Josh:

How dare you put down titled dogs? I take all that back. Let's all gang up on Josh!

I could not resist. But I will say that Ed used my last Schutzhund dog as his PSD until he died recently. I trained this dog strickly in sport from 8 weeks to 18 months.

SHH Ed! Don't tell them about locking him in prey. That's between you and me.

If it were possible to train a dog without the toy/food reward would you want to?

Kevin, it's not that rational a question. Why are you so hung up on rewarding a dog? I can't pretend dogs work in a way they don't, hence I don't see the logic in doing what you asked.

It never fails. I’ve never seen a discussion entitled “Drives” fail to bring out the worst in people. Those discussion always get emotional. Always cause contention. Always get people pissed off at one another. Always lead to name calling.

And so you wonder, what’s taken me so long to jump in??? LOL

I’m a drive theory guy and I was here early in the discussion but dropped out for a bit because I was busy elsewhere.

My stake out test that Josh mentioned, if anyone is interested, can be seen at Dr P. site at
http://www.uwsp.edu/acad/psych/dog/StakeOut.htm

As far as combat drives, I look for fight drive, which many don’t believe exists or call it by some other name or consider it to be a combination of some other drives. The best explanation (I think I said this before somewhere) can be found at Donn Yarnall’s website at.
http://www.donnyarnall.com/Find%20&%20Bark.htm

I’m not a fan of toys in training PSD’s or PPD’s. Not because I’m afraid of a dog enroute to a bite picking up a Kong but because such training will take a dog out of whatever combat drive he’s in whether it’s prey, defense, or fight and put him into a play drive. While in that drive he’s not prepared should the crook launch another attack.

For the record, I only use toys to reward, narc, evidence, a de-stress once done obedience and sometimes at the end of a track. I do not use toys or food in bitework.

Just to make sure both Lou and I are on the same page here...LOL

Pete,

Exelent question!!! I can't answer for everybody but I can tell you why I train.

I like spending the time with my dogs. Protection training takes a lot of time. If I am going to do the work I want to have some use out of it. There have been several times that my dogs have solved problems for me. Keeping people from breaking in to my house, keeping my wife from being harrased, you get the idea. I live in a big city so we do have home invasions, car jacking and all the other problems of a big city. I know there is a better chance of being struck by lightening than having one of these problems (well not this year, we have had more home invasions than people struck by lightening). When the dog is with us it isn't a problem.

I believe it makes my dogs better dogs. It gives them better self control, it channels instincts they have into a productive mode. It certainly gives them more confidence.

The dogs like it. They really seem to ejoy doing the work. They get down right moody if we don't go out and work them.

Unlike Vince, our dogs will be with us for their life. They are our "children". I want something to do with them on a regular basis.

I enjoy doing it. Probably not a good reason, but I like the people involved, I like the adrenaline rush, I like the challenge of figuring out how to get the job done safely and working out the problems of the tasks set for us.

I don't want to be faced with a situation that I or the dogs are unprepared for. Part of what happens in training is the dogs and I are exposed to situations that could occur and given an opportunity to work out a solution in a "safe" enviornment. I want to know what the dog will do in a stressful situation so I know how to handle him. I don't want any suprises. I know the things that will set him off, I know I can out him if I have to under any circustance. It has come into play, I can head off situations before they are a real problems.

I like the temperament of the breeds involved. I like their confidence, attitude, their looks, I like that nobody knows what breed my dogs are.

Maybe these aren't good reasons, but they are mine.

Lou & Josh

Just when you thought you got out....We pulled you back in!!!!!

***Renee: There are many differences between a blank and a live round. And yes, the dog can differentiate. As does the handler, and as I just stated above, if you can ffect the handler, you can affect the dog.***

Bill, this statement makes absolutely no sense. And now it's smoke and fire...

I think I know exactly where you are coming from--are you actually training, or just vising the website? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Since you never answered Ken's question as to where you train, I assume it's the latter. To each its own, buddy. I'm not touching this one with a 10-foot pole.

Bill,
As you think I have an attitude and it is not nessecary to answer me, I have always answered you and back up all of my statements. I asked you 14, yes 14 questions in my last reply. You could at least answer some of them. If I'm wrong, I say it. I'd like to see your counter point to the questions I asked.

To save everyone from scrolling up or looking for the post, here are my questions to Bill...again, this is NOT an attack, I would just like your answers and have you back up your statements.
Post as follows: Bill,
If you read sarcasm, so be it. I only point out my dis-agreement with your comments. Your analogy between live fire vs. blanks and pseudo and real drugs don't stack up. Pseudo does NOT smell, age or have the same chemical components as do the real narcotics. Your argument doesn't make any sense. Time after time there are dogs who were trained on pseudo who do not hit consistently on real narcotics...hence the problem. Your comments about live fire being "real" don't stack up either...don't bring a dog to a gun fight, so how is your argument real or even based in reality? Smoke...I can't think of the last non-SWAT dog I know that has had to deploy in smoke. I've done seminars for departments across the country and not one has brought up training in smoke, but if you say it's real...yes that was sarcasm. Please show me where you are getting this information? What departments do you train with that deploy dogs into gunfights? Use smoke as a mainstay of their training? To your other comment, I honestly wouldn't care if one of my units dogs ran around the smoke as long as he engaged and stayed engaged. Perhaps he's just not that dim to dive into something that makes him choke. If he engages and stay engaged, who cares? If the smoke was the only barrier and there was NO way around it, than it is a different story. But then again, why would I send my dog into something I could not see to the other side of unless I knew what was there? What if there was a 50 ft drop beyond the smoke?
As for your weapon hand comments...don't people have two hands? Does the dog let go and re-engage if the suspect changes the weapon to the other hand? Do you now have a multiple bite situation to defend in court? Also, why on earth would you limit a PSDs target to grabbing only one specific target? Why should the dog have to think about looking for the hand that is holding something? If the guy drops the weapon, does the dog let go? If you are so worried about him only going after the weapon hand wouldn't it make sense that once he's dropped it, the dog should come off? What if during the grasp of the bite, and we actually sent the dog against a gun, wouldn't the flinch of being bit cause the gun to discharge? Couldn't this discharge provoke other officers to return fire injuring the dog, public or be caught in a crossfire? What about the suspects bullet going off and killing a 6 yr old who was playing on the swings a mile away? Lots of questions.....then again you don't have to answer them. I'm not attacking you, but if you are going to make statements, please back them up when questioned.

Vince P. wrote:
When a dog has hackles up and is barking, that it is fearful, that hackles down implies no fear. I cannot agree with this comment. I have worked plenty of dogs, each one of who the hackles will go up especially as very young puppies. Still continuing to raise hackles and even puff tails when as older dogs, the threat becomes much more serious if not life threatening to them. Some of these dogs were very fearful, nervous and unbalanced dogs in some situations, but other were not. The ones who were not fearful yet raised hackles normally, where to the extreme in balance and confidence.
Sorry I can't agree with that common misconception of raised hackles and fast barking.
These traits are both common to high prey, high defense and high guard traits also. In the same token, if you study the fearful dog deeper, it's the stance, the eye placement, the ear placement and the forward or backward movement that shows their fearfulness, not the hackles.