Dog Sports Q&As

I purchased a GSD that has excellent working bloodlines. He has super prey drive. I did not discover your videos until he was almost a year old, but I still wanted to train him in personal protection. So I started with the 1st steps of bite training. He does really well in the bite work. I just cannot get him to bark at the helper, even when he pops in and out of the blind. When I took him out in the field and tried the stranger in the bushes, he just looked cautiously, but never barked. ...

I have a two year old Rottweiler. He is friendly and we live in an apartment building. He is fully obedience trained. I would like to train him to be capable of protection work. My concern is that he will become aggressive towards neighbors and children during the training period? Will this training program change his personality and make him unpredictable?

I have a one and a half year old male GSD. He was a rescue dog and hadn't been socialized at all when I got him (almost a year ago). He is very smart and learns everything I teach him right away. I've been wanting to start him on some protection training, my problem is that he is very dog aggressive and tends to be either intimidated or overly defensive around tall men, although he has been slowly improving in both areas. I don't want to encourage any uncalled for aggression. Would protection...

My question is about choosing a helper. Should the helper be someone the dog knows, or not? I have read a lot of articles, and some say the dog shouldn't know the helper, some say they should and some say it doesn't matter. I have read a lot of your articles online and it seems you know what the hell you're talking about. I would appreciate it if you gave me an answer to this question. Sincerely, E. Jones SFC US Army

I called some trainers this weekend and they said the dog doesn't need to have any genetics and they could teach the dog Personal Protection. Is this true?

I have a question regarding a client that has a 5 year old un-neutered American bred GSD that is a fear biter. This dog only goes after females, usually young and they are always showing fear towards the dog. This dog has bit several times, only breaking the skin. This dog has had "protection training" from a very questionable trainer in the area...very defensive oriented, from the old school. The Jack Healy method out of US K9 Academy. This dog is nothing but a poorly trained guar...

Can you define fight drive for me?

Mr. Frawley, I belong to the Peak Schutzhund Club in Colorado Springs, CO. I have been looking for information regarding training Dobermanns in schutzhund. If you have or can direct me in the right direction I would really appreciate. Thanks, Pat

My goal overall is to have a well-rounded dog, as most people. I have seen sport dogs that have obtained titles, and wanted to know realistically, if you have a good sport dog do you not have a "protection dog" as well? I always thought that a protection dog was a dog that basically stays with you or in your vehicle to keep the "bad guys " away. The way I have seen some protection dogs trained here, I would not trust them to come off a leash. I have seen Schutzhund dogs, and Ring dogs bet...

Hi Cindy, Love what you guys are doing over there, new videos are great. Here's my question, I have an 11 month old GSD, and we started doing our protection work about 1 month ago and having a lot of fun with it, but when we try to work obedience now it seems I have to get him worn down before I can even start to get him to focus. It seems his prey drive is almost taking over all the obedience training I've done with him. I just watched a video from Michael Ellis abo...

Hi, I have two German Line dogs, one a Tom Vant Leefdaalhof grandson and one with Fero Hemmelreich, Troll and Xato Nachbarschaft and others. Because I made many errors before getting your videos and attending a Flinks seminar, I am hoping you might have a suggestion on refocusing my dog's prey drive to the sleeve. When they attended the Flinks seminar at eight months and 13 weeks Flinks said the Leefdaalhof grandson was a great, great puppy and could it was up to me how far I took hi...

I have a male doberman that is about 10 months old. I would like to train him to perform schutzhund work. He has a fairly strong prey drive and is extremely attentive to me, always trying to please me. However, my one concern is that he does not seem to have a lot of confidence or a strong defensive drive. I tested him by having a neighbor creep into the yard while I held the dog's leash. The dog was very interested and watched him, but he did not bark. When the neighbor got within striking d...

My name is Chris Srackangast and I have been a student of your website for many months now. I had a dog that I trained about twelve years ago using the old Command Performance by David Dikeman (yank and crank). It worked beautifully and I always had a well mannered dog that everyone loved. He tolerated kids but did not especially love them. HE obeyed me and knew the rules and I got lucky in that regard. I did not realize though that I broke his spirit with my harshness. (I got exposed to ...

I have been working my dog through the DVD (The First Steps to Bite Training). We have worked our way up to the point where she is staked out and I am swinging the puppy tug in front of her building the intensity of the bite. she has been doing so well at this that I have been considering intoducing a helper to work the tug. Today I took her out to have a training session and she did well on two bites and countered good;but after these two bites she lost her desire to bite and counter a...

Hi Mr. Frawley, I have ordered and watched some of your video training DVDs and enjoyed them very much. The information is very straight forward and easy to understand. I'll be buying more as time goes on and my 9 week old puppy starts to mature. I have looked on your web site and read many articles you have written. I understand from one article that one can't each his own dog to be a protection dog. You can't be the good guy and bad guy for the dog. While my dog is far from the time when...

I wonder whether you could help me out I have a nine month old German Shepherd bitch but unusually for a German Shepherd she doesn't bark now. I've tried to get her to bark when I give her her food or before I sent her off for her ball but all she does is whine. I can't seem to get her to bark at all. Sometimes she does have the odd outburst of barking when she is playing with my mum's pup, but when that is is when I'm not about or when you go to the back door to praise her for barking sh...

Cindy, I recently purchased the E-Collar for Pet Owners video. My plan had been to use an e-collar at about the one-year mark, after achieving a firm foundation in basic obedience. However, when reading the Discussion Forums a user alluded to a difference in the way an e-collar is used for a pet and protection work. I plan on training my dog in protection work and would like to understand what (if any) are the differences in the way an e-collar is used for pet owners as opposed to owners ...

Hello Ed My name is Sharon, I work in the Israeli swat in puppy program for special forces. We have few malinois puppies in different ages, and we have some disagreement between us about the best age to put real pressure from a decoy on the puppy/dog, I'll be glad if you can answer from your experience with puppies and young dogs, what do you expect from a good (working) puppy to show you before you treat him as a mature dog and not as a puppy. What are the cues we need to see to say i...

Hi Cindy, sorry to bug you, I need a little advice, I was doing some imprint work with my 4 month presa canario this morning using a clatter stick and leather rag, and as I was doing exagerated movements with the clatter stick my pup accidentaly leaned into the clatter stick , and I hit her eye and muzzle, she didn't wimper or get hurt but her prey drive was gone immediately and she became shy of the leather rag, I'm not sure how detrimental this could be, what would you recommend I do ...

Mr. Frawley, I have spent hours and hours devouring all that is available on your website!! Totally outstanding. I am a disabled person, was gifted a pure breed GSD pup. I am doing obedience work with him. Very smart and eager to work with me. No issues thus far. Sit/down/stay/heel are all going well. He is just shy of 5 months now. I will be taking him to triple crown here in Texas when he is about 8 months old. They have a trainer there who has worked with service dog partners (not bill...