Hey guys thought I'd share an experience I just had . I have Jax he's 8 months old now yellow male. I've worked with Jax and for the most part he is well behaved , responds to commands and he is great most of the time . Few times he refuses to listen but overall he's a good dog . Anyway my wife and I often joke around that Jax is too smart for his own good lol. Just the rate he learns things and how quickly he picks up on things amazes me. Anyway he had sprayed poison at the back of the property so Jax was forced to do all his business in the front yard which isn't fenced ,so he has a steel cord about 50 ft and he's on a harness so he can be outside or go outside to do his business . Anyhow first time we hook him to the harness and cable he runs to the end of the cord stops, turns around backs out of the harness and looks at me with that I'm free look. I call him to the porch put the harness back on tighter and just watched him so I could see if he was trying to slip it again . Anyway so I'm outside yesterday Jax is in the from yard I'm in the side yard with my daughter and my wife is half way between the front and side yard . This strange vehicle pulls up in front of my home . Little back story here , my wife's family and my wife and I have had real issues in the past we have court orders where her family cannot be 500 ft from us or our daughter . They are violent crazy people just so you know what kind of people pulled up in my yard . Anyhow so this suv pulls up to the front of my house , 4 people step out and they start yelling my daughter's name telling her to come here they had her something . I tell them to leave they were trespassing etc and pull my phone out to video the incident . At first they were in the street. They then came into my yard and Jax was going crazy but his cord was about 4 feet shy of the people . Again I tell the people to get out of the yard or I'm calling the cops and not to come any closer or the dog would bite . One of the people then takes a few more steps toward me and my daughter and Jax immediately got the slack from the cable, slipped the harness and ran between me and my daughter and the people . He didn't charge them he defended my daughter and anyone following my posts know I had issue with how protective Jax is over my daughter . Anyway as I'm telling the people to leave again and they are calling my daughter finally they got too close and Jax charged. He went for clothing or he got clothing . Jax grabs onto the man's pants leg and the other people scatter back to the truck. As the man is trying to hobble back to the truck Jax is having no part of it , he's not biting the guy he's ripping his pants leg . I said Jax come here and he immediately stops and comes to us and sits in front of my daughter . The car load if people get a little down the road when the cops finally catch up to them . When the cops get to us I show them the video. Jax is somewhat of a local celebrity among all the cops around here now. Just thought I would share this ,like I said my first posts were talking about Jaxs protective behavior with my daughter. FWIW I did not or have not taught Jax to do this he did it on his own .
Families are great aren't they . I'd be rather proud of jax ! Sam wouldn't have a clue , but my little terrier would do exactly the same , she even throws herself in front of Sam to try to stop other dogs coming near him (on the rare occasions they are out together). Even though she's about 1/5 the size of Sam
It's understandable that you're feeling proud of your boy for sticking up for you and your daughter, and I don't want to take that away from him and you, but I can't in good conscience ignore the things that really worry me from this story. Firstly, that Jax is able to get out of his harness means that he is potentially in danger of being hit by a car, running off or being stolen, if he is motivated to escape for whatever reason. And secondly, even though he was so good as to not bite skin, if he had done so, or if he was deemed to be aggressive in any way, that could have very serious implications for him. You were very sensible to video what happened, so you could prove that he wasn't the one who started the problems, and I know that it was other people going out of their way to cause trouble. Just be careful - awful people can do awful things and if they're motivated to hurt you in any way, then using the love you have for your dog against you would be a pretty easy way of doing so.
I also have to echo Fiona's caution here - a dog that attacks people, even if he just rips their clothes, under any circumstances could potentially get you and your dog in very hot water. I do appreciate you are proud of him, and he did the right thing in that particular situation, but it's very risky leaving it up to the dog to decide when such behaviour would, or would not, be appropriate. It's by far the safest thing for the dog to decide it would always be inappropriate.
