I only comment because this discussion is in the police dog section. Anytime I see the term "bark and hold" and Police dog on the same page, it makes me nervous. You might, and you would be correct, guess that I"m opposed to it, for a working Police dog. In my business, the dog bites when commanded and stops only when commanded. The dog will not lunge, chase, bark and snarl, just because someone looks suspicious or threatening. The laws I have to operate within do not include suspicion, as a criminal offense. Ok, now I feel better, by the way the comment about "native language" was really funny. Thank you for the laugh.

DFrost

Drew, Why in the world would you want a police dog to raise &*ll in your patrol car. When I had my first working dog I thought it would be cool to have 80 lbs of teeth gnashing, furry psyco in the back seat. What a mistake! The only thing I have to show for it is bad hearing. It took me all of one week to get sick of the whole noise thing and I never really got him to stop.
You mentioned that your dog is only 21 months old. I wouldnt get in a hurry to make him car aggressive, He'll learn soon enough on his own once he gets some experience. My current partner of 2 1/2 years is just showing signs of this bad habit even though I constantly correct him when he looks like he is going to cut loose for no good reason.
Given that, I do have the same problem as you as far as him not being very vocal in prey but he does a fantastic job on the street and training is just pure fun. Ive found that if the helper is visible but unaccessible in a building search he wont bark until he has tried every way he can to get to the helper. When that fail he will then bark. Audibles come easy if the helper is out of sight. Ive tried him on a tie back but as soon as he sees the equipment he goes silent. Good luck in your law enforcement endeavor.

Drew

Please do not take this personal:

Very – very Few dogs I have trained in pray drive ever bark, but almost all do in defense, as far as ED’s suggestion, well – you are on the police training page, so you will get advice from our separate perspective and if you doe that to any police dog as a civilian here you can get criminally charged., so yes it’s to say the least – NOT ON, police cars come fitted with sirens, we do not want yet another one, that keeps going day in and out, it only makes your blood pressure rise.

However, what I do want is a dog that will react to a Threat.

Do not teach this type of behavior, if you have people or kids in the car the dog will bull doze them, and scratch them, you may even loose control of your vehicle – it’s all MACHO bull, the dog must work on command as far as I am concerned.

Be warned that this type of behavior transcends the car later on, and the dog will get more confident in his ability to scare with mock attacks and become a menace that wants to eat any thing that come to close. Even out side the car.

From experience I can tell you that even if your dog attacked the man when you opened the door that it must have been a medium to faint attack, if the dog had confidence it would have easily had gone through the side window, the first time you pulled that prank, or the agitator would have had his face re-arranged against that cars window and roof- with out a lot of effort breaking the glass. Well if you carry on doing this foolish thing the dog will soon be able to this, if you don’t believe me ask any k9 unit near you why the have bars on the kennel doors – is this honestly what you want.

Find a good trainer!, and you will save your self a lot of hear ache and money, and maybe even get to work a dog.

The reasoning behind the car "prank" was to see if she would produce a bark when threatened. I realize my mistake, and the helper's mistake. I have read endlessly on the subject and have come up with some ways to work the bark out of her without using such a threat, it will be a process. I do not want a dog that will go psycho at the mere sight of someone approaching the car, and honestly I would prefer she not bark in the car. The car was just used for that particular exercise. But as it was said, I DO WANT A DOG THAT WILL RESPOND TO A THREAT! The purpose behind the exercise was to see if she would. She responded appropriately, all things considered (first time in the exercise), in my opinion. On the bite after release from the car, she hit the helper so hard it knocked him to the ground. She bit solid, and full, it was not a half ass bite, I can assure you. As for not going through the window.....well I think it could be a matter of time... and that is why the car exercise is out of the picture now. She goes through fence boards with ease, literally breaking them in half, so I can see how easy it would be with the glass. Honestly I am surprised she hasn't yet. My wife has a cat that will sit at the sliding glass door, and just watch the dog. Nika (my dog) will go nuts trying to get at this cat. It probably is a matter of time before she comes through the glass. Kind of a scary thought.

I am learning bit by bit, and doing the best I can with what I have to work with. I have to rely on a lot of reading and the advice of others as to the proper training techniques. Some advice has been great, some not so great but useful, and some terrible. If I had the money, and felt 100% certain it would be a good idea, I would send this dog away to complete the training. I have looked into it, and have mixed feelings. My trainer, who was trained by Wendell Nope (Utah POST) advised me that the dog is too far along to send her away. He feels that it would be more detrimental than good. He feels she is too far along with me to recondition her to someone else for 8 or more weeks. He feels she is actually doing better than many dogs he has seen on the street, which tells me she has potential, but also that there are a lot of dogs that need complete and competant training.

The bottom line is that I am going to have to do nearly all of the training on my own. I am only able to train with my trainer once every 3 or so months. The rest I do on my own, with consideration for the advice I have received. There are no local clubs or trainers to work with, just me, the dog, and the occassional helper. The only way I could even afford to send this dog off for the training and subsequent certification would be to trade a litter of pups for it. Who is going to take the litter in return for the training and certification?

This particular dog is quiet during training. Perhaps that is just how it is, maybe it will change as she trains more. I do not know how she will act on the street, as we are not to that level yet. Maybe then a bark would be more prevalent, who knows. In the mean time I have decided that the bark is perhaps less important than other areas. Her tracking is coming along and she enjoys it, and the bite work is great. I would just like her to bark on command and at legitimate threats, that is all. More comments are welcome! Thanks

Drew, Sounds like you have a tough road ahead if you only see your trainer every 3 months or so. You say you want tour dog to bark on command. That is a relatively simple task which takes some dogs longer to learn than others. Ive found that if you put the dog into a training situation that requires her to bark, you should give the bark command ( whichever you prefer) when it comes time in the scenario for her to alert/bark. She sounds like this should be no problem as she should bark on her own. At that time tons of praise is in order when she barks after the command is given. At first the dog will be clueless as to what she is actually doing but repetitions should make a little light go off in her head when she finally realizes that she is getting praised for being vocal, not only for the required alert in the scenario, but also for making dad happy when she cuts loose after the command. There may be easier ways to accomplish this task but I find it works well when you are working with the dog instead of trying to force it to do something that she has no clue what you want.
Like I said before, with experience comes elevated performance. All dogs have a different threat threshhold and it is up to you to find out where your dog stands in that aspect.
A good indicator would be to closely observe the helper or the person who sets off your dog, what their demeanor is, how they move , speach patterns etc. You wont always catch what body language from a stranger or helper pisses of your partner because even to this day my partner sometimes lights up on folks for who knows what reason. Some things are just a mystery. Good luck.

Sounds like the car is being used as a mobile table to me.

Mobile table training......not by intent.....and no longer......

The problem is in real life you can't ask the perp to slap your dog across the nose so he gets fired up. If the dog doesn't do this without being placed in the car or being slapped, its time to start looking for something else. It would be a danger to work for yourself and the dog. What this will cause is the dog to either go into complete avoidance, or look at every person even passive ones as a threat. And now you have yourself a liability.

I think it is important to remember that I have introduced very little defense into the training thus far and that this dog is very strong nerved. It takes alot to cause her stress, and is perhaps why she didn't react until I had the helper go hands on, after which she went into overdrive. I will work my way into it. I realize the car bit was not a good exercise, and I have other means of producing that bark in a non-threatening way, however, it showed me that she will defend herself and me in that type situation. I agree, I do not want a dog that is going to look at everyone as a threat, and I really don't think she is that temperment anyway. She is eager to please and very protective, also high in prey drive. She thrives when pushed, but I don't think that protective instinct should be exploited, at the cost of her nerves, or all we've established thus far. I want to push her.....but not to the point I break her. She has come too far. Again, all I want is to have her bark on command during training exercises. She is vocal, but not then. Also, are there any additional thoughts on if she showed avoidance?

I would try different scenarios. Maybe instead of being out of sight, you could be right there with her to give her confidence. The helper could work in small steps, just making eye contact at first, peeking around a blind, car, etc. When she shows just the slightest bit of confidence, give her lots of praise, and when she barks, give her the bark command and more praise. But I would keep these little "fights" small and always end them on a good note.

I remember you mentioned when she was working against the helper all by herself, she would glance in your direction, looking for you(her pack leader). But if she's with the rest of her pack, it's not "I'm gonna kick his a--", but it's "We're gonna kick his a-- together". And pretty soon, she will have no problem taking care of business all by herself. And she'll bark every time she sees the "bad guy", and not so much at a harmless somebody just walking by.

The helper must be a good actor though, acting unsure of what he's up against. He shouldn't be so much the aggressor, and not bring all the heat at once. There shouldn't be any rush to give her a bite. After all, during the first steps, she'll scare the helper away before he gets close enough if it's done correctly. As a matter of fact, in the real world, a strong barking dog is usually all it takes to stop a criminal. And she'll learn that her bark has tremendous power when executed.