Founder's Story
In an Unsafe World: Michael Hussain and the Future of Protection Dogs | S2 Ep. 177
Tue, 25 Feb 2025
Michael Hussain shares his transformative journey from a disappointing first experience with a protection dog to becoming a trailblazer in elite dog training. Drawing parallels to entrepreneurial resilience and leadership, Michael explains how his relentless pursuit of excellence led him to develop a groundbreaking training program. His story is a compelling mix of innovation, hard work, and passion—plus his impact on safety in what can feel like an unsafe world.Key Discussion Points:The Catalyst:Michael recounts the eye-opening experience with a misaligned protection dog that changed his perspective.The moment that sparked his commitment to mastering protection dog training.Philosophy & Vision:How Michael blends rigorous research with practical training methods to create dogs that are both safe and effective.The vision to provide real protection without sacrificing the social and loving nature of the dog.Elite Breed Selection:Insight into why Belgian Malinois and Dutch Shepherds are the breeds of choice for high-performance protection.The role of genetics, health, and early training in shaping a dog’s abilities.Personalized Client Experience:Michael’s hands-on approach to matching the right dog with the right client.The importance of mutual commitment for developing an unbreakable bond between owner and dog.Operational Excellence:A behind-the-scenes look at the comprehensive training process—from diet and genetics to ongoing support and client education.Michael’s commitment to maintaining the highest standards by personally overseeing every detail.Additional Resources & Takeaways:https://www.alpinhausshepherds.com/Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://www.avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Indeed: https://indeed.com/FOUNDERSSTORY* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.com* Check out Northwest Registered Agent and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: https://northwestregisteredagent.com* Check out Plus500: https://plus500.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: https://www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Chapter 1: Who is Michael Hussain and what is his journey in protection dog training?
Hey everyone, welcome back to Founders Story. Today we have Suede Michael Hussain. And Suede, you are the founder and trainer at Alpenhaus Shepherds. We had a really interesting conversation almost a year ago now, maybe six months ago, about what you're working on. And I'm super excited to learn more about that.
what's happening in Europe, in the U.S., and other places, and just more about Shepherds. I think I shared a story when I was a kid. I always wanted a Shepherd, and it did not get along with our cat, and I had to choose the cat. Looking back, I think it might have been a mistake. But Swede, I'd love to understand, how did you get into founding this company and why?
Yeah, I mean, it's a long story, and I'll do my best to abbreviate it and just, you know, pick out the highlights. But basically, I got a protection dog, my first protection dog, my first trained dog, about six years ago. And it was something that I've been looking into for...
Chapter 2: What was the catalyst for Michael's commitment to training protection dogs?
a while almost a decade just toying with the idea playing with the idea lining up sort of my understanding of protection dogs as you know with a reality that I would ultimately be in where I could actually have one be able to care for it be able to you know have a dog with me in the way that I wanted to have a dog with me at all times in my life as part of a lifestyle so it took a long time
And I went through a long period of research, in-depth research, trying to figure out the right dog to get and what's involved. And it was... Completely confusing. I mean, I've got a background in management consulting, and we do a lot of due diligence in that field. And doing due diligence in protection dogs is basically impossible, I found.
And so ultimately, I selected a dog, you know, using the techniques and methodologies that I knew how to make decisions. based upon the research that I did. And it was a beautiful dog, a phenomenal dog I fell in love with. And I'm very happy to have selected him. O'Connor, Baumhaus Trendy, Germany, German origin, trained in Germany to the highest level in IGP. And just exactly the dog I wanted.
And what I ultimately came to understand after I purchased him, despite all the assurances from the person that I bought him from, and despite the decades of experience that the person had working with these dogs, and the degree from one of the best schools on the planet that this individual had, this dog, O'Connor, would have not actually protected me in real life.
He was sold to me as a protection dog. He was sold to me as having tracking capabilities, obedience capabilities. And yeah, he had certificates and all that stuff. But in reality, in the real world, none of those capabilities would have been able to come into play. I'm not even the obedience. So it was an eye-opening experience for me.
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Chapter 3: How did Michael Hussain develop his philosophy on protection dog training?
And it led me down a path of researching how to train him myself in all these different disciplines. And one thing led to another, led to another, led to another. And I fell in love with dog training.
I fell in love with protection training and I decided to embark on it on my own because I could see that the entire space of protection dog training, once I began to understand what was actually involved with both the space and the actual training of real protection dogs that are lovable, loving, social, stable, and safe in the real world, There was a huge dichotomy between those two things.
What it actually took to make those dogs and what was actually being offered and created and purchased by people in the marketplace looking for a protection dog were two entirely different things. And I wanted to create real protection dogs for real clients. And that vision is what consumed me and what ended up dictating the past five years of my life as I embarked on that path.
And that was the sort of foundational vision. spirit and, um, set of moments that unfolded for Alpenhaus shepherds to be born.
I think, uh, protection, safety, security are really on a lot of people's minds. Now, you know, I've been watching how, uh, you know, basketball players in the U S their homes have been robbed at, uh, I have friends recently, their homes, uh, were broken into and robbed. Luckily, they were not there. But supposedly, there's a group of people doing this at different places.
They're tracking people's social media. So when I think of safety and protection, I'm really curious as to what even is a safety or protection dog and why a shepherd?
So really good questions, you know, and most of the best questions that emerge when you're talking about or thinking about protection dogs are just the simplest of all questions. So what is a protection dog? What should it be?
Everyone has in mind this, what I call the dream of a protection dog, where it's safe, it's stable, it'll play with your children, it's safe around your parents, it's safe when your friends come over.
It's a perfectly social dog, but if you need the dog to, if you snap your fingers, issue a command, it will immediately go into protection mode and fight very aggressively to defend you, to defend your wife, to defend your children, to defend your parents. to defend your property. And then you can immediately snap your fingers as well and turn the dog off.
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Chapter 4: Why are Belgian Malinois and Dutch Shepherds ideal for protection?
We've heard stories about dogs having to be kept on a leash inside the house. And people come away thinking that, oh, you know, I thought a protection dog was this way. But in reality, it's this way. And I guess that's how protection dogs are. They just are overprotective. They're naturally aggressive because that's a protection dog.
So that is, you know, the reality, which is very different from the conception that most people have when they look into this. At Alpenhaus, we can create that concept.
dream that people have where they are safe, where they're stable, where they're social, but they will also be turned on and able to protect upon command and then subsequently turned off and able to go back and being a normal dog and play with your children and then be turned on again immediately whenever you desire.
And, you know, we have these capabilities shown very clearly on the videos that we put out on our YouTube channel. So this isn't just me talking and telling you what we do. We actually prove it and demonstrate it in the media that we publish about our dogs and about our program. So that's the answer to the first question. And shepherds. Why shepherds? Well, a couple of reasons.
Number one, I love shepherds. So I like working with dogs that I know and dogs that I love. Number two, shepherds are the highest performance dogs in the world. Belgian Malinois, Dutch Shepherds, and working line German Shepherds. We focus on Dutch Shepherds and Belgian Malinois because they are the highest performance dogs. We do the highest performance training in the world at Alpenhaus.
So we want to use the most athletic, the smartest, the quickest. Quickness is very important. The speed is very important. So they're very fast dogs. If you ever, God forbid, have to really deploy a protection dog in your defense or in the defense of your family, you want that dog to be deployed in a way where it can engage in a fight and win that fight.
And the faster it is, the stronger it is, the quicker it is to intercept an arm with a weapon, to run at someone and take them out if they're about to pull a gun. Those things matter. And Dobermans, Rottweilers, all the other breeds that people look at for protection dogs simply don't have those characteristics. They're going to be slower. They're going to be slower thinking.
And that can mean the difference between a fight that's won and a fight that's lost. And, you know, God forbid one of our dogs is ever used in real life, but we prepare our dogs to be used in real life. We think about them being used in real life. And so we want them to be able to be used in real life and be used in a way that they're going to win and win decisively.
So having the experience you do, being the expert trainer that you are, I think it's always a question on people's minds as to how does one get started training a dog? So do people bring the dog to you with already some existing training? Should they do some training beforehand? Or do you start to finish? Do you do all the training? And if they should bring a dog with some training,
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Chapter 5: What is the training process at Alpenhaus Shepherds?
We get this a lot. We only work with our own dogs. We only work with dogs from lines, genetics that we know. There's very good reasons for this. We want to get the healthiest dogs. Belgian Malinois, Dutch Shepherds are the healthiest dogs on the planet. They're going to last the longest. They're going to have the longest service life. They don't really have hip problems.
They don't have elbow problems. And we at Oppenhaus want to be able to look through the pedigrees of these dogs. We understand the parents, the grandparents, the great-grandparents. We know what they did. We know what sports or, you know, utilities they were used in, whether it's the police, whether it's the military. We understand these genetics. And so we work with our own dogs.
We get them for the most part when they're puppies, eight weeks old. maybe a couple months old, but normally it's eight weeks old. And we develop them over the course of their lives. And the reason we want to do that is because we shape the way that they see the world. We shape their understandings. They go out into the world and they have a very specific set of understandings.
And we also, in addition to shaping their obedience, in addition to shaping their protection, we also shape their socialization. So we train them and teach them how to be social. And this is a very complicated and nuanced thing to be able to shape and mold a dog in any one of these things, but in all three of these things simultaneously. So, I mean...
there's no one else that does it like we do it. So that's how complicated it is. So for clients to bring us a dog that they have, it's not something that we generally do or would want to do because it's too complicated. We don't know what's happened to the dog. We don't know the dog inside and out like we do with our own dogs.
And therefore, I can't give the assurances to the clients of what they're going to get. I can tell them probabilities, but I can't give them assurances. With our dogs that we develop and we train, I know them perfectly. better than the back of my hand. I know them better than the clients know themselves.
So I can pair a dog with a client to the degree that I think is appropriate for really an elite level bond, which is what we're trying to do.
Sounds like a very personalized experience. It's really about matching and right fit versus like, I have a dog, I bring it to a trainer, they train the dog. Because of how complex a situation the dog could be in, that you want to ensure that the dog is really at up to speed, at par, to be able to possibly have to do something in the real world. I mean, I didn't even know this was like a thing.
I think it's amazing. Just because how close people are, a bond with humans and dogs, and how they can even protect you on top of helping you with anxiety, being there as your best friend. I didn't even realize what they could be used for on top of all that. So when somebody comes to you, how do you make sure that they are a right fit to have a dog?
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