Has a doberman saved you or your family?

My current dobe...is totally protective.
- my first dobe pup in 1977 had more confidence (from the beginning) BUT would not show real bouts of protection (to the point of putting it's life on the line)...to family members
WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE, between 2 well breed pups ??

DOG #1 - I took a lot of professional training with it. (1 hour/week for 27 weeks + 6 hours/week practice).
Dog #2 - With the skills learned previously + I became tons smarter in reading my dog & communicating in dog language.
I trained her very early & much quicker, by myself (and sort of invented my own training methods, as we learned together)...Amy's private training with her Dad (on my dead-end street) and I eventually made her almost humanly smart / my Vet of 35 years, said my dobe is the most humanized dog, he has ever seen enter his practice in 35 years.

Protective of me to...but she reads me for constant direction / I trained her from 8 weeks old (almost to the point of dedicating my life to her) - I am her leader & mentor - unless I need assistance or help...she don't protect me the same way as my wife (but a #1 watch dog)- dobes are so smart, to read us....maybe she thinks I have a "black belt"...lol.

Amy is totally protective of my wife, till death (her loving Mom): - copied from an earlier text:
- if she don't know you (men in particular) and the first time you visit, she will stand in front of her Mom
- she submissed a larger dog once, that was loose and got to within a few feet of biting my wife
- she went nuts on a guy that we knew once, and a week later he was charged with +20 break & enters / guy happened to be casing our place, when he didn't see my truck and knew I was not home...dobe protected my wife that night
- she has kept a few people on our front porch, until I called her off / and fine with the other 99% (barking, but no growling)
- in the car, if my wife is in a mall parking lot and some shady character walks up behind...she goes beserk

So what was the PROTECTION difference - between 2 dogs, while the first one started out more qualified (in life):
I learned IT WAS ME...you harvest what you plant !!

One night at about 11:30, the doorbell rang and my fiance went down to see who it was. He took the bat down with him, but saw it was my old stylist, John so he let him in. John had come over and cut my hair a couple times after leaving his former employer, but we had come to find out that he and his wife were serious drug addicts, and so I had completely cut him off. I had thought he had gotten the message until that night. My fiance called to me saying "it's John" and I couldn't think of who "John" was even after I saw him because he looked so different. Kano had been upstairs with me and when I opened the door flew down the stairs in front of me. It took me a couple minutes to realize who "John" was and that he was totally strung out. I couldn't believe my fiance had let him in, but I figured he must not have realized right away. John kept trying to come over to me, but Kano wouldn't let him anywhere near me. She kept herself in between us the entire time barking and snarling which is something she has NEVER done before. Usually she'll bark if she sees someone outside, but once we open the door and let them in, she's done. This was the first time she ever barked and acted like that. I definitely knew that something wasn't right before I even realized what was going on. We ended up chasing him out by giving him some soup since he came looking for money.
While I don't think he necessarily would have done anything to hurt us, I do know I was so glad Kano was there to definitely make him think twice about doing so. After that night, he hasn't tried to contact us since.

How about a Dobe who thought he was saving me?

This happened a number of years ago with our previous guy. It was a hot summer evening, and I was walking Fred on a loose lead in our local park. Some neighbourhood teenage boys were fooling around, soaking one another with those huge plastic water blaster guns. They were yelling and running around, but Fred was familiar with these kids and paid little attention.

Until one of the kids ran out of water and started heading toward his house across the street for a refill. As the kid crossed our path about 20 feet ahead of where we were walking, he suddenly stopped, and with a wicked grin, turned and pointed the water blaster at me.

The kid was joking, but Fred didn't see the humour in the situation. He went nuts . . . barking and lunging at the kid. Fortunately, I was able to hold Fred back, so no harm was done.

I was pleased by Fred's response, even if he did misinterpret the situation. Once I told him "no," he settled down very quickly -- and he clearly carried no grudge, for over the years, he had many more perfectly friendly encounters with these same kids.