Bite Sleeve Information - Page 1

Looking for information /guidance on the main differences between arm sleeves. I see puppy/young dog, intermediate and advanced. It looks to me that the main difference is the amount of padding and/or hardiness of construction. Is this generally the case? Any issue with starting a younger dog, exhibiting great willingness to bite, on an intermediate sleeve? Any particular brand recommendations?

Thanks for your opinions.

I wouldnt be able to comment on if your young guy is ready to transistion from a pillow/wedge to a bite sleeve since i havent seen him :) But as far as brand, I am a big fan of Harddog Requisites

http://www.harddogs.com/bitesleeves.htm

Everything depends on your dog...How old...What experience...etc...

If you go Too Big of a Sleeve (harness) before they have the experience to handle it...then you could set your young dog back...If you're not sure then it's always better to start off with a Tug...then Wedge...so on...then onto a puppy sleeve...so on...
This is where experience all comes into play...If you go too far too fast then you're doing damage to a young dog...

~Bob~

I understand. Here's some additional information. The dog is a 15 month old female. She's done tugs and wedges. Shows promise in her willingness to engage, stay engaged and release on command.

Yes...but how is she on a Tug and Wedge...Do you have any video of her working that are recent...
There's a lot that goes into the answer...You want to see Full Grips...Good Aggression...Not Nervy...So on...You should understand what she's showing you...You don't just move from one Tug to the Wedge to a Sleeve at a certain age...They must be confident...experienced and mature enough to move onto the next step...

~Bob~

I am old fashioned, I like ( wet ) leather rags after the tug, and instead of puppy pillows you may use plastic pipes ( you can buy them for a small amount of money in any store with different diameters, ca 50 cm long, kind of drain pipe, put a strong rope through the pipe for grips at both ends, and cover it big and tight with tug - can you sew ? doesn´t need to be pretty, only firm... ).

You can build different diameters without problems, and your dog will get a perfect grip, because she has to bite full, otherwise she can´t hold the pipe - trained like this she won´t learn to bite with a sharp 1/2 grip at all.

Afterwards a intermediate sleeve is fine, you are able to buy different covers for them.

In case you are training in a group, combine your money, and buy all of it :)

Hard to say for sure but I wouldn't use a puppy sleeve with a 15 month old dog. They are pretty soft and they might be able to get through it if they're biting hard enough. Intermediate sleeves are nice but also become useless pretty soon if your dog advances to trial work and has a decent enough grip. If you can find a used/broken in trial/hard sleeve it might be the best thing for you as you'll get more use out of it. If the dog is a good gripper genetically...you don't need those soft things at all as it will actually get them to chew more on it.

I'm not sure what your experience is with bite sport but if you're asking sleeve questions I'm going to lean towards fairly novice and tell you to make sure you work with an experienced person that might already have all of the equipment you're looking for.

thanks for the info. not much to choose from in the case of experienced handlers in my area. the only sport club around is run by a talking ass, masquerading as a human. he runs his own kennel and thrives on pointing out how "inferior" show lines are to his, even though he doesn't have the show results to back up that claim. i won't work with him. there is another guy in the area who does training, but again, no results and people who have spent a LOT of money for his service have recommended avoiding him.

i'm mostly interested in pursuing the training because 1) she seems to enjoy it and 2) i think she shows some promise and 3) i'd like to learn more about it and possibly, eventually become the experienced person in my area.

i do have a follow-up question related to genetic gripping. I can easily check her pedigree for titling, but would i be correct in assuming that the awarding of a title doesn't necessarily mean the dogs were good genetic grippers? what's the best way to check on that?

"Titling" is a great tool and a way to evaluate a dog...but it's not the "End All"...Good training is a great way to over come a lot of problems and deficiencies..
A dog with a Natural/Genetic Full Grip is Great but if you have a very good dog that doesn't have the best of grips...there are ways of training to help this and make them good grips...It's all in the training...

Training is full of TESTS...Tests to see where your dog stands and what they need help with...

People are trying to give you the best advice they can WITHOUT seeing your dog and what exactly is going on...Any sleeve you would buy and use on your girl would only be one to test to see where she stands...If...You would use any sleeve and she doesn't do well or well enough to continue with it then you'd have to back-up to the sleeve that she does well on...

No matter what sleeve you get...When used you will still need to evaluate her progress...You still need to evaluate how the grip is and it would be very beneficial to find someone to help you...A club is a good place to get help and to meet others of similar interests...

~Bob~

A dog can title and have weak/not full grips. It's also something that can be trained. I highly suggest not starting to work your own dog. Without proper knowledge and also the right dog, this is something that is very hard to do. The main thing is having the right dog...and biting a tug is not the same as biting a sleeve off their owner/handler. You'll also need to/probably inadvertently introduce defense into the work and that gets extremely confusing for a dog...at which point you can really do a lot of damage that other helpers might not be able to fix in the future.

You won't become an experienced helper by strictly working your own dog. You need way more than one dog. You also don't want to become that guy that people start with, go somewhere else, and realize that you know little or have caused problems with their dogs when they work on more experienced helpers. Unfortunately part of this sport is being in the right area or living around the right people. There are plenty of people that drive 4+ hours one way just to work with the right person. If you're really dedicated and want to become good, you might need to expand your area of how long you're willing to drive. A club will give you a stable of dogs to work...it's really the only way to gain experience. Sleeve presentation, correct drive technique, ect...is easy to learn. Even reading dogs isn't the hardest thing to do...but you need the various types of dogs to work and gain experience with. Fast, slow, prey, defense, weak grip, strong grip. All these types of dogs will make you a better helper.

I highly discourage you from starting with your own dog, due to the conflict involved you'll probably run into more road blocks than do good. On top of that you need someone's guidance as to how to get from barking on a back tie/harness, to barking in a blind and doing the rest of the exercises as well. The training is much more complicated than just what you see in the trial picture.

Where are you located? There are probably more people than you know that train some sort of bite work in your area. Many people don't advertise...but I can tell you that once you get involved you'll find a lot of people that do it. Feel free to PM me and I'll try to connect you with people.