Working the sleeve - Page 1

Now I know I am probably going to catch a lot of static from the GSD owners on this but I have a very serious question here.  Time and again I hear people talk about how intese these young dogs are at sleeve work or how hard they bite but are so good around small children and things like this.  Now don't get me wrong a well trained dog is a wonderful thing but what puzzles me is no one is talking about the basics that these dogs "SHOULD" be getting before they are taught to bite.  Where are the titles for obedience and advanced obedience.  I would never consider doing bite work with my Bouvier's until after they had advanced title's in obedience so that I would be able to call them off on command.  Not two commands but first time period.  Thats the problem I had with the local working dog club where I live.  People here think its all about the bite and when I saw people training their young dogs on the sleeve then having to litterally drag them off becuase they could not recall them it was enough to tell me this was not where I wanted to go.  In fact in my opinion it verges on the edge of abuse and incompetency.  Whether its a GSD or a Bouiver these are big strong dogs and in my humble opinion should never be trained to bite until the basics are well ingrained into the dogs.  And no matter what anyone says these basics are not complete on any dog at six months of age and for most not even at a year.  This is just my observation and I am sure everyone will have thier own opinions.

I guess I'd start with finding a dog that can distinguish the difference between a kid and a helper. If one raises a pup with kids in the home, the pup is usually taught how to play with the kids. If you honestly think that doing bitework is going to teach a dog to bite children, then you are mistaken. And you talk about the out. The out comes after a bite. The dog should never bite a child in the first place, so outing shouldn't be an issue.

Chaz, my post was not about whether the dog will bit a child or not be able to distinguish between the helper or a child in the home.  The post is about teaching these dogs to bite prior to the basic's being taught.  Seems to me that a lot of people are going for the bite first and then dealing with the basics after the fact.  If I am wrong then I am wrong but I hardly ever hear anyone talk about these young dogs having the proper traininf IE obedience before they are being taught the bite.  In my opinion thats is irresposible and it is not proper training.

Alot of people do bite work first to encourage the prey drive.  During this time ( as they are young) absolutely NO defence is built.  Once you add obedience the dog begins to THINK about things very differently this can cause hesitation as they are now questioning right or wrong.  Alot of dogs are ruined for bitework with to much obedience work.  You know when a dog has too much obedience if when the sleeve is introduced in prey, the dog continually looks at the handler for a que.  The dog should look at the sleeve and be thinking "my toy, my toy my toy" not "is this OK mommy". Once the dog is moved into defense obedience is now worked to avoid any "oops"bites.  In europe they do not start obedience until the dogs are 14 months plus.  Over here we start ob at 7 weeks and the dogs are imprinted.  Cant say which method is better.  I've never seen any stats as to dogs started as pups vs older dogs titling.  Might be an interesting study :)

sjbo , first of all , you have to take a closer look to what bitework really is at that age

I will give you an example
I was doing obedience on a club rewarding the dog (8 months) with a small pillowlike thing , the TD said , you cannot do bittework while doing obedience , so I changed the pillow for a small roll , and that was OK  for that person , did I really change anything according to the dog ??


now to the dog it doesnot matter if you reward/play with a rag , pillow , roll or  later on a sleeve , most dogs start out on winning the toy/prey , and most stay in that state of mind all their lives , its a happy game to them

like previous responds say , obedience can put much more pressure on a dog then biting in preydrive and winning the prey , so prey biting can be started earlyer than serious obedeience , with todays techniques in obedience you can teach a pup also alot already , but you cannot pressure them into doing it at young age

Sjbo,

Many dogs are ruined with high preasure OB before bitework.  And again in the begining OB and bitework use the same prey drive.  No conflick that way.  Not sure how you did your OB, and your technique may give you a different result from the other who I have seen that have ruined bite work before it even began. 

Care to share your technique on OB.  Or post a video or PM me a video I would be interested to see without critizing.

To clarify, I am not against someone who really knows what they are doing training dogs the way that has proven well for them in the past.  I guess what bothers me are those who get a dog like a GSD or a Bouvier or a Malinois that do not follow through in the training that is needed to control these dogs once they have been trained to bite.  Perhaps I am just not that thrilled about training a dog to bite unless its being done with an end purpose as the resul, ie, a police canine, military or other such venues.  If a person is only training these dogs so they can say he will bite on command but has not done the other work that should be done along with it thats where I begin to worry.  If the owner is a week end warrior with thier dogs but the dog will never see any kind of service then perhaps it would be better to do the basics prior to the bite rather then the other way around.  With the climate now in this country towards dogs that will bite, trying to insure our homes with dogs in it and things like this its my opinion that we all need to take greater care in how we train these dogs so that we do not become another statistic that goes against our chosen breeds.  I hope everyone reaizes I am not being critical of anyone or how they do things.  Just trying to get answers.

I don't know why you're worried. I didn't think Bouviers bite. ;p.

They don't but they sure can lick you into submission. lol

once again , sjbo , most dogs will never bite on command , they will only bite when the prey they are trained to (a sleeve) is presented , so no sleeve  is no bite