Beginning A Puppy In Protection. - Page 2

The best protection GSD's need little or no encouragement to be defense dogs; if your yearling needs more than simple reinforcement and regimentation of their natural aggressive tendencies, consider them as a companion dog, and find another GSD or Rottweiler as a protection dog.

Nicolesowner,

My impression of this thread was not training a "protection" dog, but training a young dog in Schutzhund.  Schutzhund trained dogs make excellent companion animals.  I was commenting on training a dog for SchH.  When I was talking about "defense" it is a term describing one of the drives in the dog. We were discussing the difference between prey and defense drives, not a "defence" dog as you mentioned.  I just wanted to clarify what I was discussing.

Jim

when to use defense in a dog is a hard question. it really depends on the dog and when it matures.  a better question is how to use defence?  ive worked puppies in more defence than i was able to use on older dogs.  personally i dont really want a dog that needs to be worked in defence.  id like him be in defense when he needs to and prey when he needs too.

its also important to note that defence is more than stick hits, yelliing, whip or table.

A well balanced dog should be able to shoot between prey and defense without problems. 

SharpDawg, you are right.  A well balanced dog should be able able to switch between prey and defense easily.   Actually, Hodie mentioned Bernhard Flinks.  Bernhard was here in Va. in January and spent 2 weeks with me.  Bernhard mentioned that he trains his police dog that anything that moves fast is prey.  So a "courage test" is prey, A helper running is prey either away or straight towards the dog.  A bad guy running in any direction is prey.  When the dog views a person running as prey the dog confronts that challenge with a clear head and determined to catch the bad guy, with extreme speed.  He also teaches his dogs to switch very quickly from prey into defense. 

I also agree with wscottoo, I don't want a dog that must be worked in defense, for me this is a sign of other problems.  As a decoy I don'y enjoy working dogs that must be pushed into defense to get them to bite.  I guess, I feel if the dog has a problem with the work, either change it or don't work the dog.  I have worked dogs like this but I try to calm and reassure them as quickly as I can; then introduce prey once they understand the game.  Again, I'm talking about SchH dogs.  

 I like a strong dog, high in prey drive that will easily switch to defense when the dog feels it is now in a real fight. 

Jim