Guides / Using Watchdog
GUIDEUsing Watchdog start to finish.
Everything from pairing your first Expert Advisor to getting a Monday-morning email on how every account performed -- in the order you'll actually do it.
Connect your first account
Watchdog watches your live/demo MT4 or MT5 account by reading trades from an Expert Advisor (EA) that sits on your chart -- it never touches your broker login or trades on your behalf.
- On the Setup page, click Connect Account and download the EA for your platform.
- Attach it to any chart in MT4/MT5 -- the symbol and timeframe of that chart don't matter, it reports the whole account.
- Setup generates a one-time pairing code. Enter it in the EA's inputs and it links to your Watchdog account on its first heartbeat, usually within a few seconds.
- Lost or never got a report? The pairing code is shown again under Settings > Accounts for any account still awaiting its first heartbeat -- no need to disconnect and start over.
Set your limits
Every account needs a daily loss limit and a max drawdown limit before Watchdog can tell you anything useful about how close you are to either one.
- Open the Alerts page and pick the account. If you're trading a funded/prop firm challenge, use the Prop Firm Rules presets to fill in that firm's published limits in one click instead of typing them by hand.
- Otherwise set your own starting balance, daily loss %, and max drawdown % -- these drive every gauge and alert everywhere else in the app.
- Trailing vs. static drawdown is a real difference for prop accounts -- check which one your firm actually enforces before assuming.
Read the dashboard
The Overview page is the one screen worth checking daily: equity curve, today's loss against your daily limit, and current drawdown against your max, per account.
- The drawdown gauge fills up as you approach the limit and flips color at 70% / 90% / breach -- the same three tiers used everywhere else in the app.
- Backtest deviation (if you've uploaded a backtest under Optimizer) shows whether live trading is still tracking your tested edge, or drifting away from it.
Turn on alerts
Two independent notification channels exist, and turning one on doesn't turn on the other -- pick whichever fits how you actually work.
- Browser push (Settings or Alerts page): fires instantly while a tab is open and polling, the moment an account crosses a 70/90/breach tier. Requires granting the browser's notification permission once.
- Email (Settings page, under Notifications): a drawdown-breach email the first time an account breaches its limit, and a Monday-morning weekly performance report across every connected account. Both are off by default -- flip them on under Settings.
That's the whole loop: connect an account, set its limits, and let Watchdog tell you the moment either one is at risk -- instead of finding out from your broker's margin call.
Open Watchdog