OK i am going to jump in here and see how close i get what everyone is saying.

Alright Brad, you want a yes or no answer, its a bit more complicated then that. But if i was forced to answer like that it would be this. Yes Defense is desirable training and quality in the dog.

Is it more stressfull for the dogs? I think so. But look at it this way Police officers do get attacked, the dog does need to know how to defend him self, no police officer wants to get attacked but we need to prepare for the worse case. And that means doing training we are selfs might not like. No different from the dog.

Now when we start talking about fight drive that is something else. Now i will say this, i don't think i have seen fight drive and i am pretty sure i am not qualified to give advice on it, i am just trying to spit out what i understand from Ed's articals and peoples posts on it. So Mod's if what i am saying is out of line feel free to edit this post or delete it.

Now when people start talking about fight drive i think about a combination of Civil drive and Defensive drive. The Civil drive part due to the fact that the dog will always bite, no matter the situation, like someone on this board said (could have been ed or will i cant seem to find it and i thought it was in this thread..) "FD will let you give the dog the watch em command and with a decoy that has no equipment on standing still the dog will still show aggression" (ok i know i got that quote wrong but its the best i can rember so if i mis-quoted you i am sorry!) The Defense part of it comes in to play well in defense. To my understanding if the dog has FD then he/she is just a lot more cofedent and defense isent as stressful anymore.

Ok thats what i got out of reading on this board. So how far am i off?

I think the comparison of fight drive to a boxer is right on… When the bell rings, the only response is to pummel your opponent. There is no fear, no hesitation, it’s all about the fight. Mike Tyson at the peak of his career is what comes to mind.

When you find yourself looking at a number of PSD’s and you get the opportunity to work the same dogs repeatedly, you can begin to see which dogs have fight and which don’t. You can also start to see weather the lack of fight is a training issue or a genetic one.

In the beginning you begin to build prey in the dog…focus is on grip and intensity. Genetics rears it’s ugly head and starts to show in the dog’s grip, starts showing in the intensity.

Then you start adding defense a little at a time. The dog learns that it can overcome the stress of the decoy… both physical and environmental. Genetics rears it’s ugly head again and becomes the meter to measure how much defense the dog can withstand. Great decoy’s and open minded training will take the dog as far up the defensive ladder as it’s genetics will allow. I think at this point you begin to see the faults in the dog and it’s mental make-up for PSD work.

So now you have this dog with great prey… rock solid defense… now what?? You want to see if your dog is capable of the holy grail…. Fight. You start working the dog in civil… here is where I think the largest number of dogs show their true colors… is it about the prey or is it about the man. Hidden sleeve… muzzle… all start showing you the dog’s intensity and potential to fight just for the satisfaction of the fight itself.

During this stage, the decoy’s abilities are so important… he has to keep building confidence in the dog to the level where the dog believes that it can overcome and beat any opponent.

Excellent analogy and insight Matt.

Yuko, Michael R., Ed, Will, Michael W., Matt, and Howard, thank you for your input on this subject. I'm looking forward to our future discussions on other topics. :smile:

 Quote: Howard Knauf

Excellent analogy and insight Matt.

Yeah, I enjoyed that too! Very informative.