Europe Breeders - Page 3

My comment about how some trainers and helpers try to get a dog in the highest state of drive possible which causes problems, disappeared, but my point Duke, was that such training can be a factor but is not the sole factor for dogs not being able or taught to cap their drive. My dog is a blend of West German, Czech, Slovak and goes back to some old, very strong DDR dogs. He was a maniac as a pup. The way he has been trained is to not get him in a state of drive so that he can not attend and learn. For example, when he comes on the field for bite work, he has been taught to remain calm, not pull or bark at the first sign of the decoy. He has to always give a focused static heel before turning him on or sending him for a bite. In the foundation bite work, the decoy was not darting around or moving the prey object in a frenzied way. He used a wedge/bite pillow and barely moved it, but the dog genetically had enough drive that he didn't have to be begged to bite. In using a toy, I never did a lot of misses with the toy to build frustration and the dog comes into drive for the toy just by seeing it. At almost two years of age, he has matured into a totally different dog and can stay in the house and calmly lie down or chew a hard chew toy. When you go on the internet and look at people working young dogs, that vast majority are making prey with a rag, tug, etc. in an exaggerated way that, IMO creates problems. Of course genetics are the main factor. A balanced dog can have very good prey drive, it just has to be harnessed correctly from a young age.
Valk,
Some of those hyped, brainless idiots are that way for the very reasons I just stated. How can a pup/dog learn and develop control when the training is always over stimulating the dog in prey. As I said in the post that disappeared, such overstimulation is not what a dog will see in sport trials or real life, so why create that picture for the dog.

Valk,
I don't have anything too critical to say about the dog in the video you posted. He is not the type of dog I prefer. You can see his primary drive is defense and when he bites, he is trying to chase/scare the threat away as opposed to fighting him and staying engaged in the grip. He has learned how to intimidate and will bite, but he hasn't learned how to fight. Some people say that high drive dogs are preferred because they are easier to train. There is some truth and mistruth to that belief. To get the control, the foundation has to be correct and many repetitions are needed to get good reliability and some people don't want to put in the time to get that reliability with a high drive dog.

for certain preywork is easyer to train than defence/civil etc, also high drive dogs will allow you to make more mistakes, so for newbie and less experienced trainers its better/easyer to work in preydrive

Valk, I enjoyed the video. Thank you for sharing. So good to see a dog who is not having to be tricked into thinking a person is a cat wearing a suit or sleeve. I enjoyed the aggression and how it relates to dog vs human encounters and the associated discernment. I also appreciate the dog’s interest in his handler’s well being even when he was out of camera range. Little things like that tend to catch my eye.

This pairs nicely with what Duke was saying about departments trying to get away from the prey monsters and look for a more aggression based animal. These jacked up, prey on anything dogs are causing tremendous problems in the law enforcement community. Predatory drift as it relates to human triggers has always been a disaster waiting to happen. It’s not waiting anymore. The personal injury lawyers are starting to have a field day with these deep pocket lawsuits. Unfortunately, there are also an alarming number of police dogs who have to pay for it in another way.

Thank you very much for the exchange of info and experience. I have not that amount of experience to share with you, but learn.
I believe i used the wrong word "hyperactivity" (giving the sense of a continuous state of behaviour, or that the dog does not switch off or is mentally "unstable"/frenetic behaviour). The words prey, bite and drive are more apropriate as you all mentioned, given the context. And when i mention the word sport about german shepherd, i wil give my begginer honest opinion, i mean that it appears to me that some lines or some breeders or some trainers, made the bite work/prey drive as a kind of sport or competition or the primary objective, maybe reducing the overall balanced defensive posture of the dog. I mean it probably make sense for chasing police work.
I could also mention the herding capabilities (maybe im being to specific on this, but herding creates a sense of discipline, protection of the pack, guard instinct, i have seen some german shepherds here doing this kind of work, but like i said im being to specific and for that i believe some breeders focus on this), sense of awareness, athletic capabilities, balanced protection. When i say im looking for a more defensive/protection dog i really mean that and less of a "overdriven"/chasing/prey drive dog. Does it make sense? Is it realistic?
Please keep up. Thank you for the comments.

I'll say again that IMO, many of these so called prey monsters are not properly trained in that their prey drive is overstimulated in both obedience and protection when there is not only no need for it, but it also makes for a hectic dog that has little self control, problems attending and learning and actually creates the monster. As an example, someone brought a two year old male GSD to our small club recently. He is not a regular and the dog's foundation work was done somewhere else . As soon as the dog saw a sleeve, he went berserk. Part of that was because he has the genetics for very high prey drive, but mostly it was due to poor foundation training and letting the dog, as well as stimulating the dog into that state of drive. So this guy traveled a couple of hours to train, and the training was for him to put his dog in a down with a sleeve in sight and the decoy would calmly move toward the sleeve and pick it up. If the dog got jacked up, he was told to down and be quiet and the decoy would put the sleeve back down and walk away. This reteaches the dog that if he wants to get a bite, he has to be calm and under control before he can. Same for the whip in bite work. It is totally counterproductive. The bark and hold is a fundamental flaw in IGP because a silent guard is just as effective and doesn't waste energy. But in IGP, the judges want to see that certain bark and think the dog is working in aggression when that can't possibly be the case because the dog has done the same routine hundreds of times. Most of the dogs in our small club are KNPV Mal X's and none of them are hectic or jacked up. And they done need to be stimulated with a lot of prey movement during the early bite work. The pup gets a few chances and if he is not engaged, he is put up, which is a different approach from, well, the dog is not interested so we need to put more prey movement in the prey object.

Apple I second your commetnary . We are on the same page with our thoughts, outlooks and all that you have writen in your last post . In short , my subjective opinion : I like that pup in the video in general as a puppy , however , without explanation , I also agree with you : that pup is not one that would be for me either ... Of course we all perhaps look for different features , and we have different preferences- that does not make the pup good or bad .. Though , I do find though .. that some did fancy the pup interesting ...

duke
what do you mean under "matured late, developed drives later"?

emoryg
isn't enjoyable to see the dog, whose acts based on brain work rather than impulses :)

apple
people enjoy by things, to what they used to and which familiar to them. one cannot have much of opinion/appreciation about unknown stuff.
you too much emphasizing on training. in another topic i already noted - training is secondary thing.
much important innate predisposition of dog and that predisposition best can be see in very young, not yet impacted by surrounding environment pups.

b.t.w. on which basis you arrive to conclusion "when he bites, he is trying to chase/scare the threat away as opposed to fighting him and staying engaged in the grip"?

LOL apple, so you want to "untrain" undesired behaviour caused by geneticly high drives LOLOL its crazy stuff I see all the time, IPO people choosing a pup with crazy prey and posession, and than struggle to get them to out, guard properly and stay put when helper is moving or picking up sleeve calmly

many people still think its all about the training, when in fact many problems, can, and should be fixed in the whelpingbox so to speak, in the breeding

Valk, by maturing late I mean few things, first of all, you can start working a preydriven dog from 8 weeks, civil/defence work not so much, LOL, some old lines have higher drives, but also later kick in, here are some vids of a dog of my breeding with higher drive, she didnot pickup a ball or rag till 10 months old