Best Prepper Dog

What is the BEST PREPPER DOG?

I don't know the answer, so I'm looking for suggestions. I do know what some important factors are:

KEY FACTORS:

1. Alert - able to detect intruders
2. Smart - able to recognize family and not bark a false alarm, and not bark when instructed
3. Family compatible, loyal
4. Ability to hunt and find food

DESIRABLE ATTRIBUTES:

1. Large, intimidating dog
2. Long/Short hair depending on your climate

 The German Shepherd Dog is one of America’s most popular dog breeds — for good reason. He’s an intelligent and capable working dog. His devotion and courage are unmatched. And he’s amazingly versatile, excelling at most anything he’s trained to do: guide and assistance work for the handicapped, police and military service, herding, search and rescue, drug detection, competitive obedience and, last but not least, faithful companion.  Their biggest draw back to me is they shed a lot of hair.

I went through the Animal Planet Dog Breed Selector and it found me a dog breed I'd never heard of; a Belgian Malinois with a 97% match.  It is a variation of the German Shepard, a fine dog no doubt.

As runner up it was a tie at 95% between the German Shorthaired Pointer (left) and (right) a regular Pointer (right). 

 

 

 Having owned a pointer before I had reservations about whether he was smart enough.

I went thought he Breed selector again, selecting the following:

1. Dog Size - Medium 23-44 lbs and Large 45 - 88 lbs
2. Energetic - Not Important
3. Exercise Time Available - Not Important (on a farm) 
4. How often will you play with them - Not Important 
5. How affectionate - Not Important
6. Do you have other pets - Yes, if you count livestock
7. How Trainable do you want your dog to be - Very
8. How protective - Extremely
9. Maintenance & Grooming - Low
10. Climate - Hot weather

Drum roll..... The Belgian Malinois with a 99% match this time.  Runner ups were:

1. Australian Cattle Dog - Interesting dog
2. Pembroke Welsh Corgi - too short and harry for me
3.  Beauceron - Interesting multi-purpose dog
4.  Canaan - Interesting hardy, primitive dog breed
5. Labrador Retriever - this is perhaps the most common dog suggested

So now I tried the American Kennel Club (AKC) selector tool.

1. Zip Code
2. House
3. Two kids and one dog
4. Going on an adventure
5. Two of 9 on the noise scale
6. Super Tidy on house keeping

The suggestions were ok for someone wanting a little house dog, with one exception, a German Shorthaired Pointer coming up a second time from two different web sites.  This is a hardy, energetic, hunting dog, good with older kids.

IAMS,  suggested a Boerboel A what?  yea, that is what I said.

Another site with a comprehensive list of questions: https://www.selectadogbreed.com offered a Bullmastiff as the best option.

The site: DogTime suggested several dogs of interest, including a Canaan, and Belgian Malinois.

The Pedigree site suggested a Blood hound, Bulldog, Bullmastiff, Doberman, Mastiff and several others.

The dogs that come up frequently and look best to me are:

1. Belgian Malinois
2. Canaan
3. Pointers - the German Shorthaired Pointer and a regular Pointer
4. Bullmastiff

After all this research, I'm still not sure what the best Prepper Dog is.  It is important to go look at the dog breed you are considering and spend time with them before making a decision.  Look at their behavior and living space;  do they dig holes and chew things up; do they bark a lot?

Use this post and these resources to narrow your options down, and then go look at your top choices to help make a final decision.

Good Luck!

Resources:
American Kennel Club (AKC)
Animal Planet Dog Breed Selector

For additional information see the following links:

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