all about drives

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0><script> (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-47423994-1', 'fortunecity.ws'); ga('send', 'pageview'); </script> <center> <br> <div> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://ad.broadcaststation.net/ads/show_ad.php?width=728&height=90"></script> </div> </center> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=60 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="200f2f02egerdp.jpg"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Bolivian dog training"><U><B><U><IMG SRC="30b28120.gif" border=0 width="40" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="tips and training"><U><B><U>tips and training</U></B></U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="203f0f03.jpg"> <div> <I>all about drives</I></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Understanding the Drives of Protection Training</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Protection training (when it is done properly) is the most demanding and difficult dog training there is. Most dogs can learn obedience, scent work or Agility , but few dogs can be trained in handler protection. </B></div> <div> <B>I often heard people say, my dog has not been trained in protection but I know that if someone came after me he would protect me. In 99% of the cases this is wishful thinking. In actual fact, most dogs when threatened will show avoidance and run away leaving their handler to fend for themselves.</B></div> <div> <B>The reason for this is based in the temperament of the dogs. In its simplest sense bite training is founded on the ability of a dog to deal with stress. A good protection dog is taught from a young age to act in an appropriate way when threatened. He is taught that to show avoidance and run away does not solve his problem.</B></div> <div> <B>To be successful this training handlers need to have a thorough understanding of the drives that govern a dogs temperament in protection work. They are:</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>1. Prey drive </B></div> <div> <B>2. Defensive Drive </B></div> <div> <B>3. Fight Drive </B></div> <div> <B>4. Avoidance</B></div> <div> <B>If your goal is to learn how to train a dog in protection work, your job begins by understanding these drives and how they relate to each other. If a trainer does not understand drive development 100% he may as well not even start this work because he is never going to accomplish anything in protection training.</B></div> <div> <B>If you are new to this sport, go to an experienced trainer and learn from them. Every time you watch a dog doing bite work you should be thinking "What drive is this dog in and why?"</B></div> <div> <B>If you can watch an experienced helper work a dog you need to be thinking "What drive does the helper have the dog in?" and when he switches drives you need to try and recognize when that happens and why. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Right from the beginning, everyone needs to understand that dogs inherit the drives for protection work. It is a genetic factor and neither a factor of training nor a factor of breed. In other words, if a dog does not have the genes for protection work you are not going to train the drives into the dog. Just because a dog is a German Shepherd, does not mean that it can be trained in bite work.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Prey Drive:</B></div> <div> <B>The prey drive is the easiest drive to see and understand in our dogs. It can be recognized in a puppy as early as 6 week of age. Prey drive is the desire to chase a moving object, to grab it and shake it once it's caught. Puppies exhibit prey drive when they chase a ball or play tug of war with your pant leg or sleeve. Hunting dogs that retrieve a dummy are also demonstrating prey drive.</B></div> <div> <B>When you see a dog chasing a rabbit, a cat or a Frisbee you are watching that dogs prey drive in action. In SCHUTZHUND or protection training, when a dog grabs a sack as the helper runs by, it is working in prey. When an older dog chases a helper off leash in an escape bite or a run away bite down field, that dog is also working in prey drive.</B></div> <div> <B>When a dog is worked in prey it does not feel threatened. Prey work is a comfortable drive for a dog to be in. Dogs look at prey work as a game, for them it's a game of tug of war. They don't feel stresses when they play tug of war.</B></div> <div> <B>Think of a lab chasing a ball - it doesn't feel threatened as it chases after its ball. When a dog is biting 100% in prey it too doesn't feel threatened. The dogs body posture during prey drive is alert, with its tail it up or wagging, (this is probably the easiest thing for new trainers to spot) their is no hair up on the dogs back while biting in prey and it is not growling or showing its teeth. The prey bark is a higher pitched insistent bark, a dog when barking in prey does not sound or look nervous or stressed.</B></div> <div> <B>During bite training we use prey drive in 2 ways.</B></div> <div> <B>1- we use the dogs prey drive to teach it the mechanics of biting and fighting. In other words we use the early prey work to teach it to identify the sack, tube and sleeve as a prey item. The dog is taught that when it sees his owner or a helper with a sack or sleeve he is about to play tug of war and the item to bite is the sack. During this work we teach the dog to begin to bark for his bite, we teach it that it must have a firm grip or it will loose his prey item, and we teach it that when the sleeve is slipped or dropped by the helper the dog must carry and hold the prey item. We will go into the reasons for this all in the training steps of this tape.</B></div> <div> <B>2- More importantly, when a dog matures, we use the comfort level of working prey drive to calm the dog and relieve the stress that builds in defense training. We are going to discuses defense later in this video, we will go into more detail on this issue at that time.</B></div> <div> <B>In our training the prey bite becomes a comfort zone for the dog. It's a place in the work where the dog can calm down without actually stopping the work. By teaching the dog to move into its prey drive when we want it to, it learns to relax after a particular stressful training session.</B></div> <div> <B>One thing to remember about prey drive is that it is extinguished or is diminished as the dog gets tired. In other words, an exhausted dog does not have much interest in playing tug. This will come into play during our training.</B></div> <div> <B>The difficult thing for new trainers to grasp is the fact that as training progresses and a dog gains experience, the picture of a dog working in prey drive will change.</B></div> <div> <B>To the extent that when uneducated person see's a dog being trained in prey he would think that this dog is out there actually trying to kill the helper, when in fact the dog is just playing a rough game of tug with the helper or handler.</B></div> <div> <B>Before we move on, lets take one more look at several stages of prey drive. Each dog we see will be doing something different, but all are working in prey. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>In the police DPO trials the helper does an escape and the dog chases him down and apprehends him in prey drive.</B></div> <div> <B>SCHUTZHUND is currently going through a series of rule changes concerning the courage test - but the old courage tests started with the helper running away from the dog - when the dog was sent after the helper the dog was functioning in prey drive.</B></div> <div> <B>While all of the dogs we just watched were working in prey, their level of prey, the intensity of the prey work and the way their prey drive was interacting with the other drives produced different pictures. </B></div> <div> <B>Defensive Drive:</B></div> <div> <B>For a dog to do police service work, serious personal protection work, or good SCHUTZHUND work it must have a solid defensive drive.</B></div> <div> <B>A dog's defensive drive is the drive to protect itself from a perceived threat. When a young dog is working in its defensive drive it is not in a comfortable situation. The dog thinks that it's in a position where it is being threatened or attacked and as a result it is stressed. For our training we want a dog, that even though it is unsure of its position, it will initially react to a limited amount of a threat with an aggressive challenge.</B></div> <div> <B>This willingness to defend himself is an inherited characteristic. It cannot be trained into the dog no matter how hard you try. If a dog has not inherited the defensive gene there is no way we are going to make this dog a protection dog. A few good examples of this are most labs, golden retrievers, huskies or other such breeds. These dogs just don't carry the gene for protection work. The most that can be expected from these dogs is dog that will bark at strangers. But when threatened , they will go into avoidance and run.</B></div> <div> <B>Even though a dog may inherit the defensive gene, a dog's defensive drive does not start to appear until it reaches puberty. For some dogs this can be 1 year of age - defense does not fully develop until a dog reaches mental maturity - this can be as late as 3 years of age, depending on the bloodline.</B></div> <div> <B>The picture we see of an untrained dog in defense is a different picture than what we have seen in prey work. Initially defense is a picture of insecurity. That dog's bark will be deeper and more serious. The hair may be up on his back, and he will be showing a lot more teeth in the form of a snarl.</B></div> <div> <B>The hair up is a natural reaction to make himself look bigger and more serious. This is a common reaction for animals, we see it with Australian lizards, they have a flap of skin on their neck that flares up to make themselves look more ferocious. Hopefully this will scare predators away. The defensive bark is a deeper guttural bark. Once you identify it, there is a definite difference in the prey bark and the defensive bark.</B></div> <div> <B>In defense dogs will often carry their tail different than in prey. The tail will not be wagging as much and will be carried lower than in prey.</B></div> <div> <B>A defensive bite is also different than a prey bit. It is done with the front part of the mouth. Often dogs will grip with a full mouth in prey and then only with the front of the mouth in defense. When you hear trainers say that the grip is weakened in defense, the mean the dog is only biting with his front canines and is often chewing on the sleeve.</B></div> <div> <B>New trainers should think of the tail and the grip or bite as a temperament barometer. When the dog's tail is up high and wagging, the dog is comfortable with what is going on. As more pressure is added the tail will wag less, it will come down and the grip will get weaker. If the pressure continues and the dog approached avoidance (which is the point where it will run away), the tail will be tucked between his legs.</B></div> <div> <B>The safest time to put a dog into defense is after it has reached mental maturity and after it has gone through the foundation work in prey drive.</B></div> <div> <B>The defensive drive can begin to show as young as 4 or 5 months of age in the form of barking at strange circumstances . It does not develop to the full extent until the dog is 18 to 24 months old and with some dogs not until they are 3 years old.</B></div> <div> <B>Experienced helpers can begin to introduce a young dog to defense when it reaches puberty, this is usually around 11 to 14 months. New trainers that make the mistake of introducing defense before a dog is mentally mature enough to deal with the pressure are making the biggest mistake of their training career. Pushing a dog into defense before it is mentally mature enough to deal with the stress is the quickest way in the world to end a dog's protection career.</B></div> <div> <B>BE VERY, VERY, CAREFUL OF DEFENSE on YOUNG DOGS.</B></div> <div> <B>Some dogs have excellent prey drive - but lack defense. A common example is the black lab that loves to chase balls but could never be trained in protection - because it lacks defense.</B></div> <div> <B>Unlike prey drive, the defense does not diminish as the dog gets tired. Another way to look at it is that no matter how tired your dog is it is still going to react to someone that is threatening him.</B></div> <div> <B>American bloodline German Shepherds often have some degree of prey drive, but 99.9% of them have little to no defensive drive. That's why they cannot do SCHUTZHUND work much less police service work.</B></div> <div> <B>Working defensive drive takes a skilled helper that is adept at reading and understanding temperament and knowing exactly how fare a dog can be pressured or threatened in defense before it is pushed into avoidance. </B></div> <div> <B>Fight Drive:</B></div> <div> <B>As we progress through training the dogs view of the helper changes. Initially, in prey work, the helper is a friend that plays tug or a person that is always trying to steal the prey. Then in defensive training the dog's view of the helper changes to a person that brings stress to his life. The helper now threatens him and is someone to be suspicious of.</B></div> <div> <B>As the defensive training progresses the dog's confidence level increases (if he is genetically capable). He is taught how to defeat the helper in every circumstance. These many experiences slowly change the dog's view of the helper. He begins to see the helper as a fighting partner, as someone to get mad at and not someone to be nervous of. When this begins to happen we say that the dog is developing fight drive.</B></div> <div> <B>We define fight drive as the interaction of prey and defensive where the dog carries the forwardness of prey with the intensity of defense.</B></div> <div> <B>The image of a dog working in fight drive is an adult dog with a great deal of self-confidence in all environments and every circumstance.. It's a dog that does not look or act insecure during his protection work. The level of intensity during bite work in very high, the dog will display a tenacity towards fighting that is not seen in the younger immature dogs.</B></div> <div> <B>The only way that a dog can gain fight drive is through experience and training. They don't just wake up one morning when they are 3 years old and have fight drive. Dog need to go through a sound foundation of prey drive development and then, at the correct time, they must be introduced to a step-by-step defensive training program. It is important to understand that only dogs with good genetics and proper training will develop fight drive.</B></div> <div> <B>An interesting fact is that dogs with strong prey drive develop the best fight drive, we also see dogs with a dominant temperaments develop fight drive.</B></div> <div> <B>When you hear people talk about fight drive being defense, they are not exactly correct. The difference in the two drives is the way in which the dog views the helper and the comfort level of the dog during the work.</B></div> <div> <B>Remember this distinction, a dog with fight drive views the helper as a fighting partner. When he sees the helper he gets mad, he wants to take the fight to the helper. New trainers are going to have a difficult time differentiating between a dog that barks in prey, Vs a dog that barks with the intensity of defense and a dog that is barking in fight drive. Don't worry, this is only normal. Every new trainer goes through this confusion. It took me a long time to get this clear in my head. As your gain experience, your skill at recognizing these drives will improve.</B></div> <div> <B>Avoidance:</B></div> <div> <B>Avoidance is most commonly used in obedience training, it is a drive we do not want to bring into protection training.</B></div> <div> <B>When the stress level becomes too high for their nerves of a particular dog it will turn and retreat. When that happens the dog is in avoidance. Some people think of avoidance as a drive, I prefer to think of it as a form of defense. It is defense in the extreme. After all isn't the safest defense an effective retreat.</B></div> <div> <B>Once a dog is put in full avoidance it instantly learns that this is an easy way to deal with pressure. It can take months to bring a dog back to the point you were at just before he broke and ran.</B></div> <div> <B>When we talk about avoidance, we also need to talk about unsureness. There is a difference. Unsureness is when a dog takes a step back to evaluate what's going on when he is stressed. This usually happens with young dogs that are raised to a new level of stress. Unsureness is not bad - in fact it is actually good. Because when the dog overcomes his unsureness and learns how to deal with the new situation it he comes away a stronger more confident dog.</B></div> <div> <B>A dog in avoidance will tuck its tail between his legs, lay his ears back, get his hair up on his back and run. A dog that is unsure will not have his tail between his legs, his tail may come down a little but it will not be tucked. He may look a little confused but he will not look afraid. There is a difference here.</B></div> <div> <B>Trainers need to develop the skill to recognize the difference between unsureness and avoidance. During latter stages of training we will intentionally put a dog in this unsure area and make him learn how to fight his way out of it.</B></div> <div> <B>Can I Train My Own Dog In Bite Work?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The owner can take his dog through the prey drive training to the point where the dog has learned many of the moves (or skills) he needs to do bite work. In fact if the trainers neighbor would come over some day and see the dog biting the sleeve on the handlers arm, even though it was in prey the neighbor would think that the dog was attacking his handler. When in fact the dog is just playing an advanced game of tug of war with his handler.</B></div> <div> <B>When the handler needs to be worked in defense, he is going to have to find an experienced helper to work his dog. There is no way around this. I will say this, for personal protection work, if all of the foundation work is done properly, the amount of additional help that is required is much less.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Drive Development and Interaction:</B></div> <div> <B>Just about the time you think that you are beginning to understand the various drives to work in protection training, I am going to throw a curve and bring up "drive interaction." How drives interact with each other produces our dog's temperament.</B></div> <div> <B>Understanding drive interaction is an important part of all dog training. If you are going to train protection dog's you are going to have to understand how to manipulate drives to accomplish your training goals. </B></div> <div> <B>A helper or agitator is going to have to learn to change his training techniques so the dog reacts to him in different drives according to where the helper wants him to be at that point in training.</B></div> <div> <B>A good example of drive interaction is fight drive. Fight drive is the product of drive interaction. Fight drive is the result of a good foundation in prey drive development in combination with the experience gained by a good foundation in defense. When that happens we have fight drive.</B></div> <div> <B>Without drive development and drive interaction in these 2 areas - prey and defense - we would never have fight drive. A dog with a weak prey drive or just as importantly a dog that has not gone through prey drive development will become a hectic dog in defense training. This is because it has not learned the skills of bite work, nor has it learned how to relieve the stress of defense through prey drive work. Another way to put it is that there is nowhere to go in the dog's temperament to allow it to relieve the stress of defense.</B></div> <div> <B>I am often asked by puppy customers if my dogs will protect them when they are adults. My answer to this is, I can give you a dog with the correct genetic make up to do this work, what you do with him after you get him determines if he will protect you.</B></div> <div> <B>Without drive development and later training you just end up with a nice pet.</B></div> <div> <B>Drive Thresholds:</B></div> <div> <B>Understanding drive thresholds is also not an easy concept.</B></div> <div> <B>A drive threshold can be defined as the level of stimulation required for a drive to change.</B></div> <div> <B>Lets use defense and avoidance as an example. The lower threshold of defense is the point where the dog begins to understand that it is being threatened and begins to bark with a serious defensive bark. We call this point the lower threshold. The upper threshold is the point where the dog is stressed to the point where it begins to show signs of avoidance. Here it may take a step back or get behind the handler or look away from the helper and ignore him or display a number of other signs of avoidance. </B></div> <div> <B>We say we have reached a drive threshold just before the dog moves into defense and just before it moves into avoidance, or just before the intensity level changes within a drive.</B></div> <div> <B>Drive thresholds vary from dog to dog depending on the dog's nerves. A dog with good nerves has a higher threshold than a dog with weak nerves. Weak nerved dogs have a low threshold for defense. These dogs are very quick to get his hair up on their back and bark at people.</B></div> <div> <B>Dogs with a low defense threshold (weak nerves) make good alarm dogs for a home. These dogs bark at the slightest noise outside. Dogs with strong nerves do not perceive a small noise as a threat so they have a higher threshold for defense. It takes much more stimulation to get the strong-nerved dogs interested in barking.</B></div> <div> <B>Strong nerved dogs can be trained to get more interested in outside noises by showing them that a small noise outside is often followed by an attack on the dog or handler. This changes their perception of what that noise means.</B></div> <div> <B>Here is a point where many people get lost in understanding drives and nerves. Some dogs can have strong drives but weak nerves. I have seen this with Malinoise. Some have intense prey drive, they bite like alligators, but the same dog has thin nerves. When they get around something a little strange they shy away from it.</B></div> <div> <B>These dogs can be difficult to train, new trainers identify the problem as a dog that is easily distracted or a dog that hates slippery floors and other strange things in the environment. This problem often shows up in tracking, these dogs have a difficult time concentrating on a track because their nerves are weak. They get too concerned about other pressures.</B></div> <div> <B>Weak nerved dogs can be trained in SCHUTZHUND but they require special training and are limited in where and how they compete. They can usually only be shown on a field that they have a lot of experience on and where they feel comfortable working. These dogs can learn to do the protection work through repetition with the same helper, in the same environment with the same training exercises.</B></div> <div> <B>When one or two of these three things change (a new field, a new helper, or more pressure in an exercise than is normal) it effects the nerves of the dog and therefore his threshold for avoidance comes down. The image of these lower thresholds will vary from dog to dog. Some will have a weaker bite, some will do a lot of insecure growling on the sleeve and some will go into out rite avoidance and run under the courage test.</B></div> <div> <B>These very same dogs, when shown on their own field will not show any signs of avoidance. That's because they have been conditioned to not feel threatened in their home environment. They have learned that they can deal with the situations that face them on their home training field.</B></div> <div> <B>When we get into training defensive drives both the handler and helper are going to have to understand drive thresholds.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> The definition of FIGHT DRIVE is this: <I>"A dog has fight drive when his protection work carries the forwardness of prey with the intensity of defense. A dog with good fight drive is willing to engage a helper or suspect in every circumstance, under every condition regardless of training equipment being present or not being present. A dog with fight drive knows he can win every fight that he get into and is willing to carry the fight to the suspect."</I> </div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>