Defense - Page 21

Just read the 20 pages of this thread - what a mess...

Not only did I have to learn that words like civil, sharp, defense, nerves, nervy, are interpreted differently in the different countries, now there are even "new" terms like "type xyz", "porchtraining", "default"...( Hansisms ? )
Way too difficult for me - I am overwhelmed...
Bee is right, the more uncommon or out of "normal" context used terms, the more confusion.

I liked the vids though ( except bare legs and socks, that´s something no woman really wants to see ), thank you - Joanro´s dog had no former training, Gee´s dogs are trained "civil" , Duke´s "old" male was trained on a sleeve formerly, different dogs, different foundation work ( sorry in case I forgot someone, this was a long read ).

I don´t know about Prager´s dogs though ( vids 1 - 7 ): How were the dogs ( besides your female ) shown in your vids trained formerly? Did you raise and train them by yourself ( porchtraining?), or did you get them like this? They seem to prefer the sleeve arm = equipment, and the black one seems to be IPO trained?

Only for the record: I like Bav´s explanations most.

Again .. as I alluded to in my former post. : Different definitions cause confusion . I think everybody has a point . We are lucky on the PDB to have super posts by All of you !!

This is why I prefer to discuss training in concepts. It is better to describe exactly what is going on within the dog and forget about cliche terminology .

For example : The word defense is to generalized a word to adequately have a conversation in reference to a dog's behavior. The word ALONE is not sufficient enough to describe the dog ! ' Running away' , is defense and so isn't an intense immediate reaction to a stimulus expressed in the form of a bite. Each tells a different story about the dog . Ditto, as we saw for the word 'sharp'.

Same for the word 'Aggression" ., means nothing in and of itself to me . Because there are different kinds and they differ in quality . The word alone falls short. There can be good aggression and also bad aggression . My point , this is another example where we have to look at the dog , the situation , the behavior and in simple language just talk about what is going on .. NO cliche's , better to leave out of the conversation vague poorly defined words.

I saw one picture in this thread , the dog was faced with a man with a shovel . I qualify this because we don't see moments before or after. BUT, look at that dog.. ears way back , stiff as a board , full bearing teeth. Look at the context/situation ... then discuss what is going on in concepts , simple language., make your assessment without generalized words. THAT is how I come to gain knowledge. 30 years ago , to me the words created a lot of wrong understanding and they still do today !!!

If a dog's very first behavior in a specific situation / context is expressed with the origins being 100% from genetics and we reinforce that behavior . Then ok , one can say , we created a default by reinforcing an innate behavior. Nonetheless , we need the situation/ environmental influence in order for the dog to express the inherent predisposition and we need the dog to have the experience in order for the dog to remember or recall the success of that innate behavior in that specific context and that we approve of that behavior. i.e Imprinted. [ make part of it's memory ] . in simplicity , teaching is teaching , communicating is communicating ,take the high road or the low road.

So no use quibbling about words. Best to share concepts with clear meaning and better ourselves/our dogs than to argue about insufficient terminology .