Dutch Shepherd Forum

So Even though we started focusing on PSA initially, I do like some things from ring and I’ve decided to start incorporating them into our daily training. I like these two exercises because I feel like they can be pretty practical in the real world. So here’s a first look at our early stages of the ring style “Defense of handler” and “object guard”

The defense of handler was the first time we added a decoy in, just to see if she would perform the task. We are going to go back to no suit, just a tug with the helper and no bite sends as I’ve been informed that could lead to her breaking the reverse heel to go after the decoy early. But it’s still looking good.



The object guard is also very early this is maybe her third time on his exercise.



Side note she just got spayed so we’re currently on break from training this week

Good stuff. Thanks for sharing.

Nice work. Defense of handler was my favorite!!! We trained for the dog to immediately turn to the reverse heal on "hello" (bonjour), my judges were all french LOL. I then incorporated that at home to the stroller. My kids were infants at the time and I would take them for walks. So I trained Thalie to go turn around and reverse heel to the stroller too.

Dutchringgirl wrote: ↑Sat May 25, 2019 10:40 pm Nice work. Defense of handler was my favorite!!! We trained for the dog to immediately turn to the reverse heal on "hello" (bonjour), my judges were all french LOL. I then incorporated that at home to the stroller. My kids were infants at the time and I would take them for walks. So I trained Thalie to go turn around and reverse heel to the stroller too.

That’s awesome! Yea that’s another thing we’ve been doing since this video is going into position as soon as the helper goes behind me. Not sure why I chose to heel first I think I was worried about her being too amped up from the start, which is also why we’ve taken the suit back out of the equation and just have the helper with a tug or bite pillow for now. Teach her in a lower drive state as someone instructed me to.

Nice work and commitment to your dog

How did you get her going in object guarding ? Is it natural to her ?

Tim91118 wrote: ↑Sun May 26, 2019 1:45 am How did you get her going in object guarding ? Is it natural to her ?

Tim- I had watched a video of someone and they recommended trying this method it’s just a place command with a bark command and then once they get what they’re supposed to do you add in the new cue. I know for sport it’s probably a waste of energy for her to bark like that as this exercise can go on for several minutes in a trial but for real life it’s what I want so I don’t mind it.

So is she actually guarding it ? For example a box with her favorite toy in it to tap into a possessive nature ?

Yea that would work too. I do a couple “reaches” in to get that possession or challenge for the item as well just like you do when you’re doing bite work with a puppy after they drop the sleeve, reach for it let them bark, and then cower and step back to build that possession or defense of the item.

The guard is for , lets say, you have a breifcase with a ton onf money in it. the dog will guard it with its life, if someone comes to take it, they loose an arm. the dog is supposed to be ON or IN or touching the object and not leave it, not even get one centimeter from it. Now, for that level of protection, you really do not want to know what goes into that training. My trainer used to train the police dogs and high level ring and I used to watch him train the object guard. Its not very nice. You still can get a good guard though with less um.... harder training. They are protection dogs, so it is in their nature to guard, plus you are telling them what you want to do and they know if they dont, they get in trouble.

The training should always be done somewhere else and not with one of their regular toys, this way they wont get possessive
in the house. Its all done in fun. and we were taught at home, they dont own anything.

Seems like a little maturity and development is better before this type of training starts. It’s not something I’m trying to get my 8 month old pup doing, although I have seen them doing defensive work with pups a lot younger.

I don’t think it’s necessary to work a dog in defense for this exercise. At least not in early stages. It can be done in prey drive with a tug or sleeve and then suit when the dog is ready. “Defending” an object and a dog being in “defense” are not the same thing. I don’t think it’s necessary to work a dog in defensive drive state to get a good looking object guard for sport. Now maybe for a police dog where the situation is more real, your trainer may have put more pressure on the dog just to see and make sure it would hold up during a real life scenario for police work. But that’s not really necessary I don’t think to get a dog to do this for ring sport.

Again, working a dog in a defensive drive state is NOT the same as having a dog “defend” or guard an object or area. You can keep a dog in prey and have an understanding of when it is allowed to bite the decoy and when it’s not.

I didn’t mean to infer that object guarding required a dog to be in a defensive drive state. I am curious about the dog’s state of mind though. I would hope it was more than a place and bark command. Whatever it is, it is not natural to my dog at this time or I haven’t tapped into it yet.

Tim91118 wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2019 8:52 pm I didn’t mean to infer that object guarding required a dog to be in a defensive drive state. I am curious about the dog’s state of mind though. I would hope it was more than a place and bark command. Whatever it is, it is not natural to my dog at this time or I haven’t tapped into it yet.

the defense and guard are not for young dogs. these are upper level training moves. there is plenty to do for a pup to train. We would train for a year before moving up and that was IF the dog was ready and they were already adults. These are very demanding.

The defense is also teaching moves and cues, like when I would say Hello, you would teach them to move to the other side as the decoy says hello. then you teach attack at the audible hit of handler by decoy. So you already have solid bite work, now you just teach the dog what to do when.

Ok, so I have a random question. Can the same behavior be trained without prey or defense? Can a dog be trained to stay with an 'object' and bark until a release? If so is that also an over a year old lesson?

ladyjubilee wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 12:42 am Ok, so I have a random question. Can the same behavior be trained without prey or defense? Can a dog be trained to stay with an 'object' and bark until a release? If so is that also an over a year old lesson?

It absolutely can and that’s what I was trying to express. If you add a decoy/ helper with a toy you’re going to bring out some prey drive.

But yes you can absolutely teach your dog “place” on an object and then give a bark command. You can then put a separate cue on the lot all together, once he dog understands to get the dog to stay near the object and bark on one cue. Just move next to the object maybe touch it and give the place command and give them the bark command as you circle the object. Fade some commands away and add the new cue and you’d be surprised at the results.

This will give you pretty much exactly what’s in my video there. Notice her tail is wagging we’re just having fun. She knows I want her to stay by the cone and bark. She likes barking it’s fun for her so she’s going to do it. At this point, there is not a whole lot brought into this. She knows what’s expected and she executes. It looks cool and in most instances will work. (Unless your bad guys really want to test to see if your dutch shepherds teeth really hurt). Now once you go to test how far your dog will go to stay by the object and protect by means of deciding when to bite is another thing. But to get exactly what I’ve got in that video... place and bark - circle object add new cue in later.

And no I don’t think any of that is over a year old lesson personally.

Great. A variation on this is one of the "tasks" I would like Bramble to perform. I want her to learn to stay with my son, then bark until I (or anyone) gives her the release word.....but just don't want her to bite anyone.

That one might be tricky. You could definitely do that but I feel like that might stress your son out as well as he barking. I would definitely get some help from a trainer if that’s something you want to do.

We're working with a trainer. Right now we're working on off leash obedience and dog reactivity. I'm also supposed to be thinking about the tasks we want to train, with the knowledge this is going to be a lifetime of training.

Seeing this behavior in action gives me hope that if we ever had a fire (the alarm being the signal to bark), or he got separated from us, she could bark and stay with the object (my son) until one of us, or anyone with the word could release her. These would be ER life threatening situations so his stress wouldn't as big a concern.

Thank you, this video gives me a way to explain what I envision