Matt,

One thing to keep in mind about how dogs learn is that they learn in terms of context. They are also poor at generalizing things. Ever seen a dog that was out and the owner said, "I don't undestand why his obedience is so bad, it is perfect at home?" The dog has learned that you have to follow the obedience at home and not at other places. That is why people recomend doing obedience in many places.

The person in the blind is a context the dog understands. If it has had the agitator create a defensive situation in that context, it will engage in that type of behavior. Yes, this could easily be created by heavy handed training. If the dog we are talking about hasn't had that type of training, I would guess it is in prey.

As for the circling being defensive, it could be. The dogs I am talking about aren't circling to attempt to get away, or stay away for an agitator. They are attempting to get them to move so they can bite. Some also don't go all the way behind, they just keep moving.

Dogs that are really high drive often are difficult to get control on. But that is usually more prey than anything else.

Fight drive requires some experience to really develop. These are dogs that understand that there is some danger involved in what they are doing, and don't care. They enjoy the challange. They are also going to attempt to gain an advantage if they can. Not by being cautious, but by adjusting the situation to their advantage. They have learned to do this in training.

They are also poor at generalizing...
Dogs that are really high drive often are difficult to get control on. But that is usually more prey than anything else.
Fight drive requires some experience to really develop...

Good post. No need to say it again.

Because one drive seldom exists to the exclusion of others.

Your skipping ahead Kevin. I'm still in chapter 2. LOL.

Originally posted by Kevin Sheldahl:
Because one drive seldom exists to the exclusion of others. True, but individual drive thresholds are affected by the same stimuli.. so what triggers one may overload another.. not to mention that one drive may be strong enough to singularly consume, or rather, eclipse another drive...

Dogs are not computers and drives are not programmed responses. You cannot set the dog to fight position and he now works in fight. That is why I reacted so strongly to a comment on not caring about how the dog views the helper. A dog is reacting to many stimuli in any protection scenario and his drives are a product of how he views or reacts to the stimuli. That is what distinguishes a good helper from a great one. He can read a dog and apply just the right stimuli to work in any drive he wants. A great helper is an artist not a scientist. He/Her and the dog are one.

That's poetry, Vince. I intend to frame it.

Pete

Originally posted by Vince P.:
Dogs are not computers and drives are not programmed responses. You cannot set the dog to fight position and he now works in fight. That is why I reacted so strongly to a comment on not caring about how the dog views the helper. A dog is reacting to many stimuli in any protection scenario and his drives are a product of how he views or reacts to the stimuli. Absolutely, I was only referring to the posibility that one drive could be so strong as to overcome the other drives (i.e. a dog in Prey-lock, or a dog that is avoiding due to high stress which still has prey drive but that drive is not visible due to the avoidance behavior)

Originally posted by Vince P.:
That is what distinguishes a good helper from a great one. He can read a dog and apply just the right stimuli to work in any drive he wants. A great helper is an artist not a scientist. He/Her and the dog are one. What we/I were origionaly talking about was the H&B in the Blind... this is not a training scenario, and the helper isn't doing alot of different things here (at least he shouldn't be) so the stimuli should be fairly consistent, from dog to dog.. so we can generalize a bit here, and draw a few conclusions

Originally posted by Matt M.:
Originally posted by Kevin Sheldahl:
Because one drive seldom exists to the exclusion of others. True, but individual drive thresholds are affected by the same stimuli.. so what triggers one may overload another.. not to mention that one drive may be strong enough to singularly consume, or rather, eclipse another drive... Matt,
You gave me a question to a possible situation. I gave an answer. It seems that if you want to play the what if game we could go in circles over and over.
I can recite the observations of many many people in regards to how dogs appear to behave under a set of circumstances and any one can cite a exception or at least an observation that could be interpreted as a exception to what dog trainers have done, probably since the Greeks first spoke about dogs used to fight.
This circular type of thread does little to clean up the picture.
Dpgs have a hard time biting in defense though we can acclimate them to doing under certain conditions, they can even appear to become comfortable with it. We even know that the old Sentry dog programs relied on such techniques. It wasn't fight drive though some dogs held it anyway regardless of the piss poor training they received.
Some dogs can work in prey and either fight or defense can bubble up through the prey behaviors.
Each group of behaviors we name drives has thresholds that are somewhat independent of one another.
It isn't really that technical. It isn't mysterious, and it isn't based soley on what the intentions of the decoy or handler are. In fact offten it is inspite of what they do or think they are doing.
Dogs don't hackle and snarl and spit when they are confident and if they are not confident they are not in fight drive.
Biting has little to do with whether a dog is in fight drive or predominantly shows fight drive and in fact drive satisfaction in fight drive can be had simply by the decoy submitting and not fighting or rising to the challenge.
In sport training we selldom of ever see the work being done withour heavy doises of prey and even intentionally pushing the dog through many techniques into defense even if the dog could work without the defense (supposedly to make a better picture in the work for the judge). In personal protection it is frequent that we see trainers pushing the animals to strong reactions in defense. Teeth barred, hacled up, and over all worried dogs that are really tenous in their work even though they look pretty ferocious to the layman (sells dogs and training).
'nuff said.

Matt,

The problem is that you can't go by strictly what you see. It is kind of like pornography, "I can't describe it, but I know it when I see it". Much of what is involved in fight drive is a result of the attitude of the dog. It is hard to describe a "feeling". A dog that is in fight drive is going to appear under control, they are in control of themselves and the person they are facing. That sense of control is evident in the way the dog works.