| Subject: gary patterson/difference between control and ob in protection |
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Date Posted: 10:28:39 06/01/07 Fri
The Difference Between Control and Obedience in SchH Protection Article
Posted on June 1, 2007 at 07:27:13 AM by Frabo
The Difference Between Control and Obedience in Protection
Gary Patterson
Working with beginning dogs is one of the more enjoyable parts of protection training where we focus on the building and developing of drives. Over a long time, the dog is encouraged to come out and confront the helper, showing all the great temperament the trainer hoped would be there. The dog grabs the sleeve at any opportunity, confronts and fights with the helper and is willing to undertake any challenge for its level of training because it knows it will win if it hangs in there. Unfortunately, protection training is not just the development of drives, but also teaching the dog to keep its drives under control.
Now more than ever, the judges are looking for two general responses from a dog during the protection phase of the trial, control and a strong attitude. However training to produce these two pictures can seem diametrically opposed and even counterproductive. Have we spent these many months building a strong attitude in the dog only to destroy it with strong compulsion when the dog is out of control? What alternative does a trainer have when the over enthusiastic dog is dirty in the blind, doesn't re-spond to the blind search, forges during the rear transport or won't out?
More traditional protection training brings in obedience concepts at this stage and if problems existed before, they now start to multiply. Why? If obedience training works in obedience, shouldn't it also work in protection? Let's review how we properly reinforce good and bad behavior in obedience training and see if the concepts can serve us as well in protection.
Obedience is based upon the relationship between handler and dog. If the dog understands what it should be doing, it is time to bring in proper reinforcement. If in heeling, as an example, a dog starts to forge, the handler gives a correction with the lead to bring the dog into proper position. When the dog is correct, the handler can give praise with the voice or reward the response with a ball or some food. Similarly, if the dog's drive starts to diminish because of the correction, the handler can bring the dog's drive up again with a reward (again praise, food or a ball). It is the task then of the good obedience trainer to require correct work in training with good reinforcement, but also if a problem arises, the trainer can rely on rewards to manipulate the dog's drives. The important point is both negative and positive reinforcement apply to specific acts of the dog that can be immediately rewarded or corrected.
Protection training, on the other hand, relies not just on the relationship between handler and dog, but also brings in the third factor of the protection helper. Therefore, the dog must focus on the handler at some times and the helper at others; it is a very delicate balance. If the scale tips in the direction of the helper, the dog won't out or cuts blinds in the blind search. By contrast, if the dog thinks too much about the handler at the wrong times, the result is an overly sensitive dog that has a poor bark in the blind,
after the out or leaves the helper to return to the handler. Two examples will show why this problem occurs.
One of the more difficult exercises in Schutzhund II and III is the call out of the blind. Let's assume the dog won't come to heel on command out of the blind from the hold and bark. Here the dog is clearly keying on the helper and sometimes when the handler gives the command it is as if the dog didn't hear it. So the handler puts a long line on a training collar and when he gives the command, he also gives a sharp correction to bring the dog to heel. Over time, two things might happen. The first is the dog's bark starts to diminish in the hold and bark as the handler approaches the blind for the call out; the dog is clearly anticipating the correction it knows will come. Secondly, the dog might leave the helper before the command to heel, to avoid the correc-tion. So, because of compulsion applied to a specific exercise, we have gone from one extreme, the dog ignoring the handler, to the other, the dog ignoring the helper.
The second example is the out. Suppose we have a dog that understands the out command, but won't out when it is challenged, such as following a hard drive by the helper. In this case, the handler might put a long line on the training collar and give a strong correction when the "out" command is given. Assuming this works, and it often doesn't with a strong dog, the dog might out, but continue to nip the sleeve. With each nip, the dog receives another correction and so on. Over time, conflict starts to set in as the dog was earlier taught to engage and fight the helper and now it is receiving corrections for doing exactly that. Defense or prey drive starts to lower and social drive becomes more dominant, so the result is sensitivity to the handler. In trial, this is the dog that often looks around for the handler after the out or, like the call out of the blind, leaves the helper to come to the handler.
These problems have one thing in common: the trainer used obedience techniques to train control in protection.
Each correction came in response to a specific problem (i.e., not outing or coming to heel on command), just as we would do in obedience heeling.
In these two situations there was no proper way to reward the dog for correct behavior after a correction, as we would do in obedience. When we give a correction for the dog's failure to out, the real problem is it is not responding to the handler's command. If it outs after the correction, how do we reward the dog? If we give it another bite, it simply goes into high prey drive again. With this technique, there is no way to teach it to stay under control and listen to the handler.
The main reason obedience doesn't work in protection is the handler is working on each exercise and not the main problem, the lack of balanced drives on the protection field. The "V" winner in protection can immediately shift its focus from handler to helper to bite within fractions of a second and then switch again when the rules require it. In short, we don't need a pinch or electric collar so much as a program designed to teach a dog to control all of its drives on its own. Before getting into specifics, please note none of these methods are perfect and good reinforcement, including praise and corrections, will still be an important part of any phase. Sometimes, especially with drive control, strong corrections are required, but only as a reminder or to polish what the dog should already have learned.
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