Schutzhund "full calm hard bite" (no fight?) - Page 7

chaz , you say you do helperwork , do you do that in the outfit on your avatar , now I can see why you run dogs of the field

Lol

 Koach:

             Here is what I feel about the subject. 

  “ a full calm hard grip that prevents the helper from escaping "

 If you talk to judge,s many will tell you they like to see the dog fight the helper not just going along for the ride as it were. It,s written in the standard but as you can see it is open to wide perception and interpition. My female Fiest is harder to drive on attacks and re attacks because she doesnt like to follow but to lead and this makes her a little tougher to drive you can see her during the drives with a full grip shaking and pulling at the helpers sleeve but the grip never shifts. I don,t want to see that change and hope it never will if it cost,s me a point or two so be it. My original dog that I started with years ago would hit the sleeve and we called him "luggage" because you could carry him any where like luggage and he was happy.

 The shaking of the sleeve and the fighting doesn,t show a nerve issue or stress normally unless it,s accompinied with things like a shifting grip or a dirty out or even a slow out some times. Every dog is different and should be judged as so.
 
 JMHO


 

Bob, I think your term "luggage" is what I'm trying to describe. I have no issue with the grip as required in SchH it's with the dogs being dictated to so easily by the decoy. I see less dogs trying to dominate the decoy, only happy to be on the sleeve and go for a ride. 

Cheers

Bob, well said.

Jim, sorry I did not had a chance to respond.  Had to shut down and move to another office.  Thanks for the info.  Very informative.  Really wish you had written earlier might have made things a bit simpler, on my part that is, to direct the discussion.   Well one thing for sure you had a good laugh and in these times, we all need it.

You and I are not too far off on the grip issue, if you take a look at my remarks.  In its very capsulated form, I talk about the grip as it relates to genetics.  However, I took it to another direction to say that, everything dogwise is genetics from their head to their toes.  Some has different attributes, clr, etc.  It is for us to go beyond that to improve the breed.  Yes the dogs full bite is genetics, But, where we need to go one step further is to test the dog to see its aggression level, its threshold to handle pressure....and pain, to see if we really untruly have the dog that is clear in the head, and mind.  I have seen dogs with fabulous full bite, clear eyes and when pressure is put on them, they actually drop the sleeve and tuck tail and run. From a genetic standpoint, they respond to what they are programmed to do.  However, Full bite, clear eyes, etc. does not spell a confident dog by just these criteria only.  If you talk  to trainers or read interviews from trainers like koos, Konieg, (hope I didn't mess this up too badly), Riser, etc.  you will hear them echoe different words for how they see as confidence. You can hear it in their bark, you can look down into their soul ( I wish I could) and some even say they see it as the dog approaches the blind, hackles raised and the growl starts.  I'm not sure about that, but what I'm getting at, is for everyone that talk about how they select a confident dog, there are others that have their own criteria.  All I'm saying, and echoing your point, full bite is genetic.  However, we need to have a balance dog, not only prey but in defense.  You won't know this until you actually test the dog. 
You can't build something that's not there.  Defense can be enhanced or ruined, but you can't put more defense in the dog.  Prey, they must have some in order that you can build on.  I think you can improve prey drive, if they at least have some, but not the other way around.  IMO.

I do not know about police K-9 dog training.  It is quite obvious that from your comments you know a heck of a lot.  However, the schutzhund "sport" IMO emphasizes the bite to be a bit different. I might be wrong on this.

Thanks for the post.  Oh Jim, I don't think you followed me on the punch thing. LOL.  Just let it ride.

Tenmon, just FYI, Slamdunc is a K9 police officer.  :)

koach
I must agree with you many schh dogs have been breed for less fight and more in control because to much fight drive is harder to control we see more and more dogs without fight drive se in young dogs they dont fight the get the prey ,

we often see that mals really like to use their mouth at a young age more than gsd that is more to like their nose

fight drive is lacking more from nowadays dogs because it is nothing that is being breed for I would though agree RING or KNPV is more of a test for the dogs , there are good schh dogs around but can people tell them apart from the ones that are not so good but with a good trainer




I dont believe that a dogs that fight for the sleeve is nervy

Getting really PO'd at this website! It's eaten my post TWICE!! Grrr!

Here we go again...

I disagree with the person who said that the behaviour of predators is not relevant to the GSDs grip. We are forgetting how herding dogs were developed. Herding behaviour is just a modified version of the way wolves herd and attack their prey. Shepherds actually select pups based on the way they grip the sheep:

The best prospective large flock herding puppy I have ever seen tested would immediately jump up on a large ram-lamb because it couldn’t reach the top of the lamb’s neck without standing on its hind legs and with its front feet on the lamb’s back take the lamb by the top of the neck with a full mouth grip.  The lamb would immediately start to buck and toss itself around lifting the puppy off all four feet swinging it around 180 degrees at a time and then it would turn sharply into the puppy which was still gripping the top of the lamb’s neck and sort of get the puppy turned almost upside down while it still held on to the lamb.  At this point you could hear the puppy give a good grrrrrrowl while holding on until it gradually worked its way right side up again. The puppy never let go of its grip.  Finally the lamb just stopped and stood still.  The puppy stood on its hind legs with its front feet again on the lamb’s back and let go of the lamb while still standing over the lamb’s neck.  The puppy had enough confidence to let go of the lamb and enough instinct to stay in control position on the lamb by being ready to grip again if the lamb should try to get away — which it did, and, when it did, the puppy was ready and able to re-grip.  This puppy definitely wanted to possess that lamb.  This puppy demonstrated these things at 10-11 weeks and demonstrated the same intensity and behavior when re-tested at 6 months.  
 

You can read the whole article here: http://www.german-shepherdherding.com/the-large-flock-herding-dog/

The gripping behaviour of the pup sound exactly like what you'd want if you were picking a pup for schutzhund:

Calm, full-mouth grip

Pup does not let go when pressured, but growls and fights

Pup lets go when sheep surrenders

Pup re-grips when sheep tries to escape

Behaviour does not change when pup is retested at and older age.


The neck-bite described above sounds like a non-lethal version of the bite used by a wolf in this old film documentary (beginning at 29 seconds).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3170gvlnPwU&feature=related 

This is a very interesting film, BTW. It shows the shepherd's two flock guardian dogs attacking and killing two of the wolves!

 

 

Sunsilver, thank you for you information.  I initially did not know this until his post where I then acknowledge that fact thereafter, and thanked him.  Thanks for the heads up though.
Your followup post was along the line where I was going with my earlier anology that I got rediculed for.  I took it in stride.  I probably messed it up too in my explanation.  Some of the people on the thread have forgotten the initial foundation of the development of the dogs and why we ended up having a schutzhund testing methods.  The original dogs were utilization dogs with certain traits that the founder wanted to infused in the character and anotomy of the dogs, via close inbreeding.  But your post is correct.  The dogs were first selected to be herding animals, not what we are seeing today, be it PPD or schutzhund, ring, etc.  It is because farming in those days was coming to an ending which was going to be the demise of the breed.  The founder had to find another way as Germany became more industralized to preserve the strain of dogs he developed.  this is where the GSD started to make its name.  Well said and thanks for bring this up.