Although the cane corso has been a relatively unpopular dog breed in North America and Europe, it has started to see a spike in its popularity due to a few Italian security firms showing just how great the breed can be for security and protection work.
As you would probably guess, this has resulted in a spike in the number of questions that we see each month about using the cane corso as a guard dog with the number of questions that we see steadily increasing with each month that goes by.
Due to the sheer volume of questions that we have seen from people about using the cane corso as a guard dog as well as more and more people asking about the breed with each month that goes by, we have decided to publish this article.
Our goal is to go over as many of the commonly asked questions that we see from the community each month in a single place to try and make the ultimate resource about using cane corsos as guard dogs and for protection work.
We have added our table of contents below so our readers are able to quickly and easily skip to any of the specific questions that you want answers to.
As we have bundled a number of common questions that we see about the can corso being used as a guard dog or for protection work into this article, we thought using a table of contents would be the best way to let our users skip to specific sections.
Are Cane Corsos Good For Guard Dogs?
The cane corso breed is an excellent option for use as a guard dog or for any type of protection work. Being a mastiff breed, the cane corso is large, powerful, intimidating, very protective, and surprisingly easy to train due to their high intelligence level.
With females growing as tall as 66cm/45kg and males 70cm/50kg they can be great at guarding your property, livestock, and family.
The intimidating look of the cane corso can easily be enough to scare off any would-be attacker or intruder with the dogs look consistently being ranked as one of the most hellhound like dog breeds in the world.
That said, even though the cane corso does look intimidating and is very protective, they are also extremely loving and caring for their family or pack.
This is why there is such a huge spike in demand for cane corso guard dogs as they are excellent options for protecting your family or your livestock too just like all other mastiff breeds.
Unlike some of the other mastiffs that tend to be more stoic, the cane corso also has a quirky personality and likes to relax and play around when there are no potential threats around making the cane corso a great family dog.
Please note that although cane corsos do tend to be good with children, their large size, heavy weight, and excitable nature can result in your dog accidentally knocking small children over so always be careful.
Is A Cane Corso Good For Protection?
The cane corso is a solid option for protecting your family with some security firms in Italy exclusively using the cane corso as their close protection dog breed of choice.
This has resulted in other dog trainers around the world starting to train cane corsos as protection dogs with trainers usually being surprised at how easy they are to train as well as how loving they can be.
Although there are other very popular breeds for protection jobs such as the German Shepherd or the Belgian Malinois that are excellent choices, the cane corso has two advantages.
The first is that they don’t require as much exercise as the German Shepherd or Belgian Malinois and the second is that they can be much cheaper due to very few militaries or law enforcement agencies around the world using the cane corso as their protection dog of choice.
That said, just like most protection dogs, you really shouldn’t be using them if you are not an assertive, dominant owner.
Although the cane corso has excellent potential, you really do have to assert your dominance over the dog with it usually being a better option for professional security and protection work than being a running buddy for someone who likes to run at night.
Will A Cane Corso Attack An Intruder?
Cane corsos are intelligent enough to read the room and if they detect that something is wrong they quickly switch from passive mode to active mode and protect their property and family.
The breed is also quite adapt at detecting if someone new to the house is an actual intruder or if they are a family friend and mean no harm.
Unlike some other popular guard dog and protection based dog breeds, the cane corso tends not to bark as much unless they are unsure of how to behave and require instruction from their owner or are trying to intimidate a potential threat.
This can work to your advantage as a family guard dog as they tend not to bark at any little thing that they hear helping keep your home a calmer place.
That said though, this can sometimes be a disadvantage for some guard dog work.
For example, some people do usually want a guard dog to bark as much as possible to try and discourage a potential intruder from the property.
Due to the cane corsos rapid reflexes and natural curiosity, they do tend to investigate strange sounds, smells, and sights quickly so they are still likely to let a potential intruder know that they are there even if they don’t bark.
How Do You Train A Cane Corso To Be A Guard Dog?
Training a cane corso to be a guard dog can be easy for an experienced trainer and professional dog trainers should usually be used for this type of dog training.
Although most people are able to train a dog to attack when required, getting the dog to stop its attack is just as important and often totally missed out of the dogs training with amateur dog trainers.
The laws on using dogs for protection and guard work change from county to county never mind state to state or country to country so you should always research your local laws.
Even in some areas that do allow dogs to be used for close protection work, you can find yourself liable for the damage done to the attacker by your guard dog if you were not able to control your dog and get it to end its attack once the threat was neutralized.
We know that professionally trained cane corso protection and guard dogs are considerably more expensive than a regular cane corso puppy but this is for good reason.
Professional dog trainers know what they are doing and are able to quickly train a guard dog or protection dog to end its attack when required as well as respond to different commands to have the dog guard you or bark and act aggressively to discourage an attacker but not actually attack them.
What Age Do Cane Corsos Become Protective?
A cane corso that has not been professionally trained will still start to display its protective and guarding instinct at the nine to twelve months of age mark with the instinct usually being cemented in the dog’s personality by the time it reaches eighteen months.
Taking advantage of this natural protective and guarding instinct can be a great advantage to anyone looking to use a cane corso as their guard dog of choice.
As we mentioned back at the start of the article, the appearance of a cane corso is often enough to discourage any potential attacker or intruder without the dog even barking or acting aggressively.
With the cane corso being intelligent enough to try and work out what’s happening by simply looking at a stranger before becoming aggressive there is a good chance that a potential thread will simply size up the risk and reward of going up an adult cane corso and leave you alone.
Keep in mind though, as we touched on earlier, the cane corso may not be the best option for anyone who is new to controlling a protection dog and will require you to let the dog know that you are in charge.
This is why we always recommend that our readers get any cane corso that they will be using for protection or guard work from a professional dog training company rather than trying to train the dog yourself.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over cane corso guard dogs to an end. We hope that you have found our article helpful and that we have been able to answer all of your questions about using a cane corso as a protection, security or guard dog. They really are an excellent option that a rightfully seeing an increase in their use for this type of job and we only expect the cane corso to becoming even more popular in the future.
