Just another Sport Dog - Page 36

at this moment 95 % of the true muzzlefighting and civil dogs are malinois or malinois mix, not pure GSD

Frankly, When it comes to LE dogs it isn't about the title or the training. As Duke has said, a title or whatever training, will NOT make a dog suitable for LE, just like a title or the training won't make an IPO SL suitable for sport competition.
As for breeding, I only place 50% emphasis on the dog in front of me, but rather more emphasis on the the health and genetics of the pedigree.
Triumph's Gucci was World Level competitor in sport, ( so the dog in front of me had performance and beauty), but you saw little if any top sport females bred to him. I wonder why?

Ipo training, at the top today, makes less and less use of natural drives and more of trained behaviour, which is super for the sport and points as it leaves less room for error

this video shows how apport looks like without use of natural drives, so any dog can be trained to do this, endresult looks the same, but breedingresults will be quite different when such dog is used

 

https://youtu.be/9mYUeTfXw4U

 

now here is test of natural drives used for detection

https://youtu.be/dL8BwMrPeRMhttps://youtu.be/dL8BwMrPeRM

 

first video is AFTER training, second video is BEFORE training

The test for natural drives video is exactly the type dog we are looking for. many folks THINK they have a dog that will work like that in that environment, but would be surprised how much balking and coaxing and days/weeks it would take to just get on the obstacles presented and retrieve the metal. Actually, we want a dog that doesn't need to be trained to pick up metal or jump up on wire, mesh, down in holes, etc, we want dogs that will just do it or attempt it until they accomplish right away. This is the " it" I am talking about, it is not available often, as many " trainers" think, in the GS world, thus the decline of GS in LE work.

You know whats the biggest turnoff for me in IPO?

IT's tracking! Tracking for points is the biggest bullshit on this planet. It's straight up obedience and nothing but obedience. If you have to use prong collars, e collars, double leashes and stimm the dog everytime he goes off track, than something is wrong.

I wish they'd exchange tracking with the StPr to showcase actual hunt drive in the dog!

PS: Nice dog up there. This is what I like in dogs and what I'm looking for in my dogs. That environmental confidence and Hunt drive.

Yes, a very nice dog - that´s the kind of drive I want to see -
and environmentally a very sound dog.

But why do you say "Ipo training, at the top today, makes less and less use of natural drives and more of trained behaviour, ..." ?
Training in the 70s/80s = a LOT of pressure, f.e. the "forced retrieve" was normal procedure, even high drive dogs had to go through the same training routine, no differences...

"Heeling" - prong collar on, and on we go... no matter the drives - the result = unhappy dogs, forced to heel, looking like slaves - today: a lot of motivation based on drives = happy dogs...

There is an example for almost every routine.

Training evolved immensely - today "modern" trainers are able and willing to make use of drives, and they have to do so, because otherwise they´d loose a lot of points ( too many ).

Baerenfang, I don´t know where and when you learned about IPO tracking - for me it´s no "obedience routine" - trained well it´s the most beautiful performance in IPO -
and the real successful trainers NOWADAYS tend to use the genetic abilities of the dog ( its ability to smell that outstanding ), its drives ( prey drive, hunt drive ), all of this CAREFULLY combined with obedience ( we always need obedience when we want to work as a TEAM with our dogs ).
None of the really constantly successful IPO tracking dogs I have seen in the last 15 years was trained with e-collars or double leashes ( prongs are still not uncommon, but to slow down the dog first and foremost, not for corrections ).
Well trained tracking dogs ( be it IPO or FH ) are excited as soon as they know what will happen, because they WANT to track ( the ride to the tracking field, the tracking harnish, the tracking flag ...) - only comparable with a good dog anticipating the decoy.

After all it is what it is -
in IPO trainers are able to lie a dog through a local trial, but naive, unknowing people will trust in the title
-whereas
in the "real world" there are dogs in duty I would never depend my life on, but unknowing, naive people will trust in the "job" the dog is in...

There are very, very good dogs in IPO, there are very, very good dogs in "real world jobs", and there are mediocre dogs in BOTH fractions.

The best dogs of both camps do share the same traits I listed on page 32 (?) - no difference.

It's a trained behavior in this time and age.

Just look around, there are several people that have no issues putting their work out and post videos with a dog being force tracked with Prong and E Collar.

Contrary to popular belief...very very very few trainers will force track a dog. It's a lot of work and it's extremely unreliable in trial. I can't imagine the drive/work ability in obedience/protection that would convince a high level trainer that they should put in the time to force track a dog because the other two phases are so amazing. On top of that, the type of dog that can handle true forced tracking is very rare, it's a dog with a complete lack of drive, and yet one that can handle pressure without quitting.

A prong and an ecollar do not mean forced tracking. It would be extremely hard to take a video and force track a dog at the same time because of what's involved. I highly doubt anyone would put up videos of the actual process and might at some point put up videos of the finished product.

Corrective devices are most times used to get obedience to the track and prevent things such as casting, checking, or weird behaviors around corners. All things that cost teams points, but not something that's necessary to pass an IPO trial.

Most IPO teams are passing with scores in the 70-90 range. The dogs are sloppy, they do things "naturally" because their trainers don't understand the newer training methods and don't have the skills to teach them. The dogs also usually can't handle the pressure that those methods involve without losing their drive. As susie said, the biggest difference between today and yesterday is that the methods have gone more drive building based rather than compulsion. Most of the dogs at today's clubs would've been dragged through the exercises with pressure back in the day and passed with similar scores only because today's standards for scoring have increased.

If anyone has any beef with IPO, it should be with how the sport is currently scored and not with the training. But the judges have to be able to reward the better/cleaner performances and the difference between a picture perfect exercise, and one with even minor flaws. Just this weekend I sat through a seminar with a judge who went over how things are scored and what judges *should* look at. He made the point that when it comes to something like tracking...although head checks are allowed in the rules and there isn't a points deduction for them as long as the dog is on the track...if one dog head checks a few times and another pencils the track, there has to be some sort of point difference between those two dogs, objectively speaking...anyone can agree with that statement. So sure, it's probably a point or two for the whole phase...but it's something that has to be done in order to keep the competitive balance.

agree with BW, the toptrainers today dont use much force anymore, also not with the articles, before times you could see dogs getting nervous as soon as they smelled the article, as the article often was connected to bad experience in the dogs mind

nowadays we see exeptional work at the articles, dogs wanting to find and point out the articles, as it is connected with happy experience,

those are the good things about modern trainingways, as a result of smart people thinking instead of correcting, I did trackingseminair with thomas woginger some time ago and also was at Julien Clement seminair and can everybody advise to work with people like them

However both work with tons of food on the track and that is opposite way of training LE detectionwork

 

Frankly, its not the 'top trainers' we need to worry about.