Becky first time biting a full-suit - Page 1

Hi,

Well as some know we (me and my boyfriend) are beginning to learn to work with dogs in some areas. Becky is the guinea pig 

She has proved spectacular in virtually everything we try with her, but she always preferred the tracking and bitting. And since Flavio is in a military training, the better, she will definitly be a great serviçe/family dog mix.

This weekend we had a huge breakthrough: the first attempt to bite a full-suit! She was spectacular!

We have everything on video! Just ending the edit (too much wind noise) and will put here to share with you and know your feedback! 

Pretty girl! I have become a fan of the reversed masks.

In my opinion, decoy is too hectic, and Becky isn't 100% clear on where to target. On the first clip, she went for a bite and second guessed herself. By the way she did bite, I feel it is a confidence issue. I like to see a dog bite full, and push into the decoy. She targeted low, which is less stressful for the dog, less body pressure from the decoy. That could be a mixture of confidence issues and not knowing where to target on a suit.

She looks for sure to have the drives for the work, but not a solid foundation. I would go back to the sleeve and work on building confidence and a proper bite before resuming suit work. If she doesn't have those issues on a sleeve, I would recommend finding a more experienced decoy to build the foundation for suit work.

Please don't confuse my critique for rudeness or bashing, we all start somewhere :-)

Glad that you all seem to be having fun with her, good luck!

A word to the wise: the dogs usually do prefer the tracking and biting to the obedience--but without a good, solid foundation in the latter, the biting can become a liability.

nice girl, looked like you were all having fun.

Nice dog in spite of the training.  Decoy work isn't horrible just inexperienced or perhaps a little too "old school"  IMO.  The decoy could do more to teach the dog to target and build her confidence before sending her on running hits.

The ideal targets on a suit is the tricep on the back and the bicep on the front for upper body dogs.  Depending on what stage the dog is they will learn the forearm, tricep then the bicep, the dog learns the targets before they are exposed to a full suit.

A dog should not target or "look for" the forarm on a flee bite on a suit....but it appears thats how she's been trained (or not trained to target the tricep)  so not her fault.

Without knowing the background of her training until this point to me it appears that she hasn't had a solid foundation in grip work.  I understand you may want to progress fast to see what she'd do but you should really step back, put her on a suit style sleeve and teach good gripping behavior and targeting while building her confidence.

Even with your current style of training you can still progress through repitition provided you don't over pressure her... because she seems like a nice dog, obviously she progressed with each send.  However you will build a better and more confident end product with a better training approach.

I included photo's for visual reference to what I said.

Gsd, where did you get that arm sleeve, the one I got does not have all that extended padding toward the shoulder area.

Fenrir K9

Request "no handle" or take it out when you get it for working a dog on the bicep/tricep

Well thanks everion for the attention given to me and Becky. This was her first time ever biting a full suited decoy, she only have done legs and sleeve. And is working pretty well, she in the sleeve already bites prety well, and is learning to bite properly in the legs. But we will be targeting her to go to the arm. At our school (association) we have 2 persons learning decoy, Ricardo on the movie is the less experienced one, and is still learning, it was the first time for him too working not so experienced dogs. In the sleeve Becky is doing "big boy" full mouths, with great grip.

hntrjmpr434, Thanks for the feedback and advice. She is pretty =) and soooo smart! too smart... As I said, she is very good in the sleeve Ricardo is also learning, but this was almost just to test Becky, she is still on sleeve or legs.

hexe, Thanks for the advice, Not all dogs, Becky is the most driven to bite work and tracking in her's class but not the most easy to train obedience, a black female that was waiting on the back of the film, is amazing doing obedience and prefers it a lot.
But even our instructor have been say that to was, because Becky is always as if things were not anything with her but she is ALWAYS on the look out for "the bad guy" and we cannot afford to lose control with her. We would have a very serious problem at hand.

vk4gsd, Thanks =) we really have fun, and so do Becky

GSDfan, Thanks for the feed and advice. We will look in at what you are saing. She as been training to go to the forearm most of the times, and it is as they are normaly doing it, but she is not training to be a sport dog, she is training to be a military serviçe dog, but the technical part hardly know (I am not her conductor, her owner is, the one on the film) I believe the objectives of bite training in these cases is that it is able to stop an attacker on the run, right? In your view the technical part that you speak applies any way? The A.C.O. (It means more or less "of canine Association of the West") is known in Portugal for being a bit "old-school" even those who are not military or are not in military training (as is the case with Becky and Flavio) and are simply civilians participants, as is my case, trained by the old German method (the emotional payoff method and all of that), but as I said, Ricardo is still learning, in the sleeve with our other decoy Becky is bitting prety great =)

Thanks again everione ;)

I train IPO, PSA and police dogs.  My evaluation and recommendadtions were certainly not sport dog specific.  Your dog has a shallow grip and lacks confidence on the bite, things that can be improved with better training and a focus on foundation.  If you believe she is biting good best of luck to you as it sounds like you have it all figured out.