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Author Topic: training progress
Vince P.
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posted October 08, 2001 01:47 PM     Profile for Vince P.   Email Vince P.     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Anybody have anything to update on their training progress. Good and bad points. My puppy is too young. I am still building drive. I use a friends dog to improve on my handling so that I make the mistakes now and not on my SchH dog. I would love to hear from any of you publically or privately.
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Karmen Byrd
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posted October 09, 2001 08:04 AM     Profile for Karmen Byrd   Email Karmen Byrd     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Vince

I have been using Bernhards method on my young dog. He does very well with it in obedience. I am having trouble in the bite work. He doesn't want to hold the sleeve like he does the ball in obedience. He is defensive and I am thinking this is the problem. He focuses on the man instead of the sleeve. Even in prey he still will not hold the sleeve. He will carry but immediately spits it out when I try and hold him. He won't even hold it at the car. I make him carry it for a bit after the session. He does this just fine, with a full grip but slow down or get to the van and he drops it. Am I doing something wrong? Like I said he is a model student for Bernhards method in the obedience.


Posts: 139 | From: Warsaw, IN | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
Phyllis
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posted October 09, 2001 10:09 AM     Profile for Phyllis   Email Phyllis     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
I have started using Bernard's method with my dog. He gets drivey and focused, but when I move to the heel with the ball, he drops it. I know it will take time, but he really is opposed to the "holding" of an object (unless of course he wants to). This is where I just may have to use some compulsion to teach him to mind my wishes. He will now return with the item and is happy to 'out' it when I say "out".
I find that now that I'm doing the "into my arms" he seems to trust me more and want to be closer to me. This is a big help. He is anticipating the "out" less, and not chewing quite so much, but as with anything this will take time and patience. As always suggestions are appreciated.

--------------------

Thanks, Phyllis (Ontario, Canada)


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Vince P.
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posted October 09, 2001 03:03 PM     Profile for Vince P.   Email Vince P.     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Phyllis:

"He gets drivey and focused, but when I move to the heel with the ball, he drops it."

I'm sorry, I do not understand what you are saying.

Karmen:

Two approaches. One old. One new. The old way is every time the dog spits out the sleeve the helper puts pressure on him. He learns that when I hold on I'm safe. How I recently overcame this with my pet is I increased the time I petted him each session. The first time we would run in circles a couple of times then stop a second and run again. The next time we would stop and I would kneel down. Then I would bring him in my arms. Next session one stroke.....After a few sessions I could pet him for a minute or so. He still falls back to his old ways once in a while but remember the hold is as much genetic as learned. My pet is no prey freak.


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Renee Felknor
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posted October 09, 2001 05:59 PM     Profile for Renee Felknor   Email Renee Felknor     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
I have the same exact problem as Karmen with my 16-mos old bitch. She has a great ball drive and focus, so obedience was a piece of cake. She was also the best puppy in the puppy circle -- first to chase, bite and bark. The problems started with the switch to a sleeve. She seems to have a low defensive threshold and bites hard and full only under pressure (however slight), never showed any signs of avoidance, and doesn't seem to be stressed at all. I was trying to make her carry just like Vince described, with hit & miss results. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, I was under the impression that carrying is used as a relief from stress. What other advantages are there? Do we really need to concentrate on this so much?

My greatest concern now is the escape. She will do a nice "courage test" (or a version thereof) if the helper is facing her, but as soon as he switches to prey by running away, she seems to be confused -- like: "Well, I chased him away, what else do you want me to do?" It seems to me that she doesn't view a man/sleeve combination as a prey item, or that her prey drive is not high enough to sustain her through her reluctance to bite a human unless pressured? We are currently trying to make her interested in prey biting, but she seems to get bored easily.

Any suggestions will be highly appreciated.


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Phyllis
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posted October 09, 2001 06:25 PM     Profile for Phyllis   Email Phyllis     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Hi Vince, I'm sorry about my wording, what I mean is that he gets worked up after the ball, and will sit when I say sit and focus on the ball. I can move the ball fairly close to his nose without him biting at it.
2 inches at this point. When we are working and he gets the ball, I put him into the heel in circles, and he immediately drops the ball. I don't know if I'm confusing him, or he just doesn't want to hold it in his mouth. I'll have to review that part of the tape again, and see what I'm doing wrong I think. Perhaps the basic training that he has with heel is the problem?

--------------------

Thanks, Phyllis (Ontario, Canada)


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Vince P.
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posted October 10, 2001 11:22 AM     Profile for Vince P.   Email Vince P.     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Renee:

The hold is vital. You say your puppy bites in defense with no stress. I think it is better to say little stress. Because the absence of stress would be fight and he is too young for that. But if he is to develop fight than the stress must be increased later in training and that is when the carry is more important.

Phyliss:

I understand now it was the word heel that threw me. You mean run or walk in circles. What you must do is as soon as he drops the ball grab it and tease the shit out of him with it. Frustrate him so much that next time he will not want to give it up.


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Phyllis
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posted October 10, 2001 12:15 PM     Profile for Phyllis   Email Phyllis     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Ok Vince, thanks I'll give it a try and let you know how it goes. He waits for the training sessions, he really loves them.
He learned my pre session cues quickly, much more quickly than the other things that I'm training. Must be motivation and enjoyment.
Just goes to show, if the dog likes it he will learn much faster.

--------------------

Thanks, Phyllis (Ontario, Canada)


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Pete Felknor
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posted October 10, 2001 05:07 PM     Profile for Pete Felknor   Email Pete Felknor     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Anyone else out here got any suggestions for Renee (see above)? Especially those of you who have trained dozens of dogs. I know her young dog and it's a very nice GSD bitch--just passed her BH under Doug Deacon a couple of weeks ago. Very good, steady nerves, and a very social dog. Of course no one wants to see the dog get screwed up, and this is kind of a crucial phase right now. Thanks for any insight you can offer.

Pete Felknor


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Richard Cannon
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posted October 10, 2001 08:21 PM     Profile for Richard Cannon   Email Richard Cannon     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Renee,

I have a similar problem for a much different reason. The way we have been handling it is to start by using the defense to build frustration and then move back. As the dog learns to go out and make the bite, start to make the dog chase down the helper. Start with a step before the dog makes the bite, then 2 and so on until the dog is going out to make the bite. Then decrease the stress until there is none. It shouldn't take that long to teach him that he needs to go out to get the bite. If he balks at less stress have the helper turn and apply the stress and then run away. The dog should learn that if he doesn't bite the guy will come back and frustrate him more, so it may as well make the bite in the first place.


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Vince P.
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posted October 11, 2001 09:56 AM     Profile for Vince P.   Email Vince P.     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Renee:

Unfortunately prey is a diminishing drive when inactive. A puppy could have tons of prey but if left dormant then it will diminish. That is why I start the day I get him and keep it up threw the life of the dog. From 8-12 weeks old the only training I do is prey building. I have been busy the last two days and I have not been able to work on Kai’s prey and this morning it dropped a good 20 percent. Watch Bernard when he works prey. His body is as still as possible while the item jumps to life. Most people put as much life in them as the object. This takes the focus off the item and on to the person. It takes practice. I would work prey off the field EVERY day. Short consistent sessions are better then long inconsistent sessions. Work the ball. Make it come to life. The trick is to have him so close that his lips just touch it as he closes his jaws but he never gets it. Trust me when he finally does he will not want to give it up. Your thinking that this will make him ball crazy but how will it help the escape. Trust me this will transfer to the sleeve. I know you are no beginner and I do not mean to speak to you as one. But I know from experience that we all like to work what our dog does best. If he sucks at tracking but is great in obedience what do we do? Work less on tracking and more on obedience. This makes him worse at tracking and even sharper at obedience. Your pup has little interest for prey but does great when confronted. So almost all your effort should be prey building. His defense will come naturally when the time comes. I’m rooting for you!


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Richard Cannon
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posted October 11, 2001 10:52 AM     Profile for Richard Cannon   Email Richard Cannon     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Renee,

Vince's post on developing the prey dive is important for another reason. It is just as easy to get a dog locked in "defense" as it is to get the dog locked in "prey". If you don't get the dog doing some prey work early, you may have the situation I have with a dog that only works in defense. as a result of that, he will not do a send out and if he can drive off the agitator he sees that as a victory and he actually prefers to win with out the bite. As a result of that he have had to increase the pressure to very high levels to get him to bite. It is a step up from where we were with him a year ago, but not a good place, especially if the goal is to participate in protection sports.

My dog will never be able to work in a trial. The only reason I keep training him is to maintain his out and move him along as far as I can. It is also teaching me a lot about problem solving with this type of problem. He likes doing the bite work and gets to be a pain around the house if we don't go work at something for a week. But I have no illusions as to what his level of work will be. If we are actually assalted he will bite with out any hesitation, but if it is not a physical confrontation I am fairly sure he wouldn't bite.


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Renee Felknor
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posted October 11, 2001 11:03 AM     Profile for Renee Felknor   Email Renee Felknor     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Vince, Richard, thank you.

Vince, I know what you mean about stress, that's why I said that she *seems* not to be stressed. As a matter of fact, she seems to be as happy as a lark. After getting one or two line bites in prey, she stops paying attention to prey movements, cocks her head and gives a short angry bark, as if urging the helper to show her some offense. As soon as he does, she's back at the game. At least I won't have to worry about her getting locked in prey, aye?

Richard, I was hoping to hear from you… What you are saying makes sense. We used frustration before to make her bite in prey, but she just got bored. Using defense to build frustration might work with her. I will discuss your suggestion with my helper and let you know if it worked.

Thanks again, guys.


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Renee Felknor
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posted October 11, 2001 12:09 PM     Profile for Renee Felknor   Email Renee Felknor     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Vince, Richard--

My previous response was in reply to your first posts. Now I will address the follow-up:

Vince, she has a tremendous ball/play drive, and I never saw this as a problem. I wish she had half as much drive for the sleeve as she does for the ball. She has pretty decent obedience, and it was done strictly with a ball, never had a pinch collar on her. You would think that her ball drive would transfer into sleeve drive, that's how it usually works, but not with her for some reason.

Richard, what you are talking about is EXACTLY what I want to avoid, i.e. "locking her in defense". I know that it's there and can be tapped into much later. Getting her interested in prey is where the problem lies. The defense approach was tried just to see if her weak sleeve bites were due to genetics and since that was ruled out (she bites very hard in defense) we immediately went back to prey. She's just not that interested. That's why I think your previous advice might work. Do you still stand by it?


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Richard Cannon
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posted October 11, 2001 12:30 PM     Profile for Richard Cannon   Email Richard Cannon     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Renee,

Yes, I would still stand by it. I would build the frustration by mixing defensa and prey behaviors in the helper and only releasing the dog when the helper is in the prey behavior. The dog will learn that he has to make the bite when the helper is in the prey behavior, not just in an attack mode. Frustration is the key, once the dog is making the bites the defense use is reduced to zero. Another thing they have used with some dogs here is to put the dogs on a bungee cord so it has to fight hard to get the bite. The dog has to drive through the resistance of the bungee to get the bite. If it doesn't the bungee pulls them back and builds the frustration. In addition if the dog mouths on the sleeve the bungee will pull them off.

If the dog really likes to bite there is something else you could try I have used before. Work only in prey if the dog quits then take him off to the side and make him watch other dogs work. Let him get as frustrated as possible and then put him up with out another bite. It usually doesn't take long that if he wants to play, he has to do what you want to get his bites. If not he can't work.


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Richard Cannon
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posted October 11, 2001 12:37 PM     Profile for Richard Cannon   Email Richard Cannon     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
One other thing. Often the carry is a sign of the dogs sense of ownership of it's hard won prize. Often the higher the frustration level the longer the dog will hold the sleeve. With dogs that don't feel they had to work very hard to get the sleeve they don't seem to see it as much of a prize. They also see releasing the sleeve as an invitation to start again so they can do more work with the sleeve. With my Giant if the agitator releases the sleeve as soon as the dog makes the bite he will just stand and look at the agitator and spit the sleeve out at them. If you give him a significant fight for the sleeve he will hold it and carry it around for a while.
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DesertThunderK9
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posted October 11, 2001 01:34 PM     Profile for DesertThunderK9   Email DesertThunderK9     Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Ooohhhhh, yeah, they sure can get locked in defense. I've got one of those too, also can't title him. He can do a send out, tho. Poor helper should have thought ahead the first time he tried that. Dog hits sleeve, helper slips sleeve, now what? Dog spits sleeve, eats helper. Not quite, I got there in time.
I've never been convinced that a stressed dog will have a weak bite. This dog hits so hard you can hear it down field, but he was always totally stressed out in defense. We spent I dunno how many mos trying to teach this guy to carry, which he would do if required, but at the first opportunity, spit the sleeve and go right back after the helper. He's even been known to p/u the sleeve and hurl it at the helper, no kidding. Never could find anyone willing to wait for him in the blind . . .
I've given up trying to title this dog, tho we're having the Anne Kent seminar here and I'd like to have her work him and see what she can do.
This dog is my poster boy for why you don't start a green dog in defense. If I'd known then what I know now . . .

--------------------

Joy Tiz, MS, JD
www.DesertThunderK9.com
*Godspeed, Operation Enduring Freedom!*


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Vince P.
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posted October 11, 2001 03:13 PM     Profile for Vince P.   Email Vince P.     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Again Richard and I are saying the same thing only he communicates better than I. Frustration is the key! But I lean more towards prey frustration than defense frustration because you cannot go too far in prey but you can in defense.
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Renee Felknor
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posted October 11, 2001 04:43 PM     Profile for Renee Felknor   Email Renee Felknor     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Seems like all three of us agree -- frustration is the key! Vince, we tried frustration with prey, but in my case it didn't work. I will take Richard's advice and promise to proceed with caution .

Thank you again!


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Richard Cannon
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posted October 11, 2001 06:13 PM     Profile for Richard Cannon   Email Richard Cannon     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Vince,

I think the idea is a little different. My point is that you can use defense to build prey behavior. It may not be a pure prey drive, but the behavior would be the same. You can go the other way with some dogs to, use prey to build defense. This would be part of what you are doing with the Schutzhund courage test. Start the dog chasing in prey and then turn on him when he has little choice but to make the bite he has his heart set on. Then use that to shape a defensive type behavior in the dog.

Given a choice of prey or defense I would take the defense, but like everybody else I want both. It is easier to convert the defense in to prey than the other way around. The isdea for Renee is to use just enough defense to keep the dog interested and when she starts to show the frustration switch to prey. The least possible amount of pressure and then convert to prey and then reduce that amount of pressure to zero.


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Vince P.
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posted October 12, 2001 12:40 PM     Profile for Vince P.   Email Vince P.     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
No Richard. Unless I’m way off I think what I said was correct. You are frustrating the defense drive while I am the prey drive. Doesn’t really matter. She’s tried my way so now it’s time for something new.
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dwwoodsjr
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posted October 20, 2001 01:36 AM     Profile for dwwoodsjr   Email dwwoodsjr     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
I don't have the experience of some of you guys but I'm going through drive building with an older dog. I want to learn on him so when get a another one I don't make stupid mistakes. I found that you can't use frustration in the beginning on a dog with little prey drive. For one he is not confident that that he can get the prey item. In the beginning I believe in letting him get the prey item to build his confidence. Once you see he has confidence and believes he can catch or steel the item then make it more difficult. A dog with no prey drive will just walk away from you and make you look like a jack ass if you frustrate him early. The purpose of prey developemnt is also to build confidence in your dog.

--------------------

DWJ


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Vince P.
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posted October 20, 2001 09:52 PM     Profile for Vince P.   Email Vince P.     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
What's an expert to you is just a begginer to someone else. I don't know if I agree with your frustration comment though. I have to admit I am not a helper that has worked hundreds of dogs. But i'm pretty sure on that one. Let's hear from others. Pete???
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Pete Felknor
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posted October 22, 2001 09:37 AM     Profile for Pete Felknor   Email Pete Felknor     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
I guess I need to reply to a couple of things here.

As to DWJ's last post... I'm not quite clear on what he's getting at. Personally I would not even want to train a dog with little or no prey drive, especially not for any kind of bite work. You've got nothing to work with then except civil aggression and to me this is like playing with a loaded gun. No thanks.

If we're not talking about bite work then I guess it's obedience exercises and if the dog is deficient in prey, you go to food and hope that works. If it doesn't then I'm damned if I can come up with anything except compulsion. I don't buy into any kind of dog mysticism, which is why some of our recently departed trainers used to piss me off.

But one line catches my eye--if "catching or stealing" the prey item is important to the dog, then the dog must have at least a moderate amount of prey drive.

Also, Vince--I have not had a great deal of helper experience. I was just starting to get comfortable catching dogs when I ruined my back and had to have surgery. Doc sez no more helper work. So I'm just going to keep it to line bites & escapes from now on

I like Richard's idea for Renee. Will have to see how it works out.

Pete


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Vince P.
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posted October 22, 2001 02:51 PM     Profile for Vince P.   Email Vince P.     Send New Private Message   Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote
Good post Pete but you missed my point. You do not need to build confidence in prey work. A dog working in prey is a picture of confidence. You must build confidence in defensive work. One of two things is happening. One is he has no prey drive and all the work in the world will not change that or two he is not working in prey which means poor helper/handler work. Makes sense Pete/Richard??
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