# Calm Bite



## Kevin Barrett (Dec 16, 2009)

Can anyone give me advice on what to do. My male goes nuts for the tug, he bites it real hard and deep but he will not hold it all the time. Also when he does hold it and I get my hand anywhere near his head to pet and calm him he drops it. He will bite the sleeve on the decoy but he won't touch the sleeve when I am wearing it. (I only do prey) Decoy is down for injury.


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## Guest (Mar 18, 2010)

Have you had the dog from puppyhood?

How old?

How have you been training him? How much compulsion? Marker? etc.

Previous training or Board and train?

Who do you train with?

What is his body language telling you? Ears, eyes, movement towards or away from you, growling, whining that sort of thing.

Does the dog out well?

How do you reward the dog?

Do you mix obedience with bite work? 

What does your decoy think and what is his/ her experience level?

How is the dog in novel environmental situations? Heavy traffic?

Are we talking about a temperament issue or a training issue? That can really only be determined by seeing the dog and you and what the interactions are like. Those questions might help a bit as well.


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## Kevin Barrett (Dec 16, 2009)

I have had him since 8 weeks old and he is now 3. I do protection training with a guy I know who is a local schutzhund club and also the SAR group here. I don't do much obedience with him when we are doing protection. He does out very well, when I use decoy we do our run to keep grip on sleeve but he always trys to take it back to decoy to fight again. With me or decoy he has a excited bark with a high pitch bark mixed in sometimes. My decoy thinks that he just will never challenge me or bite me. We have not been training long as this is new to me. When we train it is sometimes just he and I and sometimes other dogs but there is never a differnce. He stays all the at the end of the lead and barks, lunges toward prey with seemingly high motivation to get it. He will bite and pull tug up till my hand gets near his head but not when it comes to me and sleeve. I reward him with food and or praise.


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## Chris Michalek (Feb 13, 2008)

iits hard to say with just reading your post but it sounds like there is too much pressure for the dog. 

Do ONLY prey work for a while


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## Tracey Hughes (Jul 13, 2007)

Never a good idea to do your own sleeve work. imo.
I would leave it up to my helper to fix any issues that occur in bitework.
Having the dog sit with the sleeve in his mouth after winning it, may help. You can cradle the dog with the helper’s arm still in the sleeve and gently have the dog sit(or stand) and then just stroke him calmly as the helper slips the sleeve.
The dog seems to have problems with you, you need to work on having him confident when you work him away from protection. I’d incorporate some play into your obedience work - ball or tug.

And if it were my dog, at 3, he should be doing some obedience for bites, you need to start having him under control in protection. He is certainly old enough to start doing some focused heeling and once he shows good attention send him in for a short bite.

Good luck.


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## Kevin Barrett (Dec 16, 2009)

Thanks for the advice. When it comes to the ob he does well with me. The protection is something newer to he and I both, thats the reason for the late start. I have heard so many differents opinions on the OB during protection, that it can break the dogs drive and so forth. Still all new to me.


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## Chris Michalek (Feb 13, 2008)

Kevin Barrett said:


> Thanks for the advice. When it comes to the ob he does well with me. The protection is something newer to he and I both, thats the reason for the late start. I have heard so many differents opinions on the OB during protection, that it can break the dogs drive and so forth. Still all new to me.



Do OB for bites.

You want your dog to be able to drop and switch drives. Too many people end up with control issues during protection because they let their dogs drag them out to the field. Of course there are some dogs with lower drive that need it but if that kind of dog needs it then you don't need that kind of dog unless you're just a dude training your house pet for fun. 

Overall, it sounds like you're going too far, too fast. Slow dog and don't put so much pressure on the dog.

You have him on a sleeve? Stop with that, he's not ready for it. Just because he's a grown dog doesn't mean he can handle a sleeve like dogs that have been built up from puppyhood


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## Kevin Barrett (Dec 16, 2009)

Thanks for the advice Chris, do you think I should step back to the tug for a while, or what do suggest my next step should be?


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## Chris Michalek (Feb 13, 2008)

Kevin Barrett said:


> Thanks for the advice Chris, do you think I should step back to the tug for a while, or what do suggest my next step should be?



can you post video? I would like to see how you play with the dog and I would like the see the dog being handled by you in protection.


I would do lots and lots of prey work. Do you play fetch? what do you use?


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## Michael Santana (Dec 31, 2007)

How did you teach him to "out"? Could be conflict. I've had similar occurrences with my male, and came to the conclusion that his out was the issue. I introduced the out differently and now he's back to a full, calm, grip and wont let go until the out..


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## Kevin Barrett (Dec 16, 2009)

Chris Michalek said:


> can you post video? I would like to see how you play with the dog and I would like the see the dog being handled by you in protection.
> 
> 
> I would do lots and lots of prey work. Do you play fetch? what do you use?


 


I don't have any video but I will try to take some. We use to play fetch till I got my bitch then he pretty much lost intrest in it. I am going to try to do like you did and use the tug because he loves that.


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## Kevin Barrett (Dec 16, 2009)

Michael Santana said:


> How did you teach him to "out"? Could be conflict. I've had similar occurrences with my male, and came to the conclusion that his out was the issue. I introduced the out differently and now he's back to a full, calm, grip and wont let go until the out..


 

I taught his out by running him after the decoy slipped the sleeve and we ran for a bit then petting his side till I could tell he was just about to let the sleeve go, grabbing the sleeve calmly saying out at the same moment he was dropping it. He has done it that way ever since, but he also likes to run the sleeve back to the decoy for seconds I guess.


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## Chris Michalek (Feb 13, 2008)

Kevin Barrett said:


> I don't have any video but I will try to take some. We use to play fetch till I got my bitch then he pretty much lost intrest in it. I am going to try to do like you did and use the tug because he loves that.



sounds like he really doesn't have the drive or nerve to work but that's a rottweiler for ya.

Keep all of your training sessions intense and short for a while. And get your helper to do more drive and grip work.


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## Candy Eggert (Oct 28, 2008)

Michael Santana said:


> How did you teach him to "out"? Could be conflict. I've had similar occurrences with my male, and came to the conclusion that his out was the issue. I introduced the out differently and now he's back to a full, calm, grip and wont let go until the out..


Hi Mike,

Would you mind sharing how you did the out differently that made the difference please? 

I have some out/biting conflict with my young Malinois that most likely stems from lifting him off the bite as a youngster. Took Mike Ellis about 20 minutes with his method to out him at 8 months old. [-(

So I'm interested to hear what you did differently.


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## Kevin Barrett (Dec 16, 2009)

Chris Michalek said:


> sounds like he really doesn't have the drive or nerve to work but that's a rottweiler for ya.
> 
> Keep all of your training sessions intense and short for a while. And get your helper to do more drive and grip work.


 

We are training again tomorrow I will try to take some video and have the decoy also work on the drive a grip. My female is totally different she is real hard on the bite and holding the prey.


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## Michael Santana (Dec 31, 2007)

Candy Eggert said:


> Hi Mike,
> 
> Would you mind sharing how you did the out differently that made the difference please?
> 
> ...


Sure, the male I have now is about 20 months old. It has that "intense" drive everyone advertises.. and you don't really expect. He spends most of his time hunting for a sleeve or the ball. When he came to me, he was EXTREMELY possessive, but has always been very level headed. At first it was great... until I had to put him back in his kennel. I started to lift him off the bites.. I noticed that soon there after he started getting chewy and was not as full as when he first came to me. So I went back to a "technique" I have used on a couple of other dogs with great success. I removed the bitework from it entirely and just played with multiple tennis balls. Slowly and patiently I taught him that I had more.. and he was going to get them if he out'd. Of course, there's a little more to it then just that, but that is depending on the dog. It has removed all the conflict, and has transfered over to the bitework very nicely.


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## Candy Eggert (Oct 28, 2008)

Michael Santana said:


> Sure, the male I have now is about 20 months old. It has that "intense" drive everyone advertises.. and you don't really expect. He spends most of his time hunting for a sleeve or the ball. When he came to me, he was EXTREMELY possessive, but has always been very level headed. At first it was great... until I had to put him back in his kennel. I started to lift him off the bites.. I noticed that soon there after he started getting chewy and was not as full as when he first came to me. So I went back to a "technique" I have used on a couple of other dogs with great success. I removed the bitework from it entirely and just played with multiple tennis balls. Slowly and patiently I taught him that I had more.. and he was going to get them if he out'd. Of course, there's a little more to it then just that, but that is depending on the dog. It has removed all the conflict, and has transfered over to the bitework very nicely.


Thanks Mike :smile: We must have twins ;-) I'm sure I made the same mistakes that you are speaking of. Lifting him off his possessions much like the old school GSD stuff. Works great to build german shepherd's but not this type of Malinois. Just made him more determined and conflicted. Always clear headed and I'm grateful for that ;-)

I have just one more question because I'm picturing it in my head. I get a hard time when/if I reach for the object in his mouth to get him to out to the hand. Do you have your boy just drop it and then reward with another?

It's always nice to hear other POV's when similiar type dogs/problems arise that you know are NOT genetic ;-) It's been rathering frustrating for us, both!!

I'm going to give this a shot....and maybe upgrade to multiple tugs. He seems to go in to another time zone with a tug  So if I can get the quick outs there too it may transfer over?! 

I really appreciate your input Mike. Thanks again.


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## Michael Santana (Dec 31, 2007)

Candy Eggert said:


> Thanks Mike :smile: We must have twins ;-) I'm sure I made the same mistakes that you are speaking of. Lifting him off his possessions much like the old school GSD stuff. Works great to build german shepherd's but not this type of Malinois. Just made him more determined and conflicted. Always clear headed and I'm grateful for that ;-)
> 
> I have just one more question because I'm picturing it in my head. I get a hard time when/if I reach for the object in his mouth to get him to out to the hand. Do you have your boy just drop it and then reward with another?
> 
> ...



No problem, glad it helps.
Yeah, I have him drop it and he gets another. Eventually, he gets promoted to me just kicking the ball and tug after he drops it, in which case it's only one. Shorty after, once he understands the game... it's only one toy/ball/tug.


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## Candy Eggert (Oct 28, 2008)

Michael Santana said:


> No problem, glad it helps.
> Yeah, I have him drop it and he gets another. Eventually, he gets promoted to me just kicking the ball and tug after he drops it, in which case it's only one. Shorty after, once he understands the game... it's only one toy/ball/tug.


Thanks for the progression you do as well. Today we begin :grin:


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