Since training my dogs to protect, I've found that I have a problem. Maybe?

If anybody casual picks up a stick or news paper and walk toward them/me the dogs get upset and want to engage them aggressively. I have to call them off and or take the stick from the person (now standing still or ask them to drop the it) for the dogs to calm down. In some case I have to send them to the back yard.

Did I miss a step in my training? Or is it like my fellow dog owner mentioned a desired responce control it but don't try to change it. He said that he would even tell them "good watch, good protect".

If we make them this way can we blame them for responding to like training situations. Or should we isolate them from assoicates and friends, total. I don't allow my dogs to be petted by just my assoicates unless on leash and we have agreed to socailize/train.

Did I miss a step???? Is this a positive or negative? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

What you need to do is “good guy-bad guy” training. This type of training will teach your dog to not respond unless you or he is attacked directly and it should improve your overall handling skills as well.

This will be a modified good guy bad guy explanation tailored for your specific posting.

Good Guy bad guy training is all about carefully constructing situations your dog, by his actions, finds intimidating and extinguishing or dampening his response to this stimulus when not paired with a handler signal or command telling him to react. It is about teaching him that not all in the world is bad and getting him to understand he is not in charge of aggressive decision-making.

I have found this useful for Police K9s and Correctional K9s where the dog needs ot be alert and ready but can not and should not react unless directed to do so.

I know of trainers who will tell you that correcting a protection dog for acting out in defense (if it is defense I cant tell without seeing your dog) is wrong…wrong…wrong. Well they are wrong and this type of attitude gravitates toward the mediocrity that persists in much of the dog-training world today.

Increase the window of his response and basically use your authority to override his fear. Lead your dog with confidence that you make the best assessments of a threat.

If this was my dog and he was going postal on anyone who picks up a stick, I would remove my dog from the area and avoid this situation as much as possible until I can train this situation.

Assuming I would not wait more then one day, I would then locate a willing person who will be the Mr. Evil Stick Man.

I now set the stage.

We will use a stick at first since this seems to be the problem. I place maybe 10 sticks on the ground in incremented spaces of 5 feet each and away from my dog. I do this before the helper is even insight.

(0 area) DOG/ME ---10 ft---->(stick)-----(stick)-----(stick)-----(stick)----(stick#10)

I would then go to the 0 area and place my dog into heel position on a wide flat collar connected to a 5 foot leash AND a corrective collar connected to a short 1’ tab leash that sits above the wide flat collar. My left hand is on the leash to the flat collar and my right hand crosses my body to take hold of the short tab leash. With both hands occupied, my dog is pretty secure and by now certain I am placing him under my controlling influence. If he doesn’t he is about to get a wake up call.

I tell my dog to ‘Sit’. No words of encouragement or readiness should be used here. Simply give a command to sit and zip it.

Once all is ready I tell my helper to enter the training area and go to the #10 stick and pick it up. Since there is plenty of distance between the stick man and the dog, he may not even respond to his observation of the “bad guy” that picks up sticks. The helper should drop the stick and walk directly toward the next stick that is 5 feet away but also 5 feet closer to us.

He again picks up a stick and again if no sign of aggression (not even a growl) happens he repeats his actions all the while getting closer and closer to us. At some point your dog will be true to his colors and show an aggressive reaction to this guy.

When he does you should make a mental note of the distance between him and the stick man. This is the area of influence this stimulus (scary stick foragers) have on your dog’s response. It is also more or less a crude working window for you to adjust the stimulus based on the level of aggression your dog has and your level of control over him. Your goal would be to decrease the distance between the dog and the stimulus to a level you feel comfortable.

For me, my dog will need to sit tight next to me under the command of sit with the stick man falling on the ground beating the stick on his body and even taping my dog’s head.

As soon as he makes even a chirp that is clearly aggressive to this otherwise non-aggressive person I give a sharp command to “Quit” or “Quiet” followed by a justified correction.

No one thing I want to mention is that I will do this separate from bite work but during the same training session saving bite work for last and incorporating a command that it is ok to bark aggressive during bite work training.

If you are having a problem with extinguishing a response because it is “not fair”, think about the Hold and Bark and the reason it exist. Look closer and you will see the root of the truth

Good luck
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Dennis Hasley

Nice Post
Dennis wrote
For me, my dog will need to sit tight next to me under the command of sit with the stick man falling on the ground beating the stick on his body and even taping my dog’s head.

Now thats control, I'm certain I can't produce that kind of control from my dog. It gives me a method and something to shot for. I like the control that you have produce, but I have a question.

Would this stop the dog from making a decision like protecting, until you gave a command? Would this make him wait for your signal, lets say when he smells a unseen assailant that we can't see yet.

Would he wait for for my command? If so isn't too late then (now I'm not under seige or anything like that, just playing the guessing game). I guess what I'm asking, where in sceniro your does he gets a chance to make a decision to build his confidence and mines in his ability to make the right decision. I don't want it all to be base on what I see, I'm almost blind, compared to his scenses.

I want that kind of control but I don't want to mess up the apparent small gains that I've aquired.

I haven't seen that kinda control not even in the patrol dogs around here, if you appoarch within 15 feet the patrol car they go off. I could imagine if you had a stick and approached their handler, he at least run up growling, if not knock you over. They will wait until you push him, before they attack, but as you appoarch you can see them getting ready.

Forgive me for my ignorance I am new to (a couple years) training and especially to this type control, reprogramming and channeling. It obviously shows how skillful and diverse you are as a trainer. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Please don't compare a patrol dog in a patrol car to a ppt dog or patrol dog outside of their car under command. Apples and oranges. The training scenario laid out for you by Dennis seems to be a good one. We all have versions of that exercise. A tolerance has to exist. We live in a very litigious society therefore we must train our dogs to accept distractions of all types. In police work we train for many types of situations. The work is never done. A dog must be confident to do this type of work. You can get lots of dogs to "fire off" at an individual with a stick. You want a confident dog that will hold under distractions and face a threat with confidence.
Our dogs (police dogs) are taught to accept the shaking of hands, staggering, moving inviduals from one local to another. They do not accept pushing and shoving of the handler.
Just because the dog learns to tolerate lots of different actions doesn't mean that he is less alert or won't alert you to an impending threat. Only training will assure you of this.

First off, ditto what Howie said. If you walk too close to my car it will rock too, but outside the car is different...

"Would this stop the dog from making a decision like protecting, until you gave a command? Would this make him wait for your signal, lets say when he smells a unseen assailant that we can't see yet."

How does the dog know this is an "unseen assailant"? If you watch your dog and he picks up scent, his posture will change, that should be your clue there is someone there, not a dog barking his fool head off. What if it is just a drunk in the alley? What about an old lady with a cane? What good is a protection dog that has to be kept away from your "associates"?

Howard and Deanna remember my dogs have a problem with a subject picking up a stick and walking toward me. I'm only talking about the patrol dogs that I've seen and few I worked or seen worked.

I like the training scenorio that Dennis suggested. But right now a guy with a stick can't get close enough to tap my dog on the head with it. We only trained in stopping and engaging the guy with stick, control like this is yet to be explorered.

Now I've pushed the sheriff deputy in training seesion before and been hit by his dog while in the sleave. If apporached by a guy with a stick or a raised fist talking loud would probably bring the same responce before contact is made. That the kind of decision making that I don't want to miss out on.

As for determining threat level and watching their body to signal a threat, they give good signals and do this well. If the subject is not seen the ears and body are tense and looking in that direction. As soon as the old lady/person is id, the ears drop and the body relax, but they still watching them (no barking).

As for rocking the car, I remember a time when a patrol dog would not alert on a person just for walking by the vehcile. The look they gave you made you give the car some space but not a bark was heard, just a intense stare as if you were prey.

Unless asked to guard the car then they would, go through this antic. If you touched the car, they always went into protect mode. Now I guess more enthasises is place on deterring any attempt to get near the vehicle.

My dogs will not bark unless you stare/provoked them while in my Jeep or you touch the vehicle. If a person walks by and don't bother them they won't alert on them, they will watch them.

How about some other methods or in between point A - Z type information. Or even like my buddy enhance whats there type info.

First of all I am in somewhat agreement with eveyone else.Just curiouse ,what does an unseen assailant smell like? I mean is it any different than a kid walking home who might br afraid of your dog? Dont make the mistake of putting human reasoning in your dog,its just a dog. it doesnt have any mysteriouse powers that inable it to read sombodies character.leave that for the movies.As far as the police dogs, I wouldnt refer to them as the pinnacle of dog training.Every departments ability to train dogs vary, from very good to very bad.(dont nobody bash me please)The most important thing is control,you need to be in charge of all situations not your dog.If your having trouble in certain situations you have to recreate those scenarios and train for them instead of waiting for them to happen.If you wait for it to happen on its own,your timing is way off and your dogs not going to understand what behavior is preffered and youll just create stress and confusion.

No dog is proofed against the biological order of things. Survival is at the top of this order. The dog’s interpretation of any event will be situational, contextual and rooted in the temperament of the animal. His response will be based on these variables.

As I have mentioned in another post: A dog remains ultimately tied his temperament and will rely on instinctive motivators when faced with confusion and high stress situations. Remember you can modify behaviors but you cannot change a dog’s temperament. While I can train him not to go off on stick foragers in a ‘training environment’, does this mean he will never go off on people with sticks who come at us again? The answer is NO.

Why?

It is again situational. My goal is to be able to control his response. I have learned to read my dog’s body language and intercept the response based no my own perceptions of the environment. If I see him “Key in” with his eyes on something I can tell him to disregard it. He has learned from our training experiences to trust me and so concedes to my authority and leadership.

Do not cut your standards capacity of your dog short. I can tell you that I have trained and continue to train dogs who can be sent out after a Decoy at full speed and then be recalled back at the last few seconds even as the decoy escapes. It is much more difficult the stopping him from acting out when a guy is directly in front of him acting drunk and belligerent. My area of the strength of my influence is greater in this situation because he in not only under a well understood command but he is direct contact with me. A dog’s confidence is bolstered because he feels safer when he is connected to the handler by a leash. Obtaining control in the under the training conditions I have outlined are not difficult and you can and should explore many ways to set your dog off by situational conditions.

Good luck <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

David

You say a dog can't tell the difference between a
antagonist or a passer by. But an incident happen to me sometime back when my GSD, he was about 16 months old. He was laying in the floor of my mechnics shop, socailizing and being cool. Kids and growups would pet him after they asked me, and I guide them close by both of us kneeling at his side. These were dog people with GSD at home most of them.

This one guy came in and started making some twerping sound and staring menacing at the dog, he was some 15 feet away. Mat started barking at him and rose from the down. My back was turned, I asked the guy to leave the dog along and downed the dog again (I started to ask him do you want to see if he will bite/but that would have been stupid and stupid is what stupid does?), but Mat kept his eye on this guy low growling to the point where I had to take him to the Jeep.

After the guy left I apologized for my dog acting up, the shop owner told me that the dog did his job, this guy had it in for me and I didn't even know it. I asked him to explain, he just said just take his word for it, the dog did well go get him and bring him back in. The owner really petted him up. This is a long story to say that a dog can scense body odor when a person is excited/mad/happy/scared/sad/hurt etc ... And he will react to what he scenses. We have to trust our dogs senses.

I don't want to make it sound like a dog has mystical powers, I'm sure you all have experience this. I've read aritcle to verify this and seen it enough to believe it. I've had friends that been mad at me and the dogs scense it before the guy, told me his problem.

As for more control I'm working on this and your ideas Dennis and the rest, will surly help.

Hey Don,I used the example of a person scared of your dog on purpose.I do beleive dogs can pick up on things we cant.A scared person my give off the same signals as a person up to no good.For all I know if a dog is focused on someone maybe he could actaually hear their heart soundly start pounding or smell them burst out in a nervouse sweat.I think there are things they pick up on that we are unable or unconditioned to notice.Nothing mystical but I think we would be surprised at all the things dogs are aware of!But I wouldnt let that determine my dogs behaivor,control is still the key.Im sure you feel the same.