Generally when Charlie and Duke are playing chase back and forth with each other, there are no toys involved except for Duke's "pacifier toy" as Charlie is not allowed to take toys from Duke and vice versa. (Duke has something in his mouth almost constantly when he's free/on a lead in the house) Way too much opportunity for accidental over-stimulation there. It's more of.. I don't know, tag? Maybe I'll video it for fun as long as it stays contact free, they seem to have fun, and I generally call a stop to it after a few minutes to avoid either of them getting too worked up and doing something dumb. Duke does pretty often try to use flank pressure to 'lean' on Charlie though, which I do not encourage - too much weight difference. Needless to say they're never ever alone together.

IMO if you have to use the whip to stimulate drive for the sleeve or decoy in the dog...you have the wrong dog for the work. A couple of whip cracks in the fist session or two that you work a dog should be enough for the dog to get the idea. Like Duane mentioned you will then be building drive for the whip not what you want at all.

You can put on a sleeve & take play bites from you own dog as long as you keep it in prey. It's no different then playing with a tug or bite wedge/pillow.

The way that Duane described the tie back way of starting a dog with a rag or tug on a line to test a dogs prey drive is typical. Don't what you meant in the beginning about

(QUOTE: The first thing we do is evaluate with the dog on the fence, to determine how closely we can do prey work without putting the dog in defense.) doing what?

seeing how close you can get for prey drive before you added the part about the rag etc. (Most working sport/PP pups are started as puppies with rag work. flert pole & tug work with their owners.) Often brought to club sessions to play with the decoy a well to get used to the club atmosphere.

All pretty good info here.
My own personal thoughts. I'm not a big fan of the whip. I see folks getting ready to take the dog on the bite field in Schutzhund and cracking the crap out of the whip. If the dog isn't dragging you to bite the field it's the wrong dog.
Plus it's So VERY easy to screw up your dog with ANY agitation from you, the handler.
Duane's comment about frustration and agitation = BINGO +1.
Develope that frustration with good rag/tug handling. If the dog's agitation can be developed it should be at the helper, not you.
As to the kids chasing the dog at keep away, the dog chasing the kids at retrieving, "he herds the heck out of some preschoolers".
I can only request that Ed put in one of those head banging emoticons. Your allowing the dog to learn it can dominate, control and ignore commands from these kids and your working on developing "controlled" agitation?????
YES, I'm old and crabby at times....well....old all the time. The issues with the kids are filling in a lot of check marks on my "crabby old granpa" list. As a dog trainer I think you need to put a bit more thought in the how and why of what your doing. Common sense can go a long way.
Good thing I'm in a nice mood today. :wink:

I'm obviously either really bad at explaining myself or not understanding what's going on, I suppose either would be possible. We wake up, have breakfast, let Duke out to see us, Duke goes to see Charlie and 'circles' him with flank pressure, he's stopped at that point, the behavior for him seems to be pretty instinctive - am I not to allow interaction at all? When it seems to generally be positive experiences on both ends?
I have no problem dropping any sort of agitation work on my own behalf and just playing tug as much as I can.

This isn't what the thread is really about, and you've received experienced info about the whip, and not to harass you AT ALL, but what did "“herds the heck out of some pre-schoolers"” mean?

This puts a really dangerous picture into my mind.

One of Duke's first behaviors when he's just out of the crate, or just back into the house, is to go up to Charlie and try to 'circle' him, pressing on him with one of his sides. I thought this was herding behavior? As I said, I don't sit there and allow it at all, Duke is far too big to behave in that way with children. We treat it pretty much like we treat jumping on adults.

The more fun, dangerous and completely untrue explanation - I let 5-10 kids under the age of 6 run around in the back yard while Duke seperates them one at a time and pushes them into the kennel yard Then we all have ice cream.

Sorry, I tend to make light of things and it doesn't always come across properly.

 Quote: Kristin Muntz

The more fun, dangerous and completely untrue explanation - I let 5-10 kids under the age of 6 run around in the back yard while Duke seperates them one at a time and pushes them into the kennel yard Then we all have ice cream.

Sorry, I tend to make light of things and it doesn't always come across properly.

OK, I admit that this did cross my mind. LOL

"I do not allow it" would have been the best thing to add to the first mention of herding pre-schoolers.

Duane - somehow I missed your last post. I'll get that vid for his birthday next month along with some new tugs and a bite pillow
And your recommendation is noted, Connie - I'll try to be clearer for the sake of everyone's blood pressure

Anne;

The way we do that is to set up a blind maybe 20-25 ft away from the fence and backtie the dog on a 10 ft lead. A helper in an apron with a whip (folded, not cracking) starts out further than the blind and gets the dog's attention with animated movements, slapping his thigh with the stick, and some guttural noises.
As long as the dog is coming forward to the end of the line with his tail up, maybe wagging, maybe prey barking, the helper works his way in . If he can get to the blind, he'll start jumping in and out and banging the blind with the whip. If the dog's tail drops, hackles come up, the dog starts looking for the handler, and/or retreats, the helper backs off. As long as the dog is forward and erect, we close the distance and see how much pressure he can take.

It's just about determining at what point the pressure becomes undue. It was my understanding that this was a pretty typical evaluation. Not so? Please advise (I want to learn as much as possible, and I damn sure want to know if I'm being steered in the right direction).

ALSO; the way you describe initiating young dogs is what we do. Kristin was seeking advice for a little bit older dog who is already familiar with the club, unless I miss my guess.

ETA; I'm not trying to come across as experienced. The OP raised some concerns about the work Kristin's trainer was doing, and I originally just wanted to make sure that didn't get overlooked. I'm ecstatic that you guys weighed in. There's much for me to learn from this.

Edited by Duane Hull (01/28/2013 04:22 PM)
Edit reason: eta