Bitework Question: How should trainer progress. - Page 7

Mithua: "I deliberately never did any obedience because I did not want to dilute any thing she had naturally by continuous restraint."

 This makes my point to my (former) post. 

 Except that obedience is not constant restrain; this is not necessarily bad concept. But you need to  establish leadership position somehow. Sooner is easier then later . The +/- obedience is not the only way to do it. However if you can not do it any other way, then you MUST use obedience. Diogs are pack oriented animals and that\y have to have a leader or they turn into one. And that is your case. You MUST establish leadership position. Best it is to do it in young pup because that then leads to permanent default of dogs understanding they you are the leader you are in charge for rest of it's life. 

Protection . If you want the protection to be fully developed you then teach the dog during the training   that when you give the dog attack command then the dog is 100% in charge until you stop it by other comand. This is complex issue hard to explain in this venue. But it is possible and really necessary if you want to develop the  dog's protection to his top level. 

 Since you did not established leadership position you have developed the protection to the high level, but now you have problem because the dog is not respecting you as a leader and is overly protective of itself and you.  That is a predicable result of such training. 

Guess we have to wait for the video...

The problem most often is the owner, not necessarily the dog - I am more than curious, because I followed Mithuna´s posts over the months ( 1 1/2 years ? ).

Hopefully we will see

@ Prager:
How do you distinguish insecurity from overly protective ? What do you look for ?

The most obvious "problem" I see is with rank... the drive that is, and from the history, is that Mithuna...("he and not a she, yes?") allows the dog to sleep on the bed with them.

So-o-o-o, not good, when trying to achieve everything else, desired.

Wife found her cute from day and insisted that she sleep with us, which she does up to this day.

It is sending wrong messages to your dog, especially with the goals you have in mind. I think since you have a wife, that means you are male, but these days, my kids remind me how old fashioned I really am.

Bee
What are the wrong messages?

Yes I am male.

Personally I cannot recognize any casual link between her sleeping in the bed and any other thing she does.

It isn't obvious to you as a singular dog owner. I did not understand the rank drive/dynamic much myself, until I had the second dog. Then I could see the dynamics of pack and rank in action between and because of the interaction of my dogs.

When humans are what makes the pack with a singular dog, it is easy for you, the human to screw up the rank dynamic. The bed sleeping arrangement is one of the most common mistakes.

Insecurity causes many things in a dog over protection or even aggression to the owner is only one of such things. The dog while insecure learned somehow that aggression will make the source of his insecurity go away. The insecurity is in my experience caused ( besides other things) by lack of leadership especially in young age. The young dog is not equipped to be a leader yet the pack in his inherited perception needs leader and thus the pup or young dog has no choice than to assume such leadership position for which he is not mature enough. That then leads to insecurity caused by to the pup overwhelming task of leader. Insecurity is for example caused by stranger entering into his sphere or territory which then trips his territoriality drive which however should be a task of a leader . Now who is leader - the pup is. The pup turns aggressive at the source of his insecurity (the person who came too close) the the source then promptly leaves. that reinforces the dog's action and he does more and more of it until the owner starts to worry every time someone approaches him when he is with his dog. dog senses the trepidation of his owner for whom he feel responsible and again turns aggressive now on behalf of the pack member - you- whom he feels he needs to protect.

This needs to be reversed by the owner be establishing leadership position which may be exceedingly difficult in dog if this age and be - forgive me to be direst- whose psychological makeup (which is usually the cause) allowed this in the first place. In your case it may have been caused but incorrect trainer's advice not to do any obedience in order to keep the dogs drives uncurbed. In any case you must establish leadership position over the dog which means reversing status quo which is not easy. For example new handler would have easier time to do that since he would be starting fresh. I am not advising you to get rid of the dog - far from it. I am just saying it because I want you to understand what is going on.
There is a way to fix this but it requires total understanding of the solution of the problem and total commitment. On the owner's part.

The bed message beetree is talking about is that in nature in a pack the leader usually sleeps in the center of the pack where the dogs of lesser rank sleep at the edges of the pack. The lesser the dog - farther from the center he is. That is why one of the steps of the establishment of the leadership position it would be advisable for the dog to sleep next to the bed or even out of the bed room. That alone will not solve the problem but it would be the first step of many.
prager hans