It is fairly easy to teach an adult dog not to trust everyone as part of later protection work. Don't worry about that part right now. Keep any interactions with people 100% positive and in fact set up interactions where the dog can earn a little bit of confidence/dominance with strangers. Let visitors come over to your house and have them act submissive and weak in the face of the pup's advances.


In your case, with the pups behavior as you describe it, I would forgo allowing the general public to touch and socialize with the dog on a personal level. I'd buy one of those "Service Dog In Training: Please Don't Pet" vests.

Here's why I think you should avoid allowing contact. The dog is already social. . .and is showing some general submissive behavior. That last part should to stop in my opinion. You don't want the dog to learn that the answer to a stranger and a stressful situation is to act submissive and to go all ga ga as a form of avoidance. In my opinion and experience with so-so dogs, continual interactions with people in this way will reinforce that behavior, especially in a dog who already seems to have that type of temperament.

Your goal is to get the best you can out of your dog, you don't have a number of pups to wash from a program who may not have what it takes. You need to do everything you can to get this dog to his genetic potential.

You can still inure the dog to all kinds of people, all kinds of social situations, all kinds of environments without touching people and you will have a safe animal in public.


Don't go overboard on restrictions though, continue to get the dog out as much as possible.

Don't let that other jackass "trainer" get you worried about having to put suspician into your dog, that will most likely eliminate any possibility of your dog being able to work at all in the future. It's easy to put a little suspician in a confident aldult dog, it's damn hard to put confidence in an adult dog.

Socializing in these ways should build confidence while avoiding continued reinforcement of the submissive behavior.


By the way, what kind of dog do you have? Aaron didn't say anywhere that he had a Malinois, the trainer had a Malinois.

Wow, lots of great info. Thx!

OK, yea for the record, he's a Malinois...

Listen to this. That trainer told me when the dog is eating you want to kick at him and you WANT the dog to growl and snap at you. I asked him " At YOU?" He says yes, it builds a defense drive in the dog.

Then he said anybody who met his dog had to put the dog in a corner and they'd kick at him, he said nopt hard, but kick at him and scream and yell. He said that way the dog doesn't trust and then you have a good defense foundation.

I don't like that idea personally. And I agree with you guys in that bringing him in public is fine, limit the handling and fodling of my dog by strangers.

It seems to me strangers don't think they are ruining a dog when he on his back and laughing and promoting it.

Oh yes, the baby talking you said won't ruin a dog from what you have seen? But when you have women come up to your dog and immediatly think the pupis cute and start the high pitch goo goo gaw gaw talk then as an adult anyone who speaks that way it'll assume its ok. They are a friendly person.

When I was a kid in 4th grade or something, a buddy had a dog that was real protective of the house. He'd bark and growl and such. But the ticket to him being frienly was to talk like that and he won't mess with you... That's where I got that from . And several other dogs break in when you speak like that that I have seen growing up. Hell my mom did that to my dog in high school and anyone could do that and he lower his ears, run up and ready to play. It got asnnoying sometimes... But then again I never nor did my friends parents train the dogs for personal protection either...

Oh yeah that sounds like a GREAT idea! I'm going to go over to someone's house and start kicking at their dog so that it will view me as a threat and possbly try to bite me when I'm not paying attention to it! WONDERFUL ADVICE! :rolleyes:

Aaron
You have been a member of this board since July. I would think that if you had read the forum posts and articles on the leerburg site that you should have recognized that this guy is an idiot. It was your responsibilty to protect your pup from him. I have read some previous post and think you have received some bad advice in the past. Probably from this guy. I agree that you need to start over from scratch. Read all the info on this site. Maybe buy some training videos. Remember your pup is 4 mos old. He needs happy, confidence building exposure to the world. It is your resposibility to see that he gets that. He is a puppy not a protection dog yet. I can tell from your posts that you really want the best for your dog, so slow down. Study up, and develop a training program that works for you. You are going to have him along time make it enjoyable for both of you.
Bob

Yea, I have been here a little while. But his dog was something else from what I have heard. HOw he got the dog to be like that I don't know.

There are a bunch of things we don't agree on. And I am going to just stay away from his advice. His theory on dogs is "when you go to view the puppies, don't pick them ones that are running up to you." He said " Go for the one that's by himself or in the corner. "


His theory is that these are the dogs that will bond better and be a better one on one type of dog. He said for 3 days his dog when brought home as a pup stayed behind the couch vomiting and defercating on itself... Then it started to come around. He said the only people who could touch the dog or give commands was his 2 daughters and himself. His ex-wife fearder of getting bitten.

Another guy I spoke to said that dog was trained tremendously but when he was over the house he' be nervous b/c the dog would be just ready to snap....

So yea, I told him I have no need for a dog that aggresive where I cant invite my own friends over without worrying. But still says I should go through those measures.

I will refrain from that permanently. Don't want to ruin a good dog...

I am going to do some more searching and reading around this site. Theres sooo much information...

This is a joke, right?

Ok, we've gotten enough comments on this thread, and really, John Hohman's comment of "Your trainer is an IDIOT" is so totally correct that nothing more needed to be said there.
Thank, John! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Aaron,
One little bit of advice here about people posting advice - everyone gets to post their advice, as you've seen. You've posted your question wisely in the Protection Training threads, but there are still posters with zero experience in protection training that just feel the need to post their two cents worth of advice. So I'm just saying...pick and choose what advice you take in Protection Threads - 90% of the advice is pretty good here, you've got Police K9 handlers and professional protection dog trainers giving you good advice, and then you've got trainers that just do agility , which requires a dog with a different set of social skills than a protection dog needs.

And with that said...thread closed. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Thanks... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />