Active vs Silent guard - Page 5

Karmen;

I think it is much more difficult to go from active guarding to a reliable silent guard as the dog's drives over take them when as you said no correction came and they do what is 'natural' for them. We also had a dog years ago that in training always was "made" to do the down silent to keep him from bumping, nipping, biting -  never once during a trial did he go to that position but was able to control himself through active guarding and clean - no one could tell in the trial what the training was either, he handled it well!! Kept him in V scores during his career.

Donna

Who would have thought that we could have an informative, intelligent, civil discussion here?   And a topic related to dogs to boot! 

  I would enjoy seeing more threads like this, and I would venture to say that so would a lot of other people.  Thanks a lot to everybody who posted.   

Now this is a good thread!!! There have been some really good ideas and training ways discussed here.

I am currently teaching the bark and hold with my  2 year old girl and up until this last fall all I thought you could do is an active guard. While I was out in Indiana watching a trial I noticed that the TD was teaching an "Out and Platz" guarding.

I was really perplexed by this and asked the TD about this and why he was teaching an "Out and Platz"? He told me that it was to keep the dog intense and ready to reattack. The dog was in a position under the sleeve so that he could come up for the bite and not be caught with his head above the sleeve. The dog also because of the platz wasn't bothering the helper. The TD did not care if the Dog barked or was quite... as long as he was intense!

I am intrigued by this method and I think that for certain dogs (i.e. Pushy, Dominant dogs) that this could really be a great way to maximize points and yet still keep the intensity.

I am thinking of doing this with my Male... if he turns out to be anything like his Father (Dominant  Pushy) or his Mother (aka "Wicked") he may need this... at 9 months I have already had several layers of skin taken off of my nose!!!

jletcher18,nice boy,he looks like a nice dog.

I really like the way Molly put it.  I like to see a dog doing a hold and bark from the sit but with a a lot of energy and intensity, with a good powerful, deep rhythmic bark, focused 100% on the decoy.  Nice thread, by the way.

I just wanted to share last weeks video, as I said above we started changing his guard from silent to active for bumping reasons in October (IMO he needed something to "do")...recently he finally "got it" and started guarding actively without a command AND without bumping.  We do have to work a little on guarding with his feet on the helper but I don't forsee it being a big issue, he gets off with a verbal command.

Nice video Melanie! I like the way your decoy is working the dog and how he is introducing him to the distraction and courage test. Good training.

As for the feet on the helper, I myself would not fight it if he is not dirty, but that's me. I know a few PSA judges that would probably like it.

It is quite a ways up the thread, but Molly touched on something that is very important. IT DEPENDS ON THE DOG AND DO WHAT WORKS FOR THE DOG!!!

There are soooo many trainers out there that don't adjust for the dog, the handler, or the environment. They train how they want to train, or how they think it should be done, not what works best for the dog.

THANKS GARD!

I agree, I kinda like it too....lol.