Mila,
I understand your situation to a degree in the Philippines.
However, I also had a very good friend who was a Military Advisor like myself murdered there by terrorists. And it would have required a very high level dog to have given him the few seconds that might have saved his life.
The "stable" ppd would have simply been killed along with him, rather than perhaps giving him the edge for survival.



Col. James "Nick" Rowe
U.S. Army Special Forces
21 April 1989 R.I.P.
A true American Hero and Patriot

will,

I'm sorry to hear bout that will, i agree your friend is a true hero and patriot not only to the american people but to all those nations he served.

 Quote:

Mila...very interesting topic. There's a big difference between a PPD, and what you want IT to do and a sport or PSD, and what they do. This difference is hugely accentuated if you train a PPD using only defense.

 Quote:

i dont quiet get it can you explain further

 Quote:

PSD and sport dogs sometimes need to cover a bunch of ground, or they need to use their nose to "catch" their PREY.

Defense ONLY works in close. That's it...only in close.

If it's a long bite...defense may (and should, along with fight drive) pick up markedly when the dog is on the man, but it's not the main driver during pursuits.

For personal and close protection, though, decent bites are possible to obtain with the majority of decent working dogs in defense...and that may be all you want.


To teach a dog to find a man in a building and then bite him you'll be using a bunch of prey drive...even if you don't think it's apparent. It's prey drive.

Some...very exceptional...dogs will take the fight to a man that's far away. Not many of these are available. Most will use prey, and a history of winning confrontations, to go long distances.

Then there's the issue of teaching a dog HOW to fight. You've seen it in the wild a million times. All predators play fight. This is very important. The only way to play fight with your dog - to build him up - is to use prey drive. This drive helps overcome stress due to obstacles, surfaces, multiple attackers, dark, confined spaces, elevation, off positions, etc., etc. THEN you get into the real deal, with a trained fighter.

You can also do it with defense, but it will take longer, you'll stress the heck out of your dog...that is, assuming your dog can take it. There is a tremendous attrition rate with this method. TRue, that if you find a dog that will do all that, at a distance, using fight drive, not defense, you'll have a very exceptional dog.

I have never seen one that doesn't switch into prey during the pursuit.

 Quote:

what i do know our dogs can cover ground, can swim to get cross a river, can climb uphill on a rocky mountain and then engages the decoy, not necessarily with one crushing bite but with multiple punture wounds and lacerations that will leave the perpetuator bleeding to death IF NEEDED. though we dont believe we should send a dog in that situation we work it to cover the "what if's". Now if that bad guy is 50m away from me, i would rather turn my back and run away with my life together with my dog.

 Quote:

Finally, and this is important, dogs don't transfer biting (with good decoys, that is) a fast moving tug or sleeve...which is what they see as "prey", to biting running children. Dogs that will chase and bite running children...or everything else, for that matter, have that instinct IN them...from birth and genetics. You can and should extinguish that BEHAVIOR, but if the drive's in the dog, in the short run you will not eliminate it. You can only SUPPRESS it. Obviously, as I said, you can extinguish the behavior in the long run. This association between tugs, sleeves and children does not exist. If a dog chases a tug, it will also chase a child. If you teach it NOT to chase a child, and you teach it TO CHASE a tug, it will only chase tugs, and so on.

 Quote:

its normal to see children playing ball, throwing it around, running to get it again. that happen in our last training day. Our dogs dont bother playing with them, it just dont excite them.

 Quote:

So: 1)I think it's very incorrect for dogs to be trained to bite using only defense, because they are unduly stressed,2) Practically all dogs that will hunt a man for a bite, will do it in prey anyway,3)Teaching dogs fighting technique using prey is a million times more effective, and 4)Using prey for training doesn't automatically translate to "Bite children that are running". That last part was an ingredient in the soup to begin with.

though we cant eliminate prey totally, we dont train to enhance it either.

Mila...after having seen over 700 dogs pass through our El Salvador facility - I have learned at least one thing...and that is TO KEEP AN OPEN MIND. I'm not knocking what you do. In all honesty, I find it very interesting.

Frankly, what I mean to say is that a dog trained to bite using only defense, needs to be a very good dog to begin with, and in quite expert hands.

From a PPD standpoint - and regarding a "bad person" 75 m. away, picture the following scenario:

You come out of your house with your dog, to play with your 12 yr old kid in the yard, only to see your kid being persuaded away by a woman. They are 75 m away.

If you send your dog, what will be the predominant drive to get to the woman? Assume that your dog cannot identify the 12 yr old as your son, because he's not screaming, the wind's in the wrong direction, and you don't want to make a bunch of noise because the woman and your kid are 15 m from a strange car.

We have used this scenario with a muzzled dog, and the pursuit part is in prey. So I think it's important to develop prey. Prey IS NOT play. Instinctively, dogs understand that prey can be dangerous. Good decoys are essential for this.

The difference between Sport and PSD, and some PPD, is that the first two must oftentimes chase, and the latter, oftentimes is simply expected to defend against an attack...not necessarily to pursue.

When you speak of your dogs, and what they do, I think I understand where you're coming from, and I can only say that I find your training philosophy very interesting...and that I cannot opine on specifics because I don't know enough.

At the end of the day, I cannot bring myself to say there is only ONE way...

I would be very interested in discussing this further, so perhaps you could email me and we can take it from there.

I have started training again recently, and the required dog applications have become a bit more complex. I would like to enrich our knowledge as much as possible.

I for one would like to say that hearing about the needs and goals of PPD's from forum members who reside in a country other than the U.S. gives all of us a unique chance to learn something new.
I watch these posts very closely and with high interest.....

 Quote:

Can a pup who is raised and trained properly with a only a moderate amount of prey drive but stronger defense/territorial drives be a suitable dog for only home personal protection ????

Of course it can, you have to use the dogs natural gifts in training and adapt your trainingstyle to what is most suited for a particular dog. You don´t need preydrive to have an succesfull PP and homedefence, there are many dogs working as guard or securitydogs with little preydrive.

Dog training is not black and white, there are different strategies to reach your goal. But of course you must know what you are doing when training a dog for real life, why have a PP-dog if someone lack the skill to train and keep such a dog in a safe and good way. PP-dogs should in most cases only be trained and owned by people really needing such a dog in my opinion.

Sorry Stig, I disagree with you here. The dogs with low or non-exsistant prey drive that are working as PP or home defense dogs are not reliable protectors and fall more into the category of "junkyard" dogs then PPD's that a knowledgable client would buy here in the U.S.

The majority of dogs that you describe may put up a good display at a fence or barrier, but will retreat when pressed - hence they offer mostly bluff. God Forbid if the client actually has determined and well trained enemies, they'll go through that dog like a hot knife through butter.

Well, lets put it this way then. All mentaltraits a dog has interacts with each other somehow, prey,defence,nerves,courage and so on. I mean we must look at the whole picture, and not if a dog
has a preydrive that isn´t so great. For a strictly homedefence and PP dog prey is not so important like the PSD that have various tasks and does a lot of enduring nosework.

If a dog naturally tends to use his aggression before prey I see no use to "force" him to work with his preydrive, and perform a lot of preygames already from the puppyage. Not all trainers use that approach, lots of preygames and then introduce some defence when the dog is mature. Some just wait till the dog is mature enough and starts the training serious from the start, but of course this type of training must be adapted to the dogs genetic ability and maturity, a good trainer that really can read dogs is crucial. The dog´s abiliyt to use his preydrive and fightdrive also come naturally with this type of training when the dog gain confidence when learning to dominating the helper. But of course not all dogs have great genetics and great hard grips, and for some more preydrive promotion is needed then for others.

At least this approach is what I have been told when discussing training for serious PP and securitydogs with knowledgeable people working with that type of dogs.
But it´s just one method of many I guess.

Sorry Stig, I disagree with you here. The dogs with low or non-exsistant prey drive that are working as PP or home defense dogs are not reliable protectors and fall more into the category of "junkyard" dogs then PPD's that a knowledgable client would buy here in the U.S.

-----
Can you tell me what you mean when you label a dog "junkyard". im not questioning your judgement sir, but i think you haven't seen enough of those dogs that got low or non-existent prey drive that work as PPD's.
-----

The majority of dogs that you describe may put up a good display at a fence or barrier, but will retreat when pressed - hence they offer mostly bluff. God Forbid if the client actually has determined and well trained enemies, they'll go through that dog like a hot knife through butter.

------
I always think that what you describe here is a Sportdog wanna be Real Protection Dog.
------