I wish my wife and I had read this before we bought our Anatolian Shepherd:
from the Anatolian Shepherd Rescue website:
quote
About Anatolian Shepherds
The Anatolian Shepherd Dog is a large and powerful dog, and as such is not suited for everyone. They were bred for hundreds, if not thousands of years in their native Turkey as Livestock Guardians for the flocks of semi-nomadic shepherds. Their natural foes included wolves, bears, and wild boar.
Livestock guarding dogs, in all parts of the Old World where they were bred, needed to be able to think and act quickly and independently to protect their flocks. This ability was highly valuable to the shepherds and therefore selected for. That same ability, coupled with his strength and size, makes the Anatolian unsuitable for the average pet household.
It takes experience and dedication to work with this independent breed, especially if the dog is to be a house guardian. In these pages, we will try to show you what ASDs are like, so that you can make an informed decision about adopting one. Feel free to contact us for more information.
Please be sure to read all about ASDs before considering adopting one!" end /quote
Some dog breeds were bred to be fighters. plain and simple.
I agree.
But even beyond that . . .
When you stop to think about it, a large dog is capable of doing severe damage to a person.
Dogs have teeth.
Isn't it ironic that society allows dogs to enter human society and trusts them to use their teeth responsibly . . .
Yet those same societies often would not trust people to go about with large knives in their belts--let alone handguns.
Where people aren't trusted with weapons, then why should dogs be trusted with teeth?