Helper/Trainer relationship w/ a dog. - Page 1

This may sound silly to most, but we all start somewhere...my dogs are OB trained and have participated in various dog sports (agility, tracking, etc..the fun stuff.) things that I was able to work on myself or with a instructor/trainer/helper....now with 3 dogs it does get expensive to hire outsider even for basic tracking practice, or to even teach a dog how to react to people walking by, stopping infront of the house, blah blah.....so...

I always wondered what is the relationship between the dog and the helper/trainer, (in my limited experience usually there is no "bonding" with trainers/helpers with dogs...so, if dogs know helpers/trainers versus stranger/helper with whom dog is not familiar; there is a noticeable difference in aggression/furiousness how do you guys get around that?

I would love to use my brother ( or even friends whom my dogs know very well, ) to help with basic stuff, but my dogs are always so excited to see my brother  (he takes care of them if i am out of town, etc.) that they wont even bark at him...and to pay someone just to come out and walk by or stand still, or whatever... even for an hour a week is a bit outrageous.

I am guessing there is a very basic explanation dog must be able to turn it on/off ...right?...but than how do you start?...or do you avoid using people dog knows and trusts?...

I think this depends on the dog.  I have one dog that works primarily in defense.  I can't work him on my family members because he just won't work that way on people he already knows.  In protection it is real to him, no games, not object oriented.   If I needed to I could work him on my brother because they aren't ever near each other and my brother can act very "suspicious" to a dog, but I would never work him on my dad because I go on vacations with my parents and bring my dogs, or I bring them to my parents' house.  My dogs already know my dad as "friend" not "foe".  I can alert the dog on command to any person or object but to really *work* him I would not use my dad or a close friend.  It would be a waste of time and confusing to the dog.  With a high prey dog, I guess I could see it happening.

I'm not clear what you're looking for, what it is you want to train your dogs to do.  The "helper" is the decoy in schutzhund.  So are you looking to start your dogs in schutzhund or are you looking for something like a PPD?  If that's the case, your brother and/or your friends would not be good to use unless they are experienced "helpers".   If you yourself also have very little or no experience in this area, I'm afraid  it's the blind leading the blind, and not likely to do more than confuse the hell out of your dogs.  At least one person needs to know what the're doing.
 

Sue, so you're saying a 6 year old child is bad?

sueincc....you have a point..and you are absolutely right it is more of PPD, I got together with a K-9 trainer (he is about 45 min. away) and we are starting from scratch most of it is OB with some additional stuff that OB class did not expand to w/ my 9 month old...it basic stuff like how she is to react when someone walks by me, or when we walk by him, its does not involve bite work or anything like that....I am one of those people who always done their homework (literally) and I would like to practice same stuff he does at home with either a brother, husband, friend...so that was my basic question..would you use a family member....I am not reinventing anything just wanted to spend more time on things that were taught or gone over last week or week before... I feel like 1x a week okay for bank account but in practice 3 times a week would have been better...hope that makes sense.

VKGSD..thank you taht answers my question...thats kind of what I wanted to know...i don't want my dogs to react defensive to my brother if he comes down to take care of them simply because we used him in practice..

hmm..that kind of sucks....obviously i can't use strangers on the street to practice on...although..hmm...LOL

I'm with Sue.

and I'm with Jim:-)

Where are you guys all at? I'm by myself. I like tacos too! You invited Jim? I thought Jim creeps you out?

jeepers creepers Don.....here's  Taco for you....

I think I know what you mean, LadyFrost.  I do Schutzhund but with one dog I also do other types of protection (SDA, more "realistic" scenarios, suit work, etc) and a lot of times you don't actually need a skilled helper or decoy because the dog isn't always biting and it's not really about perfect full bites and twirling around on long bites and all that.  When I was training my dog for his first protection title, we had a guy at our club help me by doing the friendly greeting, then he went back around a blind, then he came out and was screaming and yelling at us and waving a stick.  No suit or sleeve, no biting just working the dog with a real threat (this is a BIG loud guy and he did an awesome job), getting the dog to alert and defend correctly, then doing the control work recalling the dog and re-greeting.  My Schutzhund helper will put a suit on and help me with other types of protection but we sometimes only have access to this person once every other week.  I'm to the point where I know how to handle my dog, I know what kind of dog he is and how he works so I direct his training including protection.  I ask the helper or decoy to work him this way or that.  So far I've had better luck being invited to a few other clubs/groups and working him on their decoys rather than using my dad, brother, or my husband's friends.  Many of them my dog already knows and trusts (which is what I want), and some of them are too hesitant toward the dog to really put enough heat on him for the trainig to be of any value to me.