Hi,

I'm wondering if I could get some suggestions on how to fix this. I have a 6 month old male dobe who has a ton of drive but he is not biting the center of any of the tugs or small sleeve. At first I thought they were too big for his mouth but I just received a new order from Leerburg with a variety of tugs and bite wedges for his age group and he still goes for either end. Very rarely will he bite the center. Its really starting to concern me. He seems to always go for the sides of the tugs and wedges. He's actually nailed me a few times by accident because he goes to the sides where I'm holding it. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Many thanks.

dog could be teething in which case you are inflicting pain on the dog every time he bites, you will wreck his bite for sure IF this is the case.

alternatively dog needs more misses and frustration.

not that uncommon for dobes that I have seen to display this behaviour, it is often but not always poor nerves and a lack of working genetics.

the dobe unfortunately was prolly the first of the german working breeds to go down the toilet. most serious people I know do not consider the dobe breed a working dog in the for serious bite work. there are some rare exceptions that are super-nice, they are very rare.

6 months is still young, I would not push it at this point and let him be a dog until about 18 months.

generally speaking the situation you describe is a mainly genetic problem.

what are your goals, have you tried a ball reward instead of a sleeve. are you training the dog for bitework, imo rotts and dobes should not be trained as if they are herders, they are wired different and have different motivations to bite.

training dobes like a mal or gsd is just setting yourself and dog up for failure.

they are the most striking looking breed imo just a victim of their own beauty and popularity and bad breeding ie for the show ring.

Peter,

Thank you for the reply and the info. He's from Europe and while his parents both had IPO titles (that doesn't make him a working dog so to speak) I'm hoping its not 100% genetics with him, as my last dog was also from there and was very good.

Nonetheless, I will continue to try an improve him to center his bite. He does occasionally hit the middle but its rare. I appreciate the info you shared.

some guys put hard plastic barriers on the edges of the sleeve.

are you sure this dog is not teething?

Yeah I seen a few of those sleeve protectors with the plastic on them and wondered. He has all of his new teeth but maybe they are still sore. I do think more agitation like you suggested along with more misses will help. In fact, I just tried some with him and he started doing a bit better when he did hit it. I'll keep you posted on his progress and thank you again for the help.

presentation and timing require a lot more skill than many people give credit for, and when the dog has made the bite the give and take of the resistance is again another whole complex science that many people do not even know exists.

if a calm full grip is what you desire than it is a not the same as just playing tug, it is a highly skilled endeavour.

I can't do it, takes years of experience and lots of natural talent, a lot of owners just think it happens by itself thru the magic of genetics. genetics can be suppressed or enhanced thru training and training can completely botch things in a sensitive dog like apparently many dobes.

wish you luck, I like the breed.

post vids, not that many active posters into the bite-work here as far as I can tell so be good to see your journey unfold.

At his age, the teething should be over. We are working a group of young dogs that all went through teething, and by 6mos were starting to work well.

IMHO, your dog is taking a shortcut to the target, and may have learned that from a presentation that didn't vary, especially if your misses were presented the same. It is possible that your dog doesn't want to miss and has learned to strike closer to the hand. You need to get with an experienced helper and do some short bites with better presentation. He'll pbly want to back up to a pillow, and some use a targeting sleeve.

You may want to lay off of tug, as that is likely the source of your dog learning to shortcut, until you see some improvement. There are some videos here that will help with tug presentation. This is the best that I've bought;

http://leerburg.com/228.htm

For sleeve work;

http://leerburg.com/222.htm
http://leerburg.com/101-b.htm
http://leerburg.com/225.htm

Thanks to all the suggestions. Just as an update we did work more on presentation and that improved his targeting skills tremendously. We did it by back tying him and then tossing the tug/bite instrument just out of his range or too fast for him to grab, then when we presented it to him he would nail the center every time. We also cut off all handles to the tugs we used. He know bites the center and doesn't have the avoidance issue anymore.

Excellent!