Decoying - Page 3

Clearly you have no understanding of drives, which is fine everyone has to start somewhere.  I recommend you get Helmut Raisers book "Der Schutzhund" to start with.  This will give you a rudimentary understanding of what the various drives are and how each plays a part in bitework.

Quote: Most people start this action way too early and the dog becomes a prey monster and never learns to channel into defense.

OK, so demanding a tug is gonna teach the dog to channel into defense????? At what point would this occur???? Still confused there.

Clearly you have no understanding of drives, which is fine everyone has to start somewhere.  I recommend you get Helmut Raisers book "Der Schutzhund" to start with.  This will give you a rudimentary understanding of what the various drives are and how each plays a part in bitework.

Clearly you are confusing her with terminology. This is one of the problems all over the place, as people use words like you saw above. For example, a dog is going from barking out of frustration, then aggressive/demanding. If a dog is rewarded for barking out of frustration, then he will repeat the behavior that got him the reward.

So all you have there is intense frustration, not aggression...........in my terminology.

Kind of like all the displacement behaviors you see a dog doing in the blind and the terminology they use to describe them.

A defensive dog is a dog that is gonna run. Time to start thinking about training, and what you are really doing with the dog. At a base level, defense is a fear based drive. Many people cannot read a dog for shit, and think that what they are seeing is not prey drive, but here is the funny part of it, at what point is "defense" gonna carry your dog down the field????? It is prey that does that, and "nerve" that helps keep your dog from bugging out when "defense" drive pops up. "Nerves" dictate where the "avoidance" threshold starts.

OK, so why is defense necessary????

Echo, go buy a clue!

Jeff, I won't waste my time with such a great dog trainer. BTW which National did you get the 100 in tracking? If I need to explain the difference between defense and defensive you're wasting your time in dog sport. Additionally, this is not ringsport; you need a convincing guard in order to excel and that is arrived at in defense. But I'm sure you already knew that.

A dog must learn how to work in defense if for no other reason than a trial decoy will put pressure on the dog to see fight or flight response, so already we disagree!  Perhaps it is a more an issue of definitions or terminology.  Perhaps it is the same as the never ending battle of whether or not a dog has fight drive.  Who has not seen that particular thread on every board - it always goes on for days & days with everyone getting heated and no one ever agreeing on anything.  Come to think of it, every "drive" thread becomes an argument not a discussion every single time, so what's the point?   I'm for sure not going to be the one to be admonished by Don to "stop beating a dead horse"!!!

Helmut Raisers book is considered by most to provide an excelent description of drives.  

As a great trainer told me, perhaps it is better to say "When my dog does __________________, what should I do" or "When my dog does _________________, I do ________________".  Rather than muck it up with internet theories on drives.

oops, sorry Spook, we posted at the same time!

Quote: A dog must learn how to work in defense if for no other reason than a trial decoy will put pressure on the dog to see fight or flight response, so already we disagree! 

But what happens when you have a dog whose threshold for defense is high?? Do you still push him into defense???? Being that threshold levels for defense and avoidance can be very close together, what happens when you push the dog into avoidance???? Do you think you can repair that with training???

Spook, how about you answer the questions posed, or not.

For example: you need a convincing guard in order to excel and that is arrived at in defense

Is it? Or is it frustration??? What are you really looking at??? Do you know for sure??? I do not think so.

"Do you still push him into defense???? Being that threshold levels for defense and avoidance can be very close together, what happens when you push the dog into avoidance???? Do you think you can repair that with training???" (jeff)

This is why only the very experienced (and good) decoys are the ones who should start defence work with  younger dogs.  A dog should never be worked in defence until & unless he is mature - in defence a dog learns confidence in himself.  A young dog can be ruined if he is not mature enough but is pushed too hard.

If a dog is worked in prey only he can easily be chased off by a different helper or even just a strange field.  If a dog never develops the nerves or confidence to be pressured by the decoy because he cannot stay in defence but will immediately be pushed into avoidance perhaps this dog is not sufficient for the work.

If you are saying a dog channeled into defence is a dog that will always run, I strongly disagree.  Good decoys do channel dogs from one drive to another.  If you are saying all dogs can be chased by being pressured too long and too hard in defence, I agree.  This however; goes back to my original premise that only the best decoys (the best at reading dogs) should be doing this kind of work.

Yes, Jeff. I do know for sure. As sure as any human can be. I can read a dog, can you?

Now answer the question I have asked you repeatedly. What Nationals do you claim to have gotten 100 in tracking? Or is that just more of your bullshit? Fair is fair. What's the answer?

Quote: If a dog is worked in prey only he can easily be chased off by a different helper or even just a strange field.

I do not think that you can "only" work a dog in prey.

However, I think that a dog that has strong nerve and strong prey drive will do just fine without all the "defense work".

Silly little spook. I have never seen your work, and you cannot be brought into a conversation without your insecurities flying about. You just are not worth more than this response.

Boards like this greatly reflect what you as a person percieve the world to be thinking of you. You have this assumption that I am making fun, or critisizing your work. All I do is ask questions and you go into this frantic "I know where you live" stuff the last time I talked to you. You are too insecure to go into detail about definitions and how they affect the conversations here on this board. I have trained with so many just like you that cannot be talked to, as you are right, but not willing to explain why. So there it is, and it is the end.

For the rest of the people on this board, the one thing that I do know, is that I have seen poor but consistant training produce results over and over again. When discussing decoy work with a lot of people in this country, there is a huge lack of experience in my sport, mostly due to how few dogs we have available to train and work. I am not saying that there is no one that can decoy, I am talking generally about how small all the sports are, and how few there are to work compared to overseas, where there is are 15 clubs in a 5 mile radius, and the sport has been done by generations and generations within families.

Add to that the fluctuating meaning of terms, and you have what we just had here. Frustrate the dog, reward the frustration, and eventually you end up with intense frustration. Makes sense right??? So replace the word intense with aggressive, and what is the difference to you????

If your point is it's better for a decoy to work a dog forever in prey rather than screw him up in defence because the decoy lacks the ability or experience, then I agree, however;  I do not think it's possible to do this and end up with a world class podium dog.

By the way, your assumptions about Spook are way off the mark.  I can assure you he is quite accomplished and like you say "You have never seen his work".