Hi,

Don Yarnall wrote on this board,"for a green dog to pass the PSP test at stuckenbrock, the dog must have megafight that nearly measures of the scale. Rest assured these dogs are not nice guys. Almost whitout expection, there is a rank problem. Another trait of a fightdrive dog is that he will not accept or tolerate unfair punishment, he will let you know when you are expecting to much from him and or being unfair"
My qustion is if you could have a dog which is a very good PSD or PP-dog whit a high fightdrive, but who is easy to handle and don´t nail you if you make a misstake in training? Or is it common that most really strong fightdrive dogs have these problems that donn talked about?

Regards

That is a damn fine question, does anybody really understand how rank drive/dominance affects and interacts with fight drive? I'm not so sure if too many people do. A dog has to have a level of rank drive to be able to develope fight drive, in my opinion. How much? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> I dunno.

Neither term is well defined so its tough to discuss interaction.

Old timers used to call fight drive "defense"... but there was too much confusion because people thought of defense as coming only from a weak dog.

To me... fight = defense drive + confidence

Assuming this definition is adequate, it seems that a very confident dog with high defense drive would tend to respond aggressively to being "pushed around" or treated roughly by a handler.

For this reason, I prefer to emphasize positive motivation and use very little correction. My previous male developed an "attitude" after maturity and would growl at any hard leash correction.

There are some very tough dogs out there who are also handler sensitive enough to be a joy to work and keep up. Yes, you can have a dog with good fight drive that is not so rank that he becomes a problem child.

A dog with too much rank drive often has too little handler sensitivity and will be a constant maintenance problem for both handler and trainer, this guy is not a fun puppy at all.

Dogs such as this need to be placed with very experienced handlers who understand what they are dealing with and are willing to put in the time and effort it takes to get and keep the dog performing correctly. It is almost certain that the handler and dog will disagree at least once over the "fairness" of a correction, and the dog will bite the handler...maybe more than once.

I personally like and admire tough dogs with some rank drive, but you should believe Donn when he says that such dogs are not "nice guys"...they aren't! And they certainly aren't for young, inexperienced handlers.

I would like to hear Kevin's take on this. If your out there please comment...

Well, if Kevin missed this one, or decided not to respond to it, why don't we use his definitions of Fight Drive and Rank Drive to get some more discussion on the subject, hoping it will bring his attention. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> (Lilly Dave said we need to "clearly define")

Kevin, hope you don't mind me snagging your stuff off your website. http://www.k9services.com 'CANINE PSYCHOLOGY FOR THE SERVICE DOGS'

"H. Rank Drive- Since the dog is a pack animal a position in the structure of the pack is important to the dog. The dog, which desires to be the primary animal within the pack structure, is said to be "rank". This animal when seen in the extreme has difficulty accepting a position in the structure of the pack and continually challenges his handler for the dominant position. This behavior in the extreme is quite undesirable in the Service Dog."

"M. Fight Drive- Often called combat drive this is the desire the Service Dog has to measure himself against an opponent. Much like a lineman measures himself against the opponent's match for himself. The desire to do combat is NOT a vicious behavior. It is the desire to do combat on hehalf of the pack leader that makes up much of the function in apprehension exercises. A moderately high to high "Fight Drive" is desirable in the Service Dog."

So here are my thoughts. When talking about Rank Drive and Fight Drive, and how they interact, the only way I know to think about it, is how I use a dogs level of Rank Drive to evoke social aggression that is driven by the dog's Fight Drive. The direct challenge of the decoy to the dog by displaying dominate body language and position to bring out an aggressive response. (i.e.- Fight Drive) This is not preditory aggression nor is it exactly defensive aggression (Defense is fear based and a self defense action, in my mind) The dog is responding to a challenge in an aggressive way that is driven by his unwillingness to submit to the decoy. That is one way that I think Rank and Fight relate to each other. How much Rank a dog must have in order for a decoy to use this technique is my question??? Does the dog have to be very rank at all or are there other factors?

Am I making any sense here, or am I way the -F- out there?

Rank is directed at the handler. Fight is directed at an opponent.

The two are seperate, but often found in the same dog. There are a lot of people that believe that you can't have one without the other. As a result they breed for both. Some of this is therefore breed specific. You will tend to see it more in the more common working breeds (GSD, Giant, Rott, and Mals). In the LG Breeds and some of the less popular breeds bred for protection work it is less common.

Yes I agree that it is common to see both present in a dog. What I was looking for with Kevin was is this due to drive interaction/correlation or breeding factors.

Could VanCamp be speachless? LOL.