Richard, Your previous post is fantastic advice.
Let's hope everyone that has a dog or dogs takes your advice. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Butch
Check your PM
Ron

What if the tv repair man knocks you over the head with a wrench, renders you unconscious and then says the down command to your dog that you just gave 30 seconds earlier?

This is silly. If you have done ANY level of protection training. . .aggression directed at the handler or the handler's family is going to be an instant cue for the dog to engage. I haven't had any dogs following decoy's commands, but we still proof the dogs against them in training. . .I guess cuz its tradition.

The only time a dog outs is when I give the out command, or sometimes to engage another attacker in situations with multiple aggressive subjects. That is the way I train my protection dogs. I also don't train dogs to out on an attacker gone passive any more, but I do train an out on an non-passive decoy. (thats food for another thread though)

This is the way I deal with other people giving commands in every day situations. . .if the dog wants to respond I don't give a crap, if he doesn't want to respond I don't give a crap. Not something I train for either way, with the exception of proofing verbal crap during protection. Very often my dogs will sit for just about anybody as long as they are introduced properly. . .down sometimes. . .and won't respond to any commands in the face of a bad guy unless they are mine.
I'm the only one they have to deal with if they don't, get it? Why listen to anybody else? LOL

Commands from other people during protection training is such a non-issue, I guess so far I've been lucky because I have had enough problem getting my dogs to listen to ME in protection. . .let alone the decoy or some other joker. (sign of a good dog really)

These are good reasons to use German commands, or any other language to prevent someone else from directing your dog.

The hand signals are the same, and most dogs trained in German will respond to English any way. The language is a non-issue. German is primarily used for tradition, and it sounds cool. In the club I train in the dogs have been trained in German, English, Spanish, Korean, and Dutch. In most cases the dog will respond to tone of voice as much as anything else. The other night I was very tired and gave the dog the totaly wrong command in protection, she bit any way.

Tone of voice and who is saying it, AND who has reinforced the command make all the difference.

I don't think it is something to worry about. . .other people giving your dog commands in a high drive high stress protection situation doesn't work. Dogs are not machines that learn an all encompassing on/off switch command. Aus isn't a magic word, they learn the command based on the context it is trained in. Your voice, your commands, your reinforcements, under certain conditions. . .They are not going to listen to the guy that just hit you or climbed into your window. In fact it might just get them bit faster. . .