Agitation work? Agitation collars? - Page 1

What's "agitation" work? and "agitation" collars?? Doesn't sound good, but can someone explain what it's all about? Thank you

Ranchinglady, agitation work refers to developing the defensive fight drive in a dog. Typically this is done with a dog whose forward agression and confidence are excellent, and the defensive drive needs some additional work. This is generally for civil-drive dogs who being developed for extreme protection skills, i.e. K-9 or military service during a simulated arrest or takedown. In many of these exercises the dog is required to wear a muzzle so that he cannot bite during a confrontation with a human (the decoy who is the "bad" guy) and the dog becomes frustrated due to the inability to clamp his teeth on some flesh. This is done until it is seen that the dog is extremely determined to make a severe bite during his defense of himself or his handler. At that end, the helper is usually wearing a body suit with hidden protection sleeves and panels and the dog is allowed to engage his bite. Hard-core training for hard-core dogs. Bob-O

Agitation collar is thick leather so the dog can pull hard against it for the fight and not get choked. I have watched agitation work being done. I'm not a trainer, so I wont try to explain it here. It is not a bad thing at all, if done with the right dogs and with a trainer who knows what he is doing.

Very interesting!! Thank you! I'd seen ads for the equipment and was curious. The whole working dog arena intrigues me, though I'll never participate it's fun to learn what goes on.

An option to the collar is a special harness. It does not cut of the airway at all as even the wide collars can. Ours have more stamina working since being changed over to harness as they don't lose their breath.

The agitation harness has a distinct safety advantage over the agitation collar, too--even with an appropriately wide collar, sustained pulling against it can apply pressure to the carotid artery and cause the dog to lose consciousness. I've actually seen that happen at a training session, and of course it just flips everyone out...the dog regains consciousness as soon as the pressure is taken off the artery, but there is some residual mental 'fuzziness' for the dog after the episode. Repeated incidents of that type could cause permanent damage to the artery and possibly some brain damage as well if it occurs often enough.

One reason you use the harnness is because with a collar as the dog lunges forward and is at the end of the leash it causes him to flip backwards. The harness connects to a leash behind the shoulders of the dog.

Agitation work basically teases and frustrates the dog. The helper always acts and looks strange/scared at first.

Agitation work is the term used for protection training. It is sometimes teasing in prey and sometimes intimidation through aggression. With younger/weaker dogs you lean more towards prey and with older/stronger dogs you can use more aggressive moves. (There is a lot more to it than that, but it's the simpliest thing I could think of.) I prefer the collar because it it easier on and off, but I have noticed a lot of people using the harness more and more.