Because of what is happening with my dog right now, I agree with Katie, and with two other things that were said.

IMHO, from your descriptions, you're dog CAN handle more pressure. However, as the trainers said, if they keep working her in defense, they will not get the grips they want. The deep, calm bite is developed in prey drive.

That's why I agree with Katie. My dog has a low defensive threshhold and needs a lot of pressure to keep her engaged, but her bite is suffering. What I'm doing to correct this is focusing on lots of prey drive promotion (foundation of bitework).

There is a difference between having strong prey drive, and building the foundation. IMO, you need to use that strong prey drive to build a better grip before advancing any farther in your defense work.

JMO

When my dog decides she's bored with engaging the helper and starts to fool around he literally tries to kick her butt so she knows that this is serious. If you don't hold the bad guy with your barking, he's going to attack you. If she doesn't bite well, he's going to pry her off (while I hold her back so she can't re-bite right after and knows she lost her chance and gets frustrated), or he's going to drive her really hard.

But my dog has had a much longer foundation. Yours has only been working for a few months and barely.

We always start with the barking. The dog needs to learn that her barking activates the helper. But if she's not interested in the helper, you might not have the right dog.

Hey Jeffrey, replace boredom with the word avoidance. At this time, she can't handle more pressure. But really, you're incorrectly trying to describe something you've never seen, so I think theres really nothing you can gain from trying to guess whats going on with her.

This is from an article by Armin Winkler from Helmut Raiser's stuff.
"The great danger when working a dog in defense drive is that the same stimuli which cause defense behaviour also cause avoidance behaviour. Which of the two possible behaviours is displayed by a dog when a trigger stimulus is presented is dependant on a variety of factors, among them confidence and temperament of the dog as well as the threatener, "life" experiences of the dog, age and maturity of the dog, location (unfamiliar or home turf), distance between adversaries, and the presence of other external influences (prey, mate, puppies). Author's note: Hopefully this allows people to see defense for the double-edged sword it is. Defense is one part of protection training. The idea that good dogs should only be worked in defense is a dangerous one which has wrecked many great dogs."

There's a lot more:

http://www.schutzhundvillage.com/arminhome.html

Agreed. I really don't like training in defense, especially in an inexperienced dog.

There are three parts to defense: fight, flight and freeze. 2/3 of those you never want to see from your dog, ever. So why bother?

Again, I agree she's not bored.

 Quote: Katie Finlay

When my dog decides she's bored with engaging the helper and starts to fool around he literally tries to kick her butt so she knows that this is serious. If you don't hold the bad guy with your barking, he's going to attack you. If she doesn't bite well, he's going to pry her off (while I hold her back so she can't re-bite right after and knows she lost her chance and gets frustrated), or he's going to drive her really hard.

But my dog has had a much longer foundation. Yours has only been working for a few months and barely.

We always start with the barking. The dog needs to learn that her barking activates the helper. But if she's not interested in the helper, you might not have the right dog.

I will watch to see if the helper is showing a response to the barking. I know very well that when she loses her bite on something, it takes a lot of strength to hold her back. The short time-frame is why I'm not very frustrated with there being a stand-still in the training, I merely looking for ideas to bring when I come out and work in person with her next week.

The main issue that I really want to address is finding the cause of why after she becomes friendly with a helper, the suspicion/bite drive is totally gone. the moment the sleeve comes off and is dangled out in front of her she latches right back onto the sleeve and will not let go until commanded.

The bite is something I worked on with her when she was a puppy, and I tried to get something new for her to bite on every couple of months, even though she still goes after each item with the same amount of enthusiasm till this day.

Desire to bite does not translate to a good bite. Use the desire to bite to build a better bite. It takes a lot of work.

"The main issue that I really want to address is finding the cause of why after she becomes friendly with a helper, the suspicion/bite drive is totally gone. the moment the sleeve comes off and is dangled out in front of her she latches right back onto the sleeve and will not let go until commanded."

This may be because she is working in defense and no longer feels threatened. As Katie said, she pbly needs a lot more work in prey drive to stay engaged in the game. When she sees the helper as a playmate instead of a threat, her desire to play with him will pbly keep her engaged.

She's not becoming friendly with the helper. The sleeve is a toy on it's own. When it's off the helper, it's fun to bite. When it's on, it's scary. Steve is right, she is avoiding.

 Quote: Katie Finlay

She's not becoming friendly with the helper. The sleeve is a toy on it's own. When it's off the helper, it's fun to bite. When it's on, it's scary. Steve is right, she is avoiding.

But thats the point I'm getting at, why does she have no issue doing it to a new helper? Is it fear that she might hurt them?

 Quote: Jeffrey Hill

 Quote: Katie Finlay

She's not becoming friendly with the helper. The sleeve is a toy on it's own. When it's off the helper, it's fun to bite. When it's on, it's scary. Steve is right, she is avoiding.

But thats the point I'm getting at, why does she have no issue doing it to a new helper? Is it fear that she might hurt them?

Look at it in opposite terms. Her fear is with the familiar helper, not with the new one. Working in defence requires timing in rewarding the dogs defensive reaction, even though it may be subtle. That builds confidence. Fight too long, don't slip the sleeve at the right time,,,,,,,, Its easy for things to go wrong.