Family and Executive Protection

Protection Dogs

Top Tier K9 Foundation Dogs® begin protection training at 8 weeks old. Drive building and bite development help dogs mature into solid protection dogs.

Throughout the Foundation Dog® phased approach to dog training, dogs are exposed to targeting, obedience for bites, send ins and as needed, passive bites. Dogs are trained in prey and defense/survival drives depending on specific client needs.

We train protection dogs in a process that allows our clients to obtain the right amount of protection coupled with the right amount of obedience to create the ideal protection dog for our client needs.

Obedience is a priority in our protection dog training protocols. The higher level of obedience we put on a dog, the better and stronger protection dog we can create. Unlike green dog resellers, Top Tier K9 Foundation Dogs® are in constant control by their handlers and release the bite with a verbal command, can be called off their bite mid run, and will hold the bite until told to let go by the handler.

Top Tier K9 protection dogs are rated on a scale of 1 to 10. With 1 being a dog that will bark at an intruder and a 10 which is a dog with zero self preservation and can be relied upon to seek out the enemy and kill it, regardless of obstacles.

We recommend a 6-7 level protection dog for family and executive protection, a 5-6 for a service dog that also protects, a 7-8 for a police K9 and a 9-10 for a military/SOF dog. We have all levels available that also track, find specific odor, and are off leash obedient.

Every acquisition of a Top Tier K9 Foundation Dog® includes a custom training and finishing program for the dog and the buyer. We do not allow a client to leave our facilities with a dog until we are all satisfied that the newly formed team is ready to perform their required duties.

Top Tier K9 Definitions:

Protection Dog: A dog that provides a level of security to it's owner as defined by Dr. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. There are 10 levels of protection associated with a Top Tier K9 protection dog. Each protection level increases the security level of the owner through the lack of self-preservation of the dog.

Service dog (Directly from the ADA): dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Examples of such work or tasks include guiding people who are blind, alerting people who are deaf, pulling a wheelchair, alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure, reminding a person with mental illness to take prescribed medications, calming a person with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during an anxiety attack, or performing other duties.

Service animals are working animals, not pets. The work or task a dog has been trained to provide must be directly related to the person’s disability. Dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA.

This definition does not affect or limit the broader definition of “assistance animal” under the Fair Housing Act or the broader definition of “service animal” under the Air Carrier Access Act.

Some State and local laws also define service animal more broadly than the ADA does. Information about such laws can be obtained from the State attorney general’s office.