Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Faithful dog died, what breed next......?

Our faithful dog, a male chow/lab/border collie mix has passed. Pound puppy we lucked out on. He was getting up there in years plus had a heart condition which finally got him. Thinking what next dog to get after a suitable mourning period.

What did we like with this dog? Gentle, cared about the boss, faithful, easy around the kids/grandkids. But impressively fierce with strangers and very protective of our clan. He glommed on to one of our 24CF members here in GA, within seconds of his arrival though!

The one drawback? He shed a LOT of hair. Hair everywhere you'd vacuum it all up and 10 minutes later it was just as bad as before.

Anyway, don't want to sit on this too long, especially given today's climate. Plus wife and I are soon to be empty nesters, so the nighttime awareness factor is increasingly important..

What breeds should we be looking at? Key attributes will be: security, protective, obedience (with training) warm personality with the fam, and not a lot of hair shedding.

Your thoughts?

Love my labs. But not a aggressive breed, and mine shed a good bit. That said we will be in puppy mode soon, and labs are pretty popular for a bunch of reasons

I am looking hard at a mutt. The cross GSD/Belgian Malinois I saw recently has me interested. Short hair, extremely protective/territorial but not overly aggressive, and very obedient. Perfect for my purposes.

As far as warm with family, if the GSD attributes in that area predominate, you are good to go. Not sure if Malinois personality predominates, but good socialization as a pup should do the trick, I would think.

Awful lot of choices there.

What's wrong, if you were happy with a mixed breed before, with going and rescuing another that might suit your purposes. Or ask around your area to see if anyone's had an "intruder" get in and knock up Fluffy?

Sorry to hear about your loss, always a tough deal.

Good luck finding a suitable new partner.

I've had registered Beagles, Blue Ticks, Plotts, German Shepherds and Rottweilers but my best buddies have all been mutts.

I have transitioned to small lap dogs, myself. There are many breeds and intentional cross breeds that are fantastic and don’t shed. Many. An even serve as great “alarm/alert dogs”, mine do, but as far as “protection” or security one could punt them swiftly into next week. But I need the alarm, not the defense. You might want to consider a Standard Poodle, and no I’m not being facetious. They got size, a lot of smarts, sporting, great natured, very loyal, and they don’t shed a hair. As far as trainable, they’re wicked smahhht. I would imagine close to par with the smartest of all breeds. Look for a big one if that’s your thing.

PS - you don’t have to give them those stupid haircuts that give them a bad name. Lol. But they do need to get shaved down periodically. That’s the trade off for no shedding.

Lab. Black.

I love Labs and Border Collies. My neighbor has a St. Bernard that is a cool dog. All of these wouldn't meet your shedding criteria, however. I've had pretty good luck with mutts as well. You usually get out of a dog about what you put into it.

I'm a fan of mutts. Maybe find somebody online trying to unload some mixed pups that own both parents. You at least have some idea what you are getting and you won't be paying for a purebred. Go with something shorthaired.

Labs hands down. Loyal, loving, smart, and full of personality. We have 2, they are bothers and they are great dogs. They are field proven couch dogs.

Yellow Labrador,..field bred. Call Holzinger's and tell them what traits you want.

https://www.holzingerkennels.com/puppies.html

we have a chow/lab mix. When we first got him there were days when the chow would override the lab, but as he has got older he has turned into a great dog.

I used to complain about how much he shed, until we got this Shiba Inu mix. We have to vacuum every day because of that dog.

If I could just get chow/lab mixes from now on, I'd be good with that. Matter of fact we got the Shiba Inu mix because they guy selling them said it was chow/lab mix.

Rottweiler, male, alligator headed German breed.

Mini-Lab, AKA German Shorthair. Great with kids, goofy as hell for a personality. Great watch dog, loyal as hell. I've taken mine to a local dog club that has training classes, roughly follows the AKC Rally format. Very high energy. I run mine mine about five miles a day at a 9mph average, or else...

Vizsla

PM Birdwatcher, he just had some pups.

I'll never have anything but German Shorthairs but they do shed. If I didn't want to hunt birds and the dog hair was an issue I would take a good long look at an Airedale.

We have a BMC that pretty much fits the bill. His pillow and my truck back sea show signs of shedding but the rest of the house is good. That said the decor is close to his hair color so...

He's been a good dog but really needed a firm hand in his puppy to 3 yr old stage. Very protective especially of wife and kids. I've seen him stand between my wife and a bear in the yard and a stranger walking down the right of way road. Pretty cool to see.

Interesting. Never heard of them, but just looked them up. Thanks Dan!

Belgian Malinois.
Or
Rhodesian Ridgeback.

Smart protective short hair breeds.
Easy to groom.
Apex dogs......