# Play in prey?



## Ataro Muse (Dec 20, 2012)

I've got a question:
What do you make of a situation where the decoy is trying to get the dog to bite better/get more frustrated in prey and the dog just starts mucking around playing, doing zoomies, pulling out grass and play bowing etc. instead of getting hyped up for the bite? The same dog will bite very well when put under pressure but the times we've worked with a decoy trying to build up her prey drive, the above scenario happens.


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## Thomas Barriano (Mar 27, 2006)

Ataro Muse said:


> I've got a question:
> What do you make of a situation where the decoy is trying to get the dog to bite better/get more frustrated in prey and the dog just starts mucking around playing, doing zoomies, pulling out grass and play bowing etc. instead of getting hyped up for the bite? The same dog will bite very well when put under pressure but the times we've worked with a decoy trying to build up her prey drive, the above scenario happens.



Just guessing here, but sounds like displacement behavior?
How often does she work with a decoy (this decoy)?
You can go at least two ways

More threat and pressure so you get some defense

or

Establish a better relationship with the decoy and keep it play.
Depends on a lot of variables.


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## Ataro Muse (Dec 20, 2012)

At the moment we're on a break, going to start work with a new decoy soon (probably next week) but that has happened with two different decoys - one she met just for a weekend, another she's trained multiple times per week with, over a period of a month and a half. The reason they were trying to build up prey was in order to get her to bite a passive decoy better since thus far she's been just biting well on the active ones and of course, when she's under pressure. Pressure and aggression isn't a problem but their tactic was to try to build up her prey. I'm pretty new to protection, so I don't know if this whole prey building step is necessary if the other methods work?


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## Thomas Barriano (Mar 27, 2006)

Ataro Muse said:


> At the moment we're on a break, going to start work with a new decoy soon (probably next week) but that has happened with two different decoys - one she met just for a weekend, another she's trained multiple times per week with, over a period of a month and a half. The reason they were trying to build up prey was in order to get her to bite a passive decoy better since thus far she's been just biting well on the active ones and of course, when she's under pressure. Pressure and aggression isn't a problem but their tactic was to try to build up her prey. I'm pretty new to protection, so I don't know if this whole prey building step is necessary if the other methods work?



Internet advise isn't worth the paper it's printed on since I don't see how the dog is reacting or what she looks like long term. What you describe sounds like displacement behavior. She does a bunch of other stuff because she doesn't want to or know how to deal with the decoy? If the decoy(s) is good and is really making prey moves then I might try frustrating her with lots of close misses before letting her get a bite. Video would help and may get some more input from other members.


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## Ataro Muse (Dec 20, 2012)

Basically, the two decoys she's worked with so far believe I have to build up her prey drive. She bites well with threatening behaviour from the decoy; stick hits, yelling, whips etc. but doesn't bite as well if the decoy just stands there doing nothing. They told me this is due to being low in prey. Frustrating her in prey is what they did, which didn't get much of an improved response: she does bite when I eventually let her go to the decoy, but it's not as hard as under pressure and just not good enough (according to them). In the end, they went back to putting pressure on her because it was the only thing that got her to go straight forward for the bite versus fooling around playing until she was close enough to bite. 

I guess my question is, is this just time wasting trying to turn play into prey? And as you mentioned before, defense works, so is this prey building necessary?


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## Thomas Barriano (Mar 27, 2006)

Balancing prey and defense is always the best choice but you can't create it if it's not there naturally. Find a regular club /decoy and keep training on a regular basis.
You might try a lot of prey agitation and then throw in some pressure/defense before the bite?


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## Ataro Muse (Dec 20, 2012)

I recently moved to a different country and the decoy is currently on holiday, which is why we haven't started again yet. Thought I'd get some input in the meantime as to what kind of a strategy to take. We'll see how the next decoy goes and what he does.


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## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

Ataro. video would be immensely helpful.


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## Matt Vandart (Nov 28, 2012)

Make a flirt pole.........or bring her to my house


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## Matt Vandart (Nov 28, 2012)

Seriously though, go back to basics and make a flirt pole and just use that for ages, alternatively find a field with some rabbits, I find this is an awesome way to build prey in any dog not just dobermans.
Don't forget that prey drive is not just chasing shit, it's all the HUNTING behaviours, search/stalk/eye/chase/bite and hold/dissect.
You need to enhance the whole prey picture starting from searching behaviour through to the bite to really awaken proper prey in the dog.
Alot of people it seems neglect these parts of the chain especially it seems in sports. In PP and other 'real life' training (PD) these parts of the chain are enhanced during training and it's the anticipation of the bite that drives the dog. 
The biting behaviours is the last part of a chain of behaviours, build up the first 4 and the anticipation of the bite will go through the roof, then look out cos all the cats in Bulgaria or CZ or wherever you are atm will be in danger! Bwhahahahahaha!
In answer to your specific question, it's a lack of confidence in Ashra that is causing the problem, as in unsureness. Once you get it into her knuckle head that what you want her to do is HUNT the decoy, she will come good.


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## Ataro Muse (Dec 20, 2012)

She has no problem with a flirt pole, we use it pretty much on a regular basis for playing and have been since she was about 7-8 months old (she'll be 2 in October)... 

Sorry, no video at the moment. When we start up again with the new guy I'll see if he'll let us make one.


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

re: "doesn't bite as well if the decoy just stands there doing nothing. They told me this is due to being low in prey. "
????

did you have them explain WHY a statue would/should stimulate a prey drive bite or why a dog needs some degree of "higher" prey drive to do this ?
... and if they are in the other country i hope they will still respond to your email 

i don't get it, but please pass on what they said and maybe i can learn something from it .... or disagree //lol//


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## Ataro Muse (Dec 20, 2012)

Sorry Rick, I don't have the email address of one of them and the other one doesn't speak English. I had a translator at the time. 

However, I asked that question to one of the decoys while we were at the seminar and his answer was that he expects a dog to have enough prey drive to go crazy for the suit regardless of whether or not it's on the ground, on a tree, or on a decoy and his movement should not be an important aspect of getting a dog to bite well.


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## Matt Vandart (Nov 28, 2012)

I think they are trying to make Ashra 'Equipment driven'


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## Ataro Muse (Dec 20, 2012)

That's what the seminar dude was trying to do, yeah. He was used to working prey monster dogs. Not sure about the regular guy, though. I never did get much insight into his thoughts in regards to that matter except that he thought it was a great way to teach barking (which didn't work).


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## Alice Bezemer (Aug 4, 2010)

Ataro Muse said:


> At the moment we're on a break, going to start work with a new decoy soon (probably next week) but that has happened with two different decoys - one she met just for a weekend, another she's trained multiple times per week with, over a period of a month and a half. *The reason they were trying to build up prey was in order to get her to bite a passive decoy better *since thus far she's been just biting well on the active ones and of course, when she's under pressure. Pressure and aggression isn't a problem but their tactic was to try to build up her prey. I'm pretty new to protection, so I don't know if this whole prey building step is necessary if the other methods work?


Question? Why does she need to bite a passive decoy? I am trying to think about what the real problem is with her not having any drive to bite a passive decoy. As long as she is serious in her bitework when under pressure and when the decoy is moving, then I do not know why the dog should have to be forced to bite a passive decoy? Her bitework is good when it needs to be, right? Personally I do not see any real need to build up prey drive in a dog that has a good bite when needed. Is there something I am missing? I personally do not think its a good thing to build up prey drive for a suit, the dog should have drive when its needed, not only when a suit appears on scene. This is however my own personal view on things from my own training background


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## Ataro Muse (Dec 20, 2012)

She *does* bite passive decoys, just not well or seriously enough. Apologies if I gave the impression that she doesn't bite them at all. Why she has to bite a passive decoy... the reasoning given was that not all decoys are very active, so she has to be able to bite a passive decoy as well as she bites an active one. 

I don't know whether you're missing something or whether this building up prey process is necessary in the whole bite work training scheme, that was my initial question :razz:. 

I should add though, they use prey for a lot of things which just plain didn't work with my dog, like barking (I've managed to make her considerably more bark-happy by encouraging her to bark and alert at suspicious things which then went onto alerting me to things in general) and jumping: when put in front of a palisade with a toy and myself at the top, she just looked up at me like I was stupid, jumped on the helper who was holding her back and got away from him, then ran around the side to climb up the back. (I did eventually manage to get her to climb a wall when she was in a hyper mood just as an obedience exercise rewarded with praise)


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## Alice Bezemer (Aug 4, 2010)

Ataro Muse said:


> She *does* bite passive decoys, just not well or seriously enough. Apologies if I gave the impression that she doesn't bite them at all. Why she has to bite a passive decoy... the reasoning given was that not all decoys are very active, so she has to be able to bite a passive decoy as well as she bites an active one.
> 
> I don't know whether you're missing something or whether this building up prey process is necessary in the whole bite work training scheme, that was my initial question :razz:.
> 
> I should add though, they use prey for a lot of things which just plain didn't work with my dog, like barking (I've managed to make her considerably more bark-happy by encouraging her to bark and alert at suspicious things which then went onto alerting me to things in general) and jumping: when put in front of a palisade with a toy and myself at the top, she just looked up at me like I was stupid, jumped on the helper who was holding her back and got away from him, then ran around the side to climb up the back. (I did eventually manage to get her to climb a wall when she was in a hyper mood just as an obedience exercise rewarded with praise)


Lets look at this from a different perspective? What do you think yourself? Are you happy with the dog as it is right now? Do you feel it is needed? Like I said earlier, I personally see no need in having a dog bite a passive decoy but that is just me. For me, the dog has to bite the decoy when moving, and not bite when passive. Your post tells me that a passive decoy has no interest from the dog at all and it starts frolicing around but also that it has no idea what is expected from it when presented with the passive decoy, so it bites but its just play and nothing more. Not every dog has a high prey drive to begin with. If you are happy with where the dog is now I would not start changing an entire training menu for the sake of a slow decoy. I would work on getting the dog more secure on slow decoy work, not static or passive decoying. Every decoy has his own way of doing work, some are quicker then others. Work on that instead of focussing on static/passive decoy work.


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## Ataro Muse (Dec 20, 2012)

Well, personally I'm happy with my dog's biting outside of this prey stuff. I'd say that's the least of my worries but the decoys we've worked with have insisted on doing prey work with her and pressure only some of the time. It's not just passive biting, but also the decoy acting extremely frightened/running away/hiding and so on which really doesn't elicit much better of a response from her. Certainly better than being plain passive, but not good biting like under pressure or when the decoy is pretending to be the bad guy.

Would there be any downfalls to just skipping this passive/submissive bitework and sticking to pressure work with the decoy?


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## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

video of the pressure work would be great as well or any other video.

people sometimes see the same thing and have vastly different opinions on it. it is much worse when a description is given by someone who is training their first dog.


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## Alice Bezemer (Aug 4, 2010)

Ataro Muse said:


> Well, personally I'm happy with my dog's biting outside of this prey stuff. I'd say that's the least of my worries but the decoys we've worked with have insisted on doing prey work with her and pressure only some of the time. It's not just passive biting, but also the decoy acting extremely frightened/running away/hiding and so on which really doesn't elicit much better of a response from her. Certainly better than being plain passive, but not good biting like under pressure or when the decoy is pretending to be the bad guy.
> 
> Would there be any downfalls to just skipping this passive/submissive bitework and sticking to pressure work with the decoy?


Video of both behaviours would be nice as a backup to see how the dog performs under both circumstances. It would appear that the dog only finds it interesting to bite under pressure alone and everything else is not worth his undevided attention. You can keep on trying to train through that, hoping that the dog will mature more and grow more into his bitework or you could simply accept what you have. I can not say if it would be a downfall or not, I practice a totally different training from you. I would say, for myself, as long as the dog is serious when the need is there, I would accept it and skip the passive/submissive part. 

I do hope you can get a video from both behaviours tho, it would show so much more then words can explain.


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## Ataro Muse (Dec 20, 2012)

Thanks for your input everyone, once we start up again with the new decoy I'll record some vids and update this thread.


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