Hello all,
I made a lot of picture's of the KNPV Championship in Den Bosch.
They are at my website
Please leave a message in my guestbookiff you like my picture's

Patrick

Nice pictures, thank you!

Patrick,
What can you say about how people in your area do foundation training for young pups that are KNPV prospects. Do handlers tend to just let the pup be a pup until they are about seven months old and then begin training, or do they do early imprinting like rag work with very young pups, or use food to shape basic obedience postions, or use toys like a tug or ball on a string to build drive? How are young dogs introduced to protection work and at what age? Thanks.

Hi Chip,
In general KNPV people let a puppy be a puppy until it's about 7 to 10 months old, they just do some rag work, and do some retrieving games...
Personaly i'm a clicker user, and i teach pup's all kind of things at young age by rewarding him/her for things i like, and by ignoring things i dislike ...
Something we all learn with food rewards is to bark on command, and it is very important to start at about 9 weeks with it. Iff a pup is very food-eager, we tease them with food untill they spontanious give a little bark, then reward, and so on untill they bark at command an stop only iff you say so, for wich you reward them, This is very important to get a dog that stays barking later on when he is working on the searching of a large object (box, rifle, bicycle...) most KNPV trainers only start working on the obedience at about 10 month's AFTHER the dog has proven himself to be worth it by showing his bit drive.
Personaly i start at a young age , but i do it the easy way.
Hope i informed you a little about how we work around here
Greetings,
Patrick

PS, I will be in the United states in West virginia from oktober 17 untill oktober 24, and then in Maryland untill oktober 28, is there a KNPV training in the neighbourhood that i could visit, and where would that be?
mail me please info-remove this-@patrickdv.com

Thanks for the pics Patrick!

Tell me what is with all this leg bitting dogs, is it becoming fashion or are there real advantages with leg bites? Those were some nasty bites; Cobra (by the way what happend with Kazan?) with that above knee bite; that must have hurt <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> , and that dog that went just through helper in ph1... that was something. I saw even Youri (the gsd) bit into legs in escape from transport (there i can see advantage, gsd beeing slower than mal).

There's always been leg dogs in KNPV but they did change the scoring guidelines so that to get the best score the dog must bite the leg on the bicycle apprehension. I was told that this was to increase the safety for the dogs.
I would think that this would be easily accomplished by just doing leg bites.
This is just my speculation though. It could just be coincidence this year too.

Patrick,
Could you say more about the KNPV training philosphy of letting pups be pups until 7-10 months of age and then seeing if they show some strength in bitework before they consider the dog worth training toward a KNPV title? That approach is different from the approach many people training for schH in the US use which involves early introduction to tracking and bitework and drive building with a toy. Is the thinking in Holland that most decent puppies with prey drive will work in prey for a rag and move on to a tug and sleeve, but only the stronger dogs with no previous training will come out and want to bite at 7-10 months out of aggression rather than have learned the game of biting from a young puppy? Do the young KNPV prospects start on a sleeve or the suit?

 Quote:

Originally posted by Chip Blasiole:
Patrick,
Could you say more about the KNPV training philosphy of letting pups be pups until 7-10 months of age and then seeing if they show some strength in bitework before they consider the dog worth training toward a KNPV title? That approach is different from the approach many people training for schH in the US use which involves early introduction to tracking and bitework and drive building with a toy....

Chip,
From Patrick's post: "most KNPV trainers only start working on the obedience at about 10 month's AFTHER the dog has proven himself to be worth it by showing his bit drive."

I think what Patrick is saying is that most KNPV people eval the dogs bite, play retrieve games & otherwise let the pup be a pup until after 7-10 months old, then start with more formal Obedience. Correct me if I'm wrong Patrick.

John,
The reason I'm asking is that I had some discussion with a couple of old timers who have been involved in KNPV for a number of years, and my impression was they clearly didn't believe in any early training, even if it was strictly motivational, because they felt it would negatively impact the pup's character because it required expectations of the pup. Regarding the bitework, they really don't think much of schH with so much emphasis on the sleeve, carrying, working on grip, etc. My sense was they would wait until the dog matured some to see if he would come out and want to bite the man as opposed to biting out of learning to bite the prey object from a very early age. They want to see the dog defending himself or the handler and not going into drive for the sleeve. I was hoping to get Patrick's thoughts from the perspective of a KNPV training culture.