Training my own PPD - Page 2

Appreciate the comments from everyone. I'm hoping to make it to the Bernhard Flinks seminar next month. I wouldn't want to take away space from a serious competitor, but if there's room left over, I'll pay the extra $$$ for Trigger to come along. I invited the trainer and offered to pay his way also. Hope it all works out as the seminar will be about 200 miles from where I live.

Hey. I am glad you are making a little progress. One thing worries me though.......

I want to be able to trust that he will know the difference when a neighbor is stopping by to return mail that was put in his box by mistake or someone is there to do me harm.

Siren, siren, honk, honk, red flag.

You cannot expect a dog to reason and know who is a bad guy and who is not. Yes they can pick up on body language and odor but they cannot tell the difference between the nervous good guy and the nervous bad guy. Or between the calm, confidant good guy and bad guy. That mindset is what gets people bitten. Happens every day.

"I don't know what happened. My dog has never done that before. My neighbor has been over here dozens of times. He must have done something to set my dog off"

There is nothing wrong with creating a little suspicion in a dog. Just be careful, you can open Pandora's Box without knowing it.

Sounds like you have done well with creating a little suspicion. Nothing wrong with that. Since you admit you have very limited knowlege in this type of training, I suggest you consider looking to the experienced before going any further.

Good luck.

Good advice GARD.

triodegirl-  If you have someone in your area you can trust to work your dog and teach you a few things about PPD training you'll probably really enjoy it.  But GARD is right when he says to be careful about opening Pandora's Box without knowing it. LOL I've been told many times before by a lot of people to be careful what you wish for. LOL

If your GSD is basically sound and docile in the home, he made have natural protective desires to dominate his territory and protect you (if he lives in the home and sleeps near you-most do if they sense a serious and real threat).  I suggest you do not let him loose off lead out in the yard around neighbors or the mailman if you are going to "harden him" with some limited personal protection work.  We used to dress up in a padded suit, roll up a newspaper, open the door of the owners house and quickly whack the GSD lightly on the head.  Then we would run when any aggression was shown.  We always let the dog "win".  Did the same after putting the dog in the owners vans or cars. 

We would progressively increase the length of the fight based on the dogs increasing defense, always letting him win, stopping the assault and then the dog would stop fighting.  When the dog responded aggressively the owner would praise the dog, and then again praise him for relaxing when we would stop being aggressive and resisting his biting.  We found that for a normally temperamented, easy going, sound GSD, 4-5 sessions of this was enought to condition the dog to become protective when intruders appeared and seemed wierd, aggressive or violent, without posing a threat to friends or neighbors.  The key was for the aggressor to become aggressive and act wierd (face masks or darkness enhanced the dogs reactions).  The dogs seemed to become defensive at these signals quickly.  Of course any such training means keeping the dog under control (on leash) when others come over for at least awhile.  In some cases we used light flanking.

Eventually most of our dogs learned who the aggressors were and enjoyed stopping them as a game and getting aggressive, dominating their territory and winning, and then being able to accept the "attacker" as soon as the attacker started acting normal again.  Then the attacker would pet the dog and be friendly.  We also pushed some spooks in warehouse situations to see what they would do.  Some became overly aggressive and "flipped out" in unexpected and uncontrolled wild attacks against the aggressor.  Thus anyone breaking in a home on a spook and attempting to kick that dog or harm it may be in store for an unbelievable surprise (you know what this is like if you have ever seen a highly linebred pet house cat "go off").   In some cases a spook can make a more more crazed and powerful assault than a sound GSD. Moral of that is spooks should not be aggression trained, are not reliable, as this is probably too dangerous for most owners with spooks.  We also had owners get bit by mistake when a spook would go psycho.  Most of these methods are covered nicely in the Koehler books.  Be careful, most sound GSDs need no aggression training.

One last thing.  We did this training back in the 70's and stopped because we came to believe that most normal GSDs just didn't need it.  If we pushed the owner or mock hit him with the newspaper most normal GSDs would get aggressive.  Their reaction was rewarded by the owner. The training we did sharpened the dogs and made them more attentive to noises at night and visitors and more comfortable taking on the aggressor early on.  Thus we came to believe this would increase the owner's overall liability for his dog biting or threatening an invited visitor when not appropriate, unless the dog was verys sound and the owner was vigilantkly in control of his dog at all times.

But we came to believe that any normally temperamented GSD has it in him to defend his master and turf if there is a serious, real time lethal threat. The dogs we hardened did require more supervision and control when visitors would come over, so there is no free lunch. The best GSDs we worked with were German import blooded GSDs of  seeing eye breeding.

Many who have Sch degreed GSDs know this that even very sound ones may growl, alert and eye-up the visitor if he jumps up from a chair or moves too fast. Even knowing that the dog will not then bite or threaten the visitor beyond this (as with my own dog), this tendency to quickly alert is aggravating to some and can bother visitors.  Having any protection or Sch trained GSD is a great responsibility, as is owning any GSD with a tendency to be overly aggressive or unstable in any way.  I think it's best to just have a normally temperamented sound GSD that is obediance trained and socialized.  If one wants more, then training a dog in Sch in a well qualified club situation is the way to go if the dog is sound enough and has the proper drives.  And often folks need help by an experienced breeder of dogs who have competed very successfully in National Sch trials to be able to acquire such a suitable GSD.