hi,
i appreciate the discussion, thanks. my dog is great in the backyard, when i am playing with him. he will go after whatever is in my hand, at chest height, and we can "wrestle" with each other while he is on the item. i have worked with the tug and he has taken to it well. sometimes his first bite slips, so i put it(the toy)up, put him in his crate for a break, and then we try again later and usually all is well. he will focus on an object for 15 minutes with out moving ( we started this so i could watch the news) and will not let the object hit the floor when i finally toss it. it seems out on the field he would rather meet everyone and be pet than play sometimes, and other times he just gets to the end of the leash and watches the helper. due to a lack of schutzhund clubs, we are playing in french ring, but i am thinking the initial prey drive building is along the same lines. also he is a giant schnauzer and they are supposed to take a longer time to mature and i don't know if this has anything to do with it. he has finished teething sometime ago. what i started was taking him to our field and other places and playing with him like i do in the backyard. oh, his grip on the ball on a string is good and it is good on a kong on a string as well.
i have learned some techniques for going from the tug to teaching the dog to turn it's head in preparation for the leg, but i want the bite on the tug to be good any and everywhere before i try that.
thanks, and please keep the advice coming.
i'll be looking for that next video.
brandon

Hi Brandon

You are very privileged to have ED give personal first hand advice, if you are working a dog for Schutzhund I would not follow any other route but Ed’s, I work police dogs and Protection dogs my methods might screw things up for you in the long run or in the ring.

Ed, if you were training a dog for Schutzhund AND also had intentions of police service or personal protection training down the road. . . would you do anything differently, anything that isn't consistant with the Flinks Grip method/work?

Robbert wrote: Ed, if you were training a dog for Schutzhund AND also had intentions of police service or personal protection training down the road . . . would you do anything differently, anything that isn't consistent with the Flinks Grip method/work?

I see the funny man is out playing his tricks again did you not learn the first round, this question of yours is rhetorical, I see you are good at stirring the pot, eagerly awaiting to see if I am right, Bernard uses line agitation, so are we going to take this poster to another board, its your site, you decide –and do it Matrix style once again.

Don't forget Bernhard trains Itor and his late dog in both Schutzhund and in police work.

Ed, my question is more directed at raising young pups.

The pups I have had we have started on leg sleeves and puppy arm sleeves when they are 8 weeks old. By 4+ months we are on a suit in many locations and at 8+ months on a regular sleeve. To do that we have used a friendly second family member "helper" from day one.

Would you suggest laying off the early bite play on sleeves, legs, and the like?

It has seemed that all the early exposure to biting all kinds of places and items has had benefits.

Hi Ed,

When the video is released please post on the board so I can order a copy <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Vancamp - if your goal is to raise a sport dog I absolutely disagree with what you have been doing with your puppies.

Unless your family member is a skilled training helper that understands turned-on-nerves and grip I would not be letting them near my pup.

Can you train pups to do protection work by doing what you have done - no question about it. Can you build a solid grip on a young dog doing what you are doing - absolutely not.

The things you have done are Fr. ring sport stuff - a good grip is not something the Fr ring looks for or scores. Just one more example of how the French have their head up their ass.

There are so many details that go into building a solid grip one would be better advised to learn how to do it yourself through play - where you control every detail of the training rather than let amateurs near your puppy. It only takes one or two screw-ups to put your puppy back weeks or months in training.

Any dog with the right genes and nerves who has gone through the grip training will have no problem moving on to body bites or suite work as an adult.

This Grip video I am working on (http://leerburg.com/310.htm) is one of the hardest training videos I have done. I have been working on it since Feb. It has worked out to about one full days work per minute of video.

Yep, you guessed it. . .kinda. . .our helper is an NVBK decoy. He is very sensitive with pups and we all still play one-on-one with our own pups. . .but honestly our grips could be better in most of the dogs.

They don't train for sport, I do. . . <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Hurry up with your video slacker!

Originally, the question asked was whether or not the puppy should continue with what it liked the most, if I don't quote this verbatim, forgive me, " Ask your dog what he likes better, the ball or the dumbell". Seems to me if y'all were watching Berhard that closely, you would remember the intro to the first lecture....

I would (and have) stayed with my dogs first choice. Now, if you move to a different object when other exercises are taught, it seems to me that those instances would be seperate from the drive, focus and grip building. Perhaps I'm studying this a little too literally.