Diablo

Do you use the German commands in Schutzhund training Nek???

Excellent post, totally agree on that method

Shopping centres are excellent places to train for maximum distraction. It's sad the amount of people that are impressed by a well trained dog which goes to show in the general community that most dogs are hardly trained at all like it's unusual to see a dog that is trained is the impression I get. The amount of times I get, "is that a police dog???" my boy being a GSD that can perform various tasks and manouvers, they have a strange look on their face when replying "he's just a pet".

Looks good, but how do you correct the dog without the tightening aspect? Wouldn't it be the same as a flat collar in terms of just pressure at the front of the throat/neck as they pull, and there's no real way to get a clean correction/pop on the leash? ETA ~ never mind, found your reply in my other thread Shelle, just to elaborate on the correction, it's not the tightening action of the collar that provides the correction..........with a heavy puller on a choker chain they keep pulling even when becoming choked, they are coughing and spluttering and still pulling, grab a breath and pull again. The correction amounts to the speed and sharpness of applying it with the timing of it most critical. For example you are walking along with a loose leash dog by your side and it begins to head towards a tree for a sniff. It's best to have some leash gathered up where as soon as your short leash tightens as the dog pulls, drop the slack to give the dog full leash and at the same time crack the leash back towards you, timed perfectly would be at the same time the dog reaches the end of the leash. It's the shock and sharpness of the pop that overrides the dog's desire to sniff the tree..........like the dog thinks, "geez what was that" :D and you have regained it's attention with a "NO" command, it soon gets the message. That's the principal around the correction, it's shock and sharpness not strangulation as such.

Thanks Diablo. There's something else too, that I have noticed, but I don't know if it is something that is peculiar only to me. That is that I too can more easily 'hear' (ie not only 'feel') the message I'm sending to the dog I'm working with - IE how 'clean' and how quick the correction was/is, through the sound of the chain. Is this just me, or do others notice this too? YES absolutely .... I actually used the fabric martingale for a couple of months to allow our boy's hair to grow back on the side of his neck and struggled with a clean sharp correction. The dog was farily good at the time, but to start a dog on the fabric collar where they need a sharp correction phase in training, the feel was wrong. You tend to have the feel of the "flick" like a cracking a whip where it's timed perfectly which I can only attain properly with a chain...you are "spot on" with that description :D The other thing especially with a hard temperament GSD, they can desensitise to corrections when applying them too often, with the chain you have a two stage correction with the "rattle" and then a pop if necessary.

Here are some pics of a deadlocked fursaver with links removed to fit the dogs neck firmly which eliminates hair loss, fast in reaction and is the preferred collar that we have been instructed to use in Schutzhund training and is working extremely well.

That's a very good point you raised Erny with the "rattle of the chain" where I have experienced that in a very pronounced way between a Black Dog martingale with a fabric coupling and silent to any chain with a rattle component. I have noticed that even a wiggle on the leash and a chain rattle corrects the dog which with a silent collar would require a higher level of correction to achieve the same result, and a reason why I don't like the fabric Black Dog training collar.

Inciting even more of this small dog owners are idiots angst is hardly productive. Its not the size of the dog that matters, they are all dogs after all. This topic was done and dusted by the first page. Ummm - why is my post singled out?? Just because I may have read the thread after it had gone past page 1 does not mean I cannot add my view to the topic. I totally agree with your observation Danois and in fact, I have had owners of small dogs bragging to be an advantage of a small dog is "they don't require much training", meaning poor behaviour is more easily handled, controlled and accepted.

Training a dog to behave takes effort and is an effort that many dog owners are not prepared to do. With a small dog, it's easier to get away with poor behaviour.........in the crunch, you can pick the dog up if necessary and stick it under your arm with the behaviour in society generally overlooked :D A large dog forces us to train them to behave, there is no other option other than having the ranger knocking on the door. The worse behaved dogs I have seen are small dogs without question

Dominance aggression is the same as "social aggression" which is a dogs desire to gain a higher ranking status, generally a male trait. It is"'middle rank aggression" in younger dogs in their climb to the top. They don't lack confidence but are over confident in their abilty to win and is a sought after trait in protection dogs and police K9's. There is no flight counterpart in social aggression as in defence aggression where in a life or death situation a dog high in social aggression traits is the temperament most likey bring on the fight first. Dogs too high in social aggression are difficult to handle and want to bite everyone and everything outside of it's pack because it's outside of their pack and dogs of this nature especially in the GSD are only successfully trained with methods of punishment to correct unwanted effects. Dogs high in social aggression respect and submit to handlers that the dog knows can overpower them. They will 'try it on" becoming worse with wins, and corrected with losses. It's a trait of extreme liability in the hands of an inexperienced owner.

There should be no 'guess work' when working with aggression Diablo, but thinking that the only way to deal with aggression is with a quick, hard leash correction is extremely dangerous and very incorrect! I am more speaking on the assumption of aggression being "tainted with the same brush" as a fear response which I disagree. Anything can be misconstrude in a round about way to sound like a fear response which is not always the case. Fear aggression in it's true definition is a response caused by the inablity for flight, fearful dogs display distinctive traits in body language and the amount of times I have seen behaviourists diagnose a hard temperament adolecent GSD as a fear biter in dominance aggression is laughable, along with the positive correction methods for such dogs that doesn't work either.

TEMPERAMENT - The German Shepherd Dog must be of well balanced temperament, steady of nerve, self assured, absolutely free and easy, and (unless provoked) completely good natured, as well as alert and tractable. He must have courage, combative instinct and hardness, in order to be suitable as companion, watch, protection, service and herding dog. Xaiver, That's the breed standard (above). You have every right to ask a breeder if their dogs comply and if not, they are obviously breeding, faulty dogs You also have the rights to ask how they determine compliance without ever trialling their breeding stock in the relevent workability (Schutzhund) tests.

Sorry Kelpie-i, too much psycho analysis or someone's opinion???. Dogs can't talk and explain how they are feeling and most assumptions are on the basis of guess work from over enthusiastic minds.

Having experience primarily with GSD's Nekhbet, it's most disappointing to see the amount of breedings undertaken with dogs of faulty temperament considered "pet temperaments" due to their weakness which in my opinion is competely wrong. A weak nerved GSD is something in a pet I would never consider steady enough for a family environment. A "pet temperament" is an excuse for a litter that should have never been bred and this problem in the GSD is escalating as time evolves unfortunately.

That potentially can work with a dog that has no history of self reward. If the dog perceives the ingrained self reward higher then your super duper reward what do you do then? One "super' reliability I require in a good hard temperament high drive GSD is that it doesn't bite people, and the "self reward" of having an aggressive lunge and people back away in fear CANNOT be corrected with a reward high enough to stop the behaviour where a punishment with leash corrections and firmness to teaches the dog that the behaviour is NOT tolerated. Strong nerve GSD's are not sooky dogs and can take the pressure, but in all honesty, I don't know if this method works with all. I doubt it would work for all dogs showing similar issues. Many dogs (in my limited experience) that show that kind of aggressive behaviour do so out of fear, quite a different motivation to actually wanting the fight. Not all aggressive dogs are aggressive from fear, of course. Some are predatory. Some are rank driven. I'm not at all suggesting that your dog was fearful, Diablo. But for those aggressive dogs that are fearful, it seems safer to use mostly positive methods if you can. I've seen several fearful/fear aggressive dogs "fixed" or hugely improved using mostly positive methods - if you teach the dog that there is either nothing to fear, that the fear aggression no longer "works" to get rid of the threat, or that the handler can deal with any threats for them anyway, then there is no longer a reason for the dog to be fearful or aggressive. I'm not a professional trainer, and don't intend to become one. But I do intend to be a vet in a few years, and I expect to be (rightly or wrongly) first port of call for many clients with problem dogs, and if I can help it I won't be referring those clients to any one-size-fits-all trainers. I'd hate to refer a fearful dog to someone who was going to try to punish the aggression or "dominance" out of it, just like I'd hate to be responsible for referring a very stroppy dog to someone who refused to punish at all even if only-positive methods would take twenty times as long to get just the same result or would risk the behaviour escalating or just not really work at all. JM(non professional)O Without seeing a dogs reaction in aggressive tendencies it's difficult to prescribe the method most suitable for that particular dog. Often the reasons why a dog acts aggressively are misdiagnosed that results in an incorrect correction training process.

People tend to believe that for example, a hard temperament GSD capable of protection work is dangerous to it's owners or family pack and they are not, quite the opposite. In fact they are generally safer in family homes more steady and predictable nerves, don't spook or fear bite and can handle adverse pressure. Sensing fear in their pack they react more voilently and can attack and bite and can also react to things that are not genuine threats when untrained which becomes the liability. Most attack trained police and security dogs live in a family environment and are gentle and affectionate pets within their own family pack.

I suppose you need to think about the chance of an off-leash small dog approaching Blueygirl's leashed dog. I think you are doing the right thing Blueygirl - you are being a responsible dog owner and preventing your dog from causing any harm to other dogs. Oh, off leash dogs are at their own destiny, no laws protect off leash dogs from provoking leashed dogs to react, and I didn't consider that side of things either, never crossed my mind. To be honest it may take a few off leash dogs to suffer a nip or two for people to be more responsible restraining their dogs instead of allowing them to run around all over the place as they do and breaking the law into the bargain.

That potentially can work with a dog that has no history of self reward. If the dog perceives the ingrained self reward higher then your super duper reward what do you do then? One "super' reliability I require in a good hard temperament high drive GSD is that it doesn't bite people, and the "self reward" of having an aggressive lunge and people back away in fear CANNOT be corrected with a reward high enough to stop the behaviour where a punishment with leash corrections and firmness to teaches the dog that the behaviour is NOT tolerated. Strong nerve GSD's are not sooky dogs and can take the pressure, but in all honesty, I don't know if this method works with all.

I am sorry Schmoo's boss, but I disagree with your comment advocating that we should be protecting our dogs, taking self defence classes which doesn't suit everyones requirements. Protection dogs do have a role in society and anyone is free to own one if they desire which is not a crime and in some cases owning such a dog for people who have suffered the trauma of home invasions and assaults, a protection dog helps them sleep at night providing the therapy required to help them feel safe again in their own homes. No amount of self defence classes will overcome being woken from sleep with knife held at someones throat where a protection dog can stop such offenders getting in, or at a minimum bark, wake and alert someone to an offender on the premises.

This is exactly what I want ;) Good boy Kaiser Did you teach him to do this? GSD's are a good deterrent to the average criminal due to their reputation in police and protection work as the presence of a GSD can never be determined what it's capabilities may be and everyone knows what a GSD looks like with it's distinctive features. However, selecting the dog to best suit your requirements is a difficult task when looking for protective qualities as such dogs are instinctively suspicious and stranger aggressive requiring experienced socialising and training to be gentle and friendly from an early age and are difficult for the inexperienced to handle. The softer GSD breedings that are instinctively friendly and gentle can be unsteady in nerve and frighten easily when it comes to the crunch to take a protective stance, will turn tail and run. Having said that though, a dog can easily be trained to bark on command or bark if strangers approach the property which in most cases provides enough deterrent for the job to be done. GSD litters marketed as hard temperament with police and security type ancestor lines, to be understood by potential buyers in belief of these types answering their protective requirements, they will, but are a lot of dog to handle and train, untrained can be a total liability

I was thinking Blueygirl, why not perhaps just keep her on the leash and restrained until the aggression has been resolved?

I agree Kelpie, I think nowdays there is an over use of psychology that doesn't need to be

But the problem is we're not talking about your dog. We're talking about someone else's dog who has been conditioned, inadvertently, to lunge to the end of the leash when confronted by another dog. Let me make it clear, I am not arguing against your methods. Although I do things differently, I'm not arrogant enough to want to dictate to others how they do things or deny that their methods are valid or effective. My argument is against the claim that the dog is choosing to be "disobedient" and is "correcting himself". If you do things your way, by the time he gets to a threshold with another dog, he has two conditioned behaviours - stay on a loose leash and shut up, or run to the end of the leash lunging and barking. If he does the latter, my argument is that it isn't disobedience, it is that one layer of conditioning was stronger than the other. You effectively acknowledge this when you don't just jump in and ask too much of the dog early on. At what point do you get to decide that the dog is being disobedient, rather than just not being ready? And this is why I make the argument. When the trainer becomes arrogant enough to decide that the dog is being disobedient, a great many misunderstandings occur that do not encourage good, effective training. Some skilled trainers can avoid this, people who get their advice over the internet might not. Aidan, If I was to train a dog that had been conditioned to misbehave on the leash in some fashion and not listen to commands like the OP's dog, I would start from scratch on the long line. I wouldn't expose it to encounters with strange dogs and begin the training on leash corrections which is unfair and cruel on the dog. I would train the dog until it was bullet proof in a distraction free environment as I explained before, then introduce distractions when and only when the dog understood and knew the commands. When the dog does get to a threshold with another dog when introducing that distraction considering that the dog has now been conditioned to listen to me from it's foundation training it has two options, either repond to my "leave it" command or disobey and lunge. If it disobeys and lunges it suffers a leash correction in not so different fashion than your mum as a kid commanding to leave the lollies alone in the supermarket when disobeying her resulted in a smacked bum. It's not that the conditioning to want a lollie overrode mums command to leave it alone causing the child to disobey, it's the conditioning of knowing mum won't clip him across the ear is why he disobeys. Dad will clip him across the ear and the kid hangs on every word that dad says, works the same with dogs. There has to be a balance of both methods used to train dogs effectively as I said before, neither totally positive or totally negative will work from my experiences.

Erny, I have heard this before from the US coming from a police K9 trainer in a discussion concerning the differences between the Malanois and GSD in police working roles. It went along the lines of the Malanios being a better worker than the GSD except for traits of unpredictability as you have mentioned which most involved in the discussion agreed upon. Different Malanois lines were mentioned which I am not familiar with, but generally the behaviour was percevied as a genetic disorder in the breed I recall???

Aidan, To understand the leash and choker correction methods, you first must understand the full training process and not focus upon certain aspects without digesting the "whole" system. Firstly the dog is "not" conditioned to lunge at all. The dog is conditioned to listen to me and follow my lead from the first day of training. The dog is taught various commands in a distraction free environment and learns the commands in a bullet proof fashion prior to distractions being added into the program. The dog then has learned the command and has done it over 100 times or more. For example, the dog is conditioned to know what "leave it" means. When introducing a distraction and keeping in mind the dog's conditioning is to listen to me, the choice to ignor the "leave it" command which is a command that the dog knows and obeys to pursue a distraction is disobedience, 100% pure disobedience that will result in correction and the dog swiftly gets the message what's required of him. The exercise of correction revolves around the dog learning that his choice to ignor known commands doesn't work like putting your hand in the fire it will get burned. As far as trachea injury and all that over exaggerated bulldust in support of clickers and treats, on a 6 foot leash there is nowhere near the momentum in correction to harm the dog, "fact", that approach is an unfounded mistruth. Sure dogs have sustained injuries with chokers and have died being hooked on fences etc etc, but not from leash corrections adminstered properly I can swear to that. Corrections are "only" administered to the disobedience of commands that the dog knows and understands.