Ringsport? And A Few Questions.

I've got a few questions here, so bear (bare?) with me

Knox is transitioning from a rag/tug to a bite pillow, hopefully tomorrow, and I've just got a few questions . I'm of course going to talk with my trainer and a couple decoys (hopefully) but he is primarily working in defense right now. I think he is seeing the helper as a threat only, and not really someone to play games with. I'm not sure if this needs to be fixed, or if there's too much pressure on him for his age he's twenty months old if that matters. He's very clear headed, is able to be friendly with the decoy on and off the ffield, but once my helper picks up the rag to start teasing him, he's all defense.

As well, the helper will do just as well as the rag or tug. He doesnt seem to care if he gets the toy or the arm, any bite will do. So far I have no corrected that, because I'm up in the air as to whether I want to pursue French ring or Schutzhund. I've round a decoy who does French ring training not too terribly far from up. I was thinking more Schutzhund, but tracking does not interest me at all, whatsoever, and I'm not willing to give up my Saturdays for driving two hours to the field the club tracks at and tracking for a little while to drive two hours home.

Anyway that's besides the point. Knox is the first dog I've personally trained and lived with that wanted or just does, work in defense. Are there precautions I need to be taking? Everything seems so different than when I was doing this with my first GSD. Who was a huge clown and never took anything seriously. Except ball, and he worked strictly in prey, I never felt the need to ask the decoy to try to put him in defense because I never planned on trialing with him due to some of his health issues.

And second question. Wtf am I doing wrong in teaching heel? Knox is. Not. Getting. It. I am getting frustrated with it, so I've basically ignored teaching it. I've got his attention on me for about two steps before he disengages to pursue his own interests. And we're in the house. I'm the only thing in the room that is interesting, so I think there is some displacement behavior going on. Im taking care not to teach this when I am ffrustrated at all, so that's not what he's picking up on. If he can only be successful at holding attention for one step I reward each step. I'm clicking on the right times rewarding correctly, and trying two steps rarely enough that I hope I'm not raising criteria too quickly on him. I would think that he would have it by now.

He focuses better for the ball, but the problem with that is that he jumps trying to grab it from me and sometimes misses.

Third, how do iI teach him to aus without taking him out of drive? Or lowering it? He just "turned on" about three weeks ago. I don't want to screw his drive up by correcting him in drive, or anything like that. I cant even play two ball because he carries the ball all the way to where the other ball is before dropping it

Sorry for any typos. I'm posting from my phone.



Anyway, sorry this is so long. Cookies if you read that novel

Maliraptor can help more here, we started our dogs in prey.

You can now do the IPO APr 1,2,3 which is like the old Schutzhund A but 1,2,3. It's obed and protection, no tracking. That said IPO and FR/MR are very different in many other ways than just tracking. I would look more into which suits you more. I really enjoy the control in addition to the edge. Most people I know love that MR has more bites, MR gets knocked for the lax obedience requirements but they do have some pretty strict training with their bitework, it has got to be hard to train the dog to allow the decoy to leer over their owner and only bite when there is physical contact. Also FR has object guarding and so forth.

Also, Sloan is a "any bite will do" dog. She is an IPO dog and honestly we prefer to keep her this way because if we decide later to move her into suit work she'll transition nicely, if we do suit work now she'll have less accountability for rule of "you will only bite the sleeve, bitch."

Do you mean in every day life or training?

I would do one step and reward until he's really got it, then two, then three, throwing back in the one step reward occasionally to keep him expecting. If he's bailing when you know he knows what he's doing then I'd correct, until then I'd just keep up the excitement.

LOL, get better at handling? JK I would work with him with what he likes but then again I get bitten a lot so maybe I'm just dumb.

Have you tried holding the tug dead? Wait until he releases and re-engage?

His age at this point doesn't matter. a balanced dog is always best, but I don't care what anybody else says, teaching prey and targeting behaviors in the beginning is important if you want to accomplish much in sport.

It's easier to work with, it's easier on the dog mentally and they learn better. Defense can come when they're ready and when they're put together it's great. But if he's working in defense for tugs and rags, you helper should be doing something differently I think.

Some dogs will come out a time or two, and if they're out of balance they might be defensive, but that quickly changes when worked correctly. If a dog isn't targeting well and switching drives well, i wouldn't be trying to do much beyond that. They need to learn targeting, grip and switching before they can go any further. at least for me.

whether they do ring sports or sch doesn't really matter, most of the drive work and grip work is all the same in the beginning it's just once it's developed it's transitioned to legs or to arms, but the initial steps are there.

If I was your helper and we were doing rag work, he wouldn't be getting my arms, either i'm doing something wrong, or you are either way that would be taken care of first.

anyway, I hesitate to say too much on the internet because helper work is very much a work in progress with the dog in front of you. i usually see something different than what people are telling me anyway

i won't be much help with heeling sorry, but someone else will come along i'm sure. I have my way and it involves a lot of luring, fading that and a lot of little steps and I still have stuff to work on I dont' let other things be more interesting than me, but a lot of times dogs I see dogs checking out on their handlers because they are unsure about he exercise or they're unsure if they want to be in that position for whatever reason. I can't say what it would be without seeing some trial and error.

I teach out playing two ball. it has it's advantages and disadvantages depending on the dog. and he wouldn't be getting an opportunity to bring a ball over to his other one before letting go. he'd run out of leash before he got that far away

you can also teach out by freezing up, works much better with a tug than a ball and nothing happens till he lets out and then it starts again. But again, advantages and disadvantages, don't want to create auto outs. It has to be balanced in training, but then again everything does. no matter how you teach something, there is always something that has to be balanced.

He doesnt care that the tug is dead. He will hold on forever, even if I've got another toy and I'm waving it in his face. He will only drop the first when he is committed to the second, and I'm usually not fast enough to jerk the second out of the way before he gets it and then we're stuck in that loop .

I've worked other dogs, quite a lot actually, but nearly every one was already trained and already trained to work in prey. So I'm not sure if I should be doing anything differently with a more defensive dog.

I get bitten a lot too he is quick right now to redirect out of frustration, usually onto my forearm.

Also, I wish I could ship him off for a month and have someone else teach him to heel. I hate it so much right now. I've read danteros webpage on the difference between FR and schutzhund but I'm still not so clear on it. And is IPO the same thing as schh now or different? And apparently there's a difference between IPO APR and then there's another IPO? I'm so confused right now.

Knox's next fetching tag will have to say "any bite will do"

I start all my dogs in both. Barking, without equipment, comes from defense. There are no bites or grips during this.

However, I play with them, on a wedge, in prey to work the grips and develop the play. It is not until the dog is working well in both that I bring them together, and it is done carefully.

I do not like nor want prey barking for IPO.

Biting the helper is not good. It has nothing to do with ringsport or possible suit work later. A ring dog is DQ for biting the hand (unprotected)

I hate tracking also.

Balanced work is the key, as MoTH said. How is his grip when he bites? Full and hard, calm? Or does he get chewy and regrip a lot?

Leash and collar. While you appear to be teaching with a clicker, he does need to learn at this age that leaving is not an option. If he leaves, he can self reward with something else. A video would be helpful.

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I'm a bit off with how I teach out. I did a lock up and out, ended up with an automatic out every time the sleeve went dead. Another one took his own sweet time chewing his way off.

I don't do that, I want a quick, absolute out. Your helper should be right there to instantly get his attention again. So out, and the game starts again.

Great post, really I agree across the board.

I used dead tug and two tug for Backup but we still have to battle Sloan on her outs, she laughs at dead tugs and two tugs do not interest her. Every dog, imo, is a bit different.

The point of dead tug is you need to be exceedingly patient. It works best with puppies, imo, but it's an effective method for tug action activated dogs.

Yay! LOL sorry, I have no other encouraging words. Bitey dogs are bitey.

Are you clicker training and shaping? Maybe he needs some more force. Backup had to be manipulated into heel.

I snagged this from a blog since they typed it out for me:

As of January 1, 2012 there will be no more Schutzhund.

The FCI (Fédération Cynologique Internationale) is the international “kennel club†of which all major dog organizations are members.

Currently in the world of schutzhund-like trials and testing you can earn these titles with your dog: IPO (International Prufungorden), SchH (Schutzhund), and VPG (Vielseitigkeitsprüfung für Gebrauchshunde); and I am sure a few others from different countries. As of today the IPO and SchH titles are very similar with only small differences. SchH is the standard of the SV (Verein für Deutsche Schäferhunde) and the German Shepherd Dog.

The FCI is standardizing the schuthund-like events to an international standard, in doing so there will be no more SchH and VPG titles only IPO titles.

IPO is easier to type. I think they are just being lazy.

I also agree with Adrienne on the heeling. I lure, I fade the food lure, I bring food in, but I DO give small corrections starting pretty early.

Not all dogs are so super prey motivated they will stay by your side staring into your eyes forever for a toy.

Let me see if I have a video...

I am clicking and shaping. He's gotten the pivot down very well. I'm currently fading the hand signal slowly, but he seems to be picking up the verbal cue quickly.

I suppose my mistake is that I am trying to teach heel a bit more hands off? I want him to target my left leg so I felt like without the leash there and with so little pressure he would feel less stress about getting it wrong? I don't know why I'm trying to do it that way specifically I will try tomorrow on leash with a little more pressure to be right.

When he gets a bite on a tug, rag, ect he has an extremely extremely nice full/deep hard grip. No chewing, he is very calm in the bite. If he gets only his front teeth into for whatever reason, (usually my fault) he will regrip to get a full bite.

Also, I am certainly not encouraging him to bite anything other than the rag/tug. He doesn't go for hands at all, and prefers to grab forearms and upper arms if he's frustrated. I yell ouch when he gets me. Today was the first time he got the helper actually. On the back of the upper arm, and it was completely my fault for allowing that much slack in the leash. I'd moved up closer to him without taking up the slack.

Ah that makes more sense. I don't let my dogs bite me. They can have an occasional miss, but you must agree upper arm is not even close to a miss.

Oh no, I know. He can be quite the jerk when frustrated. We're just starting out in this (well, he is, and I know I've still got a lot to learn) which is why I want to fix this now before it becomes a huge problem. I've just not ever really seen a dog start out in defense with so little pressure on him (well apparently he feels its a lot if I'm understanding defense correctly) but he wins the tug almost every time, and when he does out the game starts back up immediately for him. He always wins in the end and carries the rag back to his crate in the truck.

We back-tie our new handlers because of that. LOL

I'm not one to tell others their business but I tried purely positive with Backup and I think I created an issue, he's now getting a harsh wake up call because frankly he's been allowed until now to think he can choose when to work and if he's at all stressed he has no work ethic in obedience.

I have a couple bitey dogs. Judge missed a lot when he was younger and I had a lot of bruises and teeth marks. He got to a stage where he would really redirect onto me out of frustration, I very quickly nipped that in the bud as a true redirect is something that I will NOT tolerate. A couple misses here and there is something that I think is common in this sport and it happens often with some dogs. I would be correcting a redirection at that age.

I have not talked a lot about LoLa's training anywhere as her drives are a bit different than what I would like to see from a dog of her breed. She is a fairly defensive dog, more interested in the fight and not the prey. She requires a little pressure from the decoy to really light up, it is all about the fight for her. At her age and with her breed, I don't want to see that necessarily. We personally have been really working on bringing her prey drive up. I want her to be more balanced in both drives.

As far as heeling goes, I used Michael Ellis' heeling technique as a base and changed some things to suit my dogs. It involves a lot of luring, fading the lure away and repetitions.

I teach out different than others, a combination of methods that have just worked for my dogs and myself!

Sorry I can't be more helpful.