Daniel Cohen, a Jewish school counselor in Los Angeles, was looking to get a dog around the time of the Hamas invasion of Israel in October 2023. He was upset by the attack, and weeks later, was further unnerved when a man broke into a home in his neighborhood while shouting antisemitic slurs.

Cohen began shopping for a trained protection dog online and found a company called Israel Protection K9. The company helped him pick out a 90-pound German shepherd named Zeus, and in December 2023, he brought the dog to Los Angeles.

“He’s a big dog. He’s beautiful. And walking around, nobody’s going to bother me with a big dog like that,” Cohen said.

Israel Protection K9 said it has seen a surge in demand since October 7 as Jews seek out protection due to surging antisemitism, despite the high cost of the military-grade dogs. The interest in the dogs marks one of an array of measures Diaspora Jews have embraced for security in recent years.

The company, based outside Jerusalem, started as a part-time operation in January 2023, selling around five to 10 dogs in its first year. This year the company will place more than 20 dogs with owners, and currently has 45 more in training. The increase comes despite a lag between orders and deliveries, since the dogs take around 18 months to train, said company co-founder Eli Bobroff.

All but two or three clients have been Jews, Bobroff said. Around eight of the dogs that have been sold are in the US, while others are in Europe and Israel.

“We just saw a huge, huge increase, not based on our marketing or anything like that, but just Jews searching ‘Israel protection’ or ‘protection dogs Israel,’ stuff like that, and looking for viable options for security,” Bobroff said.

As demand has increased, so have prices. The dogs initially sold for around $30,000 but now go for between $75,000 and $125,000. Cohen bought Zeus for $25,000, using an inheritance from his father who had recently died. The more expensive dogs have a better genetic pedigree and come with additional training, such as the ability to conduct home perimeter searches. Some wealthy Jews who have recently met with the company include a mall developer in California and a businessman who runs a publicly traded company, Bobroff said. The price aligns with the handful of other companies offering similar services in other countries.

Bobroff, from southern California, was working in health care when he took a break for a gap year in Israel when he was 19. He had never had a dog because his mother was allergic, and it was his first time living alone, so he started looking into getting one. He is drawn to extremes, partaking in activities such as skydiving, which led to an interest in an “intense type” of dog. He couldn’t afford a trained protection dog, so he got a German shepherd to train on his own and started contacting trainers in Israel.

He was referred to trainer Arik Deri, a veteran of........

© The Times of Israel