Goodogu...

There's more to doing protection training than just teaching a dog to bite.

To get the most out of protection training, you need to have a good understanding of the drives a dog works in when it is taken through the steps of protection work. When I was learning to do bitework one of my resources was Leerburg.com (yup, Ed's been around for a long long time). Ed has a number of excellent articles on the drives of protection training on his website. READ THEM and UNDERSTAND THEM. And if you have questions on what you read... that's what we're here for.

If you had had a solid understanding of the defensive drive, you would never have made the mistake of trying to do civil agitation with your own dogs. And there is more to prey drive than just "dog bites tug" or "dog bites sleeve". Lots of backwoods protection trainers screw up dog after dog because they never bother to learn the theory behind what they're doing.

It doesn't take an advanced degree to learn this stuff--but it does have to be learned. Best advice I can give you.

Pete

I think it very likely that you have done some damage to the dogs, either with this incident or from the very begining.

If I were you, I would study every possible resource I could get my hands on. I would stop training for about 4 weeks. I would take a few trips and visit some Schutzhund clubs and other protection trainers. You need to re-evaluate your training, your trainer, and your dogs from an informed perspective.

This isn't just a little mistake, it is a mistake in not having the proper foundation of understanding to begin with.

Protection training is a "learn then do" type of discipline, not a "do and learn" one. You will mess up your dogs, and that is dangerous. To quote Ed, or misquote??, "Protection training has to be done right the first time around. There is very little room for error." First Steps of Defense video(I think)

I think you get the picture, enough slamin'.

Hang in there. . .

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