I've been told that some dogs will be very confident doing protection work with the owner present, however, when left alone to fight, those same dogs will actually flee rather than fight as they have not been taught how to fight alone.

So my question is how do you train a dog to fight alone?

For the dog that isn't as confident without handler support you can gradually introduce them to winning situations away from the handler. Increasing distance from the handler is one way, doing runaways with increasing distance is another way.

etc, etc, etc


I really like to do runaways and runaways that turn into short searches for very docile preylike decoys.

Can you explain what "runaways" means? I'm not familiar with that term.

When you say increasing the distance from the handler, do you mean using a longer line?

Runaways, meaning chasing after a decoy that is running away from you. Pretty low stress as the decoy is about as prey as you get, and of course the dog is chasing him out away from the handler. This is the least difficult for the dog to deal with while away from the handler, he has clearly forced the decoy to flee and now gets to run him down and grip. The decoy should or shouldn't give fight based on the dog's confidence and temperament. In the begining to build confidence he should take a hit and cower like a weakling till you walk up and take the lead or remove the dog from the grip, or whatever.


Increasing distance? Sure you can use a longer line to start. Eventually you want to be at the point where you don't need to hold a line. The line itself lends support to the dog, early on you should be dropping the line during a lot of protection work anyway.

When the dog has a good grip and understands not to release you can let the dog move to engage the decoy at greater distance by dropping the line. You can also use blinds or buildings, decoy runs around the corner and dog chases to grip while the handler stays behind.


The goal is to let the dog engage the decoy more and more without close handler support for increasingly longer times. (before you walk up to the dog and take a line or whatever) With continual win situations the dog's confidence can be built up. With dogs that have "it" this work will be minimal.

What about putting the dog on a tie out, having the handler leave the field, and having the decoy work with the dog alone?

Sure, that can be an one way if you have a good helper, but I don't think you can do more confidence building on a tie out than you can do with runaways. Doing runaways, even starting with short distances, really gets the dog wanting to leave the handler's side to go out an git'em.

I like to do it that way and introduce more fight at the end to continue to build up the dog.

OK, I think I understand. So you are saying that with the runaways, since the dog wants to leave, fighting alone becomes something it wants to do rather than something it is forced to do, right?