I have a 11 month old bouvier from strong working lines. He has very good nerves; he's fearless and protective of the family, although he's never been aggressive without warrant. My hope when i bought him as a puppy (although i knew i was taking a gamble) was to train him as a PPD, as I own a high-end and event security company.
My only concern is that his prey drive is less than I had hoped for. He's always needed a lot of coaxing before he's shown much interest in a tug toy, although once he does get a hold of it he does have a very promising bite. I've had similar luck with the two-handled bite sleeve.
If i take my low prey-drive bouvier and start introducing defense work, do i risk training a dangerous dog? What is the best/safest way to protection train a low prey-drive dog. I'm fairly new to this and would appreciate any advide and experience.
Also, anyone know any good helper near Toronto?

The best way to train the bitework is using the dog's Prey Drive, and if the dog has little to no Prey Drive, then I personally would not train him in bitework. To make a dog bite strictly in Defense is not a comfortable place for the dog to be.

Simon,

I'm way with John on this one. Even the bouvier standard says "The Bouvier is a natural guard dog, but he is not an attack dog. He is a tolerant dog who enjoys the company of children"

If you go find my post about Kuvasz in the Breed section in the forum, you will see what we are getting at. Bouviers are similar to Kuvasz in terms of the job they were bred to do. I just wrote a long explaination of why Kuvasz guard, how they guard and why they won't attack in the sense needed for the bite work and similar protective work. They do guard and protect, they just do it differently.

You will have a major uphill fight on your hands if you try to get the dog to do something that is contrary to his basic drives like bite work on command - and probably a very unhappy dog and handler!

Ann

Man I have to jump in here.
The Bouv is sooo different than the Kuvasz!!! The Kuvasz is a herd guard dog, the Bouv is a herding dog.
A bouv was also my very first working dog. He also was out of strong working stock.
The problem is they aren't intense prey dogs like many other breeds, partly diue to the fact that very few are strong working dogs these days. Even the so called working lines are not terribly strong dogs.
Be patient, find a good helper who has worked with a variety of dogs. Often these guys need to work with fighting instinct to load them so that prey drive becomes more evident. It is not uncommon to find them with modeocre prey.
You will have a uphill battle, anyone who is working with one of the breeds that is receeding into the show ring will have trouble.
But, to say that because a dog won't play with a tug it is not going to be a capable protection dog obviously never saw my first police dog, a dog that really hated to play and prey did not become evident until it resulted in a good fight with a bad guy. I still remember the grips he had, you know they are good when the butt cheeks of a bad guy are evident between the dogs back molars. Not bad for a dog that hated the tug.

Simon, thank you for posting a great question, well worded.

Kevin, did you find any training techniques especially useful in developing that dog? What were they?

Originally posted by Wayne Stromberg:
Simon, thank you for posting a great question, well worded.

Kevin, did you find any training techniques especially useful in developing that dog? What were they? Patience and allowing the dog to mature enough so that the dog choose to display his desire to fight.
Going out and playing low level tug games with a decoy was just counter productive.

Thanks so much for all of the advice, I will definitely take it into consideration. I spoke with a few local police K9 handlers and most were along similar lines with Kevin; that I should wait and see if he developped a natural interest in taking the fight to someone, and if not, do not force it with any defensive-based training.
I've also aquired another bouve pup (he's now 14 weeks). He shows a lot more prey drive then the last.

Being as this thread is in the personal protection section, I find it as no big surprise when someone posts about weak prey drive dogs. Kevin is right. The Bouv has been utilized as a very good police dog and is quite capable. Simon, just because your dog is weak in prey it does not preclude it from being a good PPD. Defense and fight is the preferred order of the day for this kind of work. So, go out and do your thing. It may be somewhat of an uphill battle but not impossible.

Howard