Bitework for the newbie - Page 4

Valk ..... I am so confused about what people contemplate ...... Valk , I think maybe [ not ] that we both have had the wrong idea . I must be mistaken to think that our GSs were our partner and that rank status between us and the dog was, including the dog's attitude us is one thing ... and the relationship and attitude of the dog towards strangers , towards even ther people, was a totally different thing / attitude ....

A dogs gnetics van never be changed.. I think the majority of people understand thias to be true . But as I have written , the character of the dog can be.... For example , you can take a dog with a given temperament, and change that dog with experience /environemtal input. If you have the given genetics , you can take a dog that has been sport trained and unknowingly , as I wrote unknowingly change the outllook of that dog , how that dog precieves the world to become more aggressive. If certain given genetics are present in the dog , you can effect and affect the expression of theose genetics.

Specifically of the Op's sake. If you have a dog that is medium in aggression by it's behavior and temperament, a very stable sound , healthy high stress level , medium in hardness [ meaning the dog reasonably endures pysical pain ] , moderately social ... you an increse the aggression in that dog , the expression that aggression in the dog from point a to point  , by simply increasing the dog's suspicion level !! Experience and environmet has an effect and an affect on the dog. This is not to be confused with ' making the dog what it is not' .

10 years ago I had a friend with a well bred WL GS . I saw this dog at 10 , 1w2 , 20 weeks as a pup. A pup that you could do just about anything with . At 7 months old he started to do Sch . The owner had many canines in the past and did Ring Sports in the past to . One day he was working the dog with a helper for an entry and a bite . While holding the dog stradling over the rear , he was pumping up the dog at the same time whispering with his voice to the dog saying : " watch him , watch him , watch him " . I told him to stop that whispering. I said to him ' just say in a normal voice "fass". He told me to shut up . So because of the disrespect, I shut up , and walked away . Fast forward : 1 year later , I saw this dog and it was so insecure that it had the evil eye twards strangers. This dog was taught to bite .. well... I just told you what this dog felt like doing. A perfectly sound dog mentally as a pup now had such a high suspicion level that he did not look kindly upon strangers . Why ... because as a pup during that bite seesion that is what he was teaching that pup . He was putting the  repsonsibility onto that dog to take care of , in a manner of speaking , the helper  time after timer after , month after month . What made the dog not just suspicious but also insecure .? Would you tell your 7 year old son to go fight a guy in front of you ? Is that not to much emotionally , physically , maturity wise to much for a young boy ? Yes it is. A father asking a son to fight his battles. And.... how is that any different than a pup confronted with a helper agitating ? You wonder why this pup expressed aggression a year later ?? Righhhhtttt , this was just sport .. and .. Sport dogs do not have aggressive problems..    Moral : In anything you do in life , be careful what you do with a dog that influences his attitude /perception of and toward other people !!

The genetics was the same but how the dog is affected and effected by environment can have a dramatic impact on the dog ... As I wrote initially .. what was affected within this pup, in this pup's head : his outlook and is attitude towards people . OP , or anyone reading this , If you have an attitude situation with your dog , a rank order [ whose the boss ] situation with your dog. What you should be and need be addressing is that - restructuring you rank .!! How your dog relates to other people is a function of his genetics and how and what is taught or not taught to the dog by you in part .

I did not read all he former posts but I will say with emhpasis that Valk is correct in pointing out the relationship between a dog /owner is an entirely different issue. They may be correlated but they are entirely different issues !!

Valk - I did not, at any point, advocate using bitework to 'overcome dog's challenge against handler'. Please read my posts carefully again. I advocate for control work in obedience, especially if one is going to do bitework.

Correct me if I'm wrong but sounds like OP is interested in doing sport with this dog, not personal protection. Makes things a lot simpler if that is the case. In IPO all the protection routine is is basically obedience, you tell the dog exactly when to bite, when to release, when to chase, when to bark. After the dog is taught the routine there is no real decision making on the dog's part, the routine does not change and the dog just has to obey. I'd think it'd take one pretty unstable dog to confuse the sport field with real life.

Astrovan ,,, good point that you make . Yes , one could see how IPO becomes a routine to the dog ...... I often write : " it Depends " . In some cases .... and this is where the very prudent posters suggested to work with someone that is experienced , in a manner of speaking because most helpers think they are expereinced [ another topic ] because in sport , although not intended for the dog to protect for real can have a real life approach . Just depends . A few years back IPO was geared such that the dogs became sleeve orientated . Meaning that the intention , purpose , the mental picuture in the dog's head , it's predictable outcomes , were based on the notion that the dog was orientated to the bite sleeve. Many people had the notion that IPO was in character predatory and the dog was not pressured to bite in the state of mind of being in a situation to defend itself. That was Sport , a game of sorts . Then , the judges , maybe because many people were switching to other protection sports , who knows all their reasoning , desired to and preferred to see the dog target the man** instead of the sleeve. That is to say their thoughts now were focused and geared onto the man himself . Now this becomes a grey area !! Not all dogs that do IPO are cream puffs . So if not taught within certain parameters some of these dogs ,,,, they really want a piece of that helper and if they had the chance would literally hurt that helper/man . That greatly depends .. depends on how and what that dog was taught,,, So Astrovan , yes , but then again oting is absolute in the dog world. A very very stable dog , taught to target , focus on the man for the bite , can be one that is a very very stable dog.

I once trained a dog in Sch ... and I had a friend that taught at West Point Academy and I was helping him train his malinois. So he wanted to get into the mix of decoying/ helper working my GS a WGSL male. I educated him as to what features should be seen with and about a dog on the bite[ another topic] . He thought it was so easy to sleeve the dog. I told him exactly what to do and how to sleeve. Then he worked my dog and got a little cocky. He riled up the dog so much , instead of interacting woith the dog ,he mocked the dog and the dog knew he was mocking him and ridiculing him . So he kept purposely making the dogmiss the bite at the last split second instead of doing a proper presentation as I had instructed him . He taunted my dog immensely . Well , my dog got so piised off that when he attempted to take the bite away from him again at the last moment my dog swent dwon to bite his leg . Good thing I had leash cinrol or else he would have gotten bitten . My dog had always in the years bit the sleeve , he never ever had bitten a leg. What my friend was doing was putting a different picture in the dog's head and was creating different thoughts and emotions within the dog .. So now the dog got serious with him and he meant business .
So Astrovan , for some dogs , that are very very stable, they don't have to be confused to go from a protection as game to something that is serious ! Just Depoends .... on the how , why ,when and where of teaching and the individual dog . Something to contemplate ...

Koots, you make me feel like i intentionally did try to offend you :)
i'm not. i only pointed out that fact, that OP did mentioned in initial post. not about right or wrong of your thoughts.
dog, threw a challenge to handler, very common thing but challenge come in many forms of expression. i don't think
in this case dog put his teeth in work. likely started to ignore handler, when cooperation was expected.
in such circumstances not needed brutal force. get dog into action on something of interest for dog but absolutely
dependent on handler decision and willingness to provide. let's say nose work would be good start. there are no dog,
who won't be willing to find something tasty. that could provide in one shot:
activity for dog
need of handler's involvement thus bond with and willingness to cooperate
familiarization with command on search
good start for following training of tracking/detection and in future practical application.

astrovan
sport, which involves bite work, is a protection sport.
it could be 100% fake but still, to get your dog to do this, you first need to get dog into psychological readiness to use his teeth.
it could be based on dog's playfulness and build up on playing bite game or rising dog's frustration by disturbing agitation with
following discharge into bite.
today main goal of both of these approaches is to embed into dog confidence that bite a "person" is right thing to do.
if there are problem over leadership, who can assure that after few session the dog wouldn't arrive at a decision to solve this issue
through attack on handler?
dog must complete B discipline, before moving to C

My intent was not to knock IPO, love the sport and am fully aware that the dog has a tremendous amount of decision making and thinking to do during the learning phase, especially protection

Just trying to reiterate to the op that if done correctly IPO sport training should be black and white to the dog

The OP put up the pedigree of his dog up and it looks like he comes from German show lines whose parents were probable bred in the U.S. or Canada. Training is very unlikely to change this dog's character and I wouldn't put the time in such a dog if the OP wants to learn IGP. Modern German show lines are very disappointing in drive and aggression and the experience will not likely be enjoyable for the OP.