I have a 21 month old Malinois. When training in prey drive she will not bark, regardless of the exercise. After reviewing Ed's tape, intro to bite training, I determined she is not being challenged enough, she is a strong nerved dog. I emailed Ed, and he suggested that I have the dog in my car, with the rear window slightly down, and have a stranger approach the vehicle. When the dog sticks it's face out the window, then the stranger smacks it across the snout, without being kind about it. After a few times of this, the dog should realize the stranger is a threat and act accordingly by beginning to bark, growl, etc.

Today I tried this with a helper who is completely foreign to the dog. I placed myself out of sight of the dog, although she did see where I hid, and watched. The helper approached the car,very suspicious like, and my dog continued to look in my direction. Once the helper got within 5 feet of the car, she began to watch him intensly, with the occasional glance in my direction. She was standing in the middle of the cab, watching him approach. She just watched. He began to pound on the window and yell at her, with no response. He began to call for her in a friendly tone of voice, she just kept watching him. Finally after about 5 minutes with her just watching him I came over to the car and she approached the window. I had the helper pretend to assault me, and finally the dog stuck her head out the window, going nuts trying to get out to get to him. At that time he smacked her hard. She barked a real high pitch bark and tried to bite him. He continued 2 more times. She continued the high pitch bark, with snarling, and tried to bite him. After the third time with her barking and snarling, he ran away, I let her out of the car to chase him, and she got her bite, with the sleeve relinquished to her at the end.

The question is, I think she showed signs of defense rather than avoidance, although not what I had expected. I thought she would approach him as he circled the car, atleast when he was at the window enticing her to come to him. Was she avoiding the helper by not approaching the window, and by not reacting? She did keep her eyes on him all of the time. I thought it odd that it finally took me to get involved to even get her to react to him. She was certainly aware of his threats, but she just watched him. I am thinking she was not bothered by him one bit. She didn't ignore him, atleast I think not. She was only threatened once she saw me being assaulted. Am I going in the right direction with this? Any thoughts? (without harsh criticism please)

Without seeing exactly what happened I would suggest maybe what happened is this. I dont think the dog recognized the situation the way you wanted the dog to recognize it. You say the dog knew exactly where you were and kept looking at you and you say you had the helper approach the dog and try to bring out the defense but the dog was actually more concerned with what you were doing.I dont know if the helper was wearing a sleeve when they tried it or what. I think the dog was wondering,"why are you over there and this guy over here ?" . If you try it again, just leave and let a lot more time elapse and send somebody back to the car to try and get the dog to bark. Make it more real.

The helper did have a sleeve on, because I wanted her to be able to get a bite in the end to channel the stress the helper caused. He kept it turned away from her, and smacked her with his other hand, being quick enough to pull the hand back before she could bite him without the protection.

I will try again next week during our training session, the same scenario, however I think I will give it more time and be certain she knows I am not around. Thanks, and more suggestions or comments are welcomed.

It may not make a difference but if I was doing it I wouldnt be in a rush to give the dog a bite in this scenario. The reason would be, it would be turning it into another bite work session. The goal is for the dog to slip into defense and bark. The dog will gain confidence when the stranger runs away. I would concentrate on letting the dog feel comfortable with the bark and winning by running the stranger off before I made the dog actually back up its bark. Once the dog feels comfortable with it I would say it will begin to put on a pretty good aggressive show,then if it didnt transfer over to bitework training I would do the car scenario again like this. When the dog is barking and the stranger runs off, Id have the stranger hide near by where the dog knows where he is at.Return quickly to the car and remove the dog on a leash,stay by the car and have the stranger be suspicious or a little agitation from his hiding place and when the dog starts barking again have the helper come out and send the dog for the bite.Thats how Id do it, some one else could say something different though that would may be as good or better.

I think this helper went a little too far, a little too fast. If he wants to build up a confident bark, he should not run up on the dog and beat on the window during the first attempt. He should've just stood back and made eye contact to build up a bark, acting like he wasn't sure what exactly was in that car, hesitant, a little scared. After he can do that, then he can go to step 2. Instead, he forced the dog to bark, which is completely the opposite of building confidence.

Like David said, it's still hard to say without seeing, but I guarantee you this dog was in fear throughout most of the exercise. A high-pitched bark is not a confident bark, and neither is snarling. And avoidance is also uncertain, bacause in car there is nowhere to run. And this exercise was no real evaluation of your dog, this was the helper's mistake.

Building defense the right way should be broken down into steps, and done slowly enough to where in every step the dog is confident. There should definately not be any rush to get a bite, which is the last step. Being a good helper is also being a good actor, in my opinion. This guy was being a little too macho tough guy a little too soon, without knowing exactly how far to go and when to stop. He should "act" as if this dog is a lot tougher than he is, and could easily break through that car window if it wanted to, running away when the dog shows the slightest bit of confidence.

Building defense is like building up a fighter. You don't put a new boxer in the ring with Mike Tyson right away, he must go through a series of steps(fights)to get to Tyson's level. But this helper put a whole fighting career in one exercise. He approached that car as if it was his own or if there was just a little puppy inside, and that doesn't build up your dog at all. And switching from being violent to being friendly only confuses your dog.

I agree, the whole idea is to get her to bark, rather than strait defense training. I will focus more on the defense training at a later time. I am just concerned that she will not bark unless extremely challenged. I think it will take one hell of a scare to get her to bark in a training scenario. She barks when in her kennel, at other animals passing by outside our fence, and at strangers on our property in some instances. She will not bark if someone is at the door, or just passing by. She varies, unlike any other dog I have ever seen. She picks and chooses what to bark at, where most dogs just bark. As a puppy she barked continually, but since peuberty, it is hit and miss. Again, her nerves are strong. I was just taken back that she just watched him as if she was not bothered at all. It is my opinion that most dogs would have gone nuts with his actions, like pounding on the window and yelling at her, etc. He did a good job of tormenting her, atleast that was his intention. It comes down to pushing her into defense, which will create the bark, without pushing her too far. It is a fine line.

It is also my fault because I was perhaps not clear enough with my instruction as to what I wanted to see done with the helper. Next week I will just have him make eye contact, and build from there. Once he tried the friendly approach I had him stop and restart the exercise, but I should have been sure to coach him to avoid that. I don't want my dog going nuts on a child who is trying to be friendly. I hear her bark the way I want her to bark when she is in the garage at night, with the lights off. It never fails, every night something will trigger that bark and it is strong and confident.

I also don't think it was avoidance because she very easily could have pulled her head out of the open window back away from the window after the first hit form the helper. That only intensified her desire to get out at him. I am just curious if she was showing avoidance by remaining in the middle of the cab until I entered the scenario. She watched him intensly, but didn't budge....tolerance of the stress?

I'm leaning towards saying she was avoiding by staying in the middle of the cab during the agitation. The fact that she engaged only AFTER you came up (which makes her more secure cuz her leader is there to support her) combined with the high pitched bark/snarl, makes me think she was insecure with the first part of the exercise and only felt comfortable engaging when she had your support. I totally agree with Mike's suggestions on how to proceed with building success by barking.

Okay, let's say next week he just does eye contact with good acting, and some suspicious movement, as close to perfect as he could be, and she still watches him, without any barking or growling.....then what?