A guard dog is a dog that warns their owner about unwanted intruders into the house. The job of a guard dog or watch dog is to bark when an intruder is present. This alerts the owners about the intruders and allows them to deal with them how they wish.

If your dog is a watch dog its job ends here however a guard dog traditionally is big enough to drive away unwanted predators such as wolfs and some owners will even teach their guard dogs to attack human intruders even if this may be illegal in some countries.

Two types of well known guard dogs are Rottweiler and German Sheppard. Rottweilers are medium to large dogs that actually originated as farm dogs which were used to protect the farmer’s animals. Rottweilers were first used by the Romans and proved very effective in driving away cattle robbers and hostile wild animals.

What makes a Rottweiler a great guard dog is that when not being hostile to intruders it has a calm temperament it is very good natured and will get on very well with young children. The Rottweiler however has received some bad press in the past few years, this however can be largely attributed to the fact that it is such a popular breed of dog to have as pets so naturally the number of human attacks is going to be higher however the actually rate is lower.

German Sheppards were originally bred for their strength, intelligence and sense of smell to help effectively herd sheep for their owners. The breed however first started to gain mainstream popularity after World War one after returning soldiers started to speak very highly of them. Generally the breed is quite aggressive and as a result has been banned in some areas of the world. German Sheppards are renowned for their intelligence and their ability to learn new things however they are also very over protective and have a reputation to protect the people they are loyal too such as friends and family whatever the cost.

If you are comparing German Sheppards against Rottweilers you should ask yourself how aggressive you want your guard dog to be. Rottweilers are probably a better choice for a family because they will be friendlier toward the children and will also not over react to new guests to the house. If however you are in a very hostile area that requires some serious protection it would probably be a better bet to go with a German Sheppard due to their very aggressive nature.:)