Why would you randomly ask this question? No offense but I guarantee you that most of the members on this forum will reverse this question and say what can "I" do to protect "MY" dog. I suppose if you have a strong enough bond with your dog and it came down to it then yes he/she would try but you should never put your dog in that situation. Protect yourself and your dog. If an altercation would arise, I would stand in front of my dog not the other way around.

 

My thought was that OP may be wondering if she ought to be on the alert.

I don't know if my dog would protect me, but to play it safe, I assume she would. I take precautions to protect HER accordingly. Maybe OP is asking if she should take a similar approach.

 

Depends on the individual dog more than the mix. Even among pure-bred GSDs it depends on the dog. Depends on the confidence and level of protective instinct and agression they have genetically. An insecure, fearful dog will not likely to engage a threat, even with a ton of training.

A dog with confidence, appropriate aggression, and the ability to determine a threat from a non-threat may protect even with zero training.

 

You answered this much more politely than I did. I apologize for not being sensitive, rough day

 

Perhaps the poster was wondering if the GSD would be naturally protective as a breed, if not specifically trained a a personal protection dog (?). If that was the purpose of his question, I will say that my first GSD was very mild tempered, but my second dog would have most certainly been "naturally" protective.

 

Maybe. Maybe not. It's depends on the individual dog.

If you want a dog to protect you. TRAIN the dog.

 

As far as i know huskies have very little defense drive. You might get a bark but I wouldn't bet on it/risk it. You have no idea which side the dogs drives came from and even if your dog has his defense drive from the gsd side its still a toss up since not all gsds are the same and a big part of it has to do with the individual dogs confidence level.

 

Hard to say but the GSD-y looks will most likely be enough of a detergent.

 

Most criminals are opportunistic. If they see or hear something (like a German Shepherd) that means they might have a hard time, they will just pass your house and go to the next one. The breed and size will be a huge deterrent to most criminals. As for real crazies, I would not put your reliance on a any dog without some sort of evaluation and training. I look to my boy to just buy me time to react.

 

Majority of dogs wouldn't protect their owners if attacked. Even a lot "trained" dogs wouldn't in a real situation. All depends on the dog. As for protecting my dogs. I have my dogs backs and they have mine.

 

So the way I see it is. If your dog is trained in protection and the attacker doesn't have a weapon, knife, gun, bat, etc... and there aren't multiple attackers. Then your dog may be able to protect you.
However, if the dog did go after the attacker and the attacker had a weapon he may very well just kill the dog and continue the attack.
I would bet a small amount of money that the dog would bark and at least alert you of something that maybe you cannot hear or see yet. The bark may stop the attacker or as stated above he may just come through the dog and continue his attack on you. So why not get a firearm and take the proper training to become proficient and this way even with multiple attackers or an attacker with a weapon you have the ability to protect yourself and the dog.

 

My girls instincts always put her between me and something else coming at me. I don't really notice it most of the time but the other day she was off leash and her typical 20m out front of me going about her business. We were at a park and another dog came running towards me, just a friendly guy probably coming to say hi, and all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye I see Mika coming to t-bone the other dog. She got there, ran into the other dog, most likely gave her usual not all too friendly hello and at that point I'm not sure if she doesn't know what to do or she was happy that all was good so she went back to doing whatever.
I've had several situations where I have a ball and another dog comes over to try and get it from me. She will chase the other dog and then come back to me. If the dog comes back into a certain radius she'll chase it off again and so on.

 

Be careful with that. The dog sees itself as the one that needs to protect the pack, and this behaviour can lead to dog fights real quick.

 

I'm sorry, but if you have to wonder if your dog will protect you if they sebse/feel there is a dangerous situation coming up. You're doing something wrong with bonding with your Shepherd. While Brutus is very non-aggressive I have absolutely zero doubt in my mind that he will gladly kill for me if he feels he needs too.