It is unfortunate that today we see the idea that a dog can do schutzhund in 100% prey and get great scores. First, this should be a wrong statement, and second it should be made wrong by the judges using their stated standards and by the decoy who can show that a dog can indeed fight. This isn't always the case. Often the decoys are simply rabbits and in this country th decoy who is the best rabbit is smiled upon and the decoy who shows the holes in the dog frowned upon. A good trial decoy should scare the crap out of 100% prey dog. Then we would see the dog's grip get small or at least an unwillingness to let go of the prey if the dogs nerves are good (this is why the out is so important).
The use prey is training is not so much of a question as how well the sport dog handles the pressure forcing it into fighting or defense and how well the dog handles that and recovers from it. This selects for dogs that are able to work with enjoyment in a combative circumstance.

One poster refers to the switch from defense as one being more enjoyable....here is the heart of people's misunderstanding. A high quality dog LIKES to do combat, it is enjoyable. It is not a question of enjoying one over the other. Of course most humans see combat as a tragic event, a result of criminal behavior, a abnormal blip on the screen of society. First, some humans like combat (we sometimes call them heros) and those in dog sports should recognize that for a dog to be a hero it must like combat. Like other creatures including ourselves we can teach self-defense. A reaction to being threatened. But, we seek out the dogs that enjoy combat as well as the humans that enjoy it nd seem fulfilled by it to be the hero. Yet, modern breeding and sport proactices are minimizing the number of animals that can work this way. It is a sad fact that we have less and less GSD's which like combat. Unless the public which owns and trials the dogs recognizes the difference and desires to produce heroes we will not have them anymore. The PC approach to dogs of relegating them to prick eared Golden Retrievers retrieving a over sized bumper on a helpers arm will be what becomes of SchH and IPO.
No a defensive dog with good prey is not a great police dog although it might be a passable one. No a huge prey monster is not a great police dog although it might be a passable one. The dog with great fighting instincts, the deep enjoyment of combat, the desire to meet a challenger head on, is a great police dog. It is also the very finest of the sport dogs which can show power in the barking, can show hard firm grips, and if trained correctly, can show full grips in sports competition as well. They just happen to be fewer in numbers and harder to breed.

 Quote: John J. Miller

This is an interesting discussion. From what I've been told, a dog can do an entire protection routine 100% in prey (barking included at a higher pitch) and provided all exercises are done correctly should receive a 99 point score even at high level events.

My personal opinion is that it is important to train in defense, and not just for a serious bark and hold. Most of us live with our dogs in the every day world, and if something happens that puts them into defense drive I want to be able to retain control and recognize it immediately while KNOWING what the dog will do as well as exactly what the dogs threshold for defense is. Having an experienced helper that knows how to introduce defense properly is priceless. Our TD starts with defense of the prey object at a relatively young age (when the dog is ready - which is different for every dog) moving on to drive switching depending on the picture the helper shows the dog (defense when squared up challenging the dog and prey when moving side to side). How much of that is solely defense and how much is the beginning stages of fight/aggression can be debatable from dog to dog. In addition, the dogs are taught that the MOST DANGEROUS of helper is the trial (limp, dead and without any reaction at all in the blind) helper by how hard the helper fights after the bite - and what that helper does if the dog dares to look away or lose interest.

Defense can be used initially, but hopefully you can channel defense into prey. I have seen this personally with my dog Diesel, as he was almost 4 years old when we started with him and would not remain interested in the game unless we made it more real for him. My TD then channeled that into prey and soon did not need to use much defense.

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Defense can be used initially, but hopefully you can channel defense into prey.

this is what is confusing me.
we dont want to work a dog in defense all the time, but we want to know that the dog can work in defense. by the end of the dogs initial training, what is the drives we're looking for the dog to be working in?

 Quote: mary roach

this is what is confusing me.
we dont want to work a dog in defense all the time, but we want to know that the dog can work in defense. by the end of the dogs initial training, what is the drives we're looking for the dog to be working in?

I am going to take a crack at answering this. Let me first say that this is a very in depth discussion about drives in mature dogs during protection work, and it is approaching a level that could go over my head. I have had a "crash course" on this topic since I started working with my 4 year old Diesel 8 months ago. I will do my best to explain what I have seen and experienced.

The short answer is that you want the dog to be in the correct drive depending on what the decoy/helper is showing him. In the example you have quoted in regards to channeling defense into prey, it was referring to getting my dog to engage with the helper. He is an adult, and a very confident adult. With some mature dogs (and especially other breeds than the GSD or mal it seems), it's much harder to get them interested in a bite pillow or sleeve just as a prey object. A puppy or young dog is much easier to convince to engage in pure prey drive. With Diesel, he spent the first almost two months coming on the field for protection and ignoring the helper. Eventually his prey drive would kick in a bit, and then would bark, chase and bite. Then we switched it up a bit, and made the helper more of a threat by squaring up with him and using the stick as a mental threat. The second the helper made contact with the stick (just mild contact - again mental threat) he lit up like a Christmas tree, was rewarded with a bite and then the picture was transitioned to prey (side to side movement, escape movement etc.). A picture of defense brought out strength and the desired reaction, but that was then channeled into prey work. Like others have said, prey work with a serious dog is not a game, and can be very powerful especially when transitioned to prey rom defense. As training progresses drive switching is achieved by using two long lines - one on a prong collar and one on an agitation collar or harness. When the helper shows a picture of prey (side to side movement or movement away from the dog) the agitation collar line is held. When the helper squares up and moves towards the dog the prong line is held. The dog associates the prong stimulation with the helper and helps trigger the switch to defense. You see a big difference in barking instantaneously. As others have mentioned the threshold for defense in a dog can increase as more confidence is gained, which is not an issue since it seems in those dogs (at least in my case) that "lower defense threshold" is replaced with the desire to dominate and fight the helper.

Others who are more qualiied than I will chime in I'm sure. I'm interested to see their opinions.

Mary, if you missed this link that Natalya posted for a question about 'civil', it's well worth reading this thread from a year ago. Look at Chris Duhon's posts and his links to pictures. I think this may be applicable to this discussion...
(btw, this has been a very interesting topic, even for someone like me who has no experience in schutzhund)

http://leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/152175/page/0/fpart/1

(sorry in advance if I've posted something that doesn't contribute to this thread!)

Are we back to the idea that prey and defense is all that exists in the work of a dog in protection sports??

Please get this...if a dog is only reacting to the behavior of a decoy it is a piss poor sport dog. If it can only react to a decoy it is also either a poor dog or a poorly trained one.

When we look at the top end of this work the dog brings to the work power born from its innate desire to do combat. Although virtually all dogs that have this characteristic (often called fighting instinct or the desire to do combat) then the dog will present itself using these characteristic to accomplish the tasks at hand to include the guard and bark and the counter to the pressure from the decoy under the drive and the stick.

It is only by showing this desire do we have a great Guard and Bark exc. it is the litmus test of quality in a dog. If it guards through self defense it will normally have piss poor grips (although in some lines modern breeding seems to have circumvented this to an extend under the drastically reduced pressures from the decoy in the modern sport), if it guards by the desire to flush prey it will have a less than convincing bark and often will be coupled with a lessening grip under the pressure a decent decoy will give it in the drives under the stick and through the decoys presence in the long grip and subsequent re-attack.

The whole point here is what the dog brings to the table when it comes around the the blind, without stimulation from a decoy, it should look the decoy in the face (the source of the challenge) and through intense serious barking tell the bad guy in the blind he/she is ready to do combat. Not that it is afraid and will bite if provoked not that it is anxious to get on with chasing prey so move for me cause I know that's what is coming...yap yap yap (flushing prey which you can hear from a hound chasing a raccoon on the ground).

It seems that all too often people are stuck with the idea that the dog must defend or make prey. But, this is a anthropomorphic view. It pervades our sports and waters down the breeds in them. It takes away from the greatness the working breeds have achieved.

One may try to say it is simply semantics but it is not. It was once quite well recognized in the schutzhund sport when a dog had a courage and fighting instinct rating of up to 10 points that was recorded in their scorebook.
Advertisements for stud dogs featured "always 10 points" to establish the quality of the dog. Relegating it to the currents courage rating of pronounced, satisfactory, and insufficient has been the worst thing to have ever happened to the GSD.

Only by making sure that this incredibly important trait is recognized for what it is and promoted in the breeding of the dogs can we salvage the working line GSD.

 Quote: Kevin Sheldahl

Are we back to the idea that prey and defense is all that exists in the work of a dog in protection sports??

Please get this...if a dog is only reacting to the behavior of a decoy it is a piss poor sport dog. If it can only react to a decoy it is also either a poor dog or a poorly trained one.

The only person focusing on prey and defense alone was admittedly not experienced and said she was asking a question. I know I talked about fight/aggression.

In regards to reacting to the decoy, I was referring to training. How else do you train protection if the decoy is not showing the dog different pictures in order to get a response from the dog in different drives?

Good question!The goal is that the handler initiates the choreography, the sequence of events that tells the dog what they are doing and the decoy reacts to the dog. Of course early training does take a decoy to quickly make a transition from producing a response in the dog to responding to the dog. The higher the quality of the dog, the greater the fighting instinct in the dog the easier and more quickly this happens.
All too often the training in the sport is impatient and driven by human desires to make it work. It becomes reactive on the dogs part and never changes from that. A good decoy learns to respond to the dog and not to simply push to get a response. Of course there are dogs in the sport that cannot work well this way...I will keep this in the catagory of dogs that have the ability to perform well in the apprehension portion of the work. Many club dogs take a lot of tweaking, and I also do this but it is important that everyone in the arena of working dogs understand that when the decoy is the motor behind the dog and not the other way around this is second best in regards to both training and the quality of the dogs.
I would never not train with a club dog because it cannot do it the best way, if that were the case our clubs would be smaller than they already are and where would enthusiasts come from that hooked on this sport and go out and help us as a community by finding those great dogs that should be worked and bred?

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The goal is that the handler initiates the choreography, the sequence of events that tells the dog what they are doing and the decoy reacts to the dog.

Would you give me an example of how the handler would initiate the choreography of a training session?

You're going to have to elaborate a little on that question, because I'm not really tracking.