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by VitoManiac on 02 February 2012 - 19:02
I read this article on a website that someone linked to in another thread and found it very informative, I'd be interested in how the more knowledgeable members on here perceive the observations within it.
In the years I have been involved in the working dog sports (sports that relate to protection training dogs) I have frequently observed, and been party to, a variety of discussions relating to the "drives" of a working dog. This article represents an attempt to summarize what I have heard from other people, as well as what I have observed personally in the many dogs that I have worked with in my training experience. It is my intent that this article will suffice as a basic explanation of canine behavior related to protection sports such that a person new to the sport, or even for some that have been involved in such sports for a short period of time, might gain a better understanding of what makes a protection dog "tick".
To begin, it is important to recognize that dogs are predatory animals, and, as protection dog trainers, we are attempting to capitalize on that fact. We are harnessing the dog's innate desire to bite a moving thing. The exact reasons why a dog would desire to bite a moving thing vary and will be discussed later, but for now, suffice it to say that all good protection dogs are required to want to bite. Without this key component, we can never realize a good protection dog.
Through domestication, the common dog has changed somewhat from its ancestral kin. We have "puppified" the dog, watered down it's desire to catch and then consume other animals, as well as changing its overall appearance to match particular functions that we found pleasing or useful. In that domestication process, we have created different breeds of dog, some of which are more genetically predisposed to performing protection work than others, either because of the innate behavioral tendencies of the breed or due to its size/shape. Most noteably, certain breeds are "featured" for their ability to perform protection work for us: The German Shepherd Dog, Belgian Malinois, Doberman Pinscer, Rottweiler, Belgian Shepherd, and certain bulldog breeds are generally the most common.
Regardless of breed, each dog feels compelled to bite, as an extension of its predatory and sometimes social genetic heritage. As a predatory animal, it is obvious how the first drive which I will discuss can be found in today's protection dog, but first a brief definition of the term "drive" is in order.
When a protection trainer uses the term drive, he is describing an innate attribute of the dog that compells the dog to act in a certain way. The term drive may be interchanged with the term motivator, or something that will cause the dog to exhibit a certain, natural response. All drives must be broken down into a study of stimulus and response. We provide the stimulus (a rolling ball, for instance), and we then observe the dog's natural response (he chases it). If a dog gives a response to the described stimulus, then we say that the dog posesses the drive being tested. Naturally, since there is no standard measurement of what stimuli actually measure what drives, we often times find ourselves in training arguments over whether a dog has a certain drive or not, and to what extent (high drive, low drive, etc.). It can all become fairly confusing rather quickly. But as you will see, as you read on, if you are careful not to get caught up in training arguments, and keep a clear idea of the concepts discussed below, evaluating a dog's drives is really a pretty straightforward thing to do.
Going back to the predatory ancestry of the dog, we can infer that a dog must have come from animals that were capable of finding, chasing, biting, and killing other animals for food. Inside this innate survival strategy, two major canine drives are required. Trainers call them Prey Drive and Defense Drive.
Prey drive is illustrated by the dog that likes to chase cats, for example. A small object, moving away from the dog, triggers it to give chase (stimulus = small object moving away, response = dog chases). In many cases, domestication has lead to the dilution of the dog's prey drive, such that once the dog catches the stimulus, the desire to consume the object either does not exist is very weak (obviously some dogs are the exception to this statement). However, this dilution of the desire to eat what has been caught works to our advantage in protection training, as we really would not want to have the protection dog consume the bad guy after he caught the man. It allows us to more effectively teach the dog to hold a decoy, as well as allowing us to gain control over the dog while he is biting the decoy. We can move the focus away from the desire to eat, and on to the desire to fight with the man, which is far more useful to us as protection trainers.
A dog acting from prey drive displays many noteable features: ears are held erect or forward, eyes are open wide, mouth ranges from closed in a relaxed "smile" to open and actively barking, the tail is held from straight out and still to somewhat elevated and wagging, the stance is relaxed to an almost "tippe toe" posture, the head and neck are held from shoulder height and straight forward, to markedly upright, but still slightly forward. All of these postures indicate a dog that is attentive, confident, and eager. The dog responding to a prey stimulus is not afraid. The dog's bite is characterized by its firmness and depth. Dogs biting in prey drive want the prey, and will generally try to take the prey deep into their mouths, often times continuously biting and rebiting deeper and deeper (sometimes called countering). Prey drive is used by trainers to teach young and inexperienced dogs basic biting and barking techniques, due to the level of confidence that the dog has while working in prey.
In the years I have been involved in the working dog sports (sports that relate to protection training dogs) I have frequently observed, and been party to, a variety of discussions relating to the "drives" of a working dog. This article represents an attempt to summarize what I have heard from other people, as well as what I have observed personally in the many dogs that I have worked with in my training experience. It is my intent that this article will suffice as a basic explanation of canine behavior related to protection sports such that a person new to the sport, or even for some that have been involved in such sports for a short period of time, might gain a better understanding of what makes a protection dog "tick".
To begin, it is important to recognize that dogs are predatory animals, and, as protection dog trainers, we are attempting to capitalize on that fact. We are harnessing the dog's innate desire to bite a moving thing. The exact reasons why a dog would desire to bite a moving thing vary and will be discussed later, but for now, suffice it to say that all good protection dogs are required to want to bite. Without this key component, we can never realize a good protection dog.
Through domestication, the common dog has changed somewhat from its ancestral kin. We have "puppified" the dog, watered down it's desire to catch and then consume other animals, as well as changing its overall appearance to match particular functions that we found pleasing or useful. In that domestication process, we have created different breeds of dog, some of which are more genetically predisposed to performing protection work than others, either because of the innate behavioral tendencies of the breed or due to its size/shape. Most noteably, certain breeds are "featured" for their ability to perform protection work for us: The German Shepherd Dog, Belgian Malinois, Doberman Pinscer, Rottweiler, Belgian Shepherd, and certain bulldog breeds are generally the most common.
Regardless of breed, each dog feels compelled to bite, as an extension of its predatory and sometimes social genetic heritage. As a predatory animal, it is obvious how the first drive which I will discuss can be found in today's protection dog, but first a brief definition of the term "drive" is in order.
When a protection trainer uses the term drive, he is describing an innate attribute of the dog that compells the dog to act in a certain way. The term drive may be interchanged with the term motivator, or something that will cause the dog to exhibit a certain, natural response. All drives must be broken down into a study of stimulus and response. We provide the stimulus (a rolling ball, for instance), and we then observe the dog's natural response (he chases it). If a dog gives a response to the described stimulus, then we say that the dog posesses the drive being tested. Naturally, since there is no standard measurement of what stimuli actually measure what drives, we often times find ourselves in training arguments over whether a dog has a certain drive or not, and to what extent (high drive, low drive, etc.). It can all become fairly confusing rather quickly. But as you will see, as you read on, if you are careful not to get caught up in training arguments, and keep a clear idea of the concepts discussed below, evaluating a dog's drives is really a pretty straightforward thing to do.
Going back to the predatory ancestry of the dog, we can infer that a dog must have come from animals that were capable of finding, chasing, biting, and killing other animals for food. Inside this innate survival strategy, two major canine drives are required. Trainers call them Prey Drive and Defense Drive.
Prey drive is illustrated by the dog that likes to chase cats, for example. A small object, moving away from the dog, triggers it to give chase (stimulus = small object moving away, response = dog chases). In many cases, domestication has lead to the dilution of the dog's prey drive, such that once the dog catches the stimulus, the desire to consume the object either does not exist is very weak (obviously some dogs are the exception to this statement). However, this dilution of the desire to eat what has been caught works to our advantage in protection training, as we really would not want to have the protection dog consume the bad guy after he caught the man. It allows us to more effectively teach the dog to hold a decoy, as well as allowing us to gain control over the dog while he is biting the decoy. We can move the focus away from the desire to eat, and on to the desire to fight with the man, which is far more useful to us as protection trainers.
A dog acting from prey drive displays many noteable features: ears are held erect or forward, eyes are open wide, mouth ranges from closed in a relaxed "smile" to open and actively barking, the tail is held from straight out and still to somewhat elevated and wagging, the stance is relaxed to an almost "tippe toe" posture, the head and neck are held from shoulder height and straight forward, to markedly upright, but still slightly forward. All of these postures indicate a dog that is attentive, confident, and eager. The dog responding to a prey stimulus is not afraid. The dog's bite is characterized by its firmness and depth. Dogs biting in prey drive want the prey, and will generally try to take the prey deep into their mouths, often times continuously biting and rebiting deeper and deeper (sometimes called countering). Prey drive is used by trainers to teach young and inexperienced dogs basic biting and barking techniques, due to the level of confidence that the dog has while working in prey.
by VitoManiac on 02 February 2012 - 19:02
Defense drive is quite different than prey drive. Defense drive is the manifestation of the dog's willingness to survive a threatening confrontation. For a dog, there are two general strategies to survive a confrontation, run or kill, and when a dog is working in defense, he can, and usually does, switch very rapidly between these two choices. If the threat becomes too great, the dog that is fighting for its life, will immediately begin to run for its life, and vice versa.
A dog acting in defense drive displays characteristically different body language than that of the prey dog. A lowered, more widened stance, with the front feet moved forward with regard to the shoulder, lips parted, pulled back or bared to expose the canine teeth, ears weakened or pull toward the back of the head, hair over the shoulders, down the spine, over the rump may be raised, tail is held in a lowered position or even tucked to cover the genitals, wagging slowly to not at all, and a bark that ranges from a strained warble to a deep and fast "ruff" all mark a dog acting in defense. The bite of the dog acting in defense shows the effect of the constant re-evaluating going on the dog's mind between "fight or flight". The defense dog bites frontally, primarily with the canines and inscisors. Many people believe that this is due to the dog's desire to inflict the most damage with its bite, but I do not subscribe to this theory. It is my belief that the defense bite is a survival technique, not stemming from the dog's desire to kill quickly, but rather coming the dog's uncertainty in the fight. The frontal bite allows the dog to bite, while at the same time, being as far away from the opponent as possible so that he might may a quick escape if the fight goes bad.
Having defined the two basic drives of the protection dog, it is important to realize that not all dogs will respond the same way to the same level of stimulation. This is not to say that one has a weaker drive than the other, but rather it would be more correct to define the dogs differently according to their thresholds of stimulation. Thresholds describe how small or how large a stimulus can be and still elicit the same type of reponse. For example, rolling a ball for some dog will not stimulate a prey response, but the same dog will actively chase a squirrel or cat. In this case we do not make the mistake of saying the dog only has "cat drive" or stating that the dog's prey drive is "low". Instead, we should describe the dog as having a higher prey threshold than a dog that eagerly chases both the ball and the cat. As a protection dog trainer, it is important to understand this concept, as our strategies toward training the dog will largely be determined by the dog's drive thresholds. For some dogs, the mere sight of a tug toy drives them into a frenzy, while for others, the decoy must do lots of running and swinging of the tug to get a satisfactory response. For my sake, I would not fault the latter dog's prey drive, I would simply say he has a high prey threshold. While many trainers would not call the latter dog as desireable, it would be mainly due to their own laziness to describe him as such. It is more convenient for the trainer to have low prey threshold dogs because we are not required to work as hard to get the same level of response from them.
The concept of thresholds can also be applied to defense drive as well. A low threshold for defense would make a dog feel threatened very easily, and therefore display defensive behaviors very rapidly. A low threshold for defense is generally not ideal for a protection sport dog as we do not want the dog to feel challenged inappropriately (a very low defense threshold dog might feel threatened by the presence of a strange child and bite the child, for instance). Instead, we want the ideal protection dog to have a medium threshold for defense. These dogs are able to see threatening body language for what it is, and they react to it accordingly. Additionally, dogs with a medium threshold for defense are generally stable enough in everyday life situations that they do not act out defensively when unprovoked (by human standards).
With defense drive particularly, it is key to note that there also exists and upper threshold, namely, the point at which the dog changes from biting in defense, to fleeing in defense. I would argue for prey that the upper threshold marks the boundary between a dog that simply wants to chase and bite the prey, to the point where the dog wants to chase, kill and consume the prey. Considering this last statement, you can see how, as discussed previously, the general lack of desire to chase, kill and consume prey in the domestic dog, indicates how the prey threshold for the dog has been elevated by the domestication process.
Considering the previous statements about thresholds, it can be seen that thresholds must not be a constant for any particular dog, and in fact, they are not. Thresholds are in part in-born, and in-part environment as well as learned. As trainers, we spend a great deal of time lowering and raising thresholds as we see fit. For instance, we go to great lengths to lower prey thresholds as they apply to tug and sleeve work. We teach the dog to realize that playing tug and biting the sleeve is tremendously enjoyable for them, and over time, we see dogs that will begin showing prey arousal upon sight of particular pieces of training equipment - scratch pants, working collars, sleeves, tugs, leashes, etc. At the same time, we build a dog's defense threshold, teaching the dog to take more and more pressure before exeeding the upper threshold of the defense response. Ideally, we end up with a dog that will never run from a confrontation because we have elevated that dog's upper threshold for defense, higher than an adversary could generate when in a fight.
Lastly, another factor that can change a dog's threshold for response is the dog's level of Satiation for a particular drive. A simple way to put it is how quickly does a dog become "bored" with a particular stimulus. As a dog becomes more and more satiated in a particular drive, the effect is the same as the lower threshold for that drive being elevated, making a weaker and weaker response to the same stimulus over time. Again, trainers are constantly trying to raise the satiation point in the protection dog, so that the response always stays strong, regardless of duration of exercise.
Hopefully, after having read this article, you will be better able to identify the key concepts of prey drive, defense drive, drive threshold and satiation in your own protection dog as they relate to his basic behavior and training. In future articles I will try address these topics more specifically as they relate to training techniques and methodologies in training the protection dog. Until then, keep these ideas in mind the next time you find yourself in a trainers debate!
Read more: http://protectionk9.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=ppdog&action=display&thread=2282&page=1#ixzz1lFktVXLZ
by SitasMom on 02 February 2012 - 21:02
by richram on 03 February 2012 - 23:02
Good stimulating thoughts,VitoManiac!
I've got a question. When a dog is doing the bark and hold is he in prey or defense.Remember,this is guarding or holding the helper.
I've got a question. When a dog is doing the bark and hold is he in prey or defense.Remember,this is guarding or holding the helper.
by DenWolf on 03 February 2012 - 23:02
Reminds me of Gary..
Did he write the first article??
I know he wrote the second!
Answer to question:
A dog in the bark and hold should be in defense.. this switches to prey when the helper then escapes.
I have a nice video example of Dante switching from defense to prey and back again, if anyone wants to see it..
Did he write the first article??
I know he wrote the second!
Answer to question:
A dog in the bark and hold should be in defense.. this switches to prey when the helper then escapes.
I have a nice video example of Dante switching from defense to prey and back again, if anyone wants to see it..
by VitoManiac on 05 February 2012 - 11:02
Share share share ;)
by Rass on 05 February 2012 - 12:02
Before placing so much reliance on Prey Drive (which is what most Protection work seems to do) it might be wise to read this:http://www.k9copsonly.com/civcombatdrives.html#top
Prey drive is different from Fight Drive (which is different from fightING drive as described by Raiser).
To really get the most out of the above link you need to start at the beginning and read the entire site.
A dog in Fight drive does not need to have the bite as a reward for a behavior....
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