This might be a dumb question, but is he a german shepard?
I have a friend that had one from a puppy too. The dog was very protective and would only listen to him. As nice as that sounds, he was too protective. The dog would not listen to his wife at all and that caused problems when only she was around with the dog. The dog was so protective of his yard, when a young child crossed in to their yard the dog attacked him. The child was left with just scratchs but my friend was scared of what might happen next... so he took him out back with his S&W & ended the problem.
