Leaking Drive - Page 2

I have an eighteen month old dog that did not get worked in bitework until sixteen months. No tugs, no biscuits , no flirtpoles, no sleeves. Can you imagine that, heaven forbid!  

Excellent, Gustav! LOL. Don't you love the looks you get when they find out the dog's over a year old and never had "drive building"? You may as well tell someone you only feed your dog on Thursdays.

A certain good friend of mine, no longer with us, always used to warn against all this obsessive flirtpole crap for the same reasons, and say if the dog was going to make it anyway, the best course was to wait until the dog was mentally ready to work, really work. I've always followed this and I can say none of mine have suffered for the early neglect.   On the contrary, on average, the ones I've kept back have been much calmer than their littermates who've been raised by an overzealous, but very well-meaning newcomer to sport with a 5x a day flirpole addiction. 

The screaming/leaking I've seen in two litter mates was expressed from the time they were nine weeks old. the breeder had not used so much as a flirt pole with the litter. These pups would scream like they had a leg caught in the fence at the slightest stimulation, ie, a lizard sunning itself. And they were separated, so not feeding on each other's insanity. And Cliff you are right again, they were line bred on a certain very popular family. Until one has hands on experience with a pup which is a blank slate when you get it (two pups from the same litter will give an even clearer picture) it's easy to say bad training created the problem, when the screaming is there at very early age before any "schooling is ever done". Edit: I agree completely with waiting until a pup is developed to handle the work. ( not talking about testing a litter, which IMO does not need to be extensive to learn about them.)

I don't see where anyone said that training creates it. Breeding dogs who are like that with other dogs who are like that creates it, but environment (I won't say training, even) can mean the difference between mild, occasional annoyance and a dog you want to strangle. 



 

"...one has to be careful to determine if it actually is genetic or the result of faulty training.."

I would hope a breeder who had PUPPIES who were screaming already would never, ever, do that breeding again. I've never seen a screamer so bad they did it even before training was introduced. Yikes. 

That's what I was trying to get across, Jenni. The first time something as simple as putting a collar with lead attached will elicit blood curdling screams. There are people who actually love that craziness, so it is being bred for on purpose.

hello guyz....
I have a 11 month old puppy who has these issues... Please elaborate on what this certain line is (most are out of the same, very very popular sire among the sport world, hmmm) so we can refrain from them next time buying or breeding.... Thanks..
 

I know, Joan. I was speaking more generally, about screamers, not the most extreme. I don't think there's that high of a percentage who are to that degree (9 weeks), though no doubt for every screamer, there are 2 morons out there who think it's "intense" and they love it. If people love it, they buy it. If it sells, people do it again. Double up on those lines, and your chances for 9 week old screamers increases exponentially. <gag>  My favorite part is that we then punish these dogs for being what we've created them to be. 

My statements about environment pertain only to a dog who is within "normal" paramaters, ie, high drive but not particularly hectic, but might have a tendency to display some of that under certain stimuli only; ie, if you raised the dog as Cliff mentioned, you'd likely never see it. If you raised the dog like the chest-thumping folks who love screamers raise them, well, then you'd likely see it under pressure, stress, or extreme excitement. It's nonetheless good to know the underlying tendencies when making breeding decisions, even if the dogs in question aren't displaying the issues in their current environment. 

Khalid, what's your dog's pedigree? I did mention one line in my earlier post. My only personal experience breeding any dog who produced a screamer was linebreeding on that litter. Now, I'm not bashing the line; the dogs were fantastic- only one had a tendency to scream, and lo and behold, he was crated 20+ hours per day and kenneled 3 hours per day and spent 1/2 to 1 hour "training"........bitework. He's in a normal home now and behaves like a normal dog. I will not say that the litter produced problematic screamers, just that I definitely saw the potential for it if not handled carefully in breeding. If you bred that dog back to those lines......I shudder to think. 

Jenni, pups like the two I had experience with need to be taught to cap the drive, punishing for screaming would be nonproductive. Those pups aren't even cognizant of the racket they make, I don't think. Day after day, teaching little pups to cap leaking drive, when all you are trying to do with them is move from point a to point b, is tedious and like spinning your wheels in the mud....eventually, you do make progress. But not my idea of what a sound GSD is supposed to be.
BTW, raising a pup like Cliff did will not prevent the leaking drives from being expressed when it is genetic weak nerves. The two pups that I described in above posts are examples.