Quote:

Originally posted by Lee Baragona - Sch3FH2:
The things that come to mind watching those videos - you have to believe he did this with his BEST puppy; does yours have the same strength of nerves? Everything he's doing is noise and motion distraction, not PAINFUL. When he actually touches the puppy, it's very light. He's not striking the pup. He's just giving it a ton of distractions and teaching it to ignore it's environment. Also he's keeping the tug VERY active to give the pup something to focus on so he can ignore the distractions, and if I could hear the audio, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some verbal encouragement going on as well.

Personally, I'm all in favor of introducing all kinds of distractions while I'm playing with the puppy, but you have to able to read the body language to know how fast you can progress. If your pup is wanting to thrash/rip the tug once you let go, I'm guessing he's too much in defense and not enough in prey. Ivan's puppy is in prey - he's not stressed by all the activity so he's calm when he wins. If your's isn't, sounds like your going over his threshold into defense.

I wouldn't play with a sleeve cuz I don't think you have the helper skills to do the work with the same finesse as Ivan. You stand a REALLY good chance of ruining the grip on your pup if you don't read the signals correctly. Play with other toys unrelated to the bitework so he doesn't practice any incorrect behaviors with the sleeve. You can do pretty much all the same work, as far as distractions and building prey drive, on other types of toys.

Great advice from Lee!

If you don't already have the Bernard Flinks video, I would get the "building drive, focus and grip" video. It will help with the beginning grip work and drive work.

I totally agree with Lee's advice about the distractions. I cross-train my 8 month old pup in French Ring and the bulk of the foundation work has been done by a French Ring focused helper. From day one, they teach the dog to see the stick (in their case the "clatter" stick) as a signal that it is time to play. He was careful to avoid any touching at first and gradually worked up to light taps on the Harness. Still isn't doing anything more than touching or rubbing the dog at this stage. The general rule is to distract the dog, but to do nothing that would make the biting an unpleasant experience - at least not until the dog is older, more mature and has a rock-solid grip.

One note on teething - some French Ring trainers use the teething as a way of weeding out the Malinois that they don't want. If the dog has sustained drive to bite even when teething, that is the dog they want. They work them through teething. (I don't know if this is the best idea for Shepherds and I wouldn't recommend it). Also, if you have just one dog you're working, it's probably best to lay off - it will lower the chances that you have to rebuild it's love of the bite later.

The shaking thing might not be defense in this case - in my puppy's case it does this from high prey drive frustration. I didn't really understand it in him until I read the "shaking prey to death" section in Helmut Raiser's, "Der Schutzhund" (another training tool I really recommend!). Anyway, he talks about how it's easy to get the shaking at a young age in dogs that have "very strong drives or in insecure dogs".

As long as you're not challenging the dog by squaring up to it and are moving the tug across the dog's face to really stimulate prey drive, the shaking might be prey driven. If you are squaring up and applying pressure with the stick you might be making the dog insecure (as Lee explained).

Good luck!

Thanks for all the advice, I am very carefull of not putting him in defense, I am very sure that he is always having fun and in prey drive, I think the proof of that he is always wagging his tail when he is on the sleeve, full and and firm grip, when I stop moving the sleeve he gave a good strong shaking counter and then regrip , and when I slip him the sleeve, he drops it and put his 2 front legs over it and chew it, he is not trying to tear it up at all, I'm not an expert in reading dogs, (but that has been my main goal is to learn to read them better)but these signs are surely that he is enjoying it and it prey mode, my only concern is that since I don't have a helper at this point, I can not drag him around to keep his head up so that he won't drop it and chew it, I'm just afraid that this chewing will become a bad habit later on when he is on the sleeve, I did try to grab the sleeve away from him as soon as he drop it but I feel that I should let him enjoy his win a little longer, but that doesn't matter now since he is teething, by the time he is done I will have a helper, I was hoping that I could train him myself until he is ready for defense work.
BTW Lee, I think my pup has as good nerve as the one in the video, I think my pup does one thing better is that he counters, the pup in the video, I did not see him counter or maybe I missed it or maybe Ivan was moving his arm constanly and not giving him a chance to counter, or he is just focus on training the grip and not worry about the counter, anyway thanks for all advise, I will be very carefull of not ruinning his grip on the sleeve, but I am pretty sure that he is ready for it and I saw good result on the sleeve until his teething started.