[ Post a Response | Ask Cheryl Carlson ]
Posted by Cheryl Carlson
on 10/21/2009, 3:44 pm, in reply to "Re: Protection Dog & Therapy Dog"
UKC Dog Sports Judge
Basically, we teach the dog to read "intent". In training, we simulate ALL the things that a dog might "misunderstand".. proximity is a big one, hands raised, running toward the handler, etc. The dog is watching the body language work of the person "attacking" you, AND yours.. so if you react as if the attack is real, AND the "decoy" has the right body lanquage while he/she is working, the dog will very quickly learn the difference. As an example... A bunch of us went to Chicago for the Fall Brawl.. Nick King entered his very good GSD, "Polo".. who is a very sound, very tough, protection dog. On the last exersise, the dog is sent downfield toward a decoy shooting a gun, and then another decoy comes to the handler to attack him, while the dog is down field. As the dog did the work very well, the decoy that was attacking Nick realized that he had a whole lot of dog bearing down on him, and he froze... the dog made the split second decision to NOT BITE, and started to return to heel.. Had the guy continued to fight or seem to attack Nick, OR, Nick would have realized that the dog was NOT going to bite because the attack was broken off, he could have "attacked" the decoy, letting his dog know that he wanted him to continue to defend. These are some of the traits that we build into our dogs, and what make them very keen to body lanquage cues... even better than we are, sometimes!
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