Fully Trained
Protection Dogs
A dog that arrives ready, with obedience, temperament testing, and protection work already complete, matched to your family before delivery day.
Our Standard for a Fully Trained Dog
To our standard, a fully trained protection dog is far more than a dog that knows obedience and will engage a sleeve. It is a clear-headed, environmentally sound family companion with reliable on- and off-leash obedience, stable social behavior, and proven protection work under pressure. Every dog must be personally evaluated by us and be the kind of dog we would trust around our own families.
The question sitting underneath that standard is whether the work survives with no equipment in the picture. A dog built only on a sleeve often will not engage a person in street clothes, and that is usually a gap in the training rather than a fault in the animal — what causes it, and the muzzle work that exposes it is set out in full, written from the receiving end of the bite.
- Advanced on- and off-leash obedience
- Handler-initiated deterrence and protection, with a clear off-switch
- Temperament and household compatibility testing
- Personal delivery and in-home family training
What That Actually Involves
Most of this industry will not put these numbers in front of you before a call. Here they are, and they are the owners’ own answers rather than a range chosen to sound impressive.
- Time in training with us
- Four to sixteen weeks. The range is that wide because it depends on the specifications a family is looking for, behaviour and training wise.
- Age at placement
- Ideally between eighteen months and four years old — old enough that the dog is who it is going to be, rather than a promising adolescent you are asked to take on faith.
- Temperament testing
- Hands-on with the dog, and not only in protection training. Out in public around strangers and children, and integrated into our own families.
- Health screening
- A thorough physical exam and bloodwork, including hip X-rays, and up to date on mandatory vaccines. Every veterinary document comes with the dog at delivery.
Before a Dog Is Offered to Anyone
Every dog we place lives in one of our own homes first. That is the part of the standard that is hardest to fake and easiest to skip: a dog that is difficult to live with here will be difficult to live with in your house, and we would rather find that out ourselves than let you find it out after delivery. We select for confidence and we test for it deliberately — both of us explain how on camera, and what a finished dog can and cannot do is set out level by level on our training levels page.
We do not publish a price, because the number depends on the individual dog and on what your household actually needs. What the wider market charges is a different question, and a fair one to ask early — we have written up what a protection dog costs with every figure sourced to the company or journalist who published it.
Start the Conversation
Every placement starts with a conversation. Tell us about your household and what you need the dog to do, and we will be straight with you about whether we have the right dog for it.
If we do, the handover is where the work starts rather than where it stops. We have set out what the first ninety days look like, week by week, so you can read what living with the dog will ask of you before you decide to.