How to train a Doberman guard dog

[Master_Magnus]

Hi everyone and thanks in advance for reading this post that may be a bit long and hopefully providing some ideas. Here it is. I have a job in law enforcement, private security wing. I am now guarding a concrete plant that is in bankruptcy procedure. That means it is deserted until a new owner buys it. When I was hired there I found a bunch of dogs in a very deplorable state. Most of them were eventually adopted, one died, one female became independent and keeps swinging from the plant I guard to another nearby plant where she receives food, and one big female (as big as a wolf) became completely savage and really fearful of humans. Sure she comes if you drop some food, but runs away if you approach her. She also developed a hunting habit and I sometimes see her chasing small animals through the tall vegetation on the other side of the road, opposite from the fence of the plant. She is also kinda aggressive toward the German Shepherd crossbreed dog I have at the plant, and he in returns bares his fangs at her as well through the fence. This female dog gave birth to several pups last year and I took two of the pups, a male and a female. I gave the male to one of my neighbors and kept the female. I became very attached to her, so I refused to spay her. Reproduction time came and she was bred by a pure blood Doberman. She now gave birth to seven cute pups, with appearances ranging from similar to her, to appearance reassembling his likeness to something in between. One of the pups particularly arouses my interest. While all of them have a Doberman shape, the particular one I'm talking about looks exactly like it's father, if you look at it you're tempted to say it's his father miniature. I don't know yet if it's a male or a female, because I don't want too mess with them to much until they open their eyes, but if it's female I'll they to have her bred also by a Doberman male. Anyway, I'm gonna keep that pup and want to train it as a guard dog, or at least make him very aggressive to strangers and use it as my companion at my workplace, where I have no alarm. Truth be told this private security company is pretty lame, and the reason I keep working from them is because the objective is really close to my home, and I don't waste much diesel fuel to drive there, and it's more relaxed since the plant is deserted, but I don't want to take any chances. We also have to provide for ourselves here, I had to buy a stun gun myself, since they only provided us with two cheap batons and an expired can of pepper spray instant K.O. which is almost empty. So if I want to train this pup, turn it into a command attack dog, or at least a very aggressive one. I can still control him even if he is very aggressive by holding him in a leash and/or confining him in my guard room when guests come to visit the plant to figure if they're gonna buy it or not. I also contemplate the idea of cropping it's ears when it gets a bit older. I heard a lot of arguments against it and I find it quite painful to the dog to be honest, but when I saw how natural Doberman ears look I'm still confused about what to do. Firstly natural ears are really big and they make him more vulnerable to grabbing or in a fight with other dogs, as I can't predict how the other dogs will receive a new member in their midst, and if it's a male they are very aggressive towards other male when the females have to be bred. Two dogs rushed on the field when the big she dog savage was breeding and fought each other viciously near to death. The weaker one had half the face bloodied. I obviously don't want that to happen to my guard dog if it's male. Also how do you exactly train it. I heard many ideas ranging from slightly reasonable to a really wild imagination. Some said to keep the pup in confinement since the moment he starts to eat until the age of one year, and have to see only me and my family members, absolutely no strangers. Some say that making him bite rags, and gently pulling on them, so he can hold them makes him a bitter. Later I hear I can use pads, some say pads can be rubbed with animal fat or animal blood to make him more willing to bite them. I also hear the idea of making him bite a dummy that has sausages around the neck, so it will get used to bite the necks of the chased prey like wolves do. A really wild Idea I read in the internet was feeding it live animals. Some say that if you teach it dodge hitting objects (a rolled newspaper or a belt) and flank you and then throw it a food bit when it managed to flank you it will become a good attacker. I also heard the idea of making the trainee hold the bite even under threat, and sting it with a belt while holds onto something so he is not scared of pain or counterattacks. What I would actually want though, and it's the reason I opened this thread is advice form other owners of Dobermans, and from professional trainers. I will try to post pictures of the pups and their mother into further posts.

 

[Master_Magnus]

This is the pup and I know the quality of the image lets much to be desired...

 

[Master_Magnus]

And this is their mother, the one I adopted... I don't have a picture of the pup's father, but I assure you he's a wonderful black Doberman male with cropped ears and docked tail.

 

[TMF Jeff]

That first post is really hard to read, maybe you should edit it and break it up into a few smaller paragraphs?

 

[desdemona]

I stopped reading after the breeding. I can't comment because I don't believe non pure bred dogs should be allowed to reproduce. And it's a slippery slope to allow an amateur to train a dog to be a "guard" dog. I've had to euthanize too many dogs due to aggression to even open that can of worms.

 

[Master_Magnus]

I stopped reading after the breeding. I can't comment because I don't believe non pure bred dogs should be allowed to reproduce.

That's really Nazi of you. Hope you don't feel the same about humans. I also have a Cocker Spaniel bitch that is only 3/4 Cocker Spaniel and 1/4 mutt, and I still fooled a vet into thinking she's a pure Cocker Spaniel.

And it's a slippery slope to allow an amateur to train a dog to be a "guard" dog.

Amateur? Really? I thought I stated quite clearly that I'm a security guard. In our job there's no place for hesitation and softness. If you guard a deserted plant, with no electricity, alarm, and about one kilometer if not more outside the Settlement Borders, you need all the coercive means and tool you can get your hands on.After I catch a transgressor and apprehend him, how exactly am I supposed to hold him in the guard room, while I call the cops and then go outside and signal the cop car without him taking off and running away?
P.S. You quote Hippocrates in your signature, yet you're a Nazi (hopefully only towards canines). Hippocrates DOES NOT MEAN hypocrite! Have a nice day or should I say Heil mein Hundfuhrer?

 

[Master_Magnus]

Update. I have checked the black pup's gender. She's female, so I can breed her with a Doberman again and get an even more Doberman like set of pups when she grows up.
For those who want to discuss this objectively, rather than senselessly snapping at me for a statement and a question, I asked again, cropped or natural ears? Since she's a female she has less chances to be attacked by that male dog at the plant, since she doesn't have to fight for pussy, she owns one😉. As for training I found an interesting e-book that presents a method of conditioning the dog to attack when he hears the sound of a whistle. It's similar to Pavlov's conditioning and the book says it works on "lower" quality dogs as well. The core of the method is this: Te master blows a whistle and in that moment an agitator appears, agitates the dog while the dog is restrained. When the restrained dog gets aggressive and attempts to attack the agitator, the agitator retreats and gets outside of the dog's view, thus causing the dog to win the fight easily and crave to track down the agitator like prey, and drag the agitator out of hiding. There's an entire chapter detailing this aspect, and several agitation levels and methods are presented in great detail. The book says that this method conditions the dog into feeling it's man hunting time when he hears a whistle, and boosts it's confidence, making him believe he's invincible in a fight against a man (and unless you're a legendary martial arts master or an armed person a working dog will almost always have the upper hand), and chasing, tracking and apprehending the person the master points as agitator. I'm curious what's your opinion towards this method. Do you think it's the best?