low thresholds = poor nerves??? - Page 7

Daryl,
Rewarding a dog with a bite at the end of the track is not what I was talking about.  You would be correct that is not utilizing defense to track.  The defense is done before the track to put the dog in drive.   

Sometimes stupidity is mistaken for courage, both in humans as well as animals especially when the cause does not justify the possibility of getting killed, that is why you find less courageous/(reckless/stupid) in old compared to young

Daryl I agree and I would add that some dogs will guard with more and some with less fortitude. Which also is a sign of different level of courage. Some dog will run and some will not. 

However I would say that dog can be rewarded in tracking with defense. For example the dogs in LE track in prey, but form time to time will encounter resistance on the end of the track and have a fight with the perpetrator. The  dog who encounters several such adrenaline secretion rushes  inducing situations will develop an "addiction" to adrenaline induced by such fight. This addiction is then becomes  motivator for future real life LE  tracking.   I have seen that in LE dogs. These dogs are then motivated by civil defense  and are in pure defense on the end of the track.  For that reason it is often hard to "out" them by command and need to be lifted of That is since  dog in defense is hard to out.  It is interesting that such dog will often easily out during certification process, because certification is done with equipment and dog is then associating such situation with prey for that particular scenario in which the vocal command  for " out" is much easier to enforce. 

Prager Hans

Hired dog. I do not believe in a second that courage is associated only with danger of death.  Courage is associated with many situations. Withstanding  pain or thread of injury  would be one of them. It requires courage to enter knowingly  scenario where   pain is waiting. Also  it requires courage to do or say  right thing and so on. Some may be applicable to dogs and some may not be. But if only one of them is,  then that would prove that dog is displaying courage. 
Prager Hans

NOT associated with Hans, only when there is death in the end, and yet you keep going, thats courage. Since you think a dog is capable of understanding what death is, lets turn this around and let me ask you, when a dog receives a correction, lets say with an E collar, is it possible that the correction can be then associated to something positive?
Is it possible to train a dog to welcome an E collar correction? Is that bravery?
There is pain involved and under normal conditions, dogs want to avoid pain, what could cause a dog to then welcome or better yet, not mind the pain? I promise you its not bravery, but, I would like to hear your opinion on what it is.

I know definitions are difficult to standardize, what I will say below is not a proof of correctness for assuming a dog has courage as a trait.



What are we looking for in the " courage test" if courage is not something some dogs have and some don't?

as Ed Frawley points out in one of his commercial vids that to the dog the courage test is nothing more than the dog saying "cool the nice man is bringing me the sleeve so i can another bite, purely a test of a dogs grip in prey drive" apologies if the wording is not exactly correct but close enough.


i think imo people are suggesting lack of fear = courage, i don't feel that and i acknowledge what Darryl pointed out that it is inconsistent to hold dogs can have fear but they cannot have courage - get with modernism you can hold two seemingly conflicting thoughts in yr mind without an outright contradiction.


consider a person with a phobia might be scared of, spiders, snakes, heights, outdoors. these people may never have had a bad experience with any of the things they fear ie never been raped, mugged, bitten, attacked or fallen fron a height yet they have paralysing fear that may prevent them from full participation in life like fear of leaving the home (real). these people can often be counselled by a psychologist and overcome their fear but would you call them brave if they have just been able to act in a normal manner for the first time, no they have lost their fear but i would not call them particularly brave or couragous people.


imo dog training is a trick - we build a dogs confidence to fool him that is the biggest badest thing on the planet and teach him skills we find useful as well, it is all a trick on the dog tho in the process we can even condition them to increasing levels of pain - there is a reason why trainers do not do vicious schuts 3 style stick hits on a puppy first time on a sleeve.


Darryl tracking in defence is possible (not my experience but from LEO's) as the defensive dog has a vested interest and is compelled to know the exact location distance/direction of every wolf, bear..in the forest, it is compelled thru defence to know this and they will track like their life depends on it rather than a prey dog doing it for a ball/bite reward. makes sense but just repeating. 

Hans,
Daryl was asking about using defense to motivate a dog to track.  This is from another thread.  I had mentioned on the other thread that I have used defense to teach a dog to track.   The defense work is  prior to the track not at the end.  It is used to put the dog into drive to track.   It is done with strong civil agatation and the decoy runs off and the dog is hidden.  Then the dog is sent to find the decoy.   This is a very simplified version and is all the detail I am going to get into here. It is one method that works well when done correctly.  Rather than argue, I will agree to disagree about courage or other things on this thread.