My young dog is very focused on the sleeve, even when it’s on the ground. He will go for the sleeve even when I have given him corrections. What can I do?

Question

Hi Cindy,

    I have a 17 month old GSD who I have had since he was 7 weeks old.  I have trained him in protection work as well as obedience and agility.  In obedience and agility he is doing fine but in protection I have huge control problems.  He is extremely highly driven in the presence of a sleeve, even when the sleeve is not on a helpers arm.

    I have been doing a lot of control exercises in the presence of the sleeve but not rewarding with the sleeve, using a ball as the reward.  He is happy to accept the ball as a reward but I can tell he has an eye on the sleeve.  I have tried walking the dog past the sleeve and rewarding him with the ball.  I have done this over a period of 3 weeks but there are still times when he will go for the sleeve without being told he can.  When he gets the sleeve I use a dominant dog collar to lift him up to release his grip on the sleeve.  I have tried using no and a correction or out and a correction but even a very hard correction just seems to send him higher in drive.

    Have you ever come across this sort of problem before, this dog seems to love the fight, so much so that he is willing to fight through any correction in order to get what he wants.

    I have done out training with him and he will out the sleeve consistently, however if he has been frustrated i.e. not been given a reward for a short period of time during training then when he eventually gets a bite reward again he is so high he will not out.

    I follow your training methods religiously but don't seem to be getting anywhere with this. If only I could see some progress.

    Spike

Accepted Answer

In my opinion, correcting a young dog for this is detrimental to your relationship and future training. Using the ball is a good idea but obviously is not a good enough “trade” for him to consistently leave the sleeve. I am training in ringsport and the dog has to leave the decoy and run back to me, and I reward with a bite pillow or a tug and REALLY play with the dog. It has to be worth his while to leave the sleeve. For an example, you can try having the sleeve on the ground, ask your dog to look at you and when he does you say YES and then play tug with him with a toy you have with you. He will learn that just because the sleeve is laying there doesn’t mean that’s the only way he’s going to get drive satisfaction. This takes a lot of the conflict away.

Have you done marker training with him? If not, I highly recommend it.

The Power of Training Dogs with Markers
The Power of Training Dogs with Food

Ed is producing a video right now on the right way to play tug with your dog, and I think you will find this method very clear and fair to your dog.

If you have watched any of our streaming videos, you will have seen marker training in use. I would recommend the Michael Ellis videos HIGHLY.

I think maybe you are getting ahead of yourself a bit in training. I would work out the issues you are having with just the sleeve, away from the decoy because you are allowing your dog to form habits that will haunt you for the life of the dog. Clear up this issue with the sleeve by itself before trying to work on this with the decoy right now.

This video shows what I was trying to explain http://leerburg.com/playem.htm?name=flv/8-31-08-news.flv