Posted by hard2guard
on August 14, 2009, 10:21 pm, in reply to "Re: Here is where it gets tricky"
173.80.226.172
“He must learn to trust her”
One of the most profound statements of the post.
Anytime a person brings their dog to a trainer to be worked in personal protection, one of the most common factors that is neglected is that the handler fails to throw themselves into the training as much as the dog is throwing itself into it. In this particular case, and as much as can be observed in the still photos, the A/D (hogbender) is making all the right moves, he is reading the dog, he knows when and how much pressure to put on the dog and when to withdraw from the dog to keep it from going into flight and draw it into the agitator. This will assist the dog in building it confidence and aggression, but there is one primary factor that cannot be overlooked, that is the trust that the dog feels from the handler. The observations that I am about to make are only based upon the still photos that have been posted. That is compared to making a judgment based upon one frame of an entire movie, so forgive me if I am mistaken in making a wrong observation. But if I have made wrong observations, I hope what I post may be of benefit to someone.
First thing that I noticed is that the handler doesn’t seem to be emotionally and enthusiastically involved “with” the dog in the training session. From all appearance the handler is standing straight upright and watching all that is occurring. A primary factor that will bring the dog through the stress that is being placed upon the dog and suppress any thought in the dogs mind to fall upon its natural instincts to go into flight is for the handler to “communicate” with the dog that the handler is facing the threat “with” the dog. The handler should be taking the stance of a wide-receiver waiting for the ball to be snapped. Handler needs to be leaning into the agitator, one leg in front of the other, fixated on the agitator, not looking at the dog but looking at the threat “with” the dog, during the whole time “communicating” with the dog, (get’em boy, watch’em boy,) speaking with exuberance and praise continually. When the dog sees that you are with him in facing this stress, his trust factor in you will raise immensely, his natural flight instinct will be suppressed, his confidence will abound, he has a reason not to runaway, that reason will be you. It is just as important for the handler to “read” his dog as it is for the agitator to read him. After all, the dog is in a continual state of reading “you.” Just remember, in a real life situation, if your sitting calmly in your living room, watching tv, eating popcorn, and suddenly, someone KICKS your door in…… your pulse will be racing, your pressure will be rising, your emotions will be off the scale, you “will” feel the stress in a real life scenario, the handler needs to try to duplicate this in the training session….you will see the difference.
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