Nervous Bite - Page 3

Prager,

Stay out of the Sport stuff,  You are incorrect.

Sport works to balance the drives of the dogs including the defense.  After all, dogs don't bark or guard well in prey.

Love how people talk about what they don't know and make sweeping assumptions.

Sunsilver, your dogs body posture is important in the drive to read what she is thinking.  The other thing to pay attention to is her countering behavior. 

Have your TD or helper explain countering to you (if you don't know it already).  That's a huge part of understanding the reason for the growl.  Many judges can't read dogs well and fast and they may take a growl as insecurity when it is not.  A proper counter will help to clear that up for the judge.

@sunsilver.  Dog can also wag the tail not just when it's happy but also when it's excited. 

 Prager Hans

Sunsilver:

                  My female Fiest van Meerhout has always growled during the drives She will always pull and yank on the sleeve also but her grip (which is always full)  never shifts or changes during it and many helpers have expresed how hard she is to drive becasue of her fighting on the sleeve. She always has tracked the body not the sleeve of the helper which causes issue if they bail at the catch she will always turn into there body as they fade from posistion. I guess what i,m saying is to judge a dog for growling 1 must concider the whole dog and it,s many abalities. She is IPO 3 and working on her AWD 2. Good luck with your training.   

bzcz, I am guessing that countering is what the dog does to fight the decoy, and get possesion of the sleeve?  Some dogs just hang off the sleeve like excess baggage during the drive, while others (like Bob's dog) still continue to fight.

I'll have to watch more closely to see what she does during the drive. A friend took a video of her last time , but it's still on her phone, and she hasn't been able to post it online yet.

She's definitely not just passively hanging there, I can tell you that!

Sunsilver,close.

It's the dogs reaction to a perceived threat. A dog shaking the sleeve and fighting thesleeve while fun to watch Is not countering.

Countering can be a dog who bucks every time he gets a stick hit.  Or shakes the sleeve during a stick hit. 

On a young dog u figure out what kind of counter the dog is capable of giving and you train them to do that reliably.

I beg to differ all dogs counter differently, The bucking(i assume you mean pull back from the sleeve) I actually don,t like to see. My Cruise jambs into the sleeve pushing the helper. I never want to see my dogs humping backwards from the sleeve. It all depends on what you want from your dog. From puppies i try to make sure the dog understands that the man is the goal, the sleeve is only a path to the man. All focus is on the man not the sleeve. The sleeve isn,t the reward. Driving thru the man is the object. It,s like how you teach proper striking in Martial Arts you never punch "at" a target you punch "thru" it.

But again We all like to train our dogs for our own goals. And that is the way it should be.

Interesting, Bob! As you probably know, the first thing most trainers teach in IPO is to have the young dog tug on a rag or toy, then a bite pillow, then a puppy sleeve. Some sleeves even have a handle on them so the helper can play tug with the dog.

But as you say, we all have our own goals...

My next question was going to be, "What behaviour do you like to see as a counter?" but it's obvious there's going to be a number of different answers to that!

Bob,

Reread my post, I never said anything about bucking and pulling. 

I also said you need to figure out what kind of counter the dog is capable of giving.

You train for what the dog is capable of.

 Doesn't really matter what Bob likes to see.

The question is, is it a valid counter and not just,"what someone likes to see"?

The counter is where we display fight drive for the judge.

bzcz:

              Actually it does matter! Not all dogs are bred soley to acheieve the highest points possible. Some are bred for more than points. I would say 90 percent of trial dogs just "Go for the ride and endure stick hits" The only thing you will see that gives any influence to the judges is done in AWD titles(here in the US). 

IPO is all about the dance between the Handler and the dog and that is fine it,s Kata! Judged on Obedience and Correctness it,s all obedience even the Bite work and thats okay if that is your goal I,m happy for those that achieve top levels of it I see the work every time I train . There is more to Schutzhund and dog training then the accumulation of points on a score sheet that is why it is so important to test the dogs.

Sun:

             I play tug with my puppies as soon as there able to hold things. I like whatching my litters grow, I truly believe what Von Stephnitz said about breeding it should,nt be done on a large scale. You learn so much by interacting with a litter even while in the whelping box I spend hours with my litters every day. 

From there first breath to the day they leave to go to there new homes. I watch every thing about them who uses there nose the most,who is dominate,how they interact with each other, who push,s who out of the way to eat on and off the tit, Who collects toys and who trys to interact with others with them.

I like to get the puppies focused on the helper as soon as possible. Simple stuff, set 2 blinds about 10 feet apart and back tie the puppy. Let the helper get his attention from behind 1 blind and chase him from one to the other( this is where good acting skills help also) As the puppy developes you start to make it harder and harder for the young dog to run off the helper. As they get older you start throwing toys sleeves ect... down where the young dog can stand over or on top of them and keep his focus on the helper. Finally with a short sleeve or gauntlet or bite suit the dog gets the bite on the man as his reward. You won,t see alot of IPO dogs doing these types of excersises some maybe but i,d venture to say not alot. 

Bob, You are 100% incorrect.

It does matter what the dogs do during the drive and it is judged by judges as an important part of the total picture of the dog. 

Yeah it has to do with points, but more importantly it has to do with telling us who they are.  A dog with no counter is just along for the ride.  A dog with a counter tells us alot.  AND the judges are looking at the dog's fight and countering abilitiy while on the sleeve. 

And NO it doesn't matter what you want to see, because you don't get to decide how a dog fights or counters.  It's up to them and their genetic makeup.  It's the helper's job to find the counter and teach the dog to use it.