What is schutzhund biteprotection training

This is usually around 11 to 14 months. New trainers that make the mistake of introducing defense before a dog is mentally mature enough to deal with the pressure are making the biggest mistake of their training career. Pushing a dog into defense before it is mentally mature enough to deal with the stress is the quickest way in the world to end a dog's protection career. Some dogs have excellent prey drive - but lack defense. A common example is the black lab that loves to chase balls but could never be trained in protection because it lacks defense.

Unlike prey drive, the defense does not diminish as the dog gets tired. Another way to look at it is that no matter how tired your dog is it is still going to react to someone that is threatening him. American bloodline German Shepherds often have some degree of prey drive, but That's why they cannot do Schutzhund work, much less police service work. Working defensive drive takes a skilled helper that is adept at reading and understanding temperament and knowing exactly how far a dog can be pressured or threatened in defense before it is pushed into avoidance.

As the defensive training progresses, the dog's confidence level increases if he is genetically capable. He is taught how to defeat the helper in every circumstance. These many experiences slowly change the dog's view of the helper.

He begins to see the helper as a fighting partner, as someone to get mad at and not someone to be nervous of. When this begins to happen we say that the dog is developing fight drive. We define fight drive as the interaction of prey and defense where the dog carries the forwardness of prey with the intensity of defense. The image of a dog working in fight drive is an adult dog with a great deal of self-confidence in all environments and every circumstance. It's a dog that does not look or act insecure during his protection work.

The level of intensity during bite work is very high - the dog will display a tenacity towards fighting that is not seen in the younger, immature dogs. The only way that a dog can gain fight drive is through experience and training. They don't just wake up one morning when they are 3 years old and have fight drive.

Dogs need to go through a sound foundation of prey drive development and then, at the correct time, they must be introduced to a step-by-step defensive training program. It is important to understand that only dogs with good genetics and proper training will develop fight drive.

An interesting fact is that dogs with strong prey drive develop the best fight drive We also see dogs with dominant temperaments develop fight drive. When you hear people talk about fight drive being defense, they are not exactly correct.

The difference in the two drives is the way in which the dog views the helper and the comfort level of the dog during the work. Remember this distinction: A dog with fight drive views the helper as a fighting partner. When he sees the helper he gets mad, he wants to take the fight to the helper. New trainers are going to have a difficult time differentiating between a dog that barks in prey versusa dog that barks with the intensity of defense and a dog that is barking in fight drive.

Don't worry, this is only normal. Every new trainer goes through this confusion. It took me a long time to get this clear in my head. As you gain experience, your skill at recognizing these drives will improve.

When the stress level becomes too high for the nerves of a particular dog it will turn and retreat. When that happens, the dog is in avoidance. Some people think of avoidance as a drive, I prefer to think of it as a form of defense. It is defense in the extreme. After all, isn't the safest defense an effective retreat? Once a dog is put in full avoidance it instantly learns that this is an easy way to deal with pressure. It can take months to bring a dog back to the point you were at just before he broke and ran.

When we talk about avoidance, we also need to talk about being hesitant. There is a difference. Being hesitant is when a dog takes a step back to evaluate what's going on when he is stressed.

This usually happens with young dogs that are raised to a new level of stress. Being hesitant is not bad, in fact, it is actually good. Because when the dog overcomes his hesitation and learns how to deal with the new situation, it comes away a stronger, more confident dog. A dog in avoidance will tuck its tail between its legs, lay its ears back, get its hair up on his back and run.

A dog that is unsure will not have it's tail between its legs, it may come down a little but it will not be tucked. He may look a little confused but he will not look afraid. There is a difference here. Trainers need to develop the skill to recognize the difference between being hesitant and avoidance. During later stages of training we will intentionally put a dog in this unsure area and make him learn how to fight his way out of it.

If you have a son and want to teach him to fight - you send him to karate classes. These classes are all prey drive work where he learns the technique of fighting. Granted a serious game - but still a game. You can assist your son in his training to this point by helping him learn the basic skills of fighting and coaching him through the work.

The same is true with your dog - you can assist him in learning the basic prey skills. You can even let him practice the basic ones on you. If your son goes downtown on a Friday night and gets into a knife fight where he is fighting for his life, he is then doing defensive work.

This video is two minutes, clipped from an eighteen minute session. That is a long training session for protection work, but because Raika knows how to switch from a driven state to a calm one, she is able to work for a very long time with a clear head and a calm mind.

Indeed, she was asking for more work within thirty minutes of being returned to the car. Raika is working on several skills.

First, I insist that Raika heel with attention onto the field with a clear head. By holding the line, I can communicate to her that she must remain in control of herself, even in this sport where all she really wants to do is go to the helper.

She is corrected several times for failing to heel with attention — note how I drive her backwards with my body. Compulsion is not required when a dog respects pressure — in the end I always win, regardless of the sport I am teaching. We are a team. To teach this, she receives a bite when she barks in the blind but when she barks on the open field the helper turns away from her — she knows that ends her opportunity for a bite.

I reset her and we start over. This is her sixth or seventh session working on this skill and she performs flawlessly, so you cannot see a correction for barking at the wrong time — by now you probably know that my corrections never involve pain compliance or physical coercion. The third skill we are working on is maintaining quiet confidence when I walk up to her side; I do not want Raika to look at me when she is guarding the helper, so she must be taught that my presence in heel position signals a bite is coming.

That is motivation enough for her to ignore me and she performs very well. Raika must maintain a vigilant and quiet guard as I remove the stick from the helpers hand. Thanks for this! I love the protection sports. Seeing it done like this is refreshing. Thank you for explaining your training methodology for IPO.

I am very interested in trying IPO with my young Belgian but am wary of the usual training methods. There is a facebook group called positively ferocious — but both positive and traditional approaches are discussed.

It might be time for a new facebook group which insists on positive discussions only — I will consider that. Please do let us know……when you decide! Thanks Denise. As always, very articulate, informative…and refreshing! So glad you and Bart have teamed up. Looking forward to this latest wrinkle to your blog. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to following this latest wrinkle to your blog.

IPO is a sport in my house also, but it seems to me that to a lot of people it is more than that, rather a serious business that will prove the breed suitability of the dog-and something necessary to them in order to supply their dogs to the police or military. Rewarding my dog with a bite is the only way to go on the protection field. I am very careful about who works my dog and how.

I look forward to reading more of your posts about IPO, and am glad you have taken up this subject here. Your blogs and videos will go a long ways in educating people. And now, how come the silent guard? I see the new rule says watch attentively, the old says guard him intently. Is that how it is being interpreted now where you are training or did you switch for another reason?

Keep the posts coming-looking forward to seeing more IPO video on Lyra too. I think there are several legitimate ways to look at IPO training — one is to select for military or police dogs.

That is not my perspective, so I stated it up front to be clear. Same with obedience; for me it is a sport of beauty and teamwork. For others it is the process of making a dog obedient to handler. Simply different perspectives. I prefer the silent guard for Raika because barking makes her frantic. For some dogs it gives drive, but she has plenty of drive. The trick with her is keeping a clear head and a balance of drive with control.

At this point it is not clear what will be the best choice for Lyra. This method is not one that should be considered for a police service dog or a personal protection dog.

In addition, a service dog can and in my opinion should wear an electric collar when it is worked on the street. Similar issues go with personal protection dogs. The fact is that the OUT is not that important with personal protection dogs. If the decision is made to deploy a personal protection dog and it actually bites someone, it may be wiser to leave the dog on the suspect until the police arrive. Then the dog can be lifted off the bite.

If you will, please voice your opinion.. At trial the judge caused him to leave the blind and I had to give the reverie command again.. He does well on the courage test, attack on handler, etc. The dog responded first time around to the muzzle work, tried to bite the crap out of the helper after knocking him down, etc.

I am having 2nd thoughts about this method. Muzzle work may help the dogs intensity, but this is not going to solve the problem of focus. Walking up to the tail of the dog is something that a lot of judges do especially in the past few years since they saw Hans Rudenaur do it in the California Nationals the head SV Sch Judge.

The way to correct this is to have different people standing on the field all the time in training, and playing the part of the judge.

They should have a clip board in their hand, and do the exact same thing as a judge would do. If the dog looks back when you or one of these people walk up behind the dog the helper should turn and run, or clip the dogs ear or chin with the stick a good hard one. When that happens the dog will bite and the helper treats it as an attack and drives the dog out of the blind. This work may require some prong collar leash work to keep the dog clean and maintain the bark if the dog anticipates and bites without the helper moving when someone comes up.

But the dog will quickly learn to not take his eyes off the helper or he will be whacked. During this exercise the dog should never look at the handler. When the dog does this properly it can have a bite. When the helper moves the handler should give a bite command. If this is done properly the intensity of the bark will increase as someone comes up behind him, because the dog will anticipate the attack. But remember the obedience needs to be there to eliminate the bumps. If the dog bumps the sleeve the handler gives a loud NO!!!!

The dog must know that this is not an acceptable thing to do. The Dutch trainers in the KNPV are masters at using people to act as judges in training the clubs I go to NEVER do obedience without having a member walk up and explain what is expected just as a judge would do in KNPV before the training exercise and then walk around like a judge does in the exercise. I have a 9-month-old German Shepherd puppy that is working in schutzhund.

Who has avery strong backing in working lines. My puppy does excellent in tracking and also does excellent in protection. But lacks interest in the ball. Do you have any solutions for me? My puppy is very motivated by food but I would like to start introducing the ball more.

Please respond if you have a chance. If the dog does well in bite work, and the bite work is being done properly then the dog has prey drive and you have just not developed it enough. But the fact is that this is not an important issue - if the dog has intense food drive then use that drive. What you are asking makes no sense. The goal is to end up with a trained dog not a ball crazy dog. Use the tools that you have available and be happy with what you have.

I have a GSD. He is my first Schutzhund dog. We have had him for a year now and he has bonded with our family very nicely. We love him dearly. He is a great family dog No socialization no play, nothing. Just let out to run every day. I am just now getting him to play with hoses. At first the poor dog would not even take food from me on the training field.

Now he is gobbling up hot dogs like crazy and tracking very well. At first I could not even get him to take one morsel of food off the track. Now I am only putting food in ever firth step or so , lengthening the tracks and he is doing great..

The real problem is with our protection training. Bach is a very defensive dog and very aggressive during protection work. He has a lot of heart and has a lot of courage. But he is very focused on the helper. I have tried everything I know to do but I can not get him to carry a sleeve.

He spits it out immediately and goes for the helper instead. It's not a fun game to Bach it's stressful to him even though he has calmed down tons since we first started with him.

He is not exactly friendly with people other than our family. He is tolerant of them until they approach him. If they introduce themselves properly he is okay -if not he commences a low growl. But he has never snapped or bitten. I socialize him constantly and take him everywhere with my kids and me. Petsmart and the park and drive thru windows- around the neighborhood- to school, he is doing much better but he has his bad days I do too though I must admit.

When it was time to get his BH, his obedience was great but we still needed to overcome our socialization obstacle. He was still growling when approached by friendly strangers- so I am between a rock and a hard place now. He is a beautiful dog and considering his pedigree, it would be terrible if I can't title him. It may not be possible, I don't know. He is a tough case for my first SchH dog. I have not worked him in protection for six months now. Our helper won't work Bach until he can play with him probably won't happen.

What should I do? Do you have a video or book or any advice for me? The dog has thin nerves. You have done a very good job in making sure that this does not happen. I give you credit. I seriously doubt that you are going to title this dog. My guess is that it is beyond your skill and the skill of the people you work for.

The bottom line is that he will make a better personal protection dog than a sport dog. My friend told me that a Schutzhund dog that has been trained to bite a sleeve can never be a Personal Protection dog because it will not bite a person. Is this true? I recommend that your friend get more experience and stop passing along bad information like this. It is true that a lot of Schutzhund dogs can never do personal protection work because they are only trained in prey drive and or they simply do not have the nerves for the work.

With this said, many dogs have the correct character to do both Schutzhund and personal protection. Dogs that do have the right nerve and drives will need additional training to do personal protection work. For those who are just starting to learn about protection training - Schutzhund is a dog sport it's not personal protection training. I just finished watching, how to raise a working puppy, and building drive focus and grip.

They were great videos. I plan on buying preparing your dog for the helper. At what age should the information in that video be applied to my puppy. I will be building his drive, but what is a good age to start working the puppy on preparing him for the helper. If it's best that I wait until the puppy matures a bit, then I will wait and get the video later. I am getting my puppy in two weeks. If it's stuff that I should be doing right away with the pup, then I will buy the video pretty soon.