Hello I have a 4 1/2 month old (brown sub species dog) that I have been working him tie to a post, he has a firm and full mouth bite on the puppy sleeve, the problem is once I slep the sleeve, he drops it on the ground and chew it, is there a way I can keep him from doing that beside getting a helper so I can drag him around and keep his head up or should I be concern at this stage or training.
Thanks.

I think working with a helper would be your best bet. Instead of tying him out, you'll be the postman. After the sleeve is slipped, run him in a circle, keeping his head up so that he carries it, giving him no opportunity to chew. And when he drops it, kick the sleeve back to the helper to start the game again. Yeah, if he's biting full & firm now, he's ready for that next step.

At this age, he's got to be teething. I wouldn't do bitework with him til he's finished; you don't want an association of pain with the bitework. Second, I wouldn't have him on a sleeve at all. A tug or a Gappay bitebar is more suited to a puppy of such young age.

Thank you Mike and Lee for your reply, I stop all bite work 2 days ago when I saw his bite become chewing and soft and also some blood on the sleeve, I'm just asking so I can be prepare when he is finish teething, so I can start looking for a helper, Lee the puppy sleeve I'm using is very soft, same as a bite bar, I can feel him squeeze down on the sleeve and his eyes looks very satisfied so I think it is ok, 2 weeks ago I Acidently hit him pretty hard with the whip stick on his shoulder blade and he just gave out a small cry but never let go of the sleeve and then counter very hard so I think I'm very lucky to have a puppy like him and I think he is ready for the puppy sleeve.
Thanks.

I started pretty young with my dog using agitation sticks....but I wonder if it was too young. She was around 8 months of age at the time. Ultimately there seem to be no adverse affects from doing that...but sometimes we don't see everything the dog is thinking or feeling. If I had it to do over, I would have waited until she was a little older and definately more mature mentally.

Perhaps Lee and Mike could comment on the proper age to start introducing the agitation stick to a dog better than I......4 months seems way too young to me. Also it puts the dog in an uncomfortable position.

Just My 2 cents

Hi Drew, I had 3 German Shepherd before and I never started them this young, this is my first "Brown" dog so maybe I don't know better but the breeder start them out very young, so I'm just following his foot steps,check out his puppy video at the bottom of this page.
http://www.malinois.com/otvitosha/puppies.htm

Lee would probably be a better judge on the best age to start with stick hits, but I don't think it's anything a person should rush into. 4-1/2 months is definately too young though. He has to be mentally capable of handling the stress, and that comes with maturity. In addition to that, it would also depend on his level of bite development. Because I think the grip should consistently be where you want it(full, firm, and calm)before introducing any kind of pressure. You don't want your grip taking a back seat because he's a little nervous about the stick. So I would work on grip at this point, keeping all the training positive.

When introducing the stick, I would break it into steps rather than just letting him have it. If I was the helper, I would first just hold the stick while taking bites, then conditon the dog to just the motion of the stick while taking bites, then progress on to light taps against my leg(which will condition him to the sound), then to light taps on the dog, and eventually to stick hits. This way, we're conditioning the dog from step 1 and we know exactly how each step affects the dog and his grip. I like it broken into steps because it keeps everything on the safe side, leaving less room for errors.

But like Lee said, I would hold off for now until he's finished teething.

Hi Khoi,
Ideally you'd have someone else give your dog the bite and he could be posted or you could be holding his line adn you'd simply not allow him to lower his head once he has his dead prey. But if working your own dog is your only answer for now, I would suggest adding a line to your tug/sleeve - this way once the dog has it and you retreat a little to give some time to calm - you can reinforce his holding by some easy pressure on the line from time to time. Also if he srops it to the ground to checw it you can steal it from him if you are quick enough. If you do that a few times - he won't want to drop it as quickly the next time.
Ivan's puppy bitework videos on his pages are outstanding - I especially like the clip where the pup is biting and he lifts it up, puts it in a big plastic container (similar to a garbage can), and the grip never moved - then he lifts it out etc... amazing stuff.
Who is your puppy out of?
Nick

The things that come to mind watching those videos - you have to believe he did this with his BEST puppy; does yours have the same strength of nerves? Everything he's doing is noise and motion distraction, not PAINFUL. When he actually touches the puppy, it's very light. He's not striking the pup. He's just giving it a ton of distractions and teaching it to ignore it's environment. Also he's keeping the tug VERY active to give the pup something to focus on so he can ignore the distractions, and if I could hear the audio, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some verbal encouragement going on as well.

Personally, I'm all in favor of introducing all kinds of distractions while I'm playing with the puppy, but you have to able to read the body language to know how fast you can progress. If your pup is wanting to thrash/rip the tug once you let go, I'm guessing he's too much in defense and not enough in prey. Ivan's puppy is in prey - he's not stressed by all the activity so he's calm when he wins. If your's isn't, sounds like your going over his threshold into defense.

I wouldn't play with a sleeve cuz I don't think you have the helper skills to do the work with the same finesse as Ivan. You stand a REALLY good chance of ruining the grip on your pup if you don't read the signals correctly. Play with other toys unrelated to the bitework so he doesn't practice any incorrect behaviors with the sleeve. You can do pretty much all the same work, as far as distractions and building prey drive, on other types of toys.

Thanks, I will start looking for a helper while he is teething, my puppy is out of Django Ot Vitosha and Igrayne Pendragon, this is my first Malinois, I'm not sure if I'm lucky or this is just the breed but he is very easy to train, he already knows all the obedience commands, he will down and stay while I walked away at about 75 yards, I just have not proof him yet, one thing for sure is that he is very soft, a stern no is good enough for a correction.