Teaching the long attack - Page 5

This topic has strayed off course. I will touch on a couple of points......

1) As often times happens here, there is often a comparison between GSD and Mals. In my last post I generalized and may seem as though I was pointing out something that was GSD only. In terms of "thinking". My point was more about the how this is used as an excuse by handlers and/or owners.

A dog that goes into avoidance due to an environmental or threat barrier is "thinking" but when a dog "thinks" that means they are in some level of avoidance. They are "thinking" about weather or not they really want to confront the threat. People try to put canine intelligence or thought process in the same terms as humans. Dog's do not have the ability to 'reason". They respond from instinctual drives or trained response. That's it. A dog doesn't say to themselves, "Gee there is a haybale in between the guy I am supposed to bite. It will be easier if I go around it instead of over it." It doesn't work that way. If a dog hesitates upon a percieved threat or obstical, they are in a state of avoidance. When they are "thinking" they are thinking about whether or not they want to confront the threat or avoid it. It is that simple.

The cause of the avoidance can stem from several things. Genetics, courage, lack of resiliancy from a previous negative experience, lack of training or exposure, etc. But if a dog avoids something, it is not stem from a higher inteligence level. This is not breed specific, it happens with every breed of dog.

2) As far as the tactical issue of a PPD dog leaving the ground. Yes a dog that leaves the ground is easier to avoid. My point being is, in French ring you have the highest trained most athletic decoys in the world who compete against one of the fastest most atheletic breeds in the world. Sometimes they can make the dog miss. Even when they do, the dog gets to the bite eventually. If you take an average joe, if they are lucky enough to make a dog miss, or the dog only gets a piece of the jacket or whatever, at that point what are they doing? They are focused on the dog and not the person thus giving the person a tactical advantage to either engage the threat or get to safety. Exactly what deploying the dog is supposed to do. If they do not avoid the dog, where are they? Most likely on the ground, fighting with the dog which gives the handler the best possible advantage. Most PPD trainers really have little to no experience or knowlege in defensive tactics. It is about the same as the PPD theory of "I don't train a dog to bite legs because the bad guy can still hit or attack the dog." Hogwash. If a dog bites someone in the inner thigh area, they are going to drop like a stone.

3) My experience with mals is that they are actually more inclined to work for their handler than a GSD. I had a much better relationship with all of my mals as compared to the two GSD's I have handled. The GSD's were more stubborn and headstrong than my mals. But that is just my experience. I think this has more to do with the individual dog than the breed.

Now back to topic at hand. Since no one appears to want to share there techniques, I will share how I have done it in the past, and how I will be doing it in the future.

How I was taught, and how I have done it in the past, is to use 55 gal barrels. You frustrate and fire the dog up. You drag the dog slowley into the bite and let the dog go so they have to jump the barrel to get hte bite. You gradually increase the distance between the decoy and the barrel, thus conditioning the dog to leave the ground from a greater distance. Of corse this depends on the dogs individual phyisical ability and genetic pre-disposition.

The problem I feel with this now that I am a little more experienced is, most people do this at a later phase of their training. By doing so, you lose some opportunity in conditioning the dog to leave the ground from a further distance.

From now on, what I will be doing is

1) not giving a dog a long bite during foundation training. It makes no sense to me now. Why send a dog down the field during early training before you have tought them any sort of technique? If the dog is a good one, you don't have to worry about it being hesitant to go downfield without their handler.

So I plan on using a little FR experience and technuiqe in my next dog. First they will be getting dragged into almost every bite from 6 months on. No back- tying. This is how the Belgians do it in BR. Second, I will teach the dog how to do a long jump before a hurdle or an entry in bitework. This should condition them to leave the ground and leap a distance outward vs upward which is my ultimate goal. Once the dog clears 6-10 foot long jumps, then they will go to doing the barrel work and it should all come together nicely.

Any other ideas out there?

Well i want to know what did everu one learned from this discussion?also as ihave siad to people million times and every time it comes up.it is really not a fair coparrison between shep and mal they are two different breeds in case people here on this board are confused about that.u can not compare apples to bananas.i hjave them both and i love them both the same.you also need to keep in mind that germanshepherd brred has been messed around with for a long time too many people have bread this with too many of their own ideas.Mal on the other hand has not been bread that much yet but  just give it a time it will be the same.problem with us humans is we want too many things and we want everything in our dogs we want supper dogs yet we are not supper humans so you see where i am going with this.the only thing i learned is real dogs way of teaching the courage bite.also i can tell you that Bernard Flinks teaches in his trainig dvd.also i do not know if you have ever watched Gottfried Dildi protction tape.have a nice one.

>  Never thought about the barrels. What I have done to a few PSDs I have trained that bite mostly low is place a 3' jump at a gate entrance which they can not get around. The quarry fires the dog up. (he is wearing a helmet. The dog is released and the quarry turns as the dog is leaping the hurdle. Wierd but it worked on the dogs I tried it on.