IPO stick attack to disappear? - Page 13

This idea that we need to hide pressure from the AR morons is foolish and is just another form of appeasement that is a failing proposition.  We need to embrace the strength in our dogs, be proud of it, and make no effort to hide it.  We need to be blunt about how we train and test our dogs and why it is that way.  No changes, so pussyfooting just straight shooting honest discourse.  If they dont like it tell them to stuff it.  Most EU countries will loose the abilty to do bite sports thats a given since for all intents and purposes they allow themselves to be run by far left leaning politicians and special interest groups.  The USA will either take up the slack or serious dogsport will die.

It's hardly unique to "far left" leaning groups.  It's like that with everything.  If every body knew every little thing about everything out there, there wouldn't be anything to do.  Pro sports put on a front, teachers unions put on a front, the NRA and hunting lobbies put on a front, health care facilities, coaching associations, and on and on and on.  , Agility trainers, obedience and nationals bite sport groups right on down to the PETA and HSUS groups have a public image they try and maintain and they try to keep the details out of the public eye.  It's the same for EVERYBODY because there is something, with everything large enough to matter, that if people not associated saw it, would probably be appalled, taken back, disgusted, disturbed, distraught, pissed off, mad, confused, ....... and the list could go on forever about what their ill informed opinion would be.  

I don't try and hide what I do, I don't try to push it in everyone's face and say I'm driving railroad spikes into my dog to see if they'll take because i'm tough and my dogs are tough too, either.  

I'd hate to think of what might happen to the skydiving community if they got their hooks into us. 

Joanro, no, I wasn't talking about you at all. I commend you for continuing with your dog.

Totally agree Haz. 
If nothing is done properly now, the working dog community as a whole (including other breeds) will gradually be faded out.  IPO is still worth defending or else what is there to replace the breeding test.  Topics such as aggression/ gameness and their criteria for testing are being debated, toppled with the training methods being utilized.
What I do not want to see is weaker temperament in these breed of dogs in years to come which is more dangerous than good.

I´m more worried that the potectionsports and their variations will disapear by themselevs than stickhits are going to be forbidden if speaking from europe, if less young people are doing these sports and instead choosing more easy and "fun" types like agility,rallyobedience etc then the challenge is to get those people intressted in the more time consuming workingsports. So maybe the issue is if there needs to be rethinking and change in rules etc, for example easier entrylevels and let the difficulty come on higher levels, or making rulechanges so it´s more similarities between sports and hence people doing IPO can also try other national sports and just not be stuck into IPO because the difference in the exrecises are too big, these types of question I know some workingdog people are working on for the moment if speaking from my country.

My personal opinion, which means squat is that they need to make IPO more realistic.  As in the tracking needs to be more realistic.  If you take an IPO dog and try to do a real life track it would take two years to find the individual.

" .I'm driving railroad spikes into my dog to see if they'll take because i'm tough and my dogs are tough too, either"

Zdog:

If your going to quote me please have the common courtesy to quote me properly!
" Hit her like your driving railroad spikes!"

In todays "Sport" some people still like the idea of a test! Do you study and prepare for them?Of course you do, do you expose your dogs to the stressors the the breed was built on? of course you do! This has nothing to do with "Dick measuring" or "Tough guys" but for those who play the "Sport" there great sound bites if excuses are not readily available. I,ve had people freak over clatter sticks, over jugs with stones in them shaking over the dogs during bite work!!! where does it stop?. I won,t run behind my house or wait till dark to train my dogs, Anyone who has seen my dogs can tell there happy healthy and well cared for. I have several dogs at my home who could,nt do the work and have had them from 8 or 9 weeks old just because they wont work doesnt mean you toss them mine live with me as my pets well cared for and happy. You don,t throw out a life because it doesnt meet a expectation.

I use clatter sticks too.  Of course you study and prepare, but it is a sport, your testing comes in training.  It's the nature of the beast.  It's a competition today.  It is what it is.  you're not going to take that away.  people like to compete, everything turns into a sport given enough time, we even have eating and walking competitions for crying out loud.  It's human nature.  

I think IPO is fine for a sport.  We dont' need to invent 50 other scenarios to train for to make it "real" or anything else.  It won't matter other than to exclude participants because it certainly isn't going to make a shit bit of difference in the quality of dogs produced.  I don't care what sport you do, IPO, PSA, Ring etc, they are sports, have fun doing them.

When does it become too much too train for?  I don't want mamby pamby dogs running around or it to become a glorified CGC, but really a stick hit isn't going to make any difference to me.  I know what that dog is long before a stick is even introduced.  I also don't want to turn into ring sports where I have to travel 10 hours to find a decoy every couple weekends and travel 3 states away to get a trial once a year because nobody does them because they are so time and energy consuming.  I don't think it is necessary.  IPO is simplistic and it is effective, providing you use it that way.  I think a lot of ring stuff is fluff.  It makes more to train for for sure, but it doesn't usually tell me any more about a dog.  and say what you will, there are plenty of shitty fucking dogs titling in ring sports.  Nervy bags of poo, but not as many as IPO, probably because most people aren't going to take the time and invest it to get a title.  We could do the same in IPO, but it's still not going to stop less than adequate dogs from passing either from very good training, or plain old cheating.  Because a dog has gotten bites in pools of loose bottles and had a clatter stick over it's head since birth doesn't mean it has good nerves, it means it was habituated :) 

The exercises presented in an IPO trial are easily enough to ascertain what a dog has inside of it.  It is a very good test, assuming it is given as a test.  But when a dog has been exposed to the same situations the level of times it is in today's training so the handler can compete, it is hardly a test at that point.  and I'd like to see a nice attack out of a blind with strong stick hits too, but you know what that is going to change?  nothing.  Because if someone is going to pay me enough, I can habituate pretty much all but the worst dogs to withstand harder stick hits and pass.  is it going to change what kind of dog it is?  and if they don't want to train their dog to go thru it, they'll just quit and breed their dog anyway.  The overwhelming majority of dogs bred are bred to no standard at all, stick hits or not aren't going to change that.

After my dog learns blind searches and all the stuff that comes before it, that first time I send him into a dark building for a "search" and the decoy charges her and throws her into a corner on the bite and pressures the hell out of her is my test.  I love to see the reactions.  Sending a dog into a blind and smacking it with a stick a thousand times to get to bark for "real" isn't a test.  After hundreds of distance bites that are little more than trial prep and the one time my helper is completely neutral walking down the field, not even making eye contact with the dog till the last moment and jugs of rocks are thrown and he turns into a crazed charging beast at my dog, that's a test.  Finding new ways to yell and wave a stick and run down a field for the ten thousandth courage test of an IPO III dog's life, is that a test? and if they make my scenario of being completely neutral and non committal into crazed beast part of the courage test, everyone will train for it and it will cease to be a test by the time a dog see's a trial.

Someone brought up a medical exam that included doing 1st grade math.  Not really a very good analogy, but I'll make it better.  It would be more like if they gave out the medical exam and let anyone that wanted to take it, have it.  They could study it for 3 years then come take the test.  I'm confident I could teach most anybody to pass that test, and they still wouldn't be any smarter than they were before and certainly wouldn't make better doctors.  I could study a quantum physics test enough to pass it too, doesn't mean I know shit about nuetrinos or quarks or be any closer to the God particle than anybody else. If we wanted to make IPO a test, we'd say, teach to bite, teach to bark, teach some OB and tracking.  Then every trial would be completely different and novel to all dogs. and that would last about 1 trial season till we ran out of ideas or shit got so outlandish it started driving people away.  and at the end of the day, it still wouldn't matter because those that are honest about the dog in front of them will continue to be honest about what they have and the rest will find ways to bypass, cheat, or create legends in their own minds.  

anyway, I'm pretty sure we want the same things for our dogs, well Bob and I anyway and I'm sure a few others.  I don't particularly like debating with Bob, as I know he has good dogs at the center of his concern. but I do see things differently. I do view IPO as a sport and test, but for me the test is in training.  The trial is the sport, i get to compete with my friends.  I've titled dogs I'd never breed, and I had a blast doing it.  I think both worlds of IPO can exist, the sport and the test, but the test isn't on trial day, other than to test your training.  





 

zdog:
"...it still wouldn't matter because those that are honest about the dog in front of them will continue to be honest about what they have and the rest will find ways to bypass, cheat, or create legends in their own minds. "
" I've titled dogs I'd never breed, and I had a blast doing it.  I think both worlds of IPO can exist, the sport and the test, but the test isn't on trial day, other than to test your training.  "

That´s it, not more, not less, never has been, and never will be.