My mom has a wonderful, mellow German Shepherd dog whose obsession in life is playing fetch. A while ago, a young couple in a jeep came driving up mom's driveway. The dog came up to them and dropped his ball in the jeep to play fetch with them. The guy in the jeep played fetch with him for a bit, then they asked my Mom for directions.

Now, they turned out to be a nice couple, and I figure that the GSD knew that, so he was friendly. I do kinda wonder though if the dog would have been protective if they hadn't been so nice.

What do you think?

The odds are great that if an emotionally stable dog of any breed ever sensed a direct threat or that it's owner is fearful--he would become protective.

The degree of protection he'd display would depend on the percieved danger.

In some cases the dog would just place himself between the owner and the danger or bark. If there were an actual attempt to physically harm them, the dog might actually attack.

For the majority of bad guys, the barking is enough to scare them off. Most well behaved dogs seem to sense this naturally.

I agree with Applesmom. In addition, just having a GSD stakind around is a deterrent in itself. I sure wouldn't think twice about crossing someone with their GSD standing by, no matter how friendly it looked.

I think dogs can definately sense threat.

Some dogs may try to protect you, while others may be frightned and just hide.

It's kind of one of those things you hope you never have to find out first hand.

Everyone hopes their dog will protect them, but even more, everyone hopes that something bad never happens to them.

lol, I thought i would post a funny story regarding this...

We know Jay (our mutt) is a ShepX so I spent months socializing him...and as a result we have a wonderfully social animal who loves just about everything.

However, I have noticed that when I come home late through the back door because everyone is still asleep he hears the door and comes stalking and growling through the kitchen (as soon as he sees me he is all joy and licks though )

You can also tell when walking late at night that he is more alert (I live in the urbs of DC....and well...just dont like walking in the dark much)...I think he sort of sense my nervousness...

Its amazing what they can sense from us...I actually learned in one of my classes that Dogs are better at reading human emotions, expressions and body language than other monkeys.

Thanks for the replies. My Mom's GSD is a sweetie with everyone (at least so far), but it does make sense that he'd protect her if he needed to. I hope he never will need to.

There is no doubt that your moms dog would have became defensive and protective if it felt your mother was in danger.

I have a german shepherd who is barely a year old, but is amazingly in tune with most things. When I'm walking her and we approach somebody who may not be very friendly (I live in a bad neighborhood with high crime ratings) she will put herself between me and this person. I walk her on my left side because that is the rules for rally obedience, but she will move to my right side if necessary to put herself between me and this other person.

But really like what applesmom said above, having a German Shepherd in and of itself is usually enough of a deterrant. Rosie is a large shepherd, about 85 pounds, 27 inches at the shoulder. People will actually cross the street to get around us and stay as far away from that dog as possible.

we have always had big dogs... pointers and such.. german shepards and things like that.. my mom had one dog in particular..that LOVED everyone......
EXCEPT....
my great grandmothers homehealth aid. we couldnt understand why the dog hated the lady so much.. it got to the point where we had to tie up the dog every time the lady would come.. or else she couldnt get out of her car.

months later we found out.. after my great grandmother got a new aid that the previous lady that had been comming was targeting people she took care of.. stealing their money and being abusive.. the only reason she didnt do my great grandmother that way was because either myself.. or my mother would be there when the lady came each day. just to make sure everything was ok.

the dog after the lady stopped comming and the new lady started taking over the clients.. he LOVED her.. and we never had the problem since.

I never had a vicious dog- but they were protective. I had one I had to place because the dog came to us as an adult, and not use to children.
As far as protectin even Hottie is as well. Surprising enough-- but he knew twice that there might be trouble. One on a walk on a bike path when he collected up on the flexi instead of walking ahead, and another time when we believe this man either tried to open the van, or pressed his head in the window.

Have a story about my first dog, a GSD/Retriever mix named Sugarbear, and my first kitty, a Siamese mix named Polly. They were good friends and would hang out together. Polly ruled our neighborhood with an iron fist, mostly because she was tough and knew how to fight, but also because if she got into something she couldn't handle, she had Sugarbear as backup. She would run into our back yard and lead that poor kitty right under the nose of Sugarbear. Bam! The foreign cat would be stuck up a tree, and Polly would sit on the fence and laugh.

Our GSD was for the most part a fun loving, care free puppy. Even at the age 14. He lived life and he loved his tennis ball!!!! My brother is mentally challenged, he's slow. He could do ANYTHING to this dog. Because thats the way that we trained him, people said that we were mean to the dog with our training. But anyway this guy came up to our house one night and started knocking on the door (while my dad was away in Iraq) played the whole my car broke down thing) My mom wouldn't let him in, it was after dark, the dog didn't do anything. Was just playing. We went all went to sleep and I guess 10 minutes after we all were asleep the guy found an open window in my brothers room. Our dog took himself and that guy right back out the window. And held him there until the police got there. The dog wouldn't let him go to the point that the police officer threatened to shot the dog. Come to find out it was a prisoner that had escaped a couple of days before.