Thread: Natral Ability

Kind of hard to assess as you are talking about protection work where the decoys main role is to stimulate an aggressive response from the dog. You can not judge a dogs ability without applying pressure.

What was the exact scenario you played out? where did it take place and how did you approach the handler/dog?

A dog may display territorial aggression to a person / stimulus and do so confidently but you are only stimulating one form of aggression from the dog, you need to see how the dog works when faced with various scenarios stimulating different forms of aggression to say it will confidently work in protection.

Hey jeff I wasn’t playing the role of a decoy, I wasn’t attempting to obtain a response from the dog the role I was playing was a tester if you will the objective being if I could “tag “ him with a paint brush which would be the theoretical knife??

It was just to show the dog owner the misconception just because you own a dog doesn’t mean that it will 100% protect you and for me to get a couple of dollars : )

The scenario was him talking his dog for a walk and him giving me the route I would wait somewhere along that route the owner not knowing where exactly and I would demand his possession the timer starting the moment they noticed me I completely ignored the dog and talking aggressively only to the owner the dog didn’t stir I then lunged at the person with the brush dog backed away

My question is do you think there are dog out there that just have a naturally ability? or is the trait of protecting a individual only a learned behaviour ??

Originally Posted by Mark

I think one very important thing not mentioned here is 'intent'. Dogs do pick up on subtle changes in our body language and projected energies. In a training scenario the energies projected are 'completely' different to the intent of a real life threat by someone. So using training scenario's to test a dogs 'natural' ability can be somewhat flawed, and really inconclusive. A well balanced dog needs a reason to react. No matter how hard we in a training situation try to make it real..intent is totally different, and therefore so is what the dog is picking up from the 'aggressor' and handler.

Also a dog is not instinctively trying to protect its handler..it is protecting itself from an agressive response within its space. Our dogs don't naturally think "I need to protect my Master" ..

That's the best and most simplified explanation I have seen Mark 100% correct in my opinion.

I have a showline GSD who reacts in aggression towards strangers within his space as a default behaviour with complete predictability knowing if a strange person or dog appears with 10 metres of him, he will light up in active aggression and the bulk of his training has been focused around stopping and controlling his reactivity. In Andrew's example would my dog bite him, yes absolutely, I could only stop him biting in that scenario with leash restraint.

Working with this behaviour for over 4 years now and learning what makes the dog tick, as Mark pointed out, he is protecting himself but having said that, he is switched on to nervousness of the handler which makes him worse, more defensive. When I felt really worried about him lighting up and potentially biting someone as he matured and gained physical strength for my size I had difficulty managing him in an aggressive explosion he would react violently with anyone or anything within his view, but the same dog with my husband who could handle him physically with confidence he could restrain the dog effectively, the dog was no where near as reactive with him as he was with me.

It was as simple as me taking him for a walk muzzled meaning to me that he couldn't bite someone and my nervousness of the situation dropped tenfold his reactivity distance immediately halved, unmuzzzled he would react at 20 metres of a target, muzzled it was 10 metres, so as the handler relaxes, so does the dog and vice versa. I had a heated debate once with a friend who the dog new well for some time and we were getting a bit shitty with each other getting our point across and the dog who was tied up at the time laying on the floor at the peak of the disussion jumped up and lunged at my friend, luckily he was restrained, but was he protecting me?. I don't think so, he was reacting to my stress level, and being restrained made him worse.

This dog was a major handfull over the years and only that he is handler submissive and reliable and safe with us, we kept and trained him, what I have learned from this dog I can look back now to say he was the best thing that happened to me as far as taking a crash course in behaviour, training this type of dog and effective handling and management, it's actually been a worthwhile and rewarding experience.

My opinion for an untrained dog to provide useful protection would be a dog like my showline dog along with all the side effects and management issues to go with it and have absolutely no doubt that this type of dog is protecting it's self essentially although handler nerves is transmitted to the dog making the dog more reactive in certain situations. The only thing I don't know is if my dog would take a beating if someone fought back, would he run away perhaps or keep fighting???. My working line dog's aggression elevates in the fight although he's not reactive and calm untrained, trained in protection my working dog's traits provides a more promising result I think??.

Hi all, the way i look at it is why should a dog protect its owner, when the owner is the leader of the dog (alpha). Sure a well bred and trained dog will help the owner in time of need but all it will do is help, it is the owners responsiblity to protect their dog
If you look in the wild, you will see it is the alpha the leader dog that does all the protecting, and the rest follow

Hi all,

Just to throw a spanner in the works, what are your thoughts on the attached ?

Amazing dog video - dog saves a friend dog on highway - YouTube

Hero dog saves another after it was hit in the highway. - YouTube