Hello all!

Interesting situation with my 7 month old female mal from strong KNPV lines (kukays aras etc).
When I play tug with her or get someone to hold her on a harness and line while I work her to help improve grip, during the bite she strikes with enthusiasm and grips hard. We are just working on getting her to pull/torque the toy to win it (as opposed to me putting action into the toy) and improve her confidence, however when she 'wins' the toy, she is chewy as hell, even when she is walked in a circle.

This makes it particularly difficult when trying to re-engage (like ME does in playing tug with your dog) as she will mouth to the point where it sits at the edge of her mouth so you practically have to stop the the game, get her to out completely and start frustrating her again. She doesn't keep the toy clamped. She does the same thing with a ball when retrieving too.

I suppose my concern is, are these underlying signs she is overly stressed in the game/post bite? should I be concerned at all considering her bite is good anyway? Any ideas on whether its worth fixing and if so, how you would go about it?

Thanks all

Dan

Check her body language. Is she eyeballing everyone and everything about them possibly making a grab at her item? I was taught to run them to help with not getting into the chew habit. Some dogs just have a good time gnashing anything and everything as well.

I found that, with my dog and others that I have worked, stress does cause mouthiness. IMHO, a good method to try is to calm the dog while he is on the bite. Of course, the dog has to be comfortable with the personal pressure (stepping into her space), or that in itself can cause additional stress. Also, I'm not sure how you are training to pull/torque, but the pressure you put on her to pull could also be stressful. Generally, my circle fights the dog but doesn't use any specific technique to promote torque. That can be counterproductive to working on solid grip.

We have the helper maintain steady tension while the handler strokes and soothes the dog. We go very slowly and work our way to the muzzle gradually over multiple sessions. When the dog can calm on the grip and we are sure that there is no danger of her coming off, we will have the helper stroke her muzzle. This step cannot be overrated, because, moving forward, the helper will be able to calm the dog while engaged with no additional help from the handler.

I have learned over the years and adjusted my methods because I have definitely found that relieving stress is a key to troubleshooting training deficiencies. Some handlers seem to never even pick up on the stress that their dogs are experiencing, and how much it interferes with their dog's ability to perform.

Thanks for the insight.

Essentially, what was originally being done was I would post myself, acting like a back-tie, except with a bit more flex so she doesn't hit the end of the lead and hurt herself.

The helper would frustrate, then eventually allow her to bite (No-1 bite pillow). pressure is then applied evenly and backwards on the pillow, and when she puts action into the pillow, i.e pulls backwards and/or torques with a solid grip, the pillow is released to her as a reward.

However.....I have not been stroking her to keep her calm......sounds like a key element missing. As you can probably tell, access to experienced decoys where im from in Australia are far and few between.

Additionally, given her KNPV lines, she appears to be much more elevated in drive if she bites the pillow and pushes the helper backwards (like a fight). I can tell from her demeanor she feels like shes winning a lot more and her grip pushes deeper. I actually prefer this biting style.

I'm starting to really think there is no point in trying to shape her bite into an IPO style bite, when she appears to want to push deeper and fight the helper by pushing him backwards. Its interesting, because I have heard the lines that my dog is from, don't do fantastic at Schutzhund and shine in real service work, which is fine by me.

Shes my first Mal and I certainly have no dreams of ending up as an IPO champion or anything like that. I just want to bring out whats naturally there and build it as much as possible.

My only concern if your doing IPO is if the chewing carried over to the retrieve though I doubt that the stress level will be the same as having the sleeve.

It should be easier to fix also.

So the dog is being trained to pull backwards rather than push into the bite? Your decoy has it backwards if you want a nice full grip! Your dog has it right. Pushing into the bite pillow will not only create a nicer grip but also inhibit that typewriter chewing. You just have to work to discourage the dog from regripping. You want them to get it in there and stick.

I know there's a shortage of decoys in Australia but I would look into finding another. Protection training stuff is REALLY difficult to get advice for when the person can't see what's going on.

If you don't have this one yet it has an extensive discussion on different bite styles and covers all the general foundation concepts about teaching bites with minimum conflict. Even though it says puppy it covers the adolescent work as well. Great resource.

https://leerburg.com/flix/player.php/741/The_Foundation_of_Puppy_Bite_Work_(8_Weeks_up_to_16_Months)_with_Michael_Ellis