Does your dog spend the evenings growling and protecting their home?

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Mine does and I wondered if it's normal. She wil chill out and spread out on the floor but if she hears a noise outside she is up, growling and pacing until she is happy that everything is ok.

My westie pup is unbelievably protective. I would LOVE to see a burglar attempt to get into this house

She spends her days/nights barking and grumbling at any outside noise she hears, and because we're right on a road, everybody going past sounds like they're too close to her house. There are noisy builders doing work on the house next door at the minute and the poor things a bit of a nervous wreck defending her patch from them. She sits at the gate glaring at them and making a warning rumbling noise if they get too close. She's also marked one as 'the enemy' after he and I had a bit of a spat last Saturday. He got quite aggressive in response to my complaint and puppy didn't like it. So she sits and barks at him constantly whenever he's around. I should probably discourage it but I don't, because he's such a complete tool who deserves the headache

She's perfectly friendly and lovely to everybody and she'll settle right down if say I open the door and she realises the person is friendly, but the noisy builders - not such a fan of!

My Rottie barks like mad when she spots someone coming up the path but is fine when we invite whoever it is in. She's bloody loud though especially when she does it at other dogs when we're in the car

She is also very sweet and a softie. Daft animal...

Squidgy, what does he do when you let someone in?

Mine bounces about full of excitement basically thinking they've come to see him and have a pocket full of sausages. Then he lies down and stares excitedly

Eric tends to growl at his reflection in the front door at least once every evening It's almost as if he needs to check whether the dog on the other side is there and surprisingly enough it is. If he leaves one of his toys in front of the door too he barks before he rescues it from the naughty dog in the door.
He's great at barking if anyone comes to the door but not sure that he'd protect us from intruders as he barks in delight at the prospect of someone else to rub his tummy

Raskova she sits and waits for a few seconds until she can't contain her excitement any more then sniffs all around them. We ask people to ignore her as she will back away scared if they try to stroke her. She soon calms down once she has sniffed. If it's someone we know doesn't like dogs we shut her in another room.

My Rottie pretty much turns into a snoring draft excluder when it's just me up.

Aaaw, why does she get scared?

They do snore like a deranged bear don't they! And the trumps...

Aww rotties are gorgeous.

We had a beardie , lovely dog but not into guarding at all !

We got burgled in the middle of the night ...granted she did come up and nudge me to tell me..I went down to face the burglers and she stayed upstairs !!

I'd love a Rottweiler, they are beautiful dogs.

Ha! She's brave!

I'm not sure what my dog would do tbh. He's stupidly friendly but I did once tell a young boy (friend/neighbours kid earning pocket money) to just walk into my house to plug his lawn mower in. My dog did quite a scary bark at him and the poor boy ran off terrified. I felt terrible.

My cocker spaniel does this. The slightest noise, maybe a car door down the street, and he is up and barking and growling.

It is actually really annoying. He wakes up the baby all the time and no amount of dog school (or even a police dog handler who came to our house) can stop him.

I think I'm going to get one of those citronella collars. (Are they awful?! )

What is a citronella collar? It doesn't sound terrible. Just lemony

When they bark it sprays them so they stop apparently...

I'm sceptical though!!

No mine just sleeps and has the most terrific wind

Yes, our jrt does this. Very very protective. And must make him very tired.

Anything. Cats, foxes, a banging door, a moth, etc.

And gets very excited. I cuddle him with a mantra until he clams down.

It doesn't sound cruel or anything. Could work. If it's an instinct tho, I doubt it'll go away

I've seen an anti bark collar being used once...IMO they are cruel.

The dog was really distressed by being sprayed (bear in mind how sensitive dog's noses are) barked because he was distressed, was sprayed again and so on, within a couple of minutes the dog was in an awful state.

My collie does this and doesn't clock off. There's a German Shepherd next door who does it too, and they set each other off. That is not fun.

He's very vocal in general, yips when frustrated, groans when his tum's stroked, yodels at the cat when he's stalking herding her, grumbles if a stranger tries to stroke him, he's bloody hard work!

Aaaw, tabula that does sound horrible poor thing

Hmm... Maybe not then. I generally wouldn't mind him barking but I have the most awake baby in the world and I work hard for every minute of sleep she gets!

Any other suggestions? When he's really crazy we take him out on his lead to see there's nothing there. He's literally barking crazy all evening!

Raskova she has Ishoos... Partly from being abandoned by her previous owners and whatever else they did to her Takes her a long time to trust anyone.

BoyDog (9 year old dalmatian) does not approve of the lifeguards who pass our back gate going to the pool area. I think it's the yellow tshirts.

If there's a noise outside, he shouts

If there's a close up of a footballer on TV, he shouts (clearly protecting me from evil footballers)

He got ridiculously clingy to me when DH was away a few nights ago. Wouldn't leave my side

GirlDog on the other hand, stands with her tongue hanging out, grinning, and curls up in a ball and goes to sleep with BoyDog looking after her and me.

Aaaw poor squidge dog! Must be horrible for you to see that. At least she has a good owner now