I realy would like to see the "unprotected" decoy being hit by a superhard hitting mal with a belgianring muzzle. Especialy if it's a small little one. You know these big devels in miniature form, scraping to get to 25 kg but fast as lightning and afraid of nothing. Man this guy would get some surprise.. I wonder how they would call thier dogs afterwards "Canis pussycat"?

Greetings

Johan

Johan,

Thanks for the link. Obviously I'm not too good at that <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Silly me, this is what I thought they were talking about when I saw the thread title ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

We've done some limited work of this sort with my dog and even with a short send and the decoy wearing a suit top and a hardened vest it definitely hurt... (and my dog is a slow GSD). I can't imagine the damage the fast Mals would do against an unprotected decoy - broken ribs or broken jaw if the dog has the right angle and "skids" up the chest to hit the jaw.

Johan,
Have you done a lot of work like this? Perhaps if you have time, you could breakdown of how you would train for muzzle hits? We've only dabbled at this so far, and I'd love to learn more.

thanks,

Alan...

 Quote:

I realy would like to see the "unprotected" decoy being hit by a superhard hitting mal with a belgianring muzzle. Especialy if it's a small little one. You know these big devels in miniature form, scraping to get to 25 kg but fast as lightning and afraid of nothing. Man this guy would get some surprise.. I wonder how they would call thier dogs afterwards "Canis pussycat"?

Greetings

Johan

Maybe I missed it, but where do these dogs originate from?

We have a bite tug we use from puppy onwards and they are nuts for it. We use it as reward, with the sendaway and recall. The training with muzzle starts realy easy. You have your dog on an aggitation collar/harnas and a long leash. The civile decoy holds your bitetug in front of him and the you aggitate the dog, when he is verry aggitated and wants his toy realy badly you let him go. He'll hit unvollentary and you praise. repeat this once or twice and start doing other things. Don't overdo it. When after several trainingsessions he has grabed the idea you use something smaller as a target, and so on

Greetings

Johan

doesn't this take away the meaning of civil to train a dog that he is just going after a tug when it's suppose to be a civil exercise? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the exercises involving muzzle? If it's sport it's sport, but why have civil exercises in anything that is intended to be a sport? If it's not intended to be totally sport, then why train a dog to engage in muzzle is really getting his tug. Thats not true fight aggression, it's training a trick much like roll over and I'll give you a reward. Hit that man in the chest with your muzzle and I'll give you a reward. This isn't a chew butt post, I just am boggled by that and have been ever since I seen Germaine Pauwels train that that way.

Some ideas as to why this works - just some guesswork.

We teach dogs fundamental ways of working without necessarily pushing them into civil work all the time. For instance, introductory bite work means one thing and is prey oriented, yet it is teaching the dog a fundamental skill that he will use when we push him further into a civil response. In this case, he learns that he can use the muzzle and still win the fight.

In the case where the dog is in the muzzle and presented with a real threat, he has this fundamental to fall back on - and one that can be reinforced by the decoy's reaction and by the dog "winning" the fight.

In the case of my dog, we did no muzzle work until he started defensive work after the age of 2. The muzzle was used to allow the decoy to get into his personal space without getting bit and so the dog would get used to the physical nature of fighting with the decoy. In some cases we would give him a bite on a hidden sleeve.

Later we did some work on using the muzzle as a weapon. I'm not exactly sure how my trainer taught the muzzle hit (even though I was there...). He used a sort of flack-jacket to protect his chest and had me send him.. I think it worked because when the hit him in the chest he'd respond to show the dog that he was winning. It didn't take long for him to get the idea and to consistently target the chest with the muzzle.

We did later work with an open-ended muzzle (so he could only take a 1/2 bite) and a different vest with a bite bar to help the dog learn to target when using the muzzle.

It seems to have worked well (not that he's had a need to use it in real life), but I do think that having taught it as a fundamental skill (as in Johan's description) might have helped him to learn the technique much faster.

For whatever reason it seems to make more sense to the dog than it does to me! lol

The tug is used primaraly so that the dog gets the idea. Secondly it is used for aiming. We train our dogs to hit at the stomache. When they get the idea they go for the person. You have to help them to walk first, afterwards they learn to run. Some will never learn, others become bonecrushers.

Greetings

Johan

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In the case of my dog, we did no muzzle work until he started defensive work after the age of 2. The muzzle was used to allow the decoy to get into his personal space without getting bit and so the dog would get used to the physical nature of fighting with the decoy. In some cases we would give him a bite on a hidden sleeve.

I agree with this approach

 Quote:

Later we did some work on using the muzzle as a weapon. I'm not exactly sure how my trainer taught the muzzle hit (even though I was there...). He used a sort of flack-jacket to protect his chest and had me send him.. I think it worked because when the hit him in the chest he'd respond to show the dog that he was winning. It didn't take long for him to get the idea and to consistently target the chest with the muzzle.

A good decoy can get the dog targeting on the chest or wherever, seems like you had a competent decoy/trainer.

If a dog is civil and ready for muzzle training I'v never had to use a tug to get the dog to learn to target or hit hard. If the dog is fully commited to engaging the civil decoy the hit will be there it's up to the decoy to put him on target. Most dogs hit hard to their suit taught target areas. I don't find it necessary to teach a dog to hit in the center of the chest when that is not his bite target area. But the dog should hit whatever the decoy gives him. As a decoy I put the dog where his handler and I want, if that is the chest it's the chest. I respond in a manner that tells the dog he has won that engagement. Repetition gets him the idea and confidence. I just don't see the need to use a tug in civil training. However, I'm not bashing it everyone has their style and we shouldn't bash someone elses methods, I just have not been able to concieve that method, but have never had anyone who uses it be able to articulate why, so to me, I was left with the possibility that it helps the dog look good by turning it into a prey exercise.

In BR the targetted areas for a bite are lower leg and lower arm. THe target for the muzzle is the chest. One blow and return to the object the dog gards. We put great emphasis on a "good" hit which includes changing the required targetarea from arm/leg to chest. And i can assure you that once they have gotten the message most off them will go for the man and the tug/target isn't used anymore

Greetings


Johan