Sport Dog Guarding - Page 7

Simple reality: Sleeve, bite suits and hidden sleeves are triggers for the dog ( even if not visible, and that´s difficult, they smell them, and they know about the body language of helpers ). It´s almost impossible to train "real life" scenarios.

Susie, for a dog which has been "trained" using that equipment, I agree. However, l posted a video on my above post,of a dog of mine, the first time ever with a decoy. This was a "test", as I knew this dog would "bite for real"since he was a very small pup. The suit was meaningless to him. I had the decoy crack the whip, not to fire he dog up, but to observe his reaction. Same with the jug wit hcoins being rattled.....to assess the dog's reaction, and same with kicking the jug passed, just uping the stress a little to see the dog's reaction and commitment. This is definitely NOT a sportdog.

Joanro, this was not the point - as soon as you start training on a regular basis, no matter in which venue, there are triggers for the dog. Your "real life" scenario works only once, not twice. Either no training or triggers...
When we "switched" SchH dogs for police, the dogs simply learned to bite into the suit or hidden sleeve instead of the regular sleeve - no big deal, every normal tempered German Shepherd is able to learn this very fast. Several people didn´t believe me...

@susie, agree.
The point I was making was that some dogs will bite the suit, for all intents and purpose, to do damage to the man, not to win the suit. IMO, its all about orientation for the dog. If he wants the man, and the suit is what he gets, the acquisition of the jacket does not suffice...he is still intent on the man. Would he see the suit as a trigger next time he sees it? Not if the man wearing it is neutral.

You´d wonder how fast dogs learn that the only "neutral" people changing into a threat are the guys smelling, looking, and/or moving slightly different

My current male is a "real" dog, but even he learned pretty fast ( and I didn´t want to teach him this lesson ) what´s training and fun.

It´s almost impossible to change locations, helpers, suits,  your own movement ( be it holding the leash differently ), so the dog doesn´t know what´s going on. They even feel the underlying tension.

But you are right, for a real green dog the attack in your video is reality, and he is doing fine.

In the early 80's I owned the first Malinois to do police work in the US. That dog was THE most equipment oriented dog I have EVER seen. If you had a sleeve on, he would bite that sleeve, even if it was on your head, HOWEVER, he worked the street where there are no sleeves and in that capacity he really excelled. If you were facing him during a real apprehension, I can almost guarantee a castration and if you were running away, I can promise you one less butt cheek.

He could care less about sleeves, suits, whatever, as long as he could bite you. He lived for the bite and would do anything to get one and it being the early 80's, he got a lot. Would I ever work that dog civil myself? Not on your life. The point is that all this talk depends a lot upon what the dog brings to the table genetically and while it may be fine for sports dogs, I would not do it myself on my own dogs even for sport, it does not work well if you have a real civil dog who loves to bite and you are creating conflict.

@ susie, I think that is where muzzle work would be employed. Even that is going to be a trigger, unless done as Slamdunk has outlined, to prevent a dog from taking the muzzle as a cue.
Thank you.....:-)

HD, I don't understand when you said, "....you are creating conflict." at the end of your post.

Joan, for years, I have heard of all the "techniques" to train a dog to bite a real live person sans equipment, sleeves, muzzles, hidden suits, etc, however, the reality of it is that until your dog bites someone in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, you will never know. All the training in the world wont guarantee it...the only thing I can think of that will is a dog that is civil enough in its daily life that leaves no doubt in your mind, but, even then, until it happens, its still conjecture. I have met 2 dogs in 36 years, out of hundreds, that I KNEW would bite, no training, just give them the opportunity to and they would, I was right about one and the second one never got the chance to prove it, but damn it, I know she would have. 

I dont mean YOU personally Joan, in general.

Joan, working your own dog, especially one that was as civil as that Malinois was, would create conflict.