Posted by Butch Cappel
on October 4, 2009, 8:21 pm
99.174.201.23
Does training with Prey drive, sleeves and equipment create a sport dog only?
Can you train a real Protection dog without any bites on a sleeve or suit?
Some of the more hard core posters would have you think that not only can it be done, you will get a better, more capable dog. The majority of people already involved in bite training will probably think that’s at least, Screwball!
So which is it? Well first you have to think that about a thousand or more years ago there was no such thing as bite sleeve and certainly no suits to use. There had to be someone working as an agitator or decoy, for the dogs to practice on, but chances are, due to physical problems incurred, it was not a job with long-term employment or a 401K.
But it could be done without sleeves and suits.
So why can’t we do that today and still get a better PP dog? Why can’t we just get in the dogs face and trust that when he is PO’ed enough he will take out anybody?
When the early SchH trainers preached Balanced Drives, Balanced Dog, it was addressing this exact thing. Because working Civil Agitation is great, and it will get the dog angry and willing to go in and bite, but what happens after the first bite? Can the dog control the bad guy? How would he know how to if all he has ever done is Civil, or defensive work? What if he hasn’t had to fight a man because he has only done the civil stuff and wins when he is aggressive, but not truly punishing?
In the video I posted titled “Sport dog trainer VS NON-Sport dog” you saw a dog that has been trained in SchH and is used to sleeve bites. But when he was threatened with that other hand and whip he fell back on Defense. The result? He got immediate control of the decoy.
Although this was a person with dog experience, and he should have understood the mechanics of the bite, when this dog was Defensive and went for the threatening arm, with all the skills he had learned from prey work on the sleeve, you see the dog get instant control of the man because of his bite. A bite that was intense because he was PO’ed, but full and controlling because he had learned to fight on a sleeve. The dog was balanced and the man was screaming!
You can go back to the one thousand years ago and train your dogs with all civil agitation and PO attitude, but a thousand years ago they didn’t have bad guys high on all sorts of stuff. Today your dog may have to do more in a fight than ever imagined. You can get the attitude needed by defensive work, but the fighting skills needed to create the pressure instead of “taking pressure” comes form the complete package, and that means using sleeves and suits to teac the dog the steps needed to be a successful Martial Artist
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