I think I read on one of eds articles that a if a dog wins in enough defense situations the defense drive will turn to fight drive as the dog becomes more confident. I originally thought that fight drive was very much genetic and the dog either had it or didn't. What are your experiences wrt fight drive emerging from continous victories in defense training?
John Haudenshield Webboard User Reg: 07-12-2001
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Loc: Virginia
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Defense alone won't turn into Fight. Fight is a synthesis of Prey-Defense-Aggression (& probably a few other components). A dog that has all of the pieces/drives can muster "fight", assuming a certain amount of correctness in training, development, experience, etc.
A dog that 'wins in enough defense situations' will just learn that the defensive response is the correct response, not necessarily a good thing.
Mike J Schoonbrood Webboard User Reg: 04-30-2005
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Loc: Toronto, ON
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Defense is defense. A dog is genetically wired to have certain drives, certain thresholds and a certain level of nerves and confidence. Defense shouldn't be the goal of your training, and some dogs will never go into defense but have all the will in the world to fight. It is simply part of the dogs overall education. Pressuring a dog defensively in order to create fight drive will only result in an over defensive and stressed dog. You can't bring out what isn't there, but everyone likes to see what isn't there when it comes to their own dog. Defense can be very misleading... people see all kinds of things that aren't there when their dogs are in defense.
Creating a will to fight based on defense (defense = self preservation/reaction to fear) is fight or flight, where a dog (as mentioned above) is conditioned into believing that defense is the correct response, but it doesn't create "fight drive" or whatever you want to call it, and it won't sustain the dog throughout a real fight once their threshold is met.
"As the defensive training progresses, the dog's confidence level increases (if he is genetically capable). He is taught how to defeat the helper in every circumstance. These many experiences slowly change the dog's view of the helper. He begins to see the helper as a fighting partner, as someone to get mad at and not someone to be nervous of. When this begins to happen we say that the dog is developing fight drive."
This lead me to believe that fight drive was based on overcoming the helper based on defense training. Is this not right?
I have Ed's Defense video, and unless I'm misinterpreting things, the civil agitation applies to good nerved, high threshold dogs, who run the risk of being hopelessly prey-locked and sleeve oriented....if those are things you want to avoid.
And regarding what John said, the goal is NOT to have said dog winning through a defensive response anyway. If hackles are raised (or what have you), that is not the desired response. YOu want an aggressive, forward response in the absence of equipment, yes, but the goal is NOT a defensive response.
If we used my dog as a real world example (in the context of Schutzhund), defensive body language can be induced even with the sleeve fully present. In fact, we've been working to get him MORE sleeve oriented...because being stressed out gets in the way of properly learning the requisite mechanics of the sport in question.
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Winning in defense training equals fight drive?
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