I say this tongue-in-cheek, here but I feel like you're being "breedist”, here.
I have a <1 year old male golden retriever and I was surprised to learn that he has a very strong guard instinct and will not STFU with his loud, deep barking any time he hears a strange noise, or some stranger is walking by.
That said, this is a feature, not a bug. "Early warning system" was in the top two features I was looking for in a dog.
Your dog may behave uncommonly for its breed but dog breeds exist precisely because of common and predictable physical and behavioural traits.
Great Danes are famously couch potatoes but mine could not stay still and demanded a ton of exercise - still it was the exception rather than the rule for that breed.
Have owned four litters of labs and some goldens. They behave the way you train them, with one or two personalities being more "out there" than others. Ours were incredibly loving to new people, but barked at anyone that approached our house, attacked people who entered without us. One golden was so well trained we loaned him out as a therapy dog for people who were scared of dogs. He nearly attacked a mailman running towards us (sorry mailman!). One black lab in particular, Princess, she was a... well, a bitch, and kind of a bully. Animals have personalities too.
The myth of breed behavior is not good. It's the reason so many pitbulls are put down. They are absolute sweethearts until you abuse them and train them to fight.
You're not wrong, but there are definitely breed dispositions to be aware of.
For example, you're going to need to train a Belgian Malinois or Pitbull much differently than a Golden Retriever.
And yeah, dogs have their own personalities (so do practically all other animals), and it confuses me that more people aren't aware of this. The world can be much richer once one realizes this.
Good dog trainers train all breeds the same way. You may need to modify if one dog has a personality quirk, but not for anything breed-specific. It's all about the four quadrants.
A Labrador is more likely to have been trained to be a sociable, a Rottweiler to be aggressive. It’s reasonable to assume the breeds will behave in a particular way because they’ve probably been trained that way. Even when we don’t think we’re training them, our expectations cause them to behave in a certain way.
Can confirm. My 1 year old Golden got extremely protective of my wife when she was pregnant and is now protective of my son to the same degree. Large loud barking, defensive stance until we either greet the person or tell him its ok. Otherwise a normal dopey and chill golden.
