drive or grip? - Page 2

darylehret,

would you please explain your statement  "Building" drive is pointless, and teaching grips is just plain wrong."

john

I have always been a drive man. When I started it was in FR. They don't care so much about grip, it's drive, drive, and more drive. Once I started doing more PSA and talking to Sch people it's grip, grip, grip. Of coarse you want both.

I started this thread for two reasons. First to get a decent thread going, and second I am buying a young totally green dog. I have to choose between two sisters that are both really nice dogs, very similar, nice looking prospects, but the only real difference is drive and grip, so I wanted to hear opinions.

Dog one is crazy drive, nutball (which I generally get off on) with no off switch.  Breeder says "she is a pain in the ass" Nothing really wrong with her grip but you can see she could get hectic because of her drive.

Dog two is more laid back, you can chill out with her. Nothing wrong with her drive, just not as high as the other one; but has the better genetic grip. He describes her as about as "GSD like" as you can have in a Mal. He says both dogs bark defensivley at the fence, very balanced, and I could not go wrong with either dog. He says if he were to choose one to work, he would pick dog number 1 (but he is a FR guy)

He sent me a couple short videos. These are totally green dogs with just minimal tug work. I immediatley was drawn to dog number 2. Her entry appeared far more committed and she had a calmer grip. However, after watching the videos dozens of times, I got smart and watched it in slow motion. This showed me things a little different. I instead of watching the dogs, I paid more attention to what the handler and decoy were doing.

Dog 2 had far more slack in the line on her entry and the tug was presented straight. I had to slow it down to see it, but she also got chewy under pressure. Not anything that scared me with how she was worked as a totally green dog. Never backed off just chomped a few times with the decoy totally covering her. The breeder says the dog looked slightly out of the corner of her eye when he shook gallon jug with rocks in it.

Dog 1's entry was not as good but she looked up at the decoy as she got close, there was not as much slack in the line, and the presentation went up and to the outside. She got slightly less pressure, and only chomped once. re-grips wer always forward. Now with her I noticed several subtle things in slow motion. At one point, the decoy was slightly off center, but pulled her up to about his stomach, she re-griped full into him with the stick raised abouve her head. Almost every time she the decoy got square and/or went over with the stick, she either re-gripped forward, or gave a head shake. But she had a little less pressure on her. This dog was completely un-affected by the shaker bottle.

I thought seeing the video after talking to the breeder would make the choice easy. It made it harder.

Which dog would ya'll choose.......John give me a hand here.

Con't

As for building drives and grips. You should always be doing both. This is another factor in my decision......

I am better at building drive than grip. I will be working this dog for at least 3-4 months before I can go see my friend Joel Monroe (very good Sch trainer)

So what is a guy to do?

"as someone stated (sorry i forgot who) its a hell of a lot easier to cap drive than create it."

Could've been me, on the "best schutzhund advice you ever got" thread.  As for the grips; I wouldn't breed on them if I had to improve them, but for the end-user it might be acceptable.

 "Building" drive is pointless, and teaching grips is just plain wrong."

You can condition a young dog to be crazy about anything from a stick to a tug, doesn't tell much about the dog.

A grip can be improved, but if it's poor to begin with you're only fooling yourself. A pulling bite which is encouraged in sports is only effective in these venues, you will never hurt anyone by trying to pull their shirt off.

You need both drive and grip among other attributes in a dog, chosing one over the other is just a comprimise. 

I don't want to side track this thread but I gotta throw in something you all are gonna love. I am writing all this because I will probably be totally gone for a month or so. I will check in but not much time to write.

Most of you will just love this.........

The parents are half brother and sister. (Oh Shit) But wait, it gets better. The grand sires are half brothers (what in holy hell was this guy thinking)!!!!!!!!

Sorry I am a smart ass.

This breeding to me is awesome. I know the lines well. The grand-sires are, in my opinion, two of the best dogs imported from France in the last 10 years. With them you get a 3-3 line breeding on one of the best producing dogs in France during the mid-90's. That dog goes back to some old nasty,nasty Belgian stuff that my old Malinios went back to. This breeder died about 10 years ago and the last dogs are 9-10 years old. Very, very hard to get this stuff.

Momma's pedigree is pretty open and goes back to some very good dutch and belgian stuff.

Anyway I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to buy one of these dogs. The price is right as well and they come from a hobby breeder who breeds for himself, not money.

I don't want to side-track this thread with the genetic side of it. I am just being a smart ass because I know how some feel about breeding like this.

Let me know what you all think about these dogs and how I should go about making my choice. I am always open for opinions and like to hear what others think. I have 1 week to decide.

I am out for about a month but I'll be back.

Oh jeez, time to duck, GARD, the dog morality police will soon descend on this thread like flies on rotten meat.

I hope not.

I would like to hear people's opinions on the pups as I have described them

When I get the dog, I will post the pedigrees and then we can have a nice discussion about that.

"The parents are half brother and sister. (Oh Shit) But wait, it gets better. The grand sires are half brothers (what in holy hell was this guy thinking)!!!!!!!! "

If this is a repeat breeding and you know how they turned out previously that's one thing, if it's the first breeding you better cross your fingers.

With a pup or young dog you always have to cross your fingers.

Which dog would you pick?