 Helper Question
#91717 - 12/08/2005 11:44 PM |
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Is it ever acceptable to use someone the dog will come into regular contact with as a helper/decoy/agitator? A close friend of ours is a helper, etc, for the local schutzhund club and has offered to help us out with some practice worksince our regular helper has moved. The opinions of the club members are split down the middle. Some say the dog will always regard our friend as an enemy, others say the dogs should only react to certain behavours. One person even suggested we scent the helper with deer pee or peppermint oil! Any suggestions?
"No dog is safe until all dogs have manners." Mindy McGlasson |
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Re: Helper Question
[Re: Dorothy Daly ]
#91718 - 12/09/2005 06:08 AM |
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Is it ever acceptable to use someone the dog will come into regular contact with as a helper/decoy/agitator? A close friend of ours is a helper, etc, for the local schutzhund club and has offered to help us out with some practice worksince our regular helper has moved. The opinions of the club members are split down the middle. Some say the dog will always regard our friend as an enemy, others say the dogs should only react to certain behavours. One person even suggested we scent the helper with deer pee or peppermint oil! Any suggestions?
IMO if you are training for any type of dog sport, the decoy should never be looked at as an "enemy". If that is the type of training your club is using I would probably be safe to say that the type of training your dog is receiving is not adequate or proper.
For training, the decoy and the dog should be comfortable with each other in order to learn the exercises correctly. If the dog feels threatened by the training decoy the training will be difficult.
In regards to the scenting of the helper I must say that is quite bizarre. Actually.....that is probably one of the silliest things I have heard of in a long time.
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Re: Helper Question
[Re: Tim Bartlett ]
#91719 - 12/09/2005 06:20 AM |
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Re: Helper Question
[Re: Sammy Blondin ]
#91720 - 12/09/2005 11:07 AM |
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Like Sammy pointed out, it often depends on the dog. Dogs that view the protection work as a fun game probably won’t have too much trouble working on someone they know well, and may even be very social/friendly with.
Dogs that are a bit more serious may have more trouble working on a helper they are very friendly with otherwise. Trouble meaning, some conflict behaviour may arise in the guarding/biting. For example, my wife’s dog does not work well on me as the helper, b/c he was raised by she and I from puppyhood and has always been our house dog.
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Re: Helper Question
[Re: Dorothy Daly ]
#91721 - 12/09/2005 11:46 AM |
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I hang out with my friends and their dogs that I work. A stable dog isn't going to freak everytime he sees his decoy. In my experience in MR the dogs like their helper quite a bit.
Of course we aren't out there with whips and what not trying to make the dog show his teeth to impress our friends. There is a difference in what we do.
I am smarter than my dog, your just not. |
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Re: Helper Question
[Re: jeff oehlsen ]
#91722 - 12/10/2005 01:19 PM |
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Hi! I just wanted to thank everyone for thier opinions and also reply to Jeff. Jeff, I'm not familiar with MR training techniques, but I can say that my love of schutzhund has nothing to do with impressing my friends. I was taught by my aunt, who raised rottweilers when I was growing up, to use schutzhund as a test of "working ability" in a dog that would later be trained as a ppd. She believed, and passed on to me, that the whole point of sch is to discover whether a dog has the nerve, drives and desire to work. Once a dog has recieved his titles, then she will train him as a protection dog, but not until. As a result, she hasd produced a number of excellent ppds and a few very nice sport dogs who never went beyond sport, for various reasons. But I would never whip a dog to get him to show his teeth...that sounds like taking a dog into survival drive and that's not a place I want to go. Thanks for the perspective, everyone!
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Re: Helper Question
[Re: Dorothy Daly ]
#91723 - 12/10/2005 01:28 PM |
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Your Aunt sounds like a really cool lady. I have been to a lot of Sch clubs that are great. the comment I made was "tongue in cheek". Most of what I say here gets taken the wrong way. If we were talking, you would get my humor. :grin
I am smarter than my dog, your just not. |
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Re: Helper Question
[Re: Dorothy Daly ]
#91724 - 12/10/2005 10:46 PM |
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this is a question i've had myself: where i live, there are no qualified helpers that i know of, and i told my son he might end up as one.
my guess was, that if he worked as a "bad guy" well enough, the dog would respond to him as such, regardless of where they lived (together). is this right or wrong? it's acting, reading the dog, and responding to the dog...but i'm literally in the middle of nowhere and helpers are non-existent. so what to do?
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Re: Helper Question
[Re: ann freier ]
#91725 - 12/10/2005 11:10 PM |
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It's hard enough getting an inexperienced decoy to properly do prey work, let alone full-blown defense...
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Re: Helper Question
[Re: Kristine Velasco ]
#91726 - 12/12/2005 02:34 PM |
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One of the dogs is a sport dog who probably won't go any further (not sure whether he'll ever take work seriously) but the other two are very "civil" dogs who are hypothetically supposed to react only to certain behaviours, but my younger bitch I'm not so sure about. May have to find another helper to work her specifically.
As far as using a family member goes, that just gives me the willies, no matter how much of the work is a game to the dog. An untrained or inexperienced helper could be injured, injure the dog or accidentally create or encourage an inappropriate response or bad habit.
Also, did I accidentally post this whole thread in the wrong place and if so, who can move it? Thanks, D
"No dog is safe until all dogs have manners." Mindy McGlasson |
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