I had a dog with similar characteristics: guardian, willful, intelligent, aggressive. He was a Kangal Dog, from Turkey. For a male of that breed, he was smallish at only 126 lbs (although he ballooned to over 180 when he was on prednisone). He was a poor choice for city life. Too aggressive toward other dogs, too destructive in the house, borderline untrainable. It’s not that he didn’t understand commands–he understood EVERYTHING. But he made his own decisions, and merely took our commands under advisement. We were never scared of him for our own sakes. He would (very) happily fight anyone and anything to protect us, or to assert our collective dominance manifested through him. We were very worried about what he might do to the world at large. Walking him was very difficult.
As a rare breed in the US with very limited genetic diversity available, he was fraught with problems and died at age 5.
Loved that dog so much. I hope we gave him a good life.
