Thread: Positive fear in dogs

So all these reactions can happen very quickly in a dog.. microseconds in some cases... suspicion, fear, fight. Just because we don't see signs of them, doesn't mean the dogs don't go through them.. I believe all dogs do.

Hi Mark

I partially agree with your views; however I would differ on the pushing with fear. My honest opinion is that we desensitise a dog to overcome any initial, I like to call it reticence, and push the dog to be confident by the decoy acting frightened. A slow process if done correctly which very gradually lets the dog think he is the frightening one, and that the decoy can be defeated. My post on natural suspicion meant that most if not all Herding/Shepherd breeds have this characteristic which can be utilised to a training advantage for service dogs. I didn’t mean “High� or “Extreme� suspicion which was a total misrepresentation of what I was referring to. Of course genetics play a very important part in the level of this, and like any other characteristic too much can be hinder the dog’s future as a service/working dog. We’re possibly on the same page but our terms for the same thing may differ.

I honestly feel that Fight drive is quite difficult to quantify. I don’t think there are that many dogs with true fight drive, which IMO is a combination of prey and defence. Again I honestly think that a dog which has fight drive is a mature animal with the confidence gained through its experiences, and it doesn’t see a challenge or contest, it sees only a win which is a forgone conclusion. I have probably had two dogs with what I consider true fight drive, and over the years I’ve had quite a few. Many of the dogs I worked with did not have true fight drive, but they still did a great job as PDs. Did they severely damage crims……yes in some cases, but thank god in other instances like searching for missing people they found them without showing their bad side, and I was extremely proud of them.

Just my take on things, which I hope hasn’t gone too far off course.

I totally agree with what John has said here and I could not put it better myself.

I would say that this is as close to what i would call a true call as one can get.

Very well put John and Thank you for you very honest comments.

Adam VIPSS

Yes.. I understand where you are coming from John, and I do agree. Pushing fear was the wrong term to use... I meant some fear and or stress can be a positive, and that we can with proper training, use fear as a positive, if used correctly.

However arn't all drives dictated by a chemical reaction in the brain? What triggers this reaction?.. To me any form of stress creats chemicials in the brain to help us fight the stress..one is adrenaline, I am sure there are others.

When pups are young, and we work them in prey..they still go through some form of stress (stress is not always negative), by slowly making it more and more difficult to catch the prey. This creates a chemical response in the brain and produces more adrenaline and endorphines, etc, creating a good feeling. This is why I feel drive intensifies with training...we help the dog produce more and more adrenaline and endorphines, by slowly increasing the positive stress of chasing and finally catching. Possibly, some dogs are capable of producing these chemicals faster than others, possibly through genetics..

This high created is addictive..just ask any person that is involved in extreme sports... A boxer for example...enjoys boxing..but he doesn't enjoy being hit. If it was all about being hit..I doubt there would be fighters...he enjoys the rush produced by these chemicals, which inturn increases his strength and willingness to fight to win. The stress and fear of losing, creates the chemical reaction. Each punch he receives, creates stress, and therefore produces more chemicals.

A runner, doesn't put his body through all that stress and pain because he enjoys it..no he enjoys the creation of these chemicals in his brain.

By pushing past the fear response..we boost the level of adrenaline manufacture. Like when I jumped out of the plane.. Because I couldn't shut down and avoid the fear..the adrenaline was increased to help me deal with it, creating such an incredible high.. I felt like I could take on the world... If I didn't jump, the amount of adrenaline created would have been a lot less, so yes I would have felt good by giving into my fear. However nowhere near feeling as good as taking the jump.


In humans.. adrenaline is always produced by some form of stress.

Do we in dogs through training and conditioning, help dogs create these extreme chemical levels.. and as I say..become addicted to the euphoria they produce. Is an extreme fight drive dog, or an extreme prey drive dog, actually addicted to high levels of adrenaline and endorphines that are produced in the brain? And if so, was it fear and or stress that statred the manufacture of this overload of adrenaline and endorphines?

I have seen fear based aggression create a good feeling in a dog.. I have seen a dog, switch into defence out of intense fear/stress, and then seemingly enjoy the fight, once the intensity grew..which in my mind created an overload of these "feel good" chemicals. Dogs that go into avoidance, I feel retard these chemicals being created, as they have learnt to shut down by bad training or conditioning/imprinting. However they do then create these chemicals, when they turn and flee. this stress then manufactures adrenaline again. So a dog that is pushed to hard when young, learns that fleaing, creates these chemicals.

Therefore fleaing creates a better feeling than staying. A young dog that is not pushed beyond its capabilities, creates these chemicals whilst in fight or prey...creating pleasure while in fight or prey.

Look at a dog that has such intense prey drive, it just can't settle, is always on the go...have we created a chemical addiction in this type of dog? By continually producing these feel good chemicals, to such an extent the dog is addicted to the feeling?

I agree these drives must be genetically active within the dog first.. but is an "extreme" fight drive dog naturally created, or an over the top prey drive dog? Do we actually increase the level of fight and prey by training and conditioning, and therefore increasing the production of these chemicals, getting the dog addicted to the feeling, creating these "manic" dogs?



I totally agree..drives are not so simple to work out or understand. And the strength of a dogs genetics dictates how much stress he can take before shutting down.

I also feel that many see fight drive as some type of anger in dogs, and love the fact that their dog gets "angry" enough to fight back.. As we all know, fight drive has nothing to do with anger.. Dogs don't get angry. That is not an emotion they can create. Anger aggression is a completely different type of aggression than the aggression naturally brought forward in dogs. But many dog owners love that they have "angry" dogs that will fight.

Anyhow... I find the idea of fear and stress and a dogs response very interesting..and feel that fear doesn't always have to be a negative emotion..many people turn fear into a positive... so in training, are we not at times turning fear into a positive for our dogs, just like the extreme adrenaline junkie?

Anyhow the above posts by me hopefully fuel some food for thought, and others may like to express their thoughts on what creates a manic over the top dog, in either prey or fight. Is it just genetic, or is it also ehanced through training, and as sugested above is it chemically based?

Back to the idea that all bravery has elements of fear, as a trigger.

Does fear, trigger a fight response? Or does it only trigger a defensive or avoidence response? Or both?

I personally feel both... as with the human facing fear, which triggers survival instinct. And depending on the genetics of the human, fear can trigger defensive, avoidence or fight response. Fight doesn't necessarily mean aggression..its the fight to survive.

I believe animals are no different..and with proper training, and managing the level of threat we can use fear as a positive in training a dog.

As many here know.. I have an immense interest in canine behaviour, and what triggers and maintains behaviour. I many years ago decided to move my focus from training dogs in police, security and protection, to dog behaviour. I never did train a dog for dogsport. Although when I lived in Townsville, back in the mid 90's did start up a Schtutzhund club..but we couldn't get the numbers then to make it viable to continue.

So please forgive me if some of my posts bore many of you I know most here are just interested in working and training their dogs.. But I also feel that knowing why your dog does what it does, and not just focusing on getting what you want out of a dog, does infact make you a better trainer.

Dog behaviour and psychology, just like human psychology, is of course not an exact science.. So a lot of opnions on this subject are definitly up for scrutiny.

I'd like to give an example of a dog that went from being a calm dog, with fairly high levels of prey drive, to just an all out manic over the top driven dog.

When I did my Drug Dog Detection Course with the RAAF. Training was all focused on the Australian Customs methods.

There were 2 of us on the course.. Each of us trained 2 dogs, incase any of the dogs failed the course. One dog we had, damned if I remember his name, was trained by the other handler on the course.

The first stage of the course was focusing on building the dogs desire and intent on on wanting his toy. This particular dog was selected because he had fairly highly developed prey drive..but nothing we thought was extreme.

This dog went fine through most of the course, from finding his toy in long grass, to quartering, to ripping open boxes, to scratching at suitcases to get to his toy.. Nothing we all considered over the top.

During this course, each dog was worked (trained) anywhere from 4 to 8 times aday, 6 days a week.

This particular dog was doing real well during the course, and his sense of smell proved to be very good, and could drop down to just a gram or so of heroine and the dog found it everytime.

We finally go to the room search training.. During this training, we built fake walls to hide the stims behind. This dog on the first few training runs did very well and ripped open the wall just big enough to pull the stim out... however after a few runs we noticed his intensity was growing.... When all of a sudden the dog just lost it and tore an entire wall to pieces in a frenzy..he didn't even take notice of his toy when visible.. He was like a dog possessed, not aggressive..just totally focused on tearing the wall apart.. We tried a few runs over a couple of days to try and control the dogs intensity..but it just kept building, no matter what we did. As soon as he located the scent..he went absolutly manic and tore walls to pieces. We ended up taking this dog off the course.

What I wonder, did we get this dog addicted to the adrenaline rush from the stress of trying to get to his toy. Was the training too intense, and like the adenaline junkie, ended up receiving overly large doses of adrenaline and became addicted to it, therefore creating this manic behaviour to fullfill his need for these chemicals?

Or was this just a dog with already extreme levels of prey, that layed dormant until we brought it out?.... The reason I do not believe this was the case, was the fact, that the dog no longer focused on prey..because if he did, he would have ceased when his toy was visible. The drugs scent became a trigger, and as he tore into the wall..he just became more and more intense, until he was manic and out of control

Anyone like to comment or ask questions feel free.. I'd be interested in hearing others opnions.

By the way, we both ended up with great dogs.. I ended up working for the RAAF Special Investigations Branch for 2 years on drug investigations with my dog Mate.... He was a champion!

Hi Mark,

I totally agree in the human response with extreme sports from my experiences racing motorcyles years ago. There is definitely a fear component that switches to an adrenaline high. The win as far as a chemical reaction is staying on the bike at high speed and not falling off which provides the confidence to push harder and elevate adrenaline levels and the fear component lessens. After a fall, the fear level increases and the confidence level falls and you start over again to reach that ultimate adrenaline hit. When the confidence level reaches an optimum high, you feel as if you can't or won't fall off...........until reality strikes

My showline GSD I think is fear aggressive but defence driven for the release, he doesn't flea to feel better, he reacts primarily against strangers and other dogs. The interesting behaviour was that he would bark and lunge at strangers who would immediately retreat and the dog wins where he learned that reactive aggression worked best to what we believed eliminated the stress. But strangely as he became confident in his ability to relieve the stress, he got worse and appeared to enjoy it and seek out a challenge or win. In what drive the dog dispayed this behavior, I have no idea, a total mystery to me as no where did body language as far as I could determine ever indicated classical fear.............but I probably don't have the experience to determine it at finer level. Ultimately as obviously this behaviour is a liability and re-trained the behaviour out of him for the most part through physical correction which seemed the only method that provided results.

We never tried to turn this behaviour into a positive given the potential to worsen the situation, but perhaps having the experience to do so in training, perhaps there was a possibilty, I don't really know???

Cheers Nev

Some interesting points raised here guys, I will be coming back to read all this again and soak more opinions in.

Nobody appears to be acknowledging the relevance of social dominance and thick nerves in this thread, and I feel that these two points are what most people don't understand when discussing fight/combat drive (or whatever name you personally give it).

Those of you that really understand social dominance in a dog get what I mean. Those who don't please consider my point:

The following are traits common to all the really great dogs that we see in history, the really extreme animals that we would all agree are they types of dogs that we should breed from:

• High aggression, with a low threshold for that aggression
  Highly socially dominant
  High prey drive
  Thick nerved, with an almost immediate recovery
  Very strong defence drive/instinct
  A 'clear head' (hate that saying but it will do for now).

A highly socially dominant dog will approach a conflict from a position of power and entitlement. This automatically means that the dog is at great advantage.

A dog without excellent nerves, but possessing the necessary high drives, would physically burnt out just by sheer nervous exhaustion...like having a ferrari engine running through a toyota echo gearbox!

The high prey is needed to ensure that the dog can channel the aggression into the grip, and of course there are other elements that help with this.

It appears that so many people underestimate the importance of social dominance and high levels of real aggression, and there is much talk of the role prey drive plays in these extreme dogs.

I believe that high prey is an essential element, but I also personally believe that many of the dogs people consider to have high fight drive can be made to work in that mindset through great quality training and judicious development by a handler with good understanding.

I would still have to say that the difference between some of these 'high fight drive' dogs (which are excellent dogs) and the real standout examples of what a dog should be is the high aggression, and the nervous strength to allow the dog to openly and broadly express this genetic gift.

I am sure this opinion will be picked apart, and rightly so as this is a forum, and forums are about healthy discussion after all. I am regretful that my schedule is a little hectic at the minute and this is really all I have time to share...if I can make some more time I will come back and add something somehow.

Great thread guys, and great posts.

BG

I moved what I had written here from the other thread on fight drive so had written this before I read all the posts.Interesting topic and food for thought for sure.About the adrenaline response in a dog and the enjoyment the same as people get from certain activities I wouldnt totally disagree mainly becuase I wouldnt know but I will say I have had dogs that I beleive in one way or another enjoyed fighting and wether this is becuase of the production of adrenaline or not I couldnt say.I think it is based in rank dominance/social dominance becuase even when not challenged the dog would display the same active aggression towards other dogs and some people.I know to an extent it has been mainipulated by man in the way the dogs were bred but not a learned response to my way of thinking in this case anyway.The dog just thought he was superior and shouldnt be messed with.


One last thing I would like to say and it may be going off topic so may need to start another topic but while you are talking about training.
In speaking to certain people/trainers and some of them with the same background as yourself Mark.I often hear the same thing said about certain breeds and that is about dogs biting out of fear or being fear agressive.I have witnessed this behaviour and am no expert but I can understand it when I see it.Unfortunately I dont beleive its always the case and sometimes subjective becuase of people with a certian background in those roles more or less use the same breeds of dogs,yes?There is no mistaking those dogs are good at what they do thats why they are used and they for the most part exhibit similar behaviours or good balances of prey and defence.Back to my point,there are some breeds that are very defensive and maybe overly defensive that have been bred under certain circumstances/environments to be the way they are.When taken outside their environment and taken away from what they do best they may be out of their comfort zone.So when someone tries to bring out prey in them they cant get much response so they push a dog in defense or it is already and showing aggression and immediately it must be fear based becuase it is not what they are used to.I know these dogs dont make the best pp dogs and are best left to do what they do which is property protection/guard dogs but I hear it too often and dont agree.I guess it is relevant to ones experience and this is not a slight on anyone here just conversations I have had outside of this forum and one just recently by some one of that background that tells me GSD are the only dog to have.
Ill have one when they make them in that short coat variety with wider heads and shorter muzzles and rose petal ears.lol.