Hi,
I have some questions to ask. Maybe off the wall but tonight I dressed up and came in the door pretending to be a stranger I wore a coat with hood and my dog barked like crazy and was acting very vicious growling and slobbering but as I got closer showing no fear she backed up and cried showing fear running into walls trying to get away she did not show the power she showed when I pretended to be afraid or stand still or run. she would not bite me but barked alot. I had my husband there to pull her back Incas she was to bite me, she was on a leash. She seemed not to know it was me but I am not sure if she may have smelled me. This girl is only 6 months old in the real world I don't think an intruder would have went close to her so I think she did well but my question is was this a good sign of protection or should she have bite me and not have ran when I got close? I know she is young but should she have bit me or at least not ran away? I am not working with a bite trainer but am talking with a few trainers. Should I do more prey drive with a rag or even a dummy in the yard? should I dress up in a thick suit and make her attack me in the yard ? I only want her to protect my home and yard not to bite people up and be a nut-case, just to bite intruders. She is very friendly when we go out to Petsmart and she lets people pet her she is not mean or attackes anyone she does bark and run after the neighbor but listens when I say No. She has good agression but lacks defense. I don't want her to get mean with normal people. How can I let her know who is bad if I bite train her and who is good, not to bite? I will not pay thosands of dollars on a trainer I don't know anyone I trust. I am afraid my dog may get messed up. At least I will have myself to blame if I make a mistake and its much less cost. Should I purchase a sleave? will this make her bite me later if I do it myself? What would be the best video to buy ?

Hi Heather,
They best thing for you would be to find a trainer or shutzhund club near by. Dressing up and driving to attack your own dog is not a good idea, and at 6mnths most dogs are still babies. not everyone is capable of doing bitework with their own dogs. you have to work ONLY in preydrive and build up the puppies confidence. my pup bit on me until the age of 12 months before going onto another decoy. and went directly on the sleve with no probleem on a stranger. You need to be building the puppy up, letting her win fights and intruducing her to all kinds of things... i would wear funny hats or hold an umbrella open and closed, expose her to lots of things in the bite work to build up her confidence. So no defense! PREY PREY PREY. preydrive makes dogs strong. and later you can introduce your dog to a decoy and he will do the defense work but by then you have a much older and stronger dog who has already learned how to "play fight"
I hope this all makes sense since im a bit asleep... <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Prey = Play/quick moving objects/fun for the dog -- a dog LEARNS in prey

Defense = Threatening the dog, scary situations etc.

Most dogs needs to learn to be confident before you can put defensive pressure on them, and defensive pressure should only be done after they have hit maturity, this is anywhere from 18-24 months, sometimes longer, depends on the dog and the lines. Never ever ever ever do defensive work with your own dog, you break the bond and the trust. Your dog can bite on you in prey all day long, they aren't seeing it as biting you so much as biting their toy that happens to be on your arm, which makes transition to working on a decoy easier, then eventually, in a year or so from now, you can start doing defensive and civil work to teach the dog to lose that focus on equipment and start looking at the man.

Most GSD's don't even really know it's OK to bite, this needs to be built up thru training and confidence building, it's like tossing a 12 year old into a fight with the school bully without karate lessons and no fighting experience. Pushing your dog into avoidance (backing up/showing fear) will only set you back, because now you need to bring the dogs confidence back up to where it was before you scared the hell outta the dog. When my pup was about that age, I ran into the room after taking a shower with a t-shirt over my head while getting dressed, my dog freaked, hackles raised, ran to the other side of the room as fast as he could n stood there barking at me in a deep serious "HOLY @#$@!!!!!" bark <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Today he's fighting the decoy, working thru alot of psychological and physical stress and biting harder than I even thought he was capable of.... Now he looks like this:

Pic 1
Pic 2

My lil dutch shepherd pup is a completely different type of dog, she's been biting everything in sight since she came outta the welping box, show her a bite sleeve or a bare arm, doesn't matter to her, but if someone came busting in thru the door wearing scary clothes, I'm sure it'd scare the hell outta her because she's never been (slowly) exposed to that kinda stuff.

Have patience, take baby steps! Your dog is just a puppy, puppies are supposed to play and be friends with everyone, not defend mommy n daddy from someone 5 times their size.

good explanation mike (must be a teacher?) <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> so too tiered <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Lady you need to do alot of reading and that money you pay a good helper or trainer is worth every penny. What your doing is foolish <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I don't care if its foolish I wanted to see if the dog would bite. It is very simalar what the trainer will do at some point with suit work. It should not have been me that is the only difference. <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> I am purchasing the videos so it might help me. Maybe she is not ready for this or too young.

At 6 months old, your puppy is way too young to be worked as you described above. Read the articles Ed has about drives on this site. The type of work you described should only be done with an adult dog 18 months to 2 years old or older by someone with experience. You should concentrate working your pup's prey drive, focus and grip now. Look for a sch club or PSA, ASR, French Ring for help in training locally.

You dont care if it is foolish and you are expecting a 6 month old pup to defend itself and not be pushed into avoidance <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> Whatever

You said it all right .. she's not ready and is too young.. What you just did was push your pup (note: PUPPY) into avoidance. Not that I agree on doing this work anyways, YOU should have shown avoidance the minute your pup barked and YOU should have run away. You just taught your pup that the easiest thing to do is run away rather than fight.. This is the main reason why it's important to have a good knowledgable helper. Hopefully you didn't do too much damage and your pup's confidence can be brought back up with lots of prey work and bites.. All you should be concentrating on is getting the confidence back up.
Hopefully the videos will show you what you did wrong and what's the right way of doing things..

Good luck with your training..

Heather, you SHOULD care if it's foolish or stupid to do things, this was a mistake and if you're not willing to learn from you're screw ups and get defensive about it, you're going to mess up your dog. Start by reading the articles on this site to get started and find a GOOD trainer and learn with an open mind. Expecting a 6mo old dog to protect you IS foolish,
Good luck,
AL