When is the right time to go from agitation collar to prong and why?

When you are no longer building drive toward the decoy and are looking for control in a protection routine.

What about building aggression through pain? How is this applied and why?

I don't feel you should build aggression thru pain. Hopefully Will or someone more experienced will jump in here, but I don't think pain has any place in protection training. I would think the result of adding pain to build aggression would be an unbalanced unreliable dog. Could you explain more what you mean by building aggression through pain?

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I don't feel you should build aggression thru pain. Hopefully Will or someone more experienced will jump in here, but I don't think pain has any place in protection training. I would think the result of adding pain to build aggression would be an unbalanced unreliable dog. Could you explain more what you mean by building aggression through pain?

Thank you, Jason.

Building aggression through pain from the beginning of the training process is an IGNORANT way to train a dog. It was the way dogs were trained in the 1950's and 1960's. The short term for this kind of training is avoidance training. It uses the fight or flight syndrome.

With this said, there is a point in police service work, military work and personal protection work where a dog must learn that the helper is not a motor on the sleeve. In other words the dog must learn that protection training is not a game.

After the foundation in prey is finished an experienced helper (usually a strange helper to the dog) needs to go out and hurt the dog a little. He will sting the dog with a whip or flank the dogs side so it hurts. The dog needs to learn that a helper is a fighting partner and not a buddy out playing prey games with him.

This is not a long process. It often is a short term thing that the dog learns in a hurry.

The stick hit in Schutzhund is clearly a pain inducing method of training as well. For you to state that training a dog by using pain as ignorant is in direct conflict with your next statement of training service dogs using the same method! I do not use these methods for training my dog or anyone elses! I am involved with sport dogs and was merely asking a question. However, using the stick in Schutzhund clearly elicits a pain response that the dog reacts to by countering defensively. These blows elicit just enough pain to stimulate highly the animal's resentment and resistance. It is possible to make even timid and sensitive dogs indifferent to the stick up to a certain point, for it should be remembered that resentment drastically lowers sensibility to pain. (Colonel Konrad Most)

If pain isn't a factor in protection training explain the stick hits in schutzhund!! I want to know everyone's opinions on this as well. I think everyone who responds to this thread needs to read "Training Dogs A Manual". The opinions stated on this board are anthropomorphic about Schutzhund protection training at best. The heroes of the trial-ground may well prove useless bundles of nerves on active service. Their actual lack of interest in defence may in fact been effaced by regular experiences of fights involving no danger, and victories over a "criminal" in protective clothing who is always the same man.(Colonel Konrad Most)I have wondered why the sport dog is viewed as a service dog by most people involved in Schutzhund.

Jamey - you are getting a little defensive here and its not necessary. Maybe I did not make myself clear or you did not get more specific in your first question.

1- There are/were people who started protection training from day one by working dogs in fight-flight and/or pain. These are the old trainers who used to tie a dog to a fence and whale on them until the dog went into defensive fight. These are the STUPID trainers I was talking about.

2- In regard to the stick hits in schutzhund - the VAST MAJORITY of the time there is no pain involved with these stick hit. If the question was COULD THEERE BE PAIN? I would say that its possible but the vast majority of the time the simple body posture and threat of the hit is enough to send a weak dog running or flick a switch in a strong dog and send him intofight.

The fact is the people who wrote the rules would like us to believe there is more to the hits than there is but they are wrong. To insinuate that schutzhund stick hits are more than a threat is misleading and not true.

You are perfectly correct in your observation that the vast majority of sport schutzhund dogs cannot do poersonal protection work without further training. Thats the case for most dog sports (i.e. KNPV, Mondio, Belgium Ring) . Notice I DID NOT SAY ALL SPORT DOGS - just MOST SPORT DOGS.

The fact is most sport dogs cannot pass a true selection test for police service work. Any breeder or trainer who says differantly simply does not have enough experience.

With that said there is no conflict about how a police serivce dog is trained and what I said in both posts. These dogs must go through a foundation in bite work that is very similar to sport dog training. This is done in prey and whats learned there allows the dog to release stress after being worked in defense.

Sport dogs can stay in the prey mode and compete. There are many many sch 3 dogs out there that are 100% prey dogs. The differance is that service dogs need to move beyond prey and learn to work in defense. (Go read my definistion of fight dirve - its in my list of articles)

If you want to learn more about this get the DVD I did titled THE FIRST STEPS OF DEFENSE http://leerburg.com/101d.htm

Your also right about the book Training Dogs
A Manual By Colonel Konrad Most
http://www.leerburg.com/955.htm - We sell it and its great. I got my first copy over 30 years ago and I still enjoy reviewing it.

Jamey - one last comment - next time you post- check your attitude at the door. No one attacked you personally here

i think that there are quite a few dogs who react higher in prey drive do to a correction from a prong collar. look at any dog that is truely high drive and you will see a dog that react to corrections with higher spirits and more focus. When you are to the level of working OB in protection that is the perfect time to teach the dog that it MUST always look at you in order to get the reward ( in this case the chase and bite or hold and bark on the decoy) if you look at any high level sport trainer (dildei, rose, calderon, floyd, raiser, flinks, etc) all show this connection between stimulus (not pain) to increase drive. the proof of this is when most dogs that are high drive prance and move spiritedly after a correction or stimulation of any kind, even a verbal negative like a non-reward marker. its similar to capping a dog in my opinion. that is what the heart of the discussion was correct? the association biult between tying a dog out and drive based on an agitation collar versus using a prong collar to build drive.