Anomaly outside of widely held belief about Defense Drive - Page 1

I recently spoke to a well known breeder and of working Malinois, ho asserted that dogs that operate mainly in defensive drive are weak; he wagered that with equipment he could put enough pressure on any such dog to force them to retreat. He explained ala Raiser that defense originate from a state of worry and its main aim is to elicit avoidance in the aggressor ( or for the the aggressor to stop doing the thing that makes the defensive dog worry ). I have heard this in other places too. Recently, I was at a training ground in Brooklyn and had the opportunity to see a 130 lb Cane Corso ( Primo ) that is almost 100 % defense oriented ( very little interest in chasing prey ), but when he was pressured by the decoy he never retreated a bit ....he took the battle to the helper like a Roman Army charging the front line. In real life I cannot imagine an unequipped man pushing this dog into avoidance.

Question: How is dog able to stay in the fight without retreat, even though he is acting out of defense .

Dogs can be conditioned to bark and show all sorts of nasty things when being pressured by a decoy, but lack total follow through to engage for real. They can learn that if they act this way enough, the threat goes away, or they get a bite which initially relieves some stress.
Some dogs in defense are more capable of managing stress(in this case, defense) than others. Put enough pain and pressure on any dog, and they will run.

hntrjmpr

So are you saying that if the dog remains in prey it will never retreat even if the decoy puts pressure?

About  the more  defense breed

Do you ever seen a cauacasian ovcharka working  or kangal in REAL  defense ,pressure,stress and pain ?

Do you think this are  weaker breeds ? I don,t think so

"hntrjmpr

So are you saying that if the dog remains in prey it will never retreat even if the decoy puts pressure?"


no she said;

"Put enough pain and pressure on any dog, and they will run."

which should be self evident to even people that have never owned a dog.

"So are you saying that if the dog remains in prey it will never retreat even if the decoy puts pressure?"

When a prey oriented dog is pressured high enough, it will transition into defense (fight or flight), and if the "fight" portion of defense is not strong/confident enough, it will run (flight). But a dog who is high on "fight" (defense) and who actually relishes the "fight" aspect, is definitely not a weak dog, by any measure, and it is a fallacy to think such as defense oriented dog as weak.

$100 says that if you trained and tested 1000 random GSD the dogs quick to defence & low prey will curr out of the fight on average quicker than a low defence high prey dog that has been intelligently trained.

"$100 says that if you trained and tested 1000 random GSD the dogs quick to defence & low prey will curr out of the fight on average quicker than a low defence high prey dog that has been intelligently trained."

Yes, if the "quick to defense" dogs lack "fight", which is a pretty common occurrence, and what the people panning defense drive, are basing their argument on. Same with high prey dogs who, when encountering real resistance, would fall back on defense and if they lack "fight", would swiftly take the "flight" option.

Bottomline, defense that is not high on "fight" is certainly weak. Prey drive that lacks "fight" is also equally weak, but at least on the surface appears strong(er) in front of a "prey" that's running away (and only as long as it is running away).

"Yes, if the "quick to defense" dogs lack "fight", which is a pretty common occurrence,"

 

agreed.

 

as to the OP's question how do these dogs stay in the fight - well simply and most commonly the methods most often used are unethical, and abusive, .......and more importantly completely unreliable.

 

 

 

it is all about what is there to begin with in a dog, caracter of dog is like pizza, one word/item, but build up from many ingredients and different in every individual dog/pizza, even when you buy ten pizza margharita they will all be different in buildup, same as you buy ten GSD , they will all have different buildup in caracter

now every dogs caracter is build up with ingredients, hunt,prey,possesiveness,dominance,courage,suspicion,agression,defence etc

all these ingredients and levels thereof are there by genetics and can be shaped by training, socializing etc, but we have to realize we cannot shape what is not there, so we cannot create dominance, agression,suspicion etc if it is not there to begin with

now the situation is that if a dog has more defence, low prey, but good courage and dominance you will have good dog,

if you have mainly preydriven dog with low courage and agression that is shaped well, it will look good in safe(read trained) situations, but the tog will break down in untrained situation, unknown pressure

now if malinoisbreeder says that dogs that operate mainly in defence are weak he has a point FOR HIS BREED, because IN GENERAL malinois have thinner nerves than GSD,and breeds like Bouvier, Rottweiler, Caucasian etc, these are breeds that mostly do not function over preydrive, but over defenfe,agression, this is also reason why all these breeds ore labeled not good for sport these days, because todays sport is prey oriented, in old days the sport was not and you could see many other breeds functioning well in different sports like KNPV and IPO