Quote: The dogs also, are required to bite in what I call pressureless areas, the shins, knees to ankles, and forearm, elbow to wrist.

Wow, legs are pressureless? We need to talk about that one!!! With the style that the BR decoys use, the dog either brings it, or doesn't and is not influenced by the decoy and in my opinion, shows the dog for what he is. As far as prey or defense, that is one of those things that I disagree with most people. If the dog was showing defense, after years of doing this work, then again in my opinion he is not breeding quality. These exersizes are done over and over. There is a good degree of desensitization because of this. As far as pressure goes, we put the weaker dogs on the upper body in ring. Many cannot handle the "pressureless" leg bites. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Personally I think that a lot of people put the dogs on the upper body because it looks more impressive. I just don't see that. IF you think a bit outside the box, whats more scary, a small portion of the body over you?? Or the entire upper body??

I don't see GSD's being able to do this work without a lot of extra training. I don't see a lot of GSD's with the drive needed to do many parts of this work. The other thing is that there is more money with sch titles making the extra work not financially rewarding.

Ok, Mr. Evil one, I should have put the Less before the word pressure and not after. I don't mean that there isn't any pressure in those areas. Pressure as in what a dog naturally feels when he is biting on the man/suit, but there is IMO considerably more natural pressure on a dog when he bites in the armpit, bi's, tri's and chest. One thing I have seen with a top and bottom dog that I will use as this one example, was he was ALOT more confident and comfortable on the legs versus when he would go up top to the chest and had hard face to face pressure from the decoy. The legs offered him an opportunity to not have to face that hard eye, face contact with the decoy. I wouldn't want to get bit anywhere by a real dog legs or upperbody, but if I'm fighting for my life because some killer got ahold of me I'd rather him be on my legs, so I have all my upperbody strength and balance to beat the hell out of him while he is down there. It's alot more awkward to beat off a serious dog who is deep in your armpit, not to mention he has emobilized one arm and your left fighting him one handed. I think more people put dogs up top because they like I feel it slightly minimizes the dangers in a real life protection scenario. For the record I'm not bashing BR I think it's a great "SPORT". I find myself watching my BR videos more than any other when I just want to watch some entertainment vids.

The topic has strayed slightly but keep at it guys, very good information here. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Thanks to all the suggestions by the way. Time to think long and hard about my next dog. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Sooooo, here is another little stinky for you to figure. Very easy to esquive and deny the upper body weasels. Now the leg dogs just grab the pivot, and viola you are screwed. And to add more joy, if you manage to esquive them, notice how many dogs start targeting the pecious jewels????? Fight that off! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /><img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

As far as fighting off a dog, think of those leg dogs ripping those cute little tendons that we use for semi important things, like remaining upright. Meanwhile, Mr. armpit dog you just grab his cute little head and fall down. OOOOPPPss there goes his thinker.

The leg dog going up is more likely a training thing.

Quote:but if I'm fighting for my life because some killer got ahold of me I'd rather him be on my legs, so I have all my upperbody strength and balance to beat the hell out of him while he is down there.

There is your answer for why we put the weaker dogs on the upper body. What?? think they don't see that as well? That is why they are weaker. (leg dogs are possibly dumber) My dog's dumb butt doesn't like to turn his head, he likes to look at you while biting on the leg. Feel free to put your face down there, as he doesn't care. (freak-boy dog)

And I still think that a GSD is not likely to do this sport. Or at least that you will find the 1 in a million that will do it. Sure there are AB's that do ring and Sch, but they are truely a small percentage, to give an example.
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Jeff, one thing to think about with the dogs that are trained for upper body bites - their training is "enhanced" by good muzzle training done on a regular basis. Center of mass attacks are much harder to dodge than a dog that is trying to commit to an arm bite.

A few points. NVBK dogs, from an early point on, are thought that they are, with the exception of the handler, the strongest thing alive on this planet. In fact they are bred for it. From 4 months on they start fighting to win. Call it fight drive/defence what you like but the game off hunting is over.

After the initial bites on a verry small puppysleeve this sleeve is put vertical and when their mouths are big enough replaced by a "removable" legsleeve. All NVBK dogs start on the leg. Only the "weaker" ones are put in the arm. "Weaker" can mean physical or mental.

Physical: if the dogs body isn't capable off handling the impact off the legbite he is put in the arm

Mental: imagin that you're fighting a giant that is towering 3 stories above you. This is what a legdog is feeling. An armdog is at an equal hight as the decoy so he persieves him as less treathning.

As off no pressure from the decoy?? How come that dogs from other programs, and this without exception, that come to try our training are run off the field. And lesser dogs from our program that are submitted to the same excercise/pressure aren't? If there weren't any pressure this wouldn't be the case.

Got a bit more time to add something. In the previous post i mentionned other programs this includes policedogs with professional handlers

Someone said that in belgium they train muzzlework with an open muzzle. This is done sporadicly. (you need additional material). We use a normal muzzle and a cloth and let the dog go for it. After the first hit he is called off. The cloth is made smaller in time and the dog knows where to hit. We don't train much with the muzzle and start late because we want our dogs to hit hard (hard enough to brake bones if not taken correctly) and we want to avoid that the dog hurts himself and refuses to hit in the future.

Greetings


Johan

I love ya Will, but I disagree that muzzle training is going to keep a decoy from getting away from the upper body dogs. Too much training for the arms, and not enough in the muzzle. The dogs initial conditioning for the bite from early on is the arm. By the time they get old enough to do muzzle work, that arm is pretty stuck in their head.

The big thing that I see here so often, is they will take a strong puppy, and train it for the bicep/crook of the elbow. To me this is really bad targeting. You get a quick decoy in FR and that dog is gonna lose a lot of points. He will hold that arm out, and esquive, esquive, esquive.

It takes less dog to do the upper body. If you never do the legs, you will not see this, and not every upper body dog is weak, just badly targeted <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> Dang ring <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />sports makin me type.

And I still doubt I will see a GSD in the BR in my lifetime.

Jeff,
I had a male that I had done a little FR training with, before I went straight ASR with him. He was an upperbody dog and he was very, very difficult to esquive. Some of it was natural, but it can be taught a bit to not launch. He ran right up to you and then traced your body up into the bite. He naturally picked up on a pivot also. If you pivoted on him at the last minute, he would nail you in the ribs or armpit of the side you pivoted on. Most of all those adjustments were natural to him, and I just kinda sat back for the ride. Now if you have an upperbody KNPV launcher, you may have to do some training to get the dog to stop launching and come up to and into the bite.

I'm with your evil plan for a ring take over, but your going to divide your movement there dr. evil if you start a campaigne to convert all dogs to legs. Read my lips, "Legs s**k" <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />