Ivan, I don't think there is anything I would do at this point in training, during this exercise, to bring out defense in the dog.

What I would do is get the B&H solid in this context. That in itself should help some with the barking, especially if you are using an e-collar for the work. The barking will become a more important outlet for the dog's drive when he learns that there is NO F-ING WAY HE CAN TAKE A DIRTY BITE! LOL

A lot of dogs who have a good level of drive will also load like crazy under the pressure of the compulsion used to clean up the B&H. . .if done correctly. That will sometimes give a little more umph to the bark as well.


Now, as far as working the dog to get him to offer defensive behaviors in certain situations I would start a program of defensive work away from the training field.

That is an entire thread all to itself, but you can very easily do a search on this webboard and find more than a few threads on defensive work.

Ed also sells a a video that I really liked, The First Steps of Defense. I think the basics in that video can be applied to any dogsport or bite training.

Mr. Cannons post on extinction vs. punishement in "prong vs clicker" topic reminded me of "trick" i heard of that is being used for restraining dog from biting decoy in revir. Basicly, decoy is holding something, those shields from plexi (or what material is it) that police has would be perfect in my opinion, but i heard of decoy using large bycicle wheel <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> and holding it in front of him, thus restraining dog from geting a bite. No punishement, frustration thrugh the roof, and in the end no more bitting through extinction of reinforcer (bite).

What do you think of this? Did i get right the part on extinction, or is all of this very bad idea?

This is for discussion sake only, not connected with dog in original post.