Hi everyone,
this is my first post and I must say so far the reading has been great and educational.
I do have a question though based on this

>>The third counter is the dog growling, shaking or thrashing the rag or sleeve, and taking it to the ground to kill it. This counter is defense/aggression; not necessarily a good thing to reinforce depending on what you are trying to teach the dog. Especially if this is a young dog. The grip is usually not full and firm either. And, if the helper reinforces this behavior by slipping the sleeve then expect a nervy dog when the fight goes on too long. A good helper will channel the dog back into prey/aggression or calm the dog before releasing the rag or sleeve.
A good helper is essential.<<

I have seen extremely hard deep and firm biting dogs bite and shake and growl and there is not a bit of nerve in the dog. In fact decoys ask to work the dog and thank the owner for letting them work him. Am I misunderstanding what your saying here and if not could you please explain.
thanks,
tracey

Tracey,

I would disagree with that statement. The behavior described is a prey behavior. It also tends to be breed spevic to a certain extent, Pits and Mastif type breeds tend to do this a lot. In some cases dogs that have been allowed to play alone will also do thins to "re-animate" a toy. I have a couple of dogs that will do this and then throw the toy so they can chase it again.

That is too funny, because I got the perfect video of my dog doing something like that just the other day! He has a big rubber ball on a rope that he thrashes around. But the ball just swings around and hits him, so he gets all pissed off and thrashes it even more, which in turn, the ball hits him harder...and before long he's got himself in such a tizzy over it. :rolleyes:

Sorry, I'm off the topic, and maybe I'm the only one sitting here laughing to myself, but I thought it was funny. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />