Hi Paul

Sorry I have to disagree. Using a ball is a recognised method of obtaining the bark and hold in the initial stage of training, at least it was when I trained police dogs, and should not be considered “trick training”. If this were the case, many methods (and equipment) utilised to get the required result humanely would be considered “trick training”...i.e. using food, clicker training, using a bite-pads, using a sleeve, using a bite-suit, using a dumb-bell to get a retrieve etc. If the dog isn’t doing an effective chase and attack, it is not ready for bark and hold training; if it is, obviously it would already be trained to engage, therefore a ball is used merely to condition a required behaviour i.e. barking close-in to the helper, and once this is achieved, then the ball would obviously be phased out in this exercise........after all not many offenders carry a ball or for that matter a bite sleeve or are dressed in a bite-suit when they are trying to evade a police dog.

I assume you offer detection dogs for the detection of drugs and/or explosives. Are not your dogs trained initially using toys or balls with substances secreted in them? Are they not rewarded when the have ‘a find’ with a toy, ball or tug? Is that “trick training”? Is not all training a matter of coercing (conditioning) a dog via reward and positive or negative reinforcement to respond with the behaviour you want? A ball is just another piece of equipment utilised in training.

I also have to disagree with your notion that defence drive is not necessary in a working/police dog. Defence drive is necessary in any working dog whether it be police or security but it is developed in a young dog as its confidence grows; fight drive on the other hand can be considered a combination of both prey and defence and is not that common in police or security dogs or in fact any working dog. The few that do develop fight drive do so with maturity; they are not young dogs and are rarely under two years of age. Fight drive is not genetic; it is developed with confidence and maturity by some dogs which have “on street” experience. That isn’t to say that your dog shouldn’t have the right working genes which can be considered a good precursor to possibly attaining this, however not all good police dogs or dogs from working lines ultimately possess fight drive, and that certainly doesn’t make them any less of good police dogs. I also have to say that sport dogs usually will never develop this, not because they are not out of good working lines, but because they are not worked in real situations on the street where fight drive may or may not develop through the experiences they have.

Your statement that dogs have a natural “detaining” behaviour is again something I could not agree with; they have a natural chasing behaviour or prey drive (at least most working line dogs do). We condition the dog to hold/bite as an extension of completing the chase (prey drive) which results in the kill for food (or the holding/biting of the offender), but we don’t allow them to naturally kill anything, that is usually done by wild dogs as part of the pack. Dogs in the wild naturally chase and kill to eat, they are not “detaining” anything, they are chasing, killing and eating their quarry; we merely adapt (or condition) certain aspects of that inherent yet dormant behaviour for our own use. As in sheep dogs, the killing and eating is adapted to chasing and herding.

Peter

Hi again Paul

After re-reading your post, I can see that I have misunderstood your reference to “detaining behaviour”. Yes I agree that this is an utilisation of the dog’s natural drives by adapting them to the required behaviour. Apologies for the misunderstanding where that part is concerned.

Peter

Hi Peter,

We might have to agree to disagree on this topic! Having trained with many international police and sport dog trainers over the last 20 years, I am yet to see the ball used as a method of obtaining the bark and hold ( Dutch police, US Police, Helmut Raiser etc). This may be a training method employed by UK Police dog trainers but I do know that the European and US Police or Sport dog trainers do not use it.

I agree with you in your first paragraph about the many humane methods to get an acquired result, however flushing a scented toy out from its hiding place is a little different to engaging into a conflict situation with a potentially volatile suspect, in the case of a police dog. The whole act of detection work utilises the dog's prey/hunt drive in hunting and flushing the prey (rabbit = scented toy/drugs/bombs/target odour) The dog achieves drive satisfaction through capturing the prey and the required response is conditioned i.e.- passive/active). The detection dog is never going to be attacked by a dummy towel that turns into a monster, unlike a working security or police dog which can potentially be engaged by a suspect.
There is also a huge difference between a Schutzhund/sport hold and bark and a service hold and bark.

In regards to your comments about defence drive, I did not say it was not necessary, I'm just saying I don't like the term "defence" as there is a fine line between aggression and avoidance, and defence balances on this edge. For the inexperienced helper, it is very easy to push the dog from defense to avoidance because of the lack of ability to know when enough is enough.
The biggest problem with any discussion on dog training is terminology and the interpretation of that terminology. It was recognised at the 2005 IWDBC (International Working Dog Breeders Conference) that this terminology needs to be addressed so that we are all on the same wavelength when talking about dog training and drives.

On the topic of fight drive - I do not disagree with what you are saying, I am only saying that successful Sporting and Police dog breeders and trainers specifically search for and breed with certain bloodlines and even particular dogs that produce dogs that enjoying engaging in combat with the helper or suspect. So after all the bloodlines I have seen, trained with, spoken to breeders around the world about and also bred myself, I believe fight drive is an inhereted component that, as you state, only develops with maturity but this is my opinion that will be agreed with by some and disagreed with by others.

Regards,

Paul

Hi Paul

I can appreciate some of your views, although not agree. I guess that's the interesting thing about dog training, we're all still learning.

Good discussion mate.

Peter

Thanks to both of you, this is the type of discussion we had hoped for on our fledgling working dog board.
A discussion that has people put forward ideas and styles that are explained, reasons given and some back ground.

On the "defense" tag l also think this is misleading to some novices as they are drawn to almost believe a dog must be pushed till it gets "defensive" rather than as developing a dog that has been bred to both enjoy ,and be confident in, his ability to fight.

A good topic that has some interesting reading for those delving into the nuts and bolts of the working dog

regards Tony

Working as the manager for a security company that has over 60 security dog handlers working every night, including crowd control venues you could guess of the liability I may face each morning when I arrive to work and read reports. We have had several incidents of dog bites.

We teach the bark and hold a secondry back up to the call off. Unlike the police dogs used for apprehension, the dogs used in security are primarily for handler protection. If there is an accidental realease of the dog in a sitiuation, the dog can be activated into a call off or bark and hold to protect the handler from any criminal charges or public liability.

The security handlers also enjoy learning to train in many advanced protection tecniques, in which I find it vwer rewarding letting them go for it and achieve. There is nothing better than watching someone come off the training ground with a big smile on their face from successful achievement in training with their k9 partner.

Jamie

I think there is nothing at all wrong with training your dog in all disciplines; bark and hold, building search, tracking, retrieve, agility etc etc. even it isn’t really going to use some these disciplines in the course of its usual work (as in security). To expand the dogs training/learning can only benefit the dog generally and providing you know what you’re doing or have good instruction, your dog can only be better for it. Of course the most important thing where manwork is concerned is that you have good control of your dog, but training the dog just to bite, really isn’t the be all and end all of training for any working dog, security or otherwise. In fact I’d say it’s one of the easier things to train if you have the right material. Personally I find too much emphasis on bitework and not enough on other areas of training.

Peter