Training the Bark and Hold - Page 3

She doesn't bark much at all at home. Star is the barker, and she MORE than makes up for Eska's lack of barking! I have NEVER needed to shush Eska for making too much noise. Star, OTOH...

As I said already, she does bark at the decoy when she's really excited, so there's hope we can train her to bark at him when he's stationary.

I think the way to go is to get her barking by having the decoy tease her, then once she's really excited, see if she will bark while he's standing still, but poised to run. As soon as she makes a noise, she gets rewarded with a bite.

I think one of the reasons she won't bark at me when I'm trying to tease her with the bite bag or a ball is I'm not the decoy. Isn't it considered a BAD IDEA in schutzhund to have the owner act as the decoy? So maybe I should stop trying to do this. It might be better to wait for her to bark spontaneously at a noise, then reinforce it with praise, and a cue word. I'm trying to teach her 'pass auf', which means to be on guard, watch out.

Sunsilver, it's a question of how your dog has been worked to date. I've seen Marko Koskensalo, while attending 2 of his seminars in the Montreal area, add aggression while guarding to dogs who were, up to then, only trained in prey. Most decoys do not know these methods. He just finished his seminars in Quebec and Ontario for this year unless some are planned but not listed. There is in the Montreal area a excellent decoy who has been trained by Marko over the last 3 years. He is capable of evaluating and adding the aggression in guarding through modern methods of frustration/conflict. This method teaches the dog how to use his active aggression to control the helper. The techniques used are very humane and build the dog's confidence as well. If interested send me a PM.

I will tell you a little story about a female German Shepherd that I was training and teaching a Bark and Hold...We worked like crazy to get her to Bark in the Blind...I mean we worked for months on this and she just wouldn't Bark...Then from the advice of another trainer we decided to just let it go and not worry about it...It seems at that point she began Barking like CRAZY in the Blind...

~Bob~

Sunsilver ... dogs do things for a reason and a purpose....... Trying to get the dog to activate the helper is one avenue that many helpers and decoys that are knowledgable will do. When you said that you tried everything.. I took for granted that you had already tried this [ with someone]. Why a helper or decoy would not have done this .. Well , just .. just ?
Worth a try to interact with the dog in that fashion that you wrote about . Hopefully you get the results that you want with your dog and hope doing that  will suffice . 

    However... as I wrote .. the dog always has the answer. Again keep this in mind " dogs do things [behaviors] for a reason and with purposeness " . Give the reason and purpose to the dog , that the dog needs , not what you think it needs , but what it tell you it needs.. .. then you will have your bark .

   Again .. I stopped thinking like a human and in methods or techniques and started thinking as a dog thinks.... that is what brings the answer to the right queston asked. This is a general comment... but don't dismiss , the many reasons why your dog would bark and use that reason[s] to your advantage in communicating what you want the dog to do .  ... Just a note for something to think about ...if what youn try does not bring about the barking. 

    BTW , yes some GS as pointed out in previous post are not the typical barking type. But , in my experience with a multitude that I cannot number , of GS , I have never seen a GS that never ever barked.   So tyry not to fret.. there is some answer for you . 

I taught my dog to bark same command used to search, when she barked she got her favorite toy (a stick), then transfered to a tug toy, then a pillow, then a sleeve.
She easily transfered from barking at me to barking at a motionless helper. The more she barked, the sooner she got the sleeve. Then we gradually increased the number of barks for the sleeve. When she was barking nicely, we worked on the pitch. At first the bark was higher pitched than I liked, if she barked in a deep pitch, she was given the sleeve immediately. 
She was not worked in the blind until she was barking nicely at the helper. Helper started by moving, then reduced the movement, then stood still. Once he stood still and she barked at him, usually was just after the first bite, we increased the requirement that he stood still and the dog barking to earn the sleeve. When she understood this, we moved the helper into the blind. 
The process took about 2 months one month was just with me. She's barking nicely now. 
What I enjoy about this dog is that she comes to the field calm, I can put her in a down stay and discuss what the session will be. Then with the search word she lights up and is ready to work (no wasted energy used in usless barking).

 

Nice story shared and the teaching was nicely done -- you are patient !! ...
that better describes what I had previously written ,: many times a lesson is best taught outside the formal training or training field and then transferring that later later to the field. Again super story - a story worthy of many lessons. ..... PS .. i frequently see people with no patience. In order to teach a child or a dog .. I always remember to be patient.

Thanks Centurian!

Training is all about breaking down a complex behavior into something a dog can understand, and keeping emotions in check. Sometimes it takes a bunch of trial and error. I've found that if the dog understands, it usually does what is wanted. 

Training for retreives was just as complicated with this dog. I put too much pressure on the dumbbell and she developed an oversion to it. 

She would retreive a ball, a tug, a stick, anything but a dumbbell. Talk about furstrating! 

Click, food treat just to look at dumbbell, then to touch it, then to put mouth on it, then to pick it up, then to bring it to me, then to run a short distance to pick it up and bring it to me, each phase had a different command placed on it. (hold, get, fetch, out, wait) Finally I could put a command to the whole complex behavior. All the other commands I use to reinforce and help to guide the complex "bring" command.

Now she will retreive on flat, over meter jump and full height scaling wall. 

My training toolbox has become larger and more diverse with this dog, and I'm glad for it.

 

I had the same thing happen with Star. I was TOLD to force her to take the dumbbell in her mouth.

She retrieves a ball just fine, will wait for the command to 'bring', and a good percentage of the time will hold it until I tell her to give it to me.

But a dumb bell - are you kidding?

Fortunately, she's 10 now, so retired from schutzhund, so I don't need to trainer her to do it. And she does a GREAT bark and hold for the ball or for a bite bag...I used that to try to get Eska to do it, but wasn't successful.

Sita ... you are right .. but let me add : also what is as important to understanding  is OUR understanding ... of the dog i mean. Years ago , I heard and still to this day people say read the dog. Many helpers do not truly know how and what they think they are reading about ther dog is not fully the case.
So , if you will I will share some ideas with you because you both Sita and sun always have been curteous , repsectful and gracious .
The dumbell : first with my puppies at 10 weeks old I get them used to having all kinds of textures , materials in their mouth . I didn't say get them used to chewing items , I said getting them to feel difference in materials in their mouth.
Also , the problem that i see many times is that the dog has no motivation for the dumbell. Different dogs like different things. We see this with the toys that they need. As puppies , I say : what is it that can do to create the deire and need of the puppy that will transfer to the dumbell later. So this is what I mean about our understanding: Once I see a 10 week , 12 week puppy chase the flirt pole.... and it chases ... then that opens the door and the dog just told me what to do as an amswer to my question . I simply tie a baby schutzhund dumbell to the flirt pole or my leash and.. you know already what I do- I have the puppy get stimulated by that dumbell and have it chase it to kingdom come ! Not only does the puppy increase it's desire .. what I am also doing is creating the picture in the dog's head of going after the dumbell with SPEED ! For the readers: many times ad nauseum I write that I don't grain in methods or techniques .. I rely on my understanding of the dog ... that determines what I do or don't , how I do and don't do... not a foolish memorized technique. I always talk to my dogs and in like I listen to what they tell me .
So Sita .. and Sunsilver... hope this gives you a little to think about .....

Centurian, yes you are right. With experience one can learn to read and understand a dog, and later other dogs.

I'll keep this in mind, I have a 7 week litter on the ground right now. I've learned much in the past few years, and plan to keep one of the puppies. I will make sure to introduce a dumbbell to the flirt pole thing at a very early age.

Do you use a full size dumbbell or a smaller one?

Reading a dog is definitely the most important and typically the most difficult thing to learn.

Once this dog finally learned the bring command, I played fetch with the dumbbell with her uncle. This brought speed into her behavior, she is very competitive with him, this transferred to the trial field.

Lately I've been working on delayed gratification. She will do snappy focus heeling with turns, downs, sits for about 5 minutes before I release her to get it her stick which was placed at the edge of our practice field. I love not having to have food or toys for luring. She's a fun dog.

Having a toolbox full of many different techniques to train a behavior is wonderful. It reinforces that every dog is different and that we need to study each dog and be creative in training. With every dog the toolbox seems to become even larger...lol