Defense training on fearful dogs - Page 3

Hundmutter, I'll respond hopefully a little later today. I literally had not looked at this page in a while. I trust you understand a busy life. I'll also try to read some of the responses on here when I get time later today. For those who are continually commenting, if you would like to see the actual video, send me a private message and I will send you the link by private message.

Yogi First of all , this was not a police dog.
however : This depends on how you look at and define 'obedience'. I once had a GS that I was doing Agility in my training program . He had jumped over obstacles at home and other places. So at our training we went through an agility obstacle course. He navigated many of the obstacles but when told to jump over a barrel or a hurdle , which he had done in the past he did not. He absolutely refused. So , I backed off. I never saw him limp or favor that leg . So I had a Vet riend of mine take a look at him when I had a vet exam with one of my other GS. He turned to me after exam and said .. I am not sure but I think he might have an ACL tear. So I took him out of State to an Orthopedics specialist... Yup , a small ACL tear this dog had. So .... rhetorically , did this dog disobey my request to jump ? I say NO in the sense that this dog had a legitimate reason not to jump . He was preserving himself rather than willingly refuse or protesting against my request. As absurd as this question might sound ... would you say this is disobedience- if you asked your dog to jump off a 200 foot cliff and it did not. So in the hurdle example , and I have seen this a few times , with a huddle closer to a wall , The [ depth perception ] of the dog was different than it was 3 feet away. So the mental picture literally and figuratively of what was being asked of the dog was very very different  given hjow the wall looked relative to the hrdle at two different spots.  Dogs see better with MOTION and MOVEMENT than we do yes. We see better color than they do yes ? We don't have the same kind of vision , do we ? Yogi .... we often are trapped into thinking as a human  thinksand we forget  that dogs see and perceive things not as we do always .. at times yes and aother times they do not but even more so , very differently.  They are animals of a different nature than us ! BTW , this is why I laugh at the limited expression ,  ' read the dog '. Reading the dog .. does not mean simply looking at the dog ! I say : somebody can read a dog when they can ' in see ' into that dog and in doing so , he/she literally knows , feels and thinks exactly** what the dog does . Then you have 'read ' the dog.

Cent that's the point I would never ass my dog to jump 200 metres. And that's why no matter what I ask no matter where the jump is he will do it. Its not about what he see it about what I say and ask him to do. For example my older dog I told to climb a ladder a few years ago never did before but he understands the world hop so one run at a time he does as he is asks 3 or 4 times later the dog is up on the roof of my shed. Because no question ask. I can read dog pretty well have spent a lot of time learning with that been said I have a lot more to learn. Obidence is to carried out when I ask a task. Obidence does not work on occasions so if I say bite in water it happens if I say hop it happens if I say down it happens .

Yogi, surely in order to get an immediate and obedient response when you actually want the dog to obey a 'real' command, you need to work up to it while Training ? You don't expect a dog to be able to complete every exercise you give it without having been shown what you want it to do at some point beforehand ? I appreciate that on a real LE 'shout' for instance the handler cannot just move walls & street furniture around to suit - but all Centurian seems to be asking for is that we look 'through our dogs eyes' at situations where we DO have some input, so as not to ask them to do the impossible (or what seems to them impossible), and to trust us that we are not sending them into an impossible or dangerous task in the first place ?

Hund If a dog has jumped a hurdle before it should not matter where u place the hurdle when u say over he should go over. Cent was not talking about a green dog from what I got. they moved the hurdle because it was raining. If u have worked your dog from a young age and taught your dog to do whatever and he never was put in danger why would he not trust u. I have never had a problem with any of my dogs once they totally understand the comand. I don't accept the dog was trying to determine if it was safe or not that is why I have a comand I tell u to do something you won't get hurt because it my job to make sure the dog never get hurt and his job to jump the hurdle.

Yogi .. would you agree that a dog does not know what we want until what we teach is generalized by the dog ? A dog does not know sit until it has generalized from the experience of different places ? Well what I was trying to explain the hurdle 10 feet away from the wall was not the same as a hurdle 14 feet away from the wall in the dog's mind. The literal perception of the wall as a background behind the hurdle gave the dog literally and figuratively a different mental picture and that means it was a different [ exdercise /situation] to the dog. The same way a 'sit' in your kitchen is a different 'sit' in the learning phase at the grocery store. Once the dog understood this and it was clear to the dog .. then yes , at that point when the dog learned to jump the hurdle and then he was asked to do so , then THAT would have been fair to label as  ' disobedience'. Yogi , I always think well of you .. but with respect I try to explain.. I look at this the same exact****  way , in respects , as the way a dog does ... In my training I always try to be exact , clear and fair to my dogs before I mistake confusion , or something else as disobedience. BTW , that is why I disilke the word 'correction ' in teaching/training a dog.Mnay times the dog is not being disobedient- something else is amiss. 
One thing I learned that in working with my dog is that I  have to 'listen '  and think : what the dog is telling me. I shared the story about one of my GS's  ACL .Also a dog with an ACL tear , I considered the fact too - that the dog did not jump because , simply it could not ! The dog obviously was hurting but I could see no overt sign from him . No that was not disobedience.. I would consider the dog not thay swift if it attempted to do something that it simply physically could not do , in this case jump .75 meters , when he was that injured and disabled ... One might call that refusal to jump disobedience .. but for me , I woild not...

     I could also state this ... When I was a rookie I learned from the winner of the Alaskan Iditarod Race . Karen Butcher . Talking to her she told me what to look for in a good Lead/King sled dog. She told me how she could rely on her King dog and that if she told the dog to Gee or Haw, go right or go left it would at occasions refuse. Not knowing about sledding way back then - I was ignorant..  I thought to myself , what the heck .. if she asked the dog to mush , but it didn't listen to the command , whatthe hell   kind of obedience is that ? Then , as she conversed , she explained to me : the King dog is a special dog, a very very xspecial hard to find dog , that uses it's instincts , it thinks and acts. For if there was thin ice a GOOD*** and Capable  King dog would not take the sled team over the thin ice ! He would steer the team in another direction if told to mush forward ! Going over thin ice .....could mean death ! So a GS , I would like to think is as intelligent as a Husky .. and as a breed GSs are thinkers and problem solvers too , yes. So why would I always be so thick headed to not realize the dog has / may have a reason , and/or is trying to tell me something when it does not do what I ask . So .. as I often write : I always ask WHY [ did my dog do or not do that ] . Sometimes in a microsecond. And if I even for a moment think that dog blows me off , protested , and blatantly chooses not to do what I ask  without just rreason or cause, believe me I will discipline that dog so fast , figuratively**  that dog's head will spin. But.. I never ever discipline , unless it know it is called for and is appropriate , fair and called for. 
I always say this about MYSELF : If I***   [ can't and don't speak for any one else but myself ]. I have no patience and understanding for my friend/companion /teamate  then I have no business working with it.

The story about the dog with the torn ACL is a really important lesson for inexperienced handlers. My dog had a similar issue but because I was inexperienced I chalked it up to the dog being disobedient. The dog knew how to jump, knew the "up" command and most of the time did it fine but on occasion would run up to the jump, stop and refuse to make the first attempt or sometimes feet would touch. Most of the time jumps were fine.

Turns out she had a compressed nerve and spinal cord from a severely ruptured disc that had been that way for a long time, possibly from birth, had no issues with anything else in IPO. Had I paid more attention and tried to read what she was trying to tell me rather than think she was being disobedient it probably would not have been so bad. Hard way to learn to trust your dog.

Dogs are just like people, some are very confident and the confidence travels wherever they go, and some are the ( confidence) product of training and the confidence or execution in new places people or things are subject to building the dog up in the new variable. I’ve seen both too many times, so both approaches can be right depending on the dog.

Gustav ... Spot on comment ! We have to know what we have for a dog :-)

Astrovan .... This ACL story occurred when I was i n part of my Certification Testing in my canine program. Truthfully , the dog was 3 years old and obviously had jumped many times before. like your story with your dog and IPO. I had the mindset back then in light of what Yogi had written . the dog is going to jump because I told it to ! , because it had done it before ! because it should have trusted me in my order . My mentor who was watching a little ways off , waived me to stop , after a half dozen times trying to force the dog to jump. I was young and had been trained in the old hard core methodologies for we handled some mother tough canines . We all learn sometimes the easy way , sometimes the ward way. The good trainers are those that always try to better themselves , that leads to bettering our dogs ..... I am sure my dog forgave me for my stupidity back then ...
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But this way way back then , what I had learned from that : I thought I was going to teach my canines and change them .. However .... the result was that my dogs [ and other dogs] taught me and changed me more than I ever could them ....

My biggest pet peeve is that to teach a child or a canine , you literally in your heart , mind and spirit , have to learn to become ' like ' that child or canine. Then you will be a teacher/leader . That is what I require about myself-I don't expect or tell anyone else what to think and do, each decides for themselves ....

Gustav this is where at a very young age social and environmental should be done. If done correctly and in every aspect you can think always positive when young as the dog get older why would he even once the excise is going to end up bad. enforcement of commands must be drill in. I'm not talking about a sick dog. If you go to a hurdle and ask your dog to jump and he doesn't because he is hurt that is your fault because during a warm up if people actually do this with their dogs all injury should be picked up. but I bet people don't warm there dog becaude if the did no dog would be asked to jump a hurdle and there would not be a problem with what I call disobediences in an excise that would be caused by the handler