no love lost between the two)

my own guard dogs tend to spend more time with me because i spend more time with them. when my husband does have time for them they're all about him and i dont exist! 

keep doing some research on this. narrow down your choices in breed and talk to people who own them.

Hi there, DD, haven't seen you around for awhile!

Your points are very valid and not something I had thougth about.  But, with 6 gsds, I don't really need to worry about "protection"....a hopped up drug addict would be scared of my big guys!

Most any dog will bark in a situation where a stranger breaks into a house in the middle of the night!  And most bad guys will turn around and run as fast as their legs will carry them.  Tell your husband that most home burglaries occur when the homeowners are gone, because they are much more afraid of an armed human than any so called attack dog.  Put a sign on your front door" Protected by Smith and Wesson".

If he serious...a male Leo would fit the bill. Utterly reliable with children, and most all other animals...not overly guardy or drivey, but a very very big deterrent and capable of guard work when called for. Lots of hair tho...and lots to learn about before getting one.

Big black labrador.Looks imposing but usually good with kids and other dogs.I would never expect Jewel to go after anything but chipmonks but her size and deep bark are a deterant to anyone who comes to our home.People are scared of her if they don't know her and I like that living out in the boonies.

Tena 

I, too, would suggest a dog or breed that looks imposing, but not one trained to attack.  Years ago, we had a wonderful Siberian/GSD mix.  Gentle as lamb, loved everyone.  Yet a lot of people where afraid of him at first, just because of his looks.  We had the best security system growing up on the farm- 2 Norwegian Elkhounds in the kennel during the day and a Toy Poodle inside.  The TV repair man thought we had another Elkhound in the house when he heard the Poodle barking at the door.

 You cant get a FEMALE German Shepard!!! And you know why!!! I like my body parts and dont want to have to retrieve them from a dog's mouth.Hehe.

Why not get a Pit like you want but make it really really nice. You know people are scared of Pits just looking at them. They werent called Nanny dogs for no reason!!

4HAND

Big black labrador.Looks imposing but usually good with kids and other dogs.I would never expect Jewel to go after anything but chipmonks but her size and deep bark are a deterant to anyone who comes to our home.People are scared of her if they don't know her and I like that living out in the boonies.

The single most important thing that any dog can protect his family from is losing their life savings due to a law suit over the dog having bit some kid in the face. So, yeah, what Tena said. Get yourself a nice sweet big black dog. Rescue is full of them, and you can pick a young adult that is bomb proof around kids. But the last thing a household with a couple young kids needs is a "guard dog" that is going to decide he needs to protect junior from his buddy who got in a shoving match with him. I apologize in advance for offending probably half the people on this board but I've been teaching dog training classes for 20 years now, and I've seen a bazillion German Shepherd Dogs that people got because they wanted a "protective" dog, and I can think of maybe three of them that I would trust around a couple rough-housing kids. The well bred ones are terrific dogs, but for every well bred one, there seem to be dozens of over-reactive, potential fear biters. If you don't want to go the rescue-a-big-black-lug-of-a-dog route, I was actually going to suggest boxers as a scary looking, and sometimes hyperactive, but generally safe dog. Bernese Mtn dogs and Greater Swiss Mtn dogs are big imposing dogs that will scare off most "bad guys" with their size and deep bark, but are pretty unlikely to land you in court. Another option is a smooth coated collie - generally terrific with kids, and if you get a predominantly black and tan (tri-colored) one, they kinda sorta look like a dobie mix, and they are more than willing to bark, which is really going to be all the deterrent you need.

4HAND

Big black labrador.Looks imposing but usually good with kids and other dogs.I would never expect Jewel to go after anything but chipmonks but her size and deep bark are a deterant to anyone who comes to our home.People are scared of her if they don't know her and I like that living out in the boonies.

Tena 

kle1986

You cant get a FEMALE German Shepard!!!

  You never come by for your body parts to be takin!!!!!

kle1986

Why not get a Pit

 He wants one of those too- but he says every one he has owned in the past either takes up with him or the SO and thats causes major problems-  his mom was living with him one time and she went to shake him and wake him up and the dog got her in a corner and wouldnt let her move until he woke up and got the dog away- so he says with the kids always jumpin around on him that might not be a good choice-- but man blue pits are SOOO pretty!!!!

As for my 2 boxers i know they would accept anything i brought in the house- at 4 yrs old i have just taught them to accept the cat and not a toy that has to be chased- they have never offered to be aggressive with any animal- so naturally I would have to get a puppy so I could train it the way i want it and it could grow up accepting the other 2 big babies of the house.

As for rescues and other grown dogs i am not sure i wanna go that route- yea they can pass all the tests and be friendly up front but you never know what that dogs has been through or what might trigger its aggression with kids around i just feel i have to play it safe and start with a puppy.

Labs- I have never ever met one that looked or seemed scary in any way- i really dont think they could hurt a fly- even just acting aggressive they dont play off very well- i have never been leary walking up on a lab i know a lil head rub and they go lay down.

jdata

Uhmm. Labs for deterrent work? Labs sleep through anything! :) Case in point, those two labs that died while a mountain cougar walked in the house as everyone was sleeping. The cougar took either both or one of them. It was in Colorado this year.

Mine doesn't...he'd wake up and tell me if an ant crossed the doorstep.  Then again, if the ant came in he'd make friends with it, but when it's on the other side of the door and Ben is making an almighty racket, it wouldn't know that.  

Any larger dog is going to be a put off for anyone wanting to break in. Most people looking to enter a property for wrongdoing don't want the hassle of a dog making a racket.  I, personally, do not worry about my dogs actually attacking someone were they to break in. Is it possible that they would? Possibly.  I have no idea.  They bark at the door/suspicious noises and that's generally enough for most people.  I know that even the pizza guy  is leery of Aesop when all he's doing is sticking his head out the door for some lovings. And that is my 10 month old, goofy and love everyone pup. (the pizza guy called him a lion.....)

A few years ago when I had Legend, Julian and my late Basset, I came home to find Legend and Sheba (my Basset) staring at the back door to my apartment. The chain lock and door lock were broken.  It was obvious that whoever broke the door (we learned later that there had been a break in in a neighbor's shed at around that time as well) was met with two very formidable sounding dogs on the other side (Jules was confined) and they clearly didn't make it past the doorway. Very expensive items were in the room and neither they, nor anything else, was touched. The loudness of their barking was enough to scare them off.

Ummm, just for the record, my female GSD is an absolute love.  At least to us.  Not terribly reliable around strangers, but she's never even thought about removing any of my body parts.