Defense drive or Prey drive - Page 8

A dog doesn't necessarily have to 'show' fear to 'feel' fear does he? It could be anywhere from a shifting of bite to a quick intensity that wasn't there when he thought they were just playing.

preston, here is another experiment you can do with these dogs that have "the look of a preditory bird". since my previous experiment dosn't sit well with you ( and it shouldn't, but would prove my point). put an e-collar on any of your so called fearless dogs (your choice any one of them) put it on the highest power setting. now use any word ( one you don't use for training) say the word then hit the button. do this 10 times with saying the word then hitting the button. ( this experiment will only work if you say the word first then hit the button. will not work correctly in any other order, laws of behaviour/ classical conditioning thats a different thred). on the 11th time say the word but don't hit the button. you will get a fear/ stress response. doing this type of experiment you can condition any dog to fear anything. for example if for some reason you wanted your dog to fear feathers (i don't know why you would want to but you could) all you would have to do is show your dog a feather then shock, pinch, correct whatever you wanted to do that was a negative stimulas,and you will very quickly get a dog that will show fear of that feather, or whatever you wanted to use. another experiment you could do is the force retrieve. i've done a couple of dozen of these and seen many more. the results are the same with every dog. first the dog will usually try fighting then when that doesn't work the dog will try to advoid it ( both fear responses) then then the dog will comply when he figures out how to shut the pressure off. this is basic compultion training and what you would have used on these so called fearless dogs that you had in the 70's and 80's, because there was no other known way of training dogs back then. so if these dogs were completly fearless then you could not have been able to possibly train them, period. on a side note if a dog truely dosn't fear anything it wouldn't survive more than a month ( unless the dog lived in a bubble). we all need fear to survive, form getting hit by a car, walking off a cliff, anything in every day life. it's the same with dogs and all other animals. this is not somthing i have made up. it's scientific fact. 

workingdawg . good example of learning.. and to add to your post .. the flip side opf that ... and you can tgrain sustituting positve reinforcement instead of negative reinforncement/association that will lend one to condition a dog not to fear. case in point : stick hits !! i trasin my pup at 10 weeks to posively respond to the stck/ eing touched .. and at that age being taped. ... yes we can train ... we can also mask / cahnge tendencies with the right apptoach .. fear to fearless .. fearless to fear BTW ... nice communication workingdawg

alphpup you are exactly right. there are though some natural instictive fears that you can't positivly condition animals to. one scientist have found is fire another is certain types of natural poisons. it's a good thing for survival

Forfot to add --yes Pupitz .. you understand .. exemplified what I meand " BY THE CHANGES" .yes perhaps i might not say fear in your post . perhaps i might lighten that up by saying at the least " the dog minimum is concearned , became insecure , etc." maybe not quite fearful if the dog even so much lets up in the strengngth of the grip , or slides on the bite .. or even with a hard grip starts to close it's eyes. IMO i see things in varying degrees and dimensions. Uncertainty may not coincide with fear. .. perhaps semantics and cannot say quantitively ..a certain amount of uncertainty and insecurity will lead to overconcearn and become fear. so a slight cjhange on a bite i immediately respond by becoming weaker so that the dog can become more secure etc. etc. -- novices ...get the jist?? but you betrter be able to read instantaneous , blink of an eye changes in your dog or i will state ..if you don't then continuing /repetative mistakes will push back your dog or ruin it for what it could have been.

Okay! I tried to stay out of this until GARD invoked my name.

First off, if you try to interpret dog behavior in direct relation to human emotions you ARE already lost.

Secondly, ALL warm blooded animals experience a form of fear; ALL warm blooded animals. It is part of their most important instinctive drive, Survival of the Species. Without it you can't fear death or injury and therefore would have a very short time on earth.

Third, GARD on culling through the BS and Preston's comments, DITTO. Just running your mouth doesn't make you right and repeating the same misinformation over and over doesn't make it right, it makes you look stupid.

Back to hibernation.

Unicorn,
I was not going to post on this since there are some that know what they are talking about. There is also stuff that is not true and never will be true such as a dog having no fear. He will die the first time he thinks he can jump off a cliff.
I did not want to respond to your video but after thinking about it for the night I thought if I was in your position I would want the truth, good or bad.
Get a different trainer. This was not Agitation????  This dog did not display civil drive. This dog  IMO appeared to me to be too imature for PP training. 
Agitation is not jumping around in an animated manner. Agitation is a mind set first !!!  I have been away from all training for 20 + years but I can still remember enough to know what a joke is. Agitation is me against the dog. Animation is the smallest part of it unless I am trianing for the circus. It takes physical ability, agility, strength and courage , but above all it is psychological, a mind set. It takes a person that is willing to be bit if necessary to get the most out of a dog, not deliberatly obviously but it is apart of the package deal. Agitation is knowing the dog, reading the dog and then having the ability to provoke the dog to display aggression, then knowing when to back off and let the dog win. It is knowing how hard to push the dog and when to push him. If you cannot read the dog you will ruin him or never get close to bringing him to his potential. 
You will only get out of the dog what is genetically in the dog, no more only potentially less. NO one can evaluate this dog entirely on this video clip, but you can sure see some things he is not. Unfortunatly the handling and agitatoin??? were not there to get a more fair appraisal. 
One last coment, agitation begins when I look at the dog. When I look him in the eyes and he looks at me and I can see what he is all about and he sizes me up. The battle has begun at this point. Establishing who he is and then encouraging him to see that he is the baddest SOB on the planet. If I am on target at the beginning with the dog then the rest is just adding on to what is establised. Before it is all over though he will know that he will have to earn his keep, as I will give him a battle.  Uni, find a man that has it in him to promote your dogs strong points with no interrests of his own other that making your dog into what you want him to be. As Jeff mentioned too many want a pay check and really don't care about you or your dog. 
If I am all wet then Jeff, Spook, Get a Real dog, or others in the know can correct me, but I will not get into a debate with  some over dumb stuff. Thanks

I think i get the drives now, I just have to watch training to really understand all of this. I may go to florida soon, so I might just get to visit a club. I can also watch someone locally who has about 13 dogs he brought in form slovakia. Thanks for the links Get A Real Dog. To tell the truth I think my dog has kind of weak nerves, but I don't mind because it's good for letting me know when someone is comming by my yard. I was told that it would harm her to have her go into a down to let peole pet her, but I think that is the safest way to let her get used to people. It really calms her down. Thanks again.

I have some people around here who want a puppy from her, and if i do breed her, then I would like to try to train the pups. This would be in about 2 years ( to let the pups mature ) but would you advise this or should I just leave them alone.

well good to see most of you understand and agree with me that all dogs experience fear as a natural emotion.

I still think people like Preston want their dog to be Rambo and have no fear, some parents do the same thing with their children. Again, fear is a natural good thing, its how you handle the fear as a person that makes you brave, for example I told a young child the other day that I was proud of them for flying in a plane in spite of being scared. A dog does not understand reasoning but his genetics/imprinting will dictate how he responds to a threat and fear. some fight and some run.

QUOTE: If I am all wet then Jeff, Spook, Get a Real dog, or others in the know can correct me, but I will not get into a debate with  some over dumb stuff. Thanks

Not sure why I would think you are all wet, LOL I think that you hit on some very good points.

QUOTE: This dog  IMO appeared to me to be too imature for PP training. 
This was a good point, for me, I want a dog that at this age can handle what that trainer person was dishing out better than that. BUT there are so many other factors that could come into play with a GSD at this age. THis is why I like the Mal better. At 13 months I havew known for thirteen months what was up with the dog LOL

QUOTE: If you cannot read the dog you will ruin him or never get close to bringing him to his potential. 
This is sooooo true. This is also a skill, or a talent mind you, I do NOT think that just anyone can do this. I think that you can aquire a certain amount of knowledge, but the talented ones are truely much better at it.

QUOTE: You will only get out of the dog what is genetically in the dog, no more only potentially less. NO one can evaluate this dog entirely on this video clip, but you can sure see some things he is not.

This is soooo true. I have seen dogs look like this the first time out, and never again. They took a big turn and were the bomb!!! I have also seen dogs go the other way, and dogs that stayed the same. All we can do is generalize for that session, and that is about it.

Quote: As Jeff mentioned too many want a pay check and really don't care about you or your dog.

Naturally I agree with this statement! LOL For me, when you bring your dog on the field for me to work, it is "my dog". For me, it has to be like this, as I want to get the best I can out of "my dog". Anything less is unacceptable.