Push, pull and shake? Or not? - Page 1

Can someone please explain to me why is shaking - trhashing the prey/decoy/helper bad? I do not train dogs for sport that much any more but I do so for for real LE or PP and to me it is most important that the bad guy gets defeated asap. The trashing is a part of prey drive which accomplishes that. Why do you feel that it is beneficial to teach the dog to do less than nature taught to the dog to do for millions of years? Why do we train sports at all? Isn't it to teach the dog to be efficient on the street? Isn't it to test the dog for suitability for breeding REAL - PRACTICAL dogs for street, for police or personal protection. Or is it to make them look pretty according to the present fad of what pretty is?
Next thing is this recent obsession with making sure that the dog pushes into the bite. Again I'll go to nature. Why does a dog push? The answer is to get better prey and some instances defense grip so that dog's prey ( or survival fight opponent) does not get away and get's killed and in case of prey eaten and in case of defense eliminated from a gene pool. Why does the dog pull? In order to keep the prey off balance and pull it to the ground. The "pull" is devastating when the prey is down and is trying to get up. I remember I was once attacked by GSD ( for real) who knocked me down. he held my forearm and was pulling hard. he kept me down quite well and it was almost impossible to get up. It was amazing to be a part of the efficiency of killing developed in hundreds of millions of years. I have learned from that unpleasant experience quite a bit. It works really well.
So why to teach the dog to always push? Who do we think we are? As a matter of fact, why to teach the dog how to bite at all. I consider it a waste of time to teach a dog something which mother Nature taught predators to with DEADLY EFFICIENCY do since they were amphibians and reptiles hundreds of millions of years ago. Trashing and pushing or pulling is THE most efficient way for a predator to get it's prey and anytime we breed the dogs not to do this or that what dogs do naturally we are losing and losing and losing the breed until it is shit.
And then came man and for 10s of thousands of years understood that biting as the dog does it is effectively the best way since Nature assured through the selection process and survival of the fittest. And that man used it to his benefit for all those thousands of years?
Who in the god's world are we to decide that all that is wrong and that we can teach the dog how to bite better? Don't you think that we should preserve ALL the natural instincts which we have been so far successfully exploiting in the dog's genetic makeup for thousands of years, rather than trying to get rid of them?

Some good questions and lots of them. I especially like, 'why teach a dog to bite at all'. Let mother nature provide the drives and nerve strength to bite, spend your time teaching them how to let go. Nothing more impressive than watching a strong, mature, green dog show you what mother nature has deposited in his tank. Well worth the effort to find one.

The purpose of training any domestic animal is to harness and **control** their instincts for our bennefit.

It is not so much about teaching a dog to bite, but how and where to bite so that the dog is better skilled at fighting. Why teach a martial artist how to fight? I'm sure there are plenty of very tough people that can easily be incapacitated by a highly trained martial artist. A pushing bite also teaches a dog how to fight. So it is not just about biting. Pushing teaches forward aggression which is a more confident type of aggression than pulling. With pulling the dog can be on the edge of fight or flight with the pulling making it easier for the dog to flee. A pushing bite also tells you something about a dog's confidence. Some dogs look good on a sleeve, but when they are trained to be up close to a person's center body mass and near their face, such as in a bicep bite, some dogs get iffy. As for sport, the shaking and thrashing only applies to IPO. Suit sports often have dogs that intensely thrash as they push into the bite. Sports are an a form of recreation for the trainer and the dog. Some sports are better predictors of what dogs are more suitable for real man work and that should be used for breeding. KNPV is an example. I would say that IPO is at the other end of the continuum, but there are some strong dogs in that sport. People who breed KNPV dogs typically are not looking for the podium dogs to bred to. The opposite is true in IPO and it has to do more with money than improving the breed.

I think too many Dog Sports are watering down our breed...Instead it should be enhancing what they already bring...
There are too many rules and regulations that have changed the way the dog should or shouldn't bite...
So many Dog Sports were made to enhance a dog and to make them more ready to do actual work on the street...These Dog Sports are no longer doing this in fact they're making it harder and harder to find dogs that will do what is really needed in the real work...

~Bob~

I agree with a lot already written here.

IPO has become too „stylized“ at high level competion. It has become boring to watch the robotic heeling and routine of high level trials.

I like to see the dogs ‚take‘ on things...I like to see a dogs personality/temperament, which is unfortunately very masked in high level competion.

The point system has done us no favors. Since judges need to give out points, small unimportant details, like silly crank-headed, pushing off with back legs, prancing style heeling, and other things...have become too all encompassingly important only so the judges have something to use systematically to give points...since 1 point can make or break a winner.

The money earned on winners has become too crazy huge and has corrupted the sport.

Better were the days with just a pass or fail. The dogs, and the handlers, personality/ temperament was still allowed to show.

About shaking, pulling and regripping if necessary:

NOTHING on this planet is as effective to kill and dismember prey as shaking and pulling! And I mean nothing.

When I use the bite pillow/sleeve with my shepherd, and allow him to have his way....without control,  he is so friggin strong that my husband...all 6‘ 5“ 280 pounds of muscle, ex football player...can’t even hold on for very long. And I mean less than a minute...maybe half a minute.

My boy has all his natural instincts in place and is a killer when it comes to bite, shake and pull at 1 1/2 yo.

So, if a shepherd were allowed to bite, pull and regrip as needed, no decoy could hold on very long with a sleeve...unless in a full bite suit, and still, within seconds he’d be pulled to the ground and dragged around like a sack of potatoes by a dog with all Instincts intact.

So one reason for a pushing into and steady bite and no regripping desired...is to help keep control over the dog, and to help the decoy withstand this sheer natural power. IMO

I think pushing into a bite is unnatural for the dog. The pull is what gets the prey. We have probably all watched 4 or 5 wolves bring down a elk...not one will push...but all will pull, in different directions. Nature knows best.
 

Wolves bringing down an elk are concentrating on getting it to the ground to eat it.in fact, they don't need to get I on the ground before eating....pulling will reward them with chunks of flesh to eat before the animal is even subdued, let alone dead. They will eat it alive, disemboweling and eating while it's still on the hoof.
So pushing under those circumstances are not productive nor accomplishing procuring  chunks of fresh meat!

In a fight, however, I have witnessed many different dogs that will push deeper and deeper into a bite...taking in as much flesh as possible for ultimate damage to the oponent.
A dog at the throat of another dog is going to continue to push the bite as deep as possible in order to litterally throttle the oponent. So pushing bites are absolutely natural for dogs, during a fight.
Same thing if a dog has an oponent in the flank...deep pushing bite will cause the most damage.
 

That is consistent with the belief that socialized dogs don't typically see humans as prey. They tend to see us as adoptive relatives and don't tend to "cannibalize" people. The objective of the fight is to defeat the opponent, not for food. That is also why traditionally, equipment is used in prey work. Dogs will see a rag or tug or wedge as prey. Once they grasp biting, it is transferred to the man, which helps squash the taboo to bite humans. Pushing a dog into defense is a different matter, but, IMO, that is not a good way to start out young dogs because they lack the biting skills and maturity to cope with the threat of being pushed into defense. With dogs that have defense as their primary drive instead of prey, it is a little bit different, but I don't think those type of dogs are the best for man work.

You are right Joan...
As I think about it more... going for the neck area...yes, they often do push into the neck, even in play.

Story time - horrible story and a bit off topic...so dont read it if you get queasy:

I can think of no more painful death, than being taken by a pack of wolves. I shudder to think.

Or an alligator...as happened to one of my uncles in central FL many, many years ago... trying to save his 10 yo son, who fell into the lake while trying to pull out his cap that was blown into the water... as they were fishing from a boat. He hoisted his son back into the boat, but was instantly pulled under the water again by something no one could see.
He was found days later by divers, stuffed into a alligator mud hole, used as a „food pantry“ underwater. All bones broken. My cousin never got over it.

Initial question:
"Can someone please explain to me why is shaking - trhashing the prey/decoy/helper bad?"

I add "pull" because of the title...

Sometimes I wonder how many dogs and IPO trials people have seen, and how much of them ever read the trial rules...

"Shaking" - no loss of points
"Thrashing" - no loss of points
"Pulling" - no loss of points

Loss of points - regripping, because IPO and formerly SchH ask for full, hard grips.

A pulling dog, shaking, able to thrash the decoy?
As long as the grip is full and hard this dog will not loose one single point.

This dog may loose a point because due to its action it may need one more second to "out".
So indirectly the stronger dog may get a couple of points less, but as long as part A and part B are okay, not enough to vanish out of the 1. third.

Back to the basics: instead of breeding to points only breeders should watch the single dogs....