Okay, so you've seen enough pictures of Mati to know she's our family pet. But, did you also know she's our trained personal protection dog?
Just before Ryan's first deployment, we bought her as an ornery three month old puppy from a Northwest breeder/trainer. We immediately began her training on obedience and soon after protection work. If I'm gonna have a husband in the Army who has to work A LOT, I'm gonna need back up.
She's amazing. No really, she is. We've been fortunate to find trainers who work to bring out her best and use positive training methods. Anyway, she makes me feel safer when Ryan's working late or in the field or when I have the girls in Kentucky. Her desire to work combined with her willingness to do anything to make us happy is sometimes overwhelming. She's just that good. People, she helps me do laundry. She's that dog that fetches our paper in the morning and plays with the girls during the day, all while keeping a watchful eye and ear out for any signs of danger. She's super crazy hyper like a typical malinois, but also has the rare "calm" gene where she can lounge with the best of them.
I'm convinced we'll never get another dog as awesome as Mati is.
Here's a video of her training last weekend. There's a man watching us and making his way a little too close for comfort. I tell her to guard me (bark like crazy to let the guy know we mean business) and when he makes a direct move towards us, I tell her to bite him. Now that's not her only option; it's just what I told her to do in this scenario. She performed exactly has she should've, except when I had to tell her twice to let go. That should've happened on the first command. Otherwise, I'm very proud of how well she did.
In real life (this has actually happened twice to different postal workers, one in Ky and one in Ga), her natural reaction (and what she's been trained to do) is bark and "hold" the guy in place. It's where she basically sits right in front of the potential threat and barks her brains out until I come running and then tell her what to do-- if she should back off or continue guarding. The guy's not allowed to go anywhere and if he tries, she goes with him, never turning her back on him and constantly firing up.
Anyway, this is Mati as a personal protection dog:
