Seven months ago our 14 year old Jack Russell 'Gwendoline' succumbed to the death grip of an owl. The old girl put up a valiant fight so much so the owl dropped her mid flight leaving her behind my shop where she died. Said a little prayer thanking the Lord for giving us a good loyal dog over all these years...... then cremated her on the fire pit when the family went to the city.

Now we are stuck with Eugene Weinstein, the 5 month old Wheaton. Good dog and funny as hell. Not much meat on him though.....

We have amazing loyal, protective dogs in our journey. They were rescued as a large group at 9 weeks of age from an Indian reserve North of Red Deer, and wouldn't have made it without this rescue as they were all ill with mange, suffering from malnutrition and exposure. Since they have joined our lives, we have "shared" the bounty of our hunts. They are great at mouse/rat catching and will give up their prey to us willingly, are amazing at scouting out berries, etc. We always reward them with special bits from our "hunts" and have developed a very close relationship. They even wait for us to join in on their group howls, and there is absolutely no doubt in our minds that they would be key survival members of our family. They let us know when things aren't quite right (one notes things that are out of place instantly so if someone was planning an ambush, etc. he would be on it very quickly). Their breed is "white" and they are amazingly healthy and intelligent. My suggestion is to seek out some of the rescue dogs from the reserves. They have had generations to hone their survival skills as someone is always after them with some kind of weapon or torture, and they know how to take care of themselves and each other, and us! Best decision we have ever made and we have had dogs all of our lives.

If you are interested in a guard dog and one that is built for and can easily withstand whatever our North American winters throw at it I recommend you check out the Caucasian Ovcharka.
They go by a few other names but if you look up Caucasian Ovcharka on Google you will learn all you need to know.
I have done an incredible amount of research on them including visiting breeders and my wife and I will be getting one when we get our permanent property.
And (tongue in cheek) if you ever have to eat one, the males start at 110 pounds and go up to almost 200 pounds depending.

We've got 4 dogs now, a Belgian Shepherd x Border Collie, a Belgian Shepherd, a Dingo and a Kelpie pup.

They all have their own peculiar habits...the BS x BC barks at odd night-time movement, not madly at everything like wallabies but just the really out of place things. The BS freaks out when people wrestle or play rough and has been known to bite rather hard on peoples rump when they do, so she is shaping up to be pretty handy in the protection area. The Dingo...well she is just plain sweet and is quite timid around strangers and can't bark, but I wouldn't be without her 🙂
The Kelpie is being trained to work cattle so is mostly going to be a farm dog but we are teaching her to locate family members...she's a very clever little thing.

Our neighbours have 3 very stupid blue cattle dogs that bark at EVERYTHING so we will know trouble is coming before it reaches us 😆

Your Kelpie is great! Standing on cars is good training for standing on cattle or sheep or whatever. Sounds like you have an amazing canine family who will stand by in times of trouble.

Sigh! Wish we had a dog or two, but inside the city it is just so hard and the wiffy says No! Maybe once we get some land she will relent. My buddy thinks it odd that I can own guns but not a dog, while he can own a dog but not a gun.

Sounds like a match made in Heaven.... 😉

I think the best thing to teach a dog is to find particular people.

I used to go for long walks and hide and hubby would then come out with my dog and just say "Where's ?????" and off she'd go and find me...a lovely game of doggy hide and seek. But it's good if you have little kids, or someone is injured and can't be found etc

We are teaching the Kelpie pup 'Bear' to do this even now...every time my daughter walks away or hops out of the car etc I say "Where's ?????" that way the dog learns DD's name. So after only a couple of weeks she is starting to try and search her out.

Wish I could teach the pup to stop ripping up the toilet paper though 😆

To answer the first question I would have to agree with other posters a mix breed or mutt has fewer health problems. I am a dog lover so I can say I cannot ever see myself eating "Muffy".
If you have to eat your dog you did something wrong in your prepping!
Graviore, to answer your question as I understand it. I would have no issue taking down anyone that threatened my family in a SHTF senerio. They are trying to cause us harm its them or us. BUT an animal that has been a companion and guard dog, had only ever served and protected our family no I could not put it down for food. But thats me.

Hi Darren:
Well said and I couldn't have put it better myself.
I am a dog lover and my dogs are members of my family.