Is civil agitation a lost art? - Page 2

GARD,
Excellent questions that bring out so many variables. B. Koehler and W. Strickland were the first GSD/ training books I owned. I too was taught old school agitation. Totally different from most of what I see today, though I am very limited in what I see today. So my opinion may not include some real aggressive training that is going on today, I don't know.
You mentioned the real animated agitation that was used. As far as animated agitation goes it was only as animated as needed to be. The dogs were usually AM.bred but were much tougher then todays AM. bred. The German dogs were always tough. Not until I came across a famous German kennel ( I will not name) dog that was black and red had I seen a weak German dog. 
Overall though the dogs were far more serious minded. Aloof was something that one expected. The dogs were more work oriented and less sport as I recall.
As far as the agitation goes the biggest thing was to bring out the civil drive in the dog and this took on a variety of looks from animated to eye contact, to what ever the dog needed to bring out the nastyness. As was mentioned it was absalutly necessary that the dog was solid in obedience and keep in mind that we did not have as much of a  law suit happy nation that gave all the rights to the bad guys. 
Again just IMO today we have gone over the top to have Golden Retriever mentality in a GSD. I do not mean to be offensive to those that have good dogs, it's just a general statement of the times.
I sold an excellent working dog to someone once that said the dog would not work good for Schutzhund because the dog shook the arm violently and they did not want this. However, she said years later that she didn't lock her doors after she got this dog cause she knew the dog was for real. 
On W. Strickland a side note in regards to your subject of new vs. old. She was a marvelous trainer who achieved many many titles and set some outstanding records for CDX and UTD degrees and if my memory serves me right she used no treats. Today this is the first thing that comes out, the treats. I do not like this for puppies for sure. I want the dog to work for me and not the treat. I know I am opening a real can of worms but dogs did just great without treats in the past and I think the bonding and respect was deeper.  I better quit cause I will lose this post . Good topic.

joanna,,,to answer your  question,,, yes!!!  and we have all the "oh, i want to do that with my dog"  people to thank for it.  when schutzhund became a "sport" and not a true test of the dog is when so much was lost.   so now we are overwhelmed by people who breed and broker "sport" dogs, that you have to really know what to look for to find a  TRUE  German Shepherd.

john

Today this is the first thing that comes out, the treats. I do not like this for puppies for sure. I want the dog to work for me and not the treat. I know I am opening a real can of worms but dogs did just great without treats in the past and I think the bonding and respect was deeper.

  ITA, oskoolgsds! RIGHT ON!

and just to open another can of worms,,, if we have lost this much with our working dogs,,,what have the showlines lost?

john

I remember attending a Koehler seminar, where he made a very valid argument against using tennis balls in training.  He said," Do you really want to have a ball freak, who will do anything to get the ball. If you'd throw the ball into a burning building, the ball freak would not hesitate to run into burning building. It the ball freak really a trained dog or what? Does the dog understand what is expected of him? Koehler didn't approve of using tricks, but insisted on teaching and training to the task".  I've often wondered: what would happen if during protection work, someone dumped a bucket of balls on to the field near the helper!" 

In the 60's when the Zoll and police were looking to buy dogs, they would visit vaious clubs to check perspective dogs. One test was done while the perspective dog was being worked by the helper. The police trainer would stand to the side while the dog was engaging the helper. The trainer would throw an extra sleeve to the side. If the dog released his grip from the helper and went for the sleeve on the ground, the dog was rejected. They wanted the dog to focus on the job at hand and not to be sleeve happy.

John, IMO we have lost something in our breed by allowing training to dictate what we expect in the breed.  We have drifted away from measuring and testing our dogs for breedworthiness. We see tricks, ball freaks, treats, e-collars, sleeve carrying to make good sport dogs, but this doesn't help evaluate or test our GSD working dogs - all bloodlines - show or leistung.

Joanna Becker

Joanna,
Appreciated your coments. I am reluctant to bring these points up cause I know it is a lost art to train this way and it will offend todays teaching. I read a post that said something like " help, my puppy won't do obedience no matter what treat I give him"  I agree that their are probably lots of training methods today that are helpful but overall I like much of what was done in the past. I have only seen table training on video but liked what I saw. This is something I would have tried.
The scenerio of the dog chasing the sleeve ( sleeve happy )  is a sign of both training and to some extent the dog. We used to do anything we could do to trick the dog to focus away from the agitator to give the dog a correction that would bring him back to the bad guy with more intensity then ever. A real good lesson for him. Bad guy outing the dog  for example.  We used Psych more then. I don't see that today, just technique. Gosh, that stuff sure was fun, it was more like ultimate fighting.

Sunsilver,

I quite agree. Food is great for puppy imprinting, but I prefer not to constantly bribe my dogs. I currently have some young dogs that are not particularly food motivated, but respond very well to verbal stimulation and encouragement. I have one that at 7 months is more focused and motivated off leash (with very little training) than much older dogs that have had daily food training. Best Wishes, Jonah  

Table top training was developed in the States. It's not a technique, which I would put my dogs through nor would I advocate this kind of treatment for any dog.  I've seen some tapes of table top training, which are way over the edge and very brutal. Tethering a dog to a pole in the middle of the table, so the dog can't move IMO isn't achieving the purpose to bring out the fighting instinct in a dog.  Frankly, I wouldn't recommend it. IMO it's like akin to pit bull fighting and the despiration of fighting for one's life.

There are other sane approaches to build good protection in our dogs...dogs love a good fight, but they must win without being abused. IMO training isn't "a one dog and pony show", whereby every trainer is using the same techiques or methods. Today, we see most clubs using the same methods for sport dog training. It may be fun, but I question the value of using the same methods, especially when the method doesn't match the task. for the task.

IMO if a dog is doing protection work, he shouldn't be carrying a sleeve and running off the field with his prize. His reward should be that he's holding the helper and protecting his master. It goes back to the principle of how one meets stress - when an animal meets adversity he either chooses to fight or flight ( run from the problem)  If he is in flight, he's running away from the fight. IMO the helper should be running from the field not the dog :-)  It's a fine line trying to balance a dog's instincts to make sure he's performing the task and not playing or pretending to do the work. To each his own...

Sunsilver, good points about food motivation. I suppose we have to study our dogs and work from there. Besides, it's a lot more interesting and rewarding to develop communication between our dogs...than expecting every dog to use the same training methods.

Olskool you were the first one that came to mind when I thought about this. Thanks for the input.

We are exploring some good stuff here. I am off to training right now (ring sport so no civil stuff unfortunately) but I am looking forward to more discussion tonight.

Let's keep this going.

Since many many of the dogs that we use for protection and thus are candidates for civil agitation, I think we have to look what the effect the sport is having on the dog and ultimately the lack of civil training.  When GRIPS became more important than fight drive in a routine we started down the road.Nowadays  if you take a dog with fair fight dive and full grips and a dog with great fight drive and 3/4 grips guess who gets the better score???? So what are we emphasing!? Full grips derive from prey training, Hard fight drive by the dog often leads to a readjustment  of grip by the dog during the fight.Now take 20 years of people TRAINING for these specifics and you get decoys that ONLY know good prey training and are subsequently rewarded for this. So today we are at a point that the art of civil training, is not productive in producing the type of trial result that would encourage its use. Subtle deletions in the Sch routine over years have altered the type of GS that is being bred and used. Notwithstanding, the use of the GS in the areas where these deletions helped the dog, have shown a decline in shepherd use..JMO