Hi everyone,
My (22Y-old)daughter and I are newbies to Schutzhund - she owns a 16-month-old bitch from good solid German bloodlines. Her first dog. I did CKC obedience for years and own an older Golden right now, but I've never done Schutzhund. I'm helping my daughter by doing research and going to training and watching, taking video, etc. Also supporting her in daily training sessions. She's set for BH in August, and the dog looks gorgeous in obedience.
I've read most all of Ed's website, and we own the Drive and Focus DVD. My daughter has a very good trainer who is very experienced and competent. However we can only go train there for 90 minutes per week, as it's quite far to drive.

Sorry if this question has been asked an answered - I have been reading for 2 hours on here - lol! Please direct me to a thread if you know one.

The pup has good prey drive, and seems to have a solid, hard bite. We knew enough to encourage prey drive from 8 weeks, when we got her. Unfortunately, we got one bad piece of advice from a dumbass who told us to teach the "out" very early and very seriously. (long story short, it was just bad advice)
Now the dog will chase, bite, tug with no problem. She'll even carry it in a circle, but as soon as you bring her close to you she drops it. If EVER she's holding a toy and you go near her she drops it immediately.
My QUESTION is: is there any point in going "into the arms" without the item? Cuz she just plain don't have it. We can continue the game by snatching the item and playing again, or kicking it again, but it just starts the cycle all over again, and there's no "into the arms" time.

Thanks for listening and/or responding!

Yikes! What a mistake to make

A couple of things to try:

Tie a string/rope/leash to the tug and have a second person keep tension on the tug (while the dog is holding it) as your daughter runs the dog in a circle and brings her in closer and closer each time.

If the dog drops the item at any point, the second person should tug the prey away using the rope to put the dog back into drive and your daughter can encourage her with the bite command.

Have you tried Ed's "Preparing your dog for the helper" DVD? It's worth its weight in gold as far as I'm concerned.

Does your daughter fight with the dog on a tug? When she lets go of the tug to let the dog win, she only needs to hold the dog in her arms for 1 second (or even less). Then she should immediately grab the tug again and resume fighting (or run the dog in a circle).

If she's quick enough, she should be able to squeeze a very brief "in my arms" and resume fighting before the dog has a chance to spit out the prey.


I'm still new to schutzhund training too so that's all I can think of

Good luck. The experienced schutzhund people should come up with much more helpful suggestions

Thanks, Yuko. We don't have the "preparing the dog for the helper" DVD yet - but it seems like a must-have item. We just love the other Bernard F. DVDs.
Yes, she plays tug with her with a sac, and also a strip of leather - swings her around and such.
Another person with tension is a good idea, and we can certainly try it.

After I posted this I kept reading and in one thread Ed suggested taking the dog into the arms WITHOUT the item for a number of times, just to ensure that she knows it is a safe place to be.

 Quote: anna christie

After I posted this I kept reading and in one thread Ed suggested taking the dog into the arms WITHOUT the item for a number of times, just to ensure that she knows it is a safe place to be.

I have been doing this with my dog, who will not drop the item, but does chew the prey quite a bit. I taught her to "drop" before I got the Building Drive and Focus DVD, my mistake, and I am sure that is what is causing her to be uneasy when I am around the prey. I have seen a marked difference within about 2 days of bringing the dog into my arms wihout the prey. Now, she will chew the first time I bring her in, but after I run her a few times, she has a firm bite on the prey. That is much better than before, when it was a constant chew when I was near the dog, and sometimes even when running. I also have been starting to touch the snout like Bernard does when he is working with the mouthy dog in the video. It is slowly getting better, and I am sure that the more comfortable the dog is in my arms without prey, the better I am when we are working on grip. Good luck!

Thank you so much, Rick. We can already see a difference, actually - just in two days. Yesterday was our training day and the first time Micah (the dog) worked with the helper. He only used a tug, not the sleeve and my daughter and I were both AMAZED that the dog seemed to "know what to do" - as though she watched the video...lol! She went flying at the helper/tug, got a good bite, fought with him, then Alex ran her around in a circle and she ACTUALLY ALLOWED THE HELPER TO GRAB THE TUG AGAIN AND FIGHT AGAIN ...without dropping it! Go figure.

But I think Berhnard is really onto something with the "into the arms" thing. It just seems to calm the dog and let her know who the pack leader is and such.

The other thing Alex tried, that seemed to work quite well, was to play with the dog on a two-handled tug, let her win, but not let go of it - keep tension on it until she took the dog into her arms. Thus the dog wouldn't drop the item. She did this a few times in the morning training before we went off to the Schutzhund class where she first worked with the helper.

I'll keep y'all posted!

Anna,

Please keep us posted on what works for you and how it turns out. :smile:

Thanks, Brad. I will do that.
Something we discovered this morning (we think) was that she may be dropping the item because when we play ball with her (she's ball-crazy), if she drops the ball we throw it again. If she hangs onto it, we don't (obviously). Another mistake while young: we thought we could just play ball with her, as she and our Golden raced to get the ball every time...and it wouldn't screw up the dumbell retrieve because we weren't giving her any commands. (New meaning to "dumbell" retrieve! Duh!)

We've taught her to retrieve and hold the dumbell with motivational (clicker) training. So she does that no problem. BUT SHE DOESN'T HOLD THE SACK OR BALL!
Aaaaaaaargh! ha ha ha....anyway, live and learn. At least with an active, intelligent 15-month-old dog all is not lost. It's all about patience.
Patience we have. It took 150,000 years (approximately) and an equal number of pounds of weiners to teach her to just SNIFF the dumbbell. Now she happily retrieves it on the flat for an intermittent 1/48th of a weiner!
Patience, patience.
I'm off to pray for some more.

The "into my arms " Bernhard talks about is merely a universal truth he discovered that actually has great value to it. What Bernhard actually discovered is a basic, fundamental truth. The closeness of your relationship is directly correlated to the amount of risk that you have encountered together on a regular basis. The risk for the dog is losing the toy, to you who might steal it away. This is where the mouthing of the toy comes in, otherwise known as "conflict". This also answers as to why there is value in calling the dog into your arms even without the toy. This is also why he can say that it does more for your relationship then allowing the dog to sleep on your bed. (drive, focus, grip, video)Even in those times of not "feeling" like risking whatever it is(in this case we're talking about a toy)your still going through the motions. This is like a jump start to get the emotions to come along. How many times have you not wanted to do something and did it anyway and then actually enjoyed yourself? This is the same thing. I can't tell you the amount of times I have started training a dog (not mine) and actually had to push a piece of hotdog down his/her throat. This actually jump started the dogs emotions and got him/her to recognize that what I was doing was not such a bad thing after all.

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she may be dropping the item because when we play ball with her (she's ball-crazy), if she drops the ball we throw it again.

That'll do it. Keeping the sessions short and very active, and restricting the time she is allowed to play with the ball to only the drive training will probably help. It could take a while to correct this if she has been getting reinforced for dropping the ball for some time though.

Or try using a tug instead; something the dog may not associate to: If I drop-they will throw. Keep the goal of what you are trying to accomplish in mind; build drive and develop grip. Respective to drive training, the toys are only tools used to reach this goal.

Thanks, Brad - I think you're right on. She doesn't drop the dumbbell at all - because the reward only comes, and only ever has come, if she holds it and we say "aus" and take it from her. It's also WAY easier to get her to hold the tug than the ball.

So I guess the beat-the-Retriever-to-the-ball game is over for now. At least until the new "game" gets reinforced well.