Anyone own one? I am looking to purchase 2 when I return to the states. I want to get purebreeds but they seems to be be a little difficult to find and my google fu is weak today.
If you own one, where did you buy him/her? purebreed? Price (if you dont mind answering). Just trying to get a little better picture of what I am looking at. I have some experience with them, but I am far from being an expert.

I have one but I picked him up as a stray so I can't answer the rest of your questions. He's been a hell of a dog though, aside from the stubbornness.

Eta: I missed your last sentence. They are a very stubborn and aloof breed, and you have to know what you're doing and be willing to put in a lot of time training them. I think you would likely be getting in way over your head if you got 2 at the same time.

Anatolians are very independent flock guardians. While they can be kept as companions, they really shine when kept out with a group of animals to mind. Absent that, they will be protective if the family and homestead. They are aloof, so don't expect them to fall at your feet.

A couple links for you:

A reputable breeder in the state you have as your home state
The national breed club
Anatolian Shepherd Rescue

The rescue even has a pair available together.

They are what I am looking for. I have experience with them, I just needed a little help finding them. Like i said, google fu is weak today and most websites are blocked anyway. I meant to say that I have experience with THEM, just not an expert. Will edit.

I bought a purebreed Anatolian for 300 bucks that was "returned" by the 60 plus year old owner from a breeder I had been talking to for almost 6 months, we had already discussed her next littler and the wife and I had decided that's what we wanted.
She was the worst dog I ever owner in terms of being fucking hard to train. She did her own thing all the time and could give a fuck less about commands or interacting with us. Terrible dog. In discussing with the breeder she was returned because the old man wanted a dog to take with him on road trips etc, and the dog hated cars and hated new places.
   A few months after we bought her the breeder called us and said she got an email that an animal shelter somewhat near to us had a young Anatolian male. I drove to the place that day and found Loup Garou "Lou" for short.He was the only dog in the whole pound not barking, and wagging tail, he sat moping. Turns out the previous owner had bought him and his sister as pups from a breeder and turned them out into a field to guard his sheep. The sister played rough with one and caused it to bleet and bleed a little and the owner shot her and then dumped him at the local pound. The pound woker explained he was being held for some rescue, I knew he was sick and was most likely Parvo, but I had treated it before and told the guy to send him home with me. He refused until I offered a 100 to say the dog had died and tell the rescue that, we accepted I took him home, in the next 48 hours we confirmed he had Parvo, my wife spent the better part of a week holding this 60 pound young dog down and forcefeeding him pedialyte and oregano solution and water.
   He made a full recovery and is one of the best dogs I have ever had, incredibly loving and protective towards my wife and I but a total madman when it comes to strangers until we introduce them to him. He will not let anyone into our house no matter how many times he has met them unless my wife or I am home. Once inside the house he will reverse ass hump you to make you scratch his butt and will do his best to get in your lap. Let you pet him all over and hug him. Come back the next day without us and he will try to rape and kill you.
The female developed bone cancer a year or two after and we had to put her down, only dog I ever put down I don't really miss.

Some advice on owning them

strong fences, six foot privacy works great for us.
Windows, we bolted plexi glass on the inside after he broke a window trying to get at the neighbor.
Correction, strong correction at all times. You have to let them know you are and always will be the boss. He listens when it is convenient and will play dumb and has selective hearing.
food, they are not big eaters and may leave food sitting for a day or more untouched.
Territory, they will kill and sometimes eat anything new that makes the mistake of coming into the yard. Lou has terminated a number of possums, and squirrels, he eats the squirrels, leaves the possums for me to clean up.
They consider anything smaller then them in the house as part of the pack, Lou ignores our housecats completely, one is in love with him and molests him constantly. He has tried to kill one neighbor cat that ventured into the yard and ignored a kitten that climbed the fence into the yard.
long hair, he sheds ALOT and needs a combing every week or three to prevent mats.
If I had kids I would trust him around them. I would not trust him around kids he didn't know and would be concerned if one of those kids touched one of his kids it might turn out ugly.

ANy other questions?

oh duh, this is where we got our female.
http://www.horizonanatolians.com/aboutus.html

This post caught my attention! Our ASD Magnus is now 5 years young. Got him as a pup fom a breeder in Arkansas. Had him flown here even. Magnificent beasts. When he stopped growing he reached his current 150 lbs. So you have to be ready and able to handle a large powerful dog. My training experience with him was a bit of trial and error as I was previously dad to a pair of Rhodesian Ridge Backs, one of the most awesome breeds on the planet and a piece of cake to work with vs an Anatolian. This shephard is all business when young. Highly intelligent, very indepent, stubborn and strong willed. His prey drive out of the box is unreal so small pets such as cats are a no-no IMO. Its said they can be intoduced to living with small pets at a young age with success but I wouldn't trust him. Discipline must be a cojoled affair as oppossed to enforced. You pop him he'll let you know right now to back off. So better the carrot than the stick if you know what I mean. After a whole lot of patience and I mean patience (like three years on as they mature slowly and typically live much longer than most giant breeds at 15 yrs on avg) what you end up with is a fairly loyal dog that mostly obeys and excels in the role of household guardian. As we live in a metro area that final point is a real plus. There is much more to this dog of course therefore I suggest a quick on line search which should confirm my brief rundown and fill in the blanks. My advice? Unless you are up for a serious challenge I'd probably pass on the Anatolian. Get yourself a Rhodie and never look back!

ETA: Vengarr's advice should you get one is spot on!

Our AS was stolen.  No it wasn't stolen from us, we stole it.  Specifically, my daughter's ex-bf stole it from his grandfather's next door neighbor.  

And now for the rest of the story:  The GF's next door neighbor were dog fighting people, the house was empty but not abandoned; they used it to raise and train fighting dogs.  They put Molly outside Feb.-Mar '09 in Hsv, AL, while it was in the 30-40's during the day and 20-30's during the night; no food, no water, no shelter.  They apparently were just too chicken or busy to kill her themselves.  So, my daughter's ex jumped the fence and grabbed her.  My daughter got it, then we got it when my daughter went off to college (Roll Tide!).

This turned out to be a huge mistake, since Molly, unknown to us, was a vicious killer dog.

Here are some pics of her when she was little pup, even then, it should have been obvious to us that she was a VKD, but we didn't want to see it.  In retrospect, it should now obvious to anyone looking at these pics would instantly recognize her for a VKD without any hesitation.  Too bad we refused to see the signs in time....




WARNING: THESE ARE GRAPHIC PICS.  DON'T LOOK IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH!!!






















LAST WARNING: GRAPHIC PICS!


























And here she is a year or so ago.  Even the most oblivious of dog people can take one look now and instantly see she's a VKD:




She's now just over 5 years old, lives on a s. central TN farm and loves it.  She's a great guard dog and is great with children.  She is by far the smartest dog I've ever owned.

I'd get another one in a heartbeat!

Good luck!

I'd highly recommend against getting 2 dogs at one time, especially litter mates.  If you absolutely have to have 2 dogs, stagger their arrival by 6 months or so. If you get 2 at the same time they will forever more compete with each other. They will also be extremely difficult to train because they'll be more focused on each other than on you, even if that is just trying to keep your attention more than the other dog.

We have one. He is a great dog. Our other dog is a GSP. She is the boss over the Anatolian all day everyday.
As for information you have got a ton of it above, but I can not stress enough how hard headed these dogs can be.
If you do not have a very strong, tall fence they will get out and they can go a long ways in a short time.
They are very smart, but are not always good listeners.
Our AS, Pinto is 135 pounds of fun. Good luck. Do your research.

Snapped this pic this afternoon.  Apparently we have a couple neighborhood peakcocks running around here.  Molly watched it for about 5 minutes, then chased up a shagbark hickory.

We brought 2 of them back from Iraq to Germany. The joy of not having to go through customs...bus arrived on the tarmac where we deboarded and took us straight back to base where pups were brought up like a prince and princess. Massive beasts, and were very protective of their owners in uniform.  I have wanted one of my own ever since, but have settled on a 4 dog run now of a lab/rot , a lab, a lab/greyhound, and now a lab/pit/ All rescues, all faithful hiking copanions. The size and protective nature  of the Anatolian would be most welcome to handle the pissed off sows when one of the dogs go after a shoat. That's all I've got.

I have a friend that currently has five and has started breeding them.  Most are huge.  They make great guardians for both livestock and property.  Some of her pups are now being trained as therapy dogs and one is being trained to be a blind kids companion dog.  She was a special ed teacher and now works the blind as some kind of eye DR for the state.  They can be aggressive and can also be gentle giants.  I would love to post a bunch of pics but she is a very very private person and would not be happy if she found I posted any of her stuff on the web

We're picking ours up from http://alaturkay.org/
 






 

Here is "Chopper" our half Anatolian/half Great Pyrenees bundle of joy!

At 8 weeks:



At 9-10 weeks:



11 weeks:



12 weeks:



Here was his paw compared to my wife's hand at about 10 weeks:



So far he's been a VERY good dog.  He's very intelligent and listens very well.  We are extremely happy with him thus far.  We live on about 70 acres and our closest neighbor is almost a half mile away so he has plenty of room to run.

Last week he showed his very first sign of being protective as he got all serious with the UPS guy.

I adopted Frisco from the Carrollton, TX animal shelter in November of 2012.  He was maybe a year old.  Carrollton animal control officer found were called out on a coyote call, he was the "coyote".  He was standing in the Trinity River trying to catch turtles and frogs.  He was starving.  The animal control guys basically called out to him, "Here, boy!", and he came a running.  

Frisco is a weirdo.  It took a while to get training done, and at best I can get him to sit.  If I give him a command in a super stern voice, he'll do what I tell him.  Frisco *HATES* cats.  However when I moved into an apartment, our first week here, he found a kitten, maybe 4 weeks old.  Frisco cried like I had never heard him, and I pulled the kitten out from under a car.  Frisco and that kitten are now best of friends.  They wrestle and play chase, and sometimes Frisco gets a little rough, but he loves that cat.  He bathes it, the cat likes to do the same in return, and they quite often sleep together.  That said, any other cat will be chased off.

That's what Frisco loves to do, chase.  Or be chased.  He is fast!  He chases squirrels, but pulls up from catching them so they can get away to chased another day.  Around other dogs, Frisco is a big talker.  He barks, snarls, growls, raises the fur on his back, but the tail and posture give him up.  He is a pussy.  He has become friends with a couple of pit mixes.  The female pit mix wont put up with his shit, and lets him know it.  Back to the chase thing; Frisco is keen on going up behind a dog, in his "stealth mode", and nipping a tale or hind leg to induce the other dog into chasing him.  

Frisco is a people puppy.  He loves them.  All races, sizes, gender.  If you aren't happy to see him, doesn't matter, he is always happy to see you.  Except at night and/or in my truck.  I don't understand it.  At night he is cautious.  He absolutely hates people on bikes.  When in my truck, he growls at everyone, including people he recognizes.  I guess he's being protective of my truck.  The only thing so far that gets it stopped is when I grab him by the collar and pull his head down so that all he can see is the floor.  He cries like a little kid being scolded because the window is down, but he cant look out it.  He was also distrustful of women for a short while after I adopted him (the wimmenz should never be trusted!).  However our trainer suspected he was mistreated by a female, and after a few months of being around my mom and my girlfriend, his affection for them is quite high now.

Frisco is also a big baby.  He likes to cuddle.  He thinks he is still a little puppy.  As I am typing this, he is laying next to me with both front paws on my right leg.  He is found of jumping up on me while I sit, putting his paws on my shoulders and pulling me towards him as he lays his head on my shoulder.  This dog actually hugs me, and others!  Sometimes after a hug, he climbs up in my lap to be held.  I don't mind at all!  Frisco is still a big fan of wrestling.  He also likes it when I use my hand to nip at his nose.  He likes to bite me when I do it, and I let him because he doesn't get too rough.  Oh, and I cannot forget belly rubs.  Loves them!

When I took him to arfcom member "Planovet" for shots and a check up in December of 2013, he was 95 pounds.  That's up almost 30 pounds since I got him.  Now he is on a diet.  He should be at 90lbs.  I guess technically, since there has been a divergence in the Anatolian breed, Frisco is now considered a Kengal Dog since he is the smaller Anatolian Shepherd.

Another member here (1IV I believe) also adopted an Anatolian at Carrollton, and I wonder if they are brothers.

They are pushy and bull headed. We call ours the white ninja. He can get up on the bed as if he just teported in. U never notice him on the bed until you notice him.


Here he is when we found him at the pound:
He is so food driven - he came from a home where he had two girls- he was evicted because he ruined a birthday by eating the cake. The warning with him was " He is willfull and won't stop stealing the girls food."



All that said: he is a great dog! We just had to make him listen to us. He has things that get his attention. Cat food used as a training reward worked for him.

I had one from a pup. That dog was nuts and not to be trusted. Especially with children. Just a rotten apple.

You're missing the point of what an Anatolian does.. My dog for example sees my wife as his and is very bonded to her. So he's actually a great companion dog. Stubborn as all hell, but one of the best guard dogs out there..

This is Frisco and me at the gym.  He likes to run on the treadmill.



This is Frisco with *HIS* kitten



This is the kitten with Frisco's tail



Frisco after a long day with toys and chasing squirrels

Here's the deal.




















































































































































































































































































 

I adopted a pound puppy that I thought was  a GSD mix.  Once fully grown, it was apparent that he was an Anatolian Shepard.  He was a great dog!  Had the best temperament of any dog that I have ever been around.  Unfortunately, his kidneys failed when he was 7 and we had to put him down.

My neighbor has two of the non-Kangal variety.  They are the biggest F***ing dogs I have ever seen in my life.  They are the size of skinny mules.  The male loves kids but the female bites.  

Did I say they were big?  They can stick their heads into minivan windows without a problem.

Ours is finally home with us. He's a big ole boy and way more handsome than me. I don't think I could have found a better dog if I had been able to custom order one.




 
 

Have many acres, animals and livestock guardian dogs....Great Pyrenees > Anatolian Shepherd.....trust me.