Grip and nerves. - Page 4

In my opinion I consider what you described more as play. All that is going on is you are having a person other than the handler playing tug with the dog. I guess what I am saying is you might as well just take the protection aspect out of this and just find people to play with your dog, that should build its confidence enough. The prey should be the decoy not an object right?

spencer

But first teach them the "physical" challenges, and reinforce the motor response, so that they have the "tools" to adequately confront the psychological challenges that follow.  A soldier is trained with the necessary skills before thrown into battle.  They play "wargames".  The "real deal" is of course different, but dealt with when the time comes, after adequate preparation.  Confidence is a process, courage is a quality.

finally  a good topic to bring people in. Dary, she is old enough to have been taught these skills. The handler has a good grasp of this it seems. Yes, every body should do tug work we would all have have better success. Please do not quote someone else to make you look original.;

How is quoting someone else supposed to look original?  As you've said, "Steal from the best and forget the rest."   I just happen to agree with those who said it better before me.

Tug work is not "just" tug work work all the same to everyone, and whether or not the dog's old enough, doesn't mean you should assume the training approaches of the handler are the same that you would have employed yourself.  No better way to "neutralize some of the defense" than by incorporating more prey excercises in the helper work.  And by conversely introducing defense challenge in handler tugwork, blending both approaches can integrate a balance of drives so that they can work in unison.  The focus shouldn't be to reduce one drive to make room for the other, rather than to concentrate on the other drive less prevailing.  Sounds like the all the ingredients are present, just not thrown into the mixing bowl yet.

There once was a boxer named Mike Tyson who was all prey aggression. One day he was knocked out. He had no defensive skills to fall back on so his career was over. The same thing has happened to many dogs that were not exposed to ALL the skills that they will need later. I am not talking about blowing the dogs mind but just giving enough to allow it to sort it out on its own. We can't think for them but we can help by giving measured amounts of stress that will allow them to become stronger.

realcold,

LOL!  I read that the first time and automatically thought, hmmmmm, that is funny!  Someone named their Boxer (dog) Mike Tyson!

Duuuhhhhh!

Blonde to the bone!

Vickie

www.PowerHausKennels.com

Realcold, very interesting posts.  And I think we may saying the same thing to some extent.  You wrote:

Your work sounds good for the prey side Slam. But I see nothing to neutralize some of the defense now. This is her    problem. She is 17 months old and your ability to play with her drives is becoming limited without going to extremes. Remember, scaring the decoy and impressing on the decoy that the dog is powerful is as much a reward as a bite and a slip for this dog. Tell me please why you could not incorporate some  form of this now.

Ok, I would work this dog  in prey to balance out it's drives.  I would go back to the basics for a time to teach this dog what prey drive is, and not every encounter with the decoy is a real fight.  Remember, I haven't seen this dog and it may not be possible to or easy to bring this dog into prey and calm it down.  Everything I mentioned earlier was designed to lessen it's defense drive by putting the dog in a calm clear headed state of mind.  Many dogs (not all) that show such strong defense drives with shallow grips as Emily describes are insecure and think they are in a real fight.  I just went with my PD to evaluate several young GSD's for police K9's.  We purchased 3 last week.   One is very serious in the bite work, he is out to maul you.  He is intent on doing serious damage, he drops the sleeve immediately and goes straight for the decoy without a sleeve.  He is all teeth and you know he is serious in the bite work.  He was the nastiest of all the dogs we saw, and we evaluated about a dozen.  However, his grips were full and hard.  He handled gunfire while on the bite, I worked him and pushed him in defense kinda hard.  The dog bit like an alligator.  After the bite work was over I was able to play with him.  He drove (2 hrs) back to Headquarters in my car and he was as friendly as can be.  He will make an excellent police K9, but he is not insecure; he fights for real and he is tough.  Different dog, he is more defense than prey, but for him it's good because he is still clear headed.

Getting back to Emily's dog, I would incorporate some defense as soon as I thought the dog could handle it.  I would act afraid and impressed when the dog was strong.  Not in the initial tug work with this dog, till I was able to calm it down.  Then we progress further.   I did mention that in the other thread I posted. 

I am assuming that Emily is doing Schutzhund with this dog.  The fact of the matter is that a dog can be completely loaded in prey, have very little defense drive and score very high in SchH protection work - high 90's.  Many high prey drive dogs win trials and big events.  I have a female from high end German working lines, a Yoschy granddaughter that always bites full, always scored in the mid to upper 90's in protection.  She is so loaded in prey it would be hard to put her into defense.  She will handle tremondous pressure but it is all for the sleeve and not the man.  Confident dogs high in prey drive don't view the decoy as a threat, so there is little conflict in the bite work.  Grips are usually very full, not always hard, but very full.  These dogs score well in trials.

I am not advocating working solely in prey, as I like a hard serious dog.  But some dogs can't handle too much pressure, but can be trained at the club level, compete in trials and the dog and owner enjoy it.   I do think that most dogs should view the helper as a "bad guy" but some never really will (for a police dog the decoy is a very bad guy).  They can still compete and the handler can still have fun.  One thing I don't like is pushing dogs with little drive into serious defense just to get t

Emily

My first question is what was she like as a young puppy when you got her?  Was she hackeled, did she bark quite a bit at strangers, was she defensive BEFORE starting bitework?   Gotta look at genetics here as well as the training.  If she was defensive genetically then there is only so much one can do to improve upon a shallow bite.  Most dogs resort back to their genetics during stressful times, like a trial.  Again, not saying you should not work on improving everything, just trying to get the whole picture and in order to do that we need to know what she was like PRIOR to training

Karmen

Wow Great thread and information. I enjoyed the articles by Armin Winkler and look forward to playing tug with my new pup.  I have been making the mistake of running & pulling the tug on a rope and need to be still.

Thanks everyone.

Teri

At first, we worked only in prey. Which, like I said, she was very slow, put little effort into the bite, or the chase. We knew it was still too early to incorporate any defense into. But, at home, as soon as we got her, I knew she had that defensive edge. Whenever anyone came to the door, she was bristling, barking, and growling. No one could come in the house without "my permission". So I knew it was there from the beginning. Going out was even somewhat of a hastle, she would give strangers "the eye", as they walked past, her hackles would go up. She had a very good level of suspicion, IMO. I think it's just she has SO much going on, and never got much of a chance to develop the grips and prey, that she takes it all very seriously. Even though it does have alot to do with genetics, and it may not really be there.

-Emily