Bitework

I find the comment astonishingly misinformed and vehemently disagree.  Biting a tug toy taps into prey drive.  The owner uses the dog's drive to chase, bite, claim, and kill prey as a way of playing with the dog or rewarding the dog with play.  Bitework taps into defense, civil, and fight drive.  The early foundation work with targeting and gripping shows the dog that biting the sleeve is what diffuses a threat.  It is not about tugging or winning a sleeve, it is about diffusing a threat and learning through good foundation and slow build-up that the more power is brought on by the threat, the more power should come from the dog to diffuse the threat.  I don't know about you guys but for me, tugging is about play and fun.  I can't think of any valid reason why I would want to present threats during rope tug, nor do I have the experience or knowledge of how to bring out defense, civil, and fight drives.  To me any dog that truly views bitework the same as playing tug has some irreconcilable temperament issues (if this dog is supposed to be good for bitework) and any helper and handler working a dog this way need to rethink the dogs they are training and why they are training them.

 I disagree, strongly. My dogs, besides Jewel, have all been avid tuggers. None of them would chase down and latch onto a criminal or nefarious character of any kind. Bean, especially, and she's a total tugaholic!

Absolutely disagree.

Lots of dogs will play tug with a rope toy, but it takes a very confident, drivey, thick nerved dog to make the transfer from a rope tug to a sleeve.  There are very few dogs, that were not bred with bite work in mind, who can be successful in schutzhund, french ring, or mondio ring. 

BEVOLASVEGAS

Absolutely disagree.

Lots of dogs will play tug with a rope toy, but it takes a very confident, drivey, thick nerved dog to make the transfer from a rope tug to a sleeve.  There are very few dogs, that were not bred with bite work in mind, who can be successful in schutzhund, french ring, or mondio ring. 

  Not that I have anything unique to say here, but I agree with Amanda's comment quoted here.... and by successful in SchH, I mean strong scores in SchH III consistently.

Okay, walking in under a banner of "know nothing", here, but was this specifically related to Schutzhund? If you didn't teach them to bite by teaching them that it relieves pressure, or stress, then couldn't it be the same thing? Can you not teach a dog to bite on a sleeve with a good bite and hold on through other means? I recently saw a lovely working line Rotti do some bite sleeve work and to my untrained eye it looked like he just really wanted to play that tuggie game with the sleeve. He went absolutely nuts for it and would have done backflips if it got him closer to the guy with the sleeve, but he was all about the sleeve and the only difference to me in his behaviour between being on the sleeve and tugging on a tug toy (which I also saw him do) was a matter of arousal. He got more aroused by the sleeve. The guy is training this dog for Schutzhund and also doing obedience with him, I think. He belongs to about the most well known trainer in this country, a guy that trains a lot of scent detection dogs. I do think this is his first stab at Sch, though. Admittedly, I don't know what he is setting out to achieve with the Rotti. He has his own ideas about things. I don't think he'd ever bother to compete in anything, so perhaps he's just messing around and having a go.

No, to really do bitework/protection work correctly it is a totally different state of mind than ANY other form of training (and I strongly believe it should be, lest I end up with dogs that think it is fun or OK to be biting random people who are posing no threat to them).  There is a huge spectrum of how people train and what they think but to me I absolutely do not believe that bitework is a game and should never be trained as such.  Many people do a lot of bite development with young puppies by using exclusively PREY drive - like holding the dog back or backtying and having them bark and bite at tugs or rags.  It's one of those things that you can do or not do; it's purpose is more to get the dog targeting the object and just for something to do, getting comfortable with the idea of "on this field we work".  Once the dog matures and is worked "for real", if the dog has the right genetics and drive, none of that prey stuff really matters.  Some of the best trainers (who also breed and compete themselves) do not do *any* sort of bitework, even tug games, with a dog until it is at least 15 months old.  Plenty of dogs are "object oriented" which means they work for the sleeve, strictly in prey.  It happens but it's a big no-no.  There is a huge difference between a "points dog" and a dog that is actually doing bitework with correct aggression and power.  The dog's arousal is really no indication of how good he can do bitework, he needs to show courage and fight drive and those things don't happen with prey work.  Trying to encourage fight drive while tugging is really asking for trouble because this is how many people ruin their relationship with their dog, by not understanding the subtleties of the dog's behavior and basically overpowering them when they are supposed to be enjoying a fun game of tug.

As for your example, having never seen the dog work or know the quality of the dog or training I can't really comment.  It's very possible the dog was just aroused in prey and a very object oriented dog.  To the untrained eye it's not always easy to know when a helper is merely playing with a dog and when he is applying real pressure.

 

Liesje

There is a huge difference between a "points dog" and a dog that is actually doing bitework with correct aggression and power. 

Ah, I see. That was a distinction I wasn't making. 

Gentle, cuddly Kivi likes to wrestle and goes nuts when I put a puppet that covers my whole forearm on. He just wants to chomp that puppet real hard and we have a great time with it (as long as I have some arm padding). Never ever tried to bite my or anyone else's arm outside of that specific scenario. But this is obviously not bitework. It is a game. I was just wondering if this was a semantics or context deal. I think it's good to mean actual bitework when you say bitework, though.

Liesje

As for your example, having never seen the dog work or know the quality of the dog or training I can't really comment.  It's very possible the dog was just aroused in prey and a very object oriented dog.  To the untrained eye it's not always easy to know when a helper is merely playing with a dog and when he is applying real pressure.

 

That's interesting, thanks. All very interesting.

It is extremely contextual.  I think we all agree how contextual dogs are.  The biting/tugging behavior and the outing are NOT the same when playing tug vs. doing bitework.  You cannot train an out playing tug and assume it carries over into bitework.  You can somewhat condition full griping and targeting behaviors playing with a dog but it may or may not carry over and if the dog is sound genetically, this isn't necessary.