I've started doing some French Ring I'm working with 2 talented helpers from Montreal and we've done some initial sleeve and tug work with my 14 month Mali about 1/2 a dozen times. Both of the helpers really like my dog and say she is really driven.

They say we can use her high drive to our advantage. I trust these guys but somehow I just don't see my dog's high drive can be put to use without it being tempered to some degree.

When it comes to the bitework and the tugs my dog is really excited and wants to go. She recognizes the helpers and gets perked up once she sees them. I can keep her in a couche on the field when the other dogs are working but she whines and carrys on like a baby. She is super focused on what they are doing.

Today we worked on the jumps, obedience and some initial bitework with a 2" tubular tug that the helpers utilized strapped under one foot in the horizontal plane. The guys used the split bamboo baton sparingly as well.

All I can say is she wanted that tug so bad she tired herself out (and me) going at it. We patted her and stroked her when she was gripping to help her relax it seemed to work and when the helper let her win the tug she was proud as a peacock strutting around the field showing off her prize and she was hard pressed to give it up to boot.

The helpers are saying it is good and once she works the tugs more she will calm down and get more confident. So we can move on to the pants and the rest of the suit in time.

After we were done we were walking back to the cars in the lot. I was playing catch with her with a Chuck it she retreived the ball ran by us and she knew which car the tug was in and tried to jump into the trunk to steal the tug!! Oh My god what have I gotten myself into!

She is just as equally driven sheep herding too. When we go on the field with the sheep she is just vibrating. I have to continually sit/down her to chill her out before we start. She is pretty easy to call off the sheep once we put her into that frame of mind. But it just seems that the bitework is a whole new intensity level of drive that she has tapped into.

So what I'm trying to understand is how using her drive will play out further on in her training. I'm sure some of you have seen driven dogs like mine. I understand how the baton, pistol and the whip in Shutzhund builds drive but not the other way around. That's what I'm trying to make clear for myself so I can understand the process as it unfolds.

Thanks in advance ..

Geoff, our club trains with total motivational methods. The drive is what makes this work, even in their bite work. They quickly learn (obedience for a bite) that the bite doesn't come until they are in perfect heel position with good eye contact. No corrections for mistakes because loss of reward can be just as much a punishment to a highly driven dog.
Just as a high drive dog will do anything for a tug, it works the same for any form of training. It's that drive for the treat/tug/bite that helps the dog learn to offer the correct response.

Thanks for clarifying that Bob. We do that when we sheep herd too, we get her in a down and waiting. Once one or more sheep wander off, she gets to go gather them and that is her reward.

With the Ring routines I can see the bitework being the ultimate reward for her as well. With-holding the bite like you say probably would be the ultimate injury to a dog like mine's ego, and help motivate her to be sharp on her learning.

That's the other thing I like about working with these guys is they use positive motivation and are very fair with their corrections. They are more correcting me correcting my dog than anything else at this point. For example I gave her a verbal correction during the food refusal training and they showed me a different way of training it instead, as to not put unneeded stress on my dog. It then made total sense to me.