Will My Dog Protect Me If I am Attacked?

Whether or not your dog will protect you (if you happen to be attacked) will mostly depend on the individual dog.

If the dog is trained in protection, it is much more likely to protect you, but an untrained dog could be just as protective.

However, in most cases, it is unlikely that your dog could effectively protect you against an attack from an aggressive human.

Most dogs would likely be either too scared to protect you or wouldn’t have the necessary level of aggression and strength to stop an adult human from hurting you.

So, unless you have large and well-trained protection dog, it is probably not a good idea to think you can rely on your dog if an attack does occur.

Let’s look at this more closely and dig into the details.

Will Your Dog Protect You if You Are Attacked?

It depends on the individual dog and the way you might be attacked.

Highly trained protection dogs are much more likely to protect their owners, but some un-trained dogs can be extremely good at protecting their humans.

Until a scary and violent situation occurs, there is no definitive way of knowing how your dog will react.

Your best bet is never to rely on an untrained dog to protect you.

If they jump to your aid in a nasty situation, that’s great, but you shouldn’t depend on it.

NOTE – Click here to read this post asking the question: Why Is My Rottweiler Growling at Me?

How to Test Your Dog to See if it is Likely to Try and Protect You

You could try to simulate a violent attack and see how your dog behaves.

For example, you could get someone you know to hide in a bush or an alley with a mask on and jump out at you aggressively as you walk your dog.

Does your dog react with aggression?

For example, do they bark and growl at the perceived attacker or cower and run away?

While not 100% accurate, this test should give you a pretty good idea of how your dog may behave if you ever have the misfortune of being attacked on the street or in your home.

Note – If you do try this, please ensure that your dog is on a leash so it can’t attack whoever is pretending to hurt you!

Before we continue, this video gives some excellent examples of testing how protective people’s dogs are in real life (with an epic fail from the pitbull mix!)

Just click the video, and it will start to play.

 

NOTE – You might also like to read this post asking the question: Why are Rottweilers aggressive?

Two Stories About My Uncle’s Dog Saxon Being Protective

Saxon was a black labrador owned by my Uncle Geoff (sadly no longer with us).

Geoff lived with my Aunty Christine, and they both loved Saxon.

Saxon was a working gun dog. My uncle would go shooting, and Saxon would retrieve the game that was shot.

One day as a prank, my uncle hid in a bush where my aunty was walking Saxon.

He was going to jump out and scare her.

But before he could jump out, Saxon ran over to the bush and growled aggressively.

My uncle got scared and crawled out of the bush, feeling very embarrassed. (I think he learned his lesson about dumb pranks that day!).

Another time my aunty was walking Saxon, two policemen were looking in bushes, trying to find someone who had been vandalizing cars.

Again, as soon as Saxon got close, he started growling loudly.

The police were scared and asked my aunty to get him on a tight leash.

Saxon never showed any aggression in any other situation.

He was never aggressive with people. You could take food or toys from him, and he wouldn’t growl.

But on those two occasions, he was smart enough to know something wasn’t right and was very willing to protect his owner from the perceived threat.

Sadly, he died a few years ago, but he was a fantastic dog, and we all have fond memories of him.

Related Post: Why Are Big Dogs So Gentle?

Can You Train Your Dog to be More Protective of You?

Some dogs may be trainable as protection dogs, but this is not something you should attempt yourself.

If you want to give it a go, contact a canine protection dog trainer and ask them for help and advice.

Please do not try to do this yourself. It could end up with someone getting badly hurt.

What Breeds Are More Likely to be Protective?

The breeds most likely to protect their owners were initially bred for guarding, hunting, or fighting duties.

Breeds such as Rottweilers, Mastiffs, German Shepherds, and Doberman Pinschers tend to have higher instincts toward protecting humans.

With that said, it still depends on each individual dog.

Some dogs do not have the aggressive instinct needed to make them good at protecting people.

Final Notes On If Your Dog Will Protect You Or Not

Most pet dogs do not make good protection dogs and are very unlikely to have the drive and the ability to protect you if you are attacked.

It is possible to train some dogs to be more protective, but this won’t work for most dogs.

So it is best to never rely on your dog to keep you safe and take other preventive measures to avoid dangerous situations.

Well, that is all we have for this blog article answering the question – will my dog protect me if I am attacked?

If you have any more questions or have an interesting story about if your dog did or didn’t protect you when you were in danger, please comment using the box below.

And finally, thanks for stopping by to visit The Factual Doggo.