Kevin Sheldahl wrote "Donn brings up an important issue among working enthusiasts and professional working dog handlers. That is one of whether the current trends in the GSD breeding are really supportive of producing strong, healthy dogs with adaquate levels of fighting instinct. Many moons ago the SchH judge gave dogs a rating for fighting instinct and courage. The best was 10 points. No one wanted their dog sired by anything but a 10 point dog, and you looked for a 9 or 10 point bitch (though the 10 point bitch was rare there were a few) to be the mother. Since then the rating system has taken over and it is common to see the dog that loosens a grip under the stick hits, or does anything short of flight gets "pronounced". It seems that no one wants to give unsatifactory or satisfactory ratings if they can help it. This has little to do with training on a defense table except that the rating system in schh will allow anything that is more afraid of releasing the sleeve than hanging on under the moderate to light threat receive a "pronounced" rating and the table is one method of producing this.
It should be the goal of all breeders of working dogs to produce fight drive above all other drives (yep, even above prey drive especially since it is seldom seen that a dog with poor prey drive has fight drive).
It is also high time that breeders of the elegant show dogs stop pretending to have working dogs by using prey/defense techniques to produce the titles their pedigrees carry making a false statement about their working abilities.
ed, maybe this should be moved to another thread where the discussion is about fight drive and breeding.
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K. Sheldahl http://k9services.com "

There seems to be some confusion regarding fight drive. For those that don't believe in drive theory, you shouldn't waste your time reaing this. But if you are interested, I will attempt to shed some light on the actual drive and it's purpose.

As Kevin alluded to, years ago in Schutzhund, a dog was judged on his fight drive. In those "olden days" as my daughter calles them, fight drive was judged not only by the bite and power of the attack, but also in the animal's seriousness in the bark & hold in the blind. The definition then, and it has never changed, is the dog's willingness to detain or drive off a foe. During the bite, it was desireable for the dog to literally push the decoy around the field. Also, the B&H was usually much cleaner because the physical position of the decoy instinctually caused the dog to detain him. The judging began to change proportionately when the dogs with pronounced fight drive became few and far between.

Mother Nature gave the dog certain instinctual abilities to survive and to achieve success in a number of types of confrontations. These abilities, commonly called combat drives, are invoked according to what type of foe the dog faces as well as the foes actions or inactions. Remember these are instinctual and are used to overcome or counter actions of the adversary.

The definition of a drive is an involuntary response triggered by certain or particular stimuli. The combat drives most often talked about are of course prey and defense. There are actually two more combat drives - fight drive and rank drive. Fight drive is hardly if ever mentioned because for the last 10 years fight drive was seldom seen - or so people thought. Actually, the trainers that talk about balancing prey and defense are actually looking for the exact same traits that you see in fight drive.

Fight drive is in fact a distinct and seperate combat drive. I think some of the confusion comes from the term "fighting drive" when used to describe a dogs willingness to engage in combat. It is not the same. Once again, fight drive is the dogs willingness to detain or drive off a foe. Probably the best description of fight drive is a dog and or his pack encountering a bear. If the dog was limited to just prey or defense, he would be either quickly killed or would flee the confrontation. This situation is exactly what fight drive was designed for, and it was on this premise that the circle & bark was developed. Once again, it is the adversary that determines which combat drive is invoked, and the drive can change in the blink of an eye according to the foe's actions.

As stated, the problem has been the availability of dogs with pronounced fight drive. For police work, I look for a dog who's primary combat drive is fight - he is just as courageous, instinctually clean in the B&H, and much easier to control. For further information on this subject, go to my web site at http://www.donnyarnall.com

Hello Steffen,

Gameness and fight drive are deffinitely not the same. As I stated before, fight drive is a distinct drive designed to assist the dog in achieving victory under certain circumstances. Gameness, as in reference to fighting dogs, appears to be closer to the definition of combat drive - the willingness to engage in combat. I like to tag in courage to that definition. Of course dog fighting and man fighting are two different things and based on a different purpose for combat.

Donn,

In my SchH experience I've known (I mean observed on many occasions) only two dogs which meet the definition of possessing true "fight drive", according to your description. Both were handled by very experienced handlers and both were very handler hard. Was that just a coincidence, or do the two traits go hand in hand?

Renee,

The two traits you describe do not necessarily go together. However, if the dog has mega fight, it often follows there is also some rank problem. For example, the pure PSP entrance test at Stukenbrock requires almost all the testing be done in muzzle. The fact is that in order for a green dog to pass the pure PSP test (not the bastardized tests we have here)the dog must have mega fight that nearly measures off the scale. Rest assured these dogs are not nice guys. Almost without exception, there is a rank problem.

That may be the case of the 2 dogs you observed. However, another trait of a fight drive dog is that he will not accept or tolerate unfair punishment. He will let you know when you are expecting too much from him and or are being unfair. It is best to allow this type of dog to assume the number 2 spot in your pack and give him the leeway and respect according to his rank. You will never have a problem.

However, this is where selection of the type of animal you need comes into play. I select dogs for the job at hand - and that happens to include pronounced fight drive, solid temprement and nerves, hunting drive, etc. Any Rank Dog really has no place in a true working environmemt.

You can have the best of both worlds - a solid, reliable working dog that you can enjoy providing the selection and training are proper.

I have only witnessed fight drive once. And as Ed said once you hear it you will never forget it. It sent chills down my spine.

Ok, Vince. What did it look like? What was the scenario? How were you able to recognize that the dog wasn't fighting in prey, defense or rank? Details, please! Thanks!

If you look into Ed's tape on building search you will see a big black and brown GSD that I imported for police work from Hungary (don't ask his pedigree he had no papers). You can see what we are talking about there.
You will also see me using an e-collar on the dog (a little bit of old fashioned enforcement work with the collar as the handler had to go home and not utilize one so i needed enforcement of his direction so son't fault me about what might be seen as slightly heavy use in this situation).
this particular dog's second apprehension was after laying in a ditch with his handler for hours during an armed confrontation where the dog successfully apprehended the suspect who had wounded a couple of LEO's, and he did so without hesitation. Fight drive equals reliability in application.

Donn, how can I ascertain the presence of strong fight drive in a dog I might be considering buying? I've read Lou's procedure for testing PSD candidates. If I was using Lous procedure to gauge a dogs suitiability as a possible PSD candidate what responses in particular would I be looking for from the animal to indicate that the dog has fight drive above and beyond 'the call of duty' so to speak? Is simply a demonstration of very, very high prey drive indicative of the presence of strong fight drive? Or isnt it posible to ascertain fight drive in a raw untrainned dog without some preliminary 'formal' agitation work to provide a 'context' for the dog to demonstrate fight drive?

(I apologise Donn if you are unfamliliar with Lous test. Maybe someone knows the link and can post it. Thanks for your input to this thread, Im learning lots).