I've a three year old female GSD I'm working and the problem is the helper has to pop the whip or at least slap the sleeve to light her up. Nice full mouth bite, won't out until I show her "toy" to her. She's pretty much all prey and never worked in defense. Nerves are good I think, What I want her to do is fire up on my command and not the helpers. What is the best way to get her to associated a verbal command to "revere" and "packen" without the helper whip popping and sleeve slapping? I'd just as soon keep the helper a play buddy if I can.

Dennis,

What makes you think she is all prey? Whip popping frequently elicits defense. I'd throw away the whip and stop
sleeve slapping. Back tie her and frustrate the heck out of her. Lots of quick prey movements and very close misses with the sleeve. Wait til she barks and than reward with a
bite. Pair the desired action (barking) with your alert work "pas auf" "watch him". I would NOT use packen (you
can't use "attack" words in trial) on reveir/voran (you
want to save those for the H&B

I'm just guessing she's in prey, its the same tail up, high pitch bark she gives me when she wants her ball as opposed to her hackels up low pitch bark she shows the UPS guy. Thanks I'll give it a try, right now our club is in between helpers <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

You can ween a dog off the whip once they understand the game, but until then, a whip will help get the dogs attention when their focus isn't all on the decoy... eventually your dog will start hunting when you take them onto the field, you'll see em all antsy looking for the decoy instead of sniffing the grass. Every decoy likes to work differently, my trainer loves the whip. As for eliciting a defensive response from the dog -- it's the decoys job to teach the dog the game, the dog can be taught what to think about the whip.... the first time I cracked a whip in front of my dog he got defensive, but he knows better than to get defensive at ME, so he was getting defensive at the equipment )sleeve), I didn't know what to do! I didn't wanna put my own dog into defense... my trainer said just keep at it, present side of body, don't look at him when I crack the whip, n he will eventually figure out that I'm playing with him -- so back into the field I went and did exactly that, the problem quickly went away within a minute, once he realized the routine "crack whip, bite sleeve, run around field with sleeve in mouth with happy handler" he started really enjoying this new game. If your dog isn't getting defensive from the whip and needs the whip to respond appropriately then use the whip, it'll click in the dogs head soon enough, baby steps <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

 Quote:

You can ween a dog off the whip once they understand the game, but until then, a whip will help get the dogs attention when their focus isn't all on the decoy... eventually your dog will start hunting when you take them onto the field, you'll see em all antsy looking for the decoy instead of sniffing the grass. Every decoy likes to work differently, my trainer loves the whip. As for eliciting a defensive response from the dog -- it's the decoys job to teach the dog the game, the dog can be taught what to think about the whip.... the first time I cracked a whip in front of my dog he got defensive, but he knows better than to get defensive at ME, so he was getting defensive at the equipment )sleeve), I didn't know what to do! I didn't wanna put my own dog into defense... my trainer said just keep at it, present side of body, don't look at him when I crack the whip, n he will eventually figure out that I'm playing with him -- so back into the field I went and did exactly that, the problem quickly went away within a minute, once he realized the routine "crack whip, bite sleeve, run around field with sleeve in mouth with happy handler" he started really enjoying this new game. If your dog isn't getting defensive from the whip and needs the whip to respond appropriately then use the whip, it'll click in the dogs head soon enough, baby steps <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hmmmm, interesting ????? Mike what are you trying to do with the dog ? I mean in your situation what is the purpose of the whip ?????

My dog had several issues we had to work on.

- Lack of focus on the work when taking him to a new field with unfamiliar decoy, had times he'd refuse to bite and just sniff the grass during agitation... give him a reason to look at the decoy n now he anticipates it instead of waiting for the whip.

- He took the work too personally, he was 80% defense and 20% prey, we were trying to change his mind about the work and balance him out, teach him how to win, teach him that the decoy isn't out to kill him, teach him that training is just sparring like in tae-kwando and the decoy is there to make him better.

- Lack of confidence, especially away from the handler, targeting elbows and biting shallow on long bites etc. He's come a LONG way but has a ways to go. Everyone who's seen him work that saw him 6 months ago tells me he's a completely different dog <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Oh so you are training him for sport then ??? I thought you were a PP trainer , my bad . Good luck

We train him the same way we train PPD's and Police Dogs before they go to the dept/during the 10 week handler training period.

Just to follow up a bit, I was straightening out my dog tack and just had to try my new whip I bought in OKC. I popped it a couple of times forgetting my two Sch dogs were near. Long story short I got bit in the armpit, I managed to say "AUS" quickly enough so all I got was a little bruise and a ruined shirt. She let right go and started to do the happy dance and I threw the kongball for her. didn't know wether to correct her or pretend it never happened. If I was a little slower or had a few beers she could of got an artery and I'd a bled out in the back yard and they would of ate me <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> The papers would of loved that story.