I have 8 1/2 mos old GSD working line, He has very good nerves, nice drive and responcive towards me, but is pretty hard to handle for other people. Pretty soon he has them "jumping how he whistles".
One nice guy was doing some protection work with him and right after the session he called us and said that the difference between my dog and the rest is simple. My dog is out there to "kill" ,defence all thoughout, where the rest of the dogs were havin fun, working in pray. He asked me and showed me how to play with my pup.. he was in pray, easened up and playing, bark higher pitch. Than the helper played tug and I could see that he stayed in prey till the end. I tryed this morning, I played the tug and he was in prey, my friend took the tug and BUM defence, lower bark and was not paying much attention to the toy. HE is in prey @ B&H, he is comfortable with our helper, Is it because he felt threatend by a new helper? I could se when we get My pup working with somebody else he is very defencive, I do not see it that with our own helper. Can it be the comfort level? weaker nerves..I dont see it because he is not afraid he always wants to see what is up and somethig new just makes him want to check it out. Is it because of his age? too young? we did not put any pressure on him..

I am not saying what you are saying is wrong nor am i saying what your helper is saying is wrong. Maybe some somebody may correct me but 8 1/2 mo old working in def? no way. i would never put a dog in def drive that young. all bite work should be fun at this age. if in fact he is biting in def drive BE VER CAREFUL. Iwould read this artice ed wrote about drives. it has a lot of good info in it. http://www.leerburg.com/drives.htm
again if he is in def be careful cause you can ruin your dog very easy. def drive is not a confortable place for a dog to be in. read the article and it will explain all this.

Martin - its a mistake to allow this dog to be worked by other people. Some dogs are natrually defensive in nature. Those dogs need to be worked in PREY because the defense will always be there.

In other words it does not take much to bring out the defense in these dogs when the time comes for the dog to be old enough ( 8 1/2 months is not old enoug) to add defense.

There is an old sayins - work a defensive dog in prey and a prey dog in defense with the hope of finding the middle. This carries a ring of truth for adult dogs.

Get the 2 DVDs I did on prey work - BUILDING DRIVE AND FOCUS and PREPARING YOUR DOG FOR THE HELPER.

Don't let anyone else work this dog untiul its 13 to 18 months old. This is a longer period because the dog is defensive and you neet ot SET THE PREY.

Hi Jason, I have read the article before i posted. The reason I am concerned is because of his age. Just to give you an axample:
I play thug with him he is havin fun barking very high pitch and just prey, prey prey..
Later in a day I Ask my friend to do the sane.. he is NOT just Playing, he doesnt care about the tug and all together he is not in Prey.
This is not normal.. Sorry I am just trying to learn here I am pretty frustruated because this pup is wonderfull and I do not want to make mistakes nobody can fix.... My helper is not trying to bring up def.. what for? he is a pup and should be playing. He is OK with our helper, mostly prey..
This other helper basicaly told me that he was def.. that was the reason he asked me to play with my pup and get him to relax. After that the dog stayed in prey even when the helper took the tug.
I just do not understand why he is so defencive.. The hepler said that it is his nature and I need to lear how to bring up the prey..
The reason I am askin is because My other dog even though he was a bomb working dog, was way too serious, I am talking way too defensive, extremely driven dog who caused a lot of trouble for people he was send to catch (police had him) and honestly I do not want that anymore. I want a nice, balanced dog. And from my mistakes in the past I shall learn, I just need help how to bring the prey easier in him.. I need to teach him more play.. and he is OK with me,our helper but not ok with other people.

Thank you Ed That is what I was looking for. disregard my replay You answered my question I will work with him and make sure I dont mess up.