A world class expert on Animal Imprinting is a man by the name of Bill Lishman. Mr. Lishman was brought to the front of this class for his work imprinting Baby Geese, Sandhill and Whooping Cranes to attach themselves to a human and believe that this human was the mother.

Furthering the imprint to an ultra light aircraft to teach these birds to migrate.

Mr. Lishman is quite the character as he has also been featured worldwide for some of his creative home designs and inventions.

He lives but a few miles from us around Lake Scugog and is a local folk hero. The dome home he built for himself is unique to say the least and from all account very efficient for heating, cooling and space usage.

Some might have even seen the movie that depicts this real life imprinter in the movie... Fly Away Home.

In Ringsport the bamboo stick when imprinted very early in a puppies life becomes a signal later in the dogs working life to run into battle. It is the reason why these Ring dogs can take the excessive barrages that during a good Ring III Fight can be as many as 50 solid but placed correctly hits not to forget the bops on the noodle during entry at a Selective or Championship Trial.

That noodle bop can be imprinted from the very beginning.

One of the problems with Ringsport is that the concept is to teach a dog to work from the bottom with the idea that as training moves along the dog will begin to move up the body but this is not the case. Most good dogs as aresult of the thousands of perfect to the knee bite were in fact conditioned and or imprinted to bite the leg in this manner and then the trainers must re program the dog to go to the upper body should a good decoy not permit the dog into the legs during some Ring II and for sure Ring III trial.

The trick to it is so simple and involve's a blanket.

Another Imprinted behaviour for Ringsport that reflects a different outcome than the trained imprint implies is the send away.

This is a very important concept to training any aspect of dogs.

Many times the trained or imprinted behavior is only there to induce a reaction that we as handlers then manipulate to achieve a differnt outcome.

Any one want to guess about the Send away imprint and how it differs from the real send away in trial? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Jerry

Jerry, please tell us how you can use stick hits on a puppy or very young dog without screwing the dog up. I find this alittle odd, I'm sure I'm not the only one. Jerry, I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm always open to new training methods so please fill us in. I can see stroking or rubbing the side of the dog with the stick to get him use to it, but actual hits? Is this done with the example you used earlier to surround the pups food bowl with sticks and the pup crashes through them to get to the food? I guess the sticks would strike the pup when he gets to his food. When you say stick hits it makes me think of the owner himself applying the stick hits to the pup? Please explain.

Jerry, all this info on imprinting just blows my mind! I thought we did a lot of imprinting work with our dogs when they were pups, but now I'm feeling a bit behind the curve on this whole issue....

Mitch, how the heck are you?

Well, you ask some very good questions and I just want to go on record as saying that my reason for starting this thread was to get you in person to come and ask just the question you did as I know that this is something that is giving you conflict in deciding how and what type of training that you want to move into.

You were almost imprinted to ask this question.

Before I go any where with this post, I want to repeat a very hard and fast rule about Ringsport and the use of a bamboo rattle stick.

The rule is very clear that the stick which is only used during a face attack and the flee attack can only be used to look but must not ever be brutal. Very clear and I practice this like a religion but I know how to make it look very brutal but not be.

A good decoy also need not hit a dog with the stick. I have on a few very hard dogs that were put on to me in competition that never even bit me and were never struck with the stick but the stick held them back from biting me.

The stick will be present as a prop for the stop attack but the dog will never be struck with the stick during this exercise. During the stop attack a decoy might throw his stick on the ground in disgust over you not having the control over the dog to do a proper stop attack. This is more decoy tradition to tell the Judge that the dog did bite when the judge from his view may not have seen the infraction.

Stick hits are something that any good dog can cope with from as early as 6 weeks. Hits might not be the best description for this age but in the sport they are called stick hits.

With this said, these young pups are being conditioned to the hits that will come very fast and from no where with what might be best called to ease your mind the Bamboo strokes bouncing off the back. The stick is not like you are thinking either. It is a piece of Bamboo that for training has many splits in it to give the stick a rattle clatter sound and to somewhat absorb some of the impact.

Let me assure you that within our sport that these pups not only accept the hits. They get turned on to a very high level of prey by the mere thought of being involved with these hits or bounces and are very much thrilled by the hits. They are not in any way scared of the hits as everything is done in prey.

The person who knows not what is really going on would swear to God that the dog was being beaten to death but that is where the look but not be brutal comes in.

Prey is a key word here. The pup in it's mind 100% likes this prey game that yes has what appears to be hits and yes they are hits but they are controled hits to very specific areas accross the back.

Puppies at six, seven weeks can with strong prey drive, run and hit a soft rag with major hard bite pressure. It is in fact one of the measuring sticks (pun) of a dogs future potential.

My own puppies can take very firm and vigourous stick hits and many people who have attended a training sesion with me for the first time or at one of the Seminars that I have given are always amazed at the way the hits are delivered and that the dogs likes me afterwards. Prey Game.

Ringsport is all Prey Work. This is where the precision comes from.

They can with the correct intro to these imprinting stick hits do so with the eyes very wide open and without any blinking in any way.

The same goes for simulated hand hits in training.

Truth is for myself. If a puppy cannot take these controled and very important to the pups future training hits at this age, eyes wide open and bursting through the barrage that does open the door at the last moment then I and any decent knowlegable breeder and or experienced evaluator will reject the puppy.

Would or should a dog being tested for the first time be hit? I know this is a big ? in your mind.

Depends, if the dog balks at the mere sound of the rattle then no and perhaps never. The tee pee trick is to help get the pups ready for the big day but also the stick must become an extension of your own body almost constant in your day in and day out interaction with the dog.

I keep a stick in my truck, by my front door, by the back door. two or three in the front hall closet. My wagon that carts all my gear back and forth to the training area that I use here at home has at least a half dozen sticks in it.

I usually have a few lengths of uncut bamboo waiting to be taped and split in the Garage.

If you are going to do Ring for sure you are going to need a lot of sticks.

A lot of times I use two sticks at the same time. One in both hands and this is again to simply make the dog see more stick so to speak.

If you are going to train any type of real protection work I do recomend using a stick in your work.

I work a few Sch dogs now and then and I use a rattle stick on them and they cope very well. They are never going to see one in trial but it works to condition the dog and be real happy when the padded stick comes out for them.

Perhaps this is not the complete answer that you were looking for and I do have much more on this topic to talk about but perhaps I should shut up for a bit and let a few others that have experience with this type of work pipe in their .02 and allow others with questions and maybe yourself to reflect on what I have said here.

Never, ever is a stick for fetch.

Never, ever is a stick for tug of war.

Never must a stick be looked at by the dog as a prey object.

The stick is a sound and visual signal to the dog to Pitter Patter and get ater.

There is a night and day difference between the Sch Courage test and that stick and the common use of a rattle stick in Ringsport or Campagne. Major difference.

The stick in the early stages of training is more used in the same way as a whip. they are both more props than anything else.

Props with sound that are used to condition the dog to the work ethic needed to complete a training segment.

Questions anyone? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I need to add a foot note to Jerry's post. People who are new to dog sports should not be trying this with their young pups unless you are being supervized by a professional. There is a real risk of going to far and hitting the pup - ONE MISTAKE can destroy some puppies for life.

New trainers need to be very very careful of how they take information (like this) from the board and apply it to you own dogs.