For me personaly civil work (NO JUTTEN sleeve but a hidden sleeve in kevlar under regular clothing) worked best. We tried "The agitator will harrass the dog enough to get it to drop the sleeve and go back after them with no protection." but what if she keeps a hold of the sleeve no matter what. Yes, She groms putting her hair up etc, staying at the same place and holding what is her. She has strong prey posession drift.
What about muzzle can someone give some advice how to start this. I know in the Ring training they use a ball - then an open muzzle where the dog still can catch that ball and later a piece of texure. But I´m not sure I should do it this way. And if I just put on the muzzle and let her attack I´m affraid she might forget to bite the muzzle piece and will not do it again.

What you all are describing seems like standard civil agitation and defense work. I guess your definition of FIGHT = my definition of DEFENSE.

Mickey, when a dog has already become overly equipment oriented it can sometimes be difficult, and occaisionally impossible to get the dog to release the sleeve in response to action or pressure from the decoy. Often the dog will just put any energy created by the decoy into the sleeve it already in it's mouth. In fact many prey locked dogs won't even recognize that the decoy is threatening him and this will often bring the decoy to the point of beating the dog to try and make it clear to the dog that it is being threatened. This is best avoided since many dogs can't really handle that level of pressure. It's also not necessary if you use the following process. When a dog is already at this point I think it can be very counterproductive for a decoy to try to pressure the dog off the sleeve since it may not let go until it is very much overstressed. What is much better is to simply use an ecollar on the dog, give the dog a bite with a few seconds of struggle with the decoy, nothing heavy. Then let the sleeve go, the decoy then goes and picks up another sleeve and holds it behind his back . The decoy comes back to, but not too close, to the dog in this manner. The handler stims the dog with no command. (long stim on fairly low level is much better than "blasting" the dog off the sleeve, that will create bit issues in many dogs). The moment the dog lets out the first sleeve the decoy becomes active again. The first sleeve will be right were the dog can reach it, if it rebites the sleeve on the ground the decoy stops and the stim begins again. Very quickly the dog will realize that sleeves are only interesting when attached to a person and that the person should be the object of it's attention. The decoy will still need to use many skills to ensure that the dog learns to bark at him and not the sleeve but this is a very easy (for the dog and people!) way to begin a huge change in behavior and focus. Most important will be that very quickly the decoy changes from making action the moment the dog lets out the sleeve on the ground to waiting to become active until the dog actually looks at and barks at the decoy. The next level would be that the decoy's "activitiy" would not be active but just visual pressure and only repond to a more serious bark. Eventually the handler should make the dog sit and be quiet after the out and not start barking again until told to. At this point the handelr give the dog the alert command and the helper only moves when the dog becomes active. Another important point, be sure to wait several seconds to stim the dog after the sleeve has been released by the decoy so you don't just create an overly quick, nervous out. or chewyness while on the agitator.

My answer was in response to this question:

Dave wrote: " How can you build a good prey foundation without becoming "locked into prey"? How do you know when the dog is ready to work in other drives?"

Other than your own instincts, what do you "see" in your dog that tells you it is ready for some pressure?

Confidence and secure grips wouthout a whole lot of messing around or unsure behavior during prey agitation.

Originally posted by Dave Lilley:
What you all are describing seems like standard civil agitation and defense work. I guess your definition of FIGHT = my definition of DEFENSE. There should be no difference. The line between Fight and Defense is whether or not the dog percieves true Danger.. remember defense to a dog is a life-or-death situation.. fight is just that.. a fight
And that is the only difference.. one dog may view a specific body gesture as prey, while another dog may trigger a fight response, while a third dog flights.... all form the same body gesture from the same decoy

It all comes down to the dog's perception of the current situation (which all goes back to genetics and prior training)

Originally posted by VanCamp:
Confidence and secure grips wouthout a whole lot of messing around or unsure behavior during prey agitation. Absolutely.. and then from there.. baby steps!!

I totally disagree, that is when I put the thumbscrews to the little shiznits. . .