I need your opinion on this.... - Page 7

4pack and Snajper,
I PM'd you both.

1doggie2,
we call that a "good bite."  Dog fights are rough especially with Rotties. 

Jim

Wow what a great topic, many good points made so I'll keep mine short.

In my opnion, an exceptional dog with outstanding training should never be able to be driven off the field or a decoy of any kind. However, I would say the percent of very excellent, hard, dogs with very high quality, consistent, training number quite small indeed- thus the consensus of most dogs being able to be driven off.

KCzaja,
I agree with you especially if we are talking about SchH only.  I still think under the right circumstances it could happen to any dog.  I know Hans disagrees and that is great; because I could very easily be wrong.  My feeling is they are all dogs and we are all people.  We all have our strengths and weaknesses.  I am very confident in my dog's abilities, but I am not going to rely on him to fight my battles.  That is my job and he's there to help if he's the right tool for the job.  If it hits the fan while I'm working, I may decide it's too dangerous for him and leave him in  the car.  I still have a job to do and will use another tool that may resolve the situation more effectively.   

Jim

The OP set the guidelines as on the Sch field, and with the way dogs are trained today, I think many, if not a majority could be run off the field. But on the Sch field you can't use a knife or a pipe in your actions. Therefore, there are dogs that unless you inflict crippling damage to them are not going to run. As for police/military there is a different mindset in training and dog selection from the jump. There are many weak k9 today, as the use and need for them has varied in some cases. Not all by any means, but I have decoyed for police patrol dogs that are of different strengths, especially as the use of the municipality/state/or county/ wants on their force. I will say that the "sentry" dogs we had in the seventies in the military were not likely to be run off without lethal force and the k9s out of Phila in the seventies DEFINITELY would not be run off without lethal force. But overall, I agree with Jim in the sense that dogs are dogs and people are people and all have their limitations.

Do some of you think that it has a lot to do with the way the dogs are handled to day and trained?

Example:

A lot of training is done in Pray rather than defense - to this extend that working a dog in defense for some people is a taboo.
Dogs are babied by their handlers for way too long and too often. I do get from some people that I treat harshly my dog (even though I still think I am way too soft on my dogs as they are my pets first working dog second) but I still get a lot of shit from people that I tend to work the dog early on and at times make him work through pain (cracked, split nails, etc, slipper, hard surface, other things that you can imagine, my dogs don't mind the pain or discomfort they like to do what they do but still).

Gustav when I said dogs that can't be run off I was thinking of the exactly type of dogs that you are talking about, which dose not mean that all of us own that kind or even more important should own it.

Snai:

                Many of todays Schutzhund dogs that are used in "sport" are all prey trained dogs to get the faster responses and higher point acheviement this is what the "sport" has done to the breed and Schutzhund. Your very right to be tuff on your dogs a good trainer will make sure the dog is tested and trained thru all it,s drives and experiences as much as possible you can be tuff on your dogs and still be a good and responsible trainer,handler,owner just because a dog has the higest score doesnt mean squat there are top sport dogs that should never be breed and many dogs that do police,military,search work that should be breed more. 

Your dogs should be put thru every thing possible I have taken my dogs to salvage yards and made them climb thru cars to retrieve, old houses dark buildings Ice covered ponds every different footing and climate possible, I,ve tried to have some suit work done with all my dogs that compete on the field I personally don,t own a padded stick I do own reed sticks and bamboo that I use with my dogs from puppies I test all my dogs for body hardness they need to experience this all it,s all part of the training we owe the breed. If you don,t do these things how do you really understand what you re breeding?. 

It,s just my opinion.       

Bob, what you do is what we did routinely back in the day. I am fortunate to train with aperson who still believes in these things and can read a dog like a book. Things like muzzle work and obstacles to go through while in the muzzle can help find these type of dogs. When you do muzzle work with a really strong dog you see the components that make for a dog that won't run. Have the decoy rough up the dog in the muzzle and you will really separte boys from men. Often, you see dogs that were monsters in prey, but when you take away their main defense mechanism then flight becomes more viable when stressed hard. Not saying this is bad or being judgmental just stating facts. When you see a dog try to hurt you with his nose, feet, body, etc while muzzled, AND the harder you fight him the more intense he gets.....then that dog will not be run off the field. Back in the day as Bob relates, all these other training scenarios flushed out weaknesses and also conditioned the dog to face adversity with a "superior" mindset of confidence in the unknown situation. The dogs that excelled in these type situations were the dogs people wanted to breed to so a different type of dog was seen more often then as today.JMO

Funny that you mention muzzle work Gustav because this is another peace of equipment that we don't see in use as often as we should. Take away the most overused tool in the dog (its teeth) and you will see completely different animal at the end of your leash. Plus the end results you get better fighting dog, that learns too use all his tools rather than just it's biting power. Plus like you said muzzle at times is what will separate tough dogs from posers. As well hidden sleeve is one of my favorite equipment to use, is the closest you can get to a real bite, and how many times I have seen a good dog with really shity first bite on the hidden sleeve, so using all the tools that we have will create only better dog in the end.

Gustav:

                   I,ve never had a muzzle on my dogs but it would be intresting how they would react it would be a new experience with them and have to be handled correctly but still a good learning experience I think.

  It really isn,t that hard or time comsuming to do these things stated above with your dogs. and it makes a much better dog in my opinion. 

My problem most of the time is not wanting to do all this stuff with my dog, but finding the right people/decoys to do it with ;).