Vince,

A couple of points:

As I have said a million times....I don't do SchH, as a result I would never use defense to get more "intensity" out of a prey bite. It doesn't matter to me. If I use an aggressive posture from the agitator I am looking for the dog to respond to that pressure, and the dog is going to bite as a result of that pressure. Only for problem solving would the agitators posture change, not for general training. As a result a fear response isn't what I am trying to attain. I want the dog to go to fight the agitator based on the agression from the agitator. There may be cases to keep things fresh where the agitator moves from one posture to another, but that tends to be more of a proofing issue than a training issue.

When I learned most of the terminology I use it was based not on how the dog feels about the bite, or the drive that the dog is in, but was based on the actions of the agitator. The dogs reason for biting didn't matter. Dogs were taught to do 1 of 3 basic styles of work. A guard dog was taught to bite anything it could get it's mouth on. The description Kevin gave is the way it was done. Back tie the dog and beat the crap out of it by anybody it ever saw other than the handler. An Attack dog was trained as a strictly command driven thing. I say you bite, I don't say you don't bite. This ws done with more prey style training and some courage testing and other "defensive" training. There was some handler defense taught with this. The third type was a protection dog trained to react to an overt threat. These dogs were started with some prey and fairly quickly switched to "defensive" training. The dogs responsibility was to react to a situation. Some command driven bites, but mostly threat recognition and reaction. The other thing that a protection dog was taught was to release and guard the person if they stopped fighting the dog. If they moved the dog could rebite, but if they didn't the dog just guarded them. The dog would do anything it thought it could get away with to try and get the person to move, but not bite. With several of my dogs you could give a bite command and if there wasn't someone doing "somthing wrong", they would just look at you like you were an idiot and go lie back down. In protection and attack dogs the breeds natural territorial instincts provided for area defense with minimal training.

The attitude of the dog made no difference, the reaction to what was presented made a difference.

Now dogs are being taught to do a much wider variety of behaviors. Most "real" dogs are taught to do both command driven and the "defensive" bites. I understand what Kevin is talking about, it just isn't the way I would train because it is being used for a different purpose than I would ever use. For me to use "defense" to increase the intensity of a prey bite is not of any real use because I don't care what it looks like, I only care if it is effective. As long as the dog will bite what and when it is told, and will defend me and my family under any circumstances I don't care.

Dave Wrote:

Now dogs are being taught to do a much wider variety of behaviors. Most "real" dogs are taught to do both command driven and the "defensive bites. I understand what Kevin is talking about, it just isn't the way I would train because it is being used for a different purpose than I would ever use. For me to use "defense" to increase the intensity of a prey bite is not of any real use because I don't care what it looks like, I only care if it is effective. As long as the will bite what and when it is told, and will defend me and my family under any circumstances I don't care.

Michael Reply:
That makes little sense. The reliabilty will be determined in why and how it bites. Not caring why a dog bites in training, and not reconizing it, will lead to probelms in a real situtatiom. Your dog misht bite fine doing one thing for a while, but working that dog like that forever will result in problems down your training route.

Michael,

Actually that is me you are quoting, and we never used only one method of training. You need to train and proof the dog in all the types of behaviors you want. IN THE PAST we tended to lean more heavily in one area or another depending on the intended use for the dog. Now I take a more balanced approach, start dogs earlier and do much more prey work than in the past.

Originally posted by Sch3FH2:
Time to agree to disagree. There is no solution when we don't speak the same language at all. The confusion is that many people believe that fighting behaviors and defensive behaviors are interconnected and that one leads to another. What ever you call them, they are not. This is not just semantics. It is about the misinterpretation of the behavior displayed among dogs doing protection type work.
There is great confusion among dog people that a dog either has desireable defensive behaviors (stress motivated response to the decoy) or undesireable ones and that that is the difference in defense and fighting drives/traits. It may be so that among sport training there are dogs that function well who have defensive behaviors that work for us and those that don't but there is the additional fight drive that is the most desireable of all because it is not born from the stress of the work but an enjoyment of measuring oneself against an oponant in combat. It is the same thing that brings people into the Ultimate fighting sports, full contact karate, and in the special operations in military and police.

Sorry Dave. Richard you never said that you have modifed your training methods. You give the impression that, that is how you train.

Tease. . . :rolleyes:

Thanks Kevin, Your 2nd post back answered my question. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Sometimes it takes a little while for introducing additional intelligence into my hard Cajun head.

Waiting on the books release, want a signed copy. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

VanCamp said:
...if someone decided to give a brief step-by-step of HOW you introduce the controlled pressure and in what ways specifically to evoke the desired response to achieve your training goals, then maybe it would answer Dave's question in a more direct way. You got it! That would get to the heart of the matter.

See Dave, Robert's the MAN!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />