Long Bite Opinion - Page 2

I've had dogs that only come in Center Mass but are also so fast that it's hard to always find helpers that can catch him safely...I don't want my dog hurt...So what we did was to set up a few barrels in front of the Decoy and made the dog commit early enough to go over the barrels which gives the Decoy time to adjust either way since once the dog is in the air they can't change directions...
I hope this made sense...

~Bob~

We used a half sleeve. Send the dog from close up, and the decoy would make the sleeve do and abrupt shift to the left in presentation before he left the ground. The sudden snappy movement of the sleeve drew his eye and moved him over a tad.
Another way was to use a wedge held next to the decoys body. Dog is sent from distance the decoy move the wedge farther away from his body as the dog comes in if he fails to adjust the decoy simply tosses the wedge to the side away from him making the dog miss and also steps out of the way. (obviously you must have good timing)
The dog is downed before he can get to the dropped sleeve and the exercise is repeated until he swings more to the elbow side in anticipation of the wedge/sleeve going that way.

You can do the same thing for dogs that hit too low but just toss the wedge up making the dog miss low.

If your dog has issues targeting equipment then obviously not a good idea..lol.

Here is a quick vid where I do some presentations to the elbow side and you see he still hits there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk1ch1ObqHA

Bob, I like the idea of the barrels. That could have been an interesting addition to things. Did you have the decoy position just beyond the barrels before you sent the dog or did you have the decoy move into the barrels as the dog came at him? If that makes sense?

Haz, very handsome Mal! I like the size and speed on him and beautiful grip. We started with the wedge (or I should say when we realized we had the concern, we went back to the wedge) and had a few near catastrophes when he tried to go center mass anyway. The challenge of him not targeting the equipment.

Thanks.
Yes I would definitely get the equipmwnt targeting under control before worrying about Centre vs offside hits. Maybe more movement with the sleeve and games where the decoy tries to steal the sleeve the sleeve for.  The dog and channels his defense into and through the sleeve.
If the dog is super defensive aggressive then you have to be careful with this type of work.

I prefer prey aggressive dogs or aggressive prey dogs for the sport...but that's my preference.

Having more prey with him would have made life a lot easier when he was a puppy, not going to lie. We really couldn't start working with him in protection till he was almost 18 months old. It was a long process and I had plenty of people tell me to give up on him, but in the end he was worth it, for me. ;)

He was extremely clear headed, learned his lessons very quickly, brought strong aggression onto the field but I never needed more than a flat collar to work him because it rarely took more than one correction to clarify the obedience side of things in his head. The coming center mass and the equipment situation not withstanding.

His scores were always strong in Phase C (any mistakes were on yours truly, the dummy behind the leash). I ended up getting out of the sport because of people and politics but I miss training my dog, so like to revisit some of the challenges we faced, just to get opinions and who knows, it may help someone still training!!