Beginning stages of Bite Suit Work and Control - Protection Dog Training

All right. Today's video, I'm going to show you a six year old female Belgian Malinois named Diamond. This is going to be her second protection class. So I'm going to take you through what we're doing here and the beginning stages of how we start to develop a protection dog. So I know Diamond previously had already gone through the bite sleeve work. So like we talk about in other protection videos, we always start with a sleeve so that they can bite the arm and here to develop the bites, get the game going. So now for me, because I have never worked with Diamond before in protection, I did one preliminary and saw her bite the sleeve and very good, very tough, great grips, great commitment. So I will not start suit work until a dog has that foundation of the sleeve that has to be very good before I'll transfer over to the suit. So for everybody who knows me and personally that when I do protection, I've said this in many videos, I will not stop when in protection when teaching a dog at the sleeve game because for me, I'm just not a fan of that. I only believe it's a teaching tool and I've stated in other videos why and it's because if the dog only learns how to bite here, it's not good enough and it makes the dog very vulnerable to attacks fighting back because it's painful, but you could take it to a certain point and if the dog's there, you can fight them off, you can punish them, you can hurt them because you can take some beating here and again, it's very unpleasant, but you're giving the agitator, the aggressor a chance at hurting the dog. If they have an object or a weapon knife, very simple. Dog bites here, this little shaken thing, bam, bam, bam, I mean not hard to do if they're going to bite here only. Okay. Or a gun, whatever it is, whammo, whammo. I mean, so there's a lot of disadvantages when a dog primarily bites here. So that's why in my program I always teach the dogs to bite on the suits. Anywhere in the chest area to the elbow. Okay. Because this is where all the nerves of the body are and it just takes a slight little peck there and it is extremely painful. So weapons in either hand doesn't matter. If I had a weapon in this hand and I went to attack the dog and they bit the other side in chest or anywhere in here, the weapon in the other hand is going to drop. And I have seen this even happen in suits with all that protection in those areas where we had a dog targeting the object arm and they went and they hit the other spot in vulnerability in those spots in a suit. And I've seen the decoys drop to their knees and just let everything go because just a tiny touch or a pinch in those nerves makes the body just go. The nervous system can't help it. That's why we teach here, here in this area, anywhere in these areas. Okay. So since diamond has that arm game, it's very good at it. Now I want to have the suit and you're going to see here the first time suit work and putting her in targeting. So now teaching her because she already has that, she's going to look for that to get her mind off of this, to start looking to those areas. So here this is our first time teaching diamond the target, targeting of those areas. And you see, she strikes great commitment, great aggression. And when she's in there, no fear, no hesitation, no letting go. Perfect spots on that suit. Okay. So those first few times we've given that now same day, we just did that was so good and her commitment was so good. Now we're going to go out to the yard and give her space and see what distance the next step to this will be. If we let go of the leash and she's on her own and she runs closing that gap, where is she going to target on the body? So a lot of dogs struggle with this in the beginning. A lot of them. So they're very good on the leash. We do targeting and while they're on the leash, they're able to hold back and focus on the areas and then they'll hit it. But a lot of times once you let that leash go and they have to go running, all of a sudden the targeting they were doing so well on a leash just went out the window and they become erratic while they're on the way to the decoy looking all over the place and all of a sudden they hit over here. They hit the arm again, what they were used to. So this, I want to see what diamond's going to do here because if there's anything we have to fix, I need to work at that right now because so many dogs have to have more steps done when they let go of that leash and they start running. It's not uncommon. It's actually the most common. So we're going to give it a shot here and see if she'll target just as well when she gets a running start with some good distance between me and her. And what is she going to do with that distance? When that short, she hits the right spot. It doesn't get scattered all over the place. What? What? What? Let me just make sure I'm getting house. It's hard, man. It's like being hit by a linebacker. She's coming at you. Good house. The second one. She got you right there too. And my rib cage, she hit me hard. I was like, Ooh, I almost blew the wind out of me. Really? Yeah. She's sitting in the right spot. Oh, she's getting me good. She's got me right in a good, perfect spot. She's not even going after the arm. No, she didn't even give a crap. She's going right into anything. This area is good. Watch, watch. Pumpkin. Pumpkin. That'd be perfect. Perfect. And this is her only first day of doing the targeting in the suit. And just like that great speed commitment. I mean, when she's hitting me, she is throttling me. I mean, I was very surprised that first hit she gave me. I actually surprised me how fully committed she was coming in and hitting so hard. I mean, like throwing her whole body weight into me with that bite and holding on in one shot, perfectly in the targeted area. So, I mean, that's very impressive. And especially it's only her first day on the suit in that area, the targeting. It's great. Few things here I want to mention is because diamonds in her beginning stages of, of the bite work. Now in all my other protection videos, because I don't usually show beginning steps, but now you see here, there's the moment in the beginning when we first started diamond was on the leash barking at me and the owner told her to out. So we want no more aggression until we tell her to be aggressive again. This is something diamond has to learn that we have not done with her. And she does not know self-control. I mean, she goes crazy at everything. So this is definitely something out of her norm because when she starts going, it's hard to control her. And this is outside of bite work as well. She'll just start barking at people and things, right? So here you see the owner. We just started trying to work on her, stopping her aggression on cue. Just this lesson previously, maybe like 10 minutes ago. So here when I come to walk out in the suit, she starts going crazy at me, but the game is not on yet. So this is perfect time to teach herself control. So the owner tells her to out and you see she gets right next to him and shuts off and lets me walk all the way to the field and stand out there and talk to the owner without all the barking and aggressive behavior towards me when we're not ready for it. So she has to learn when to turn it on and when to shut it off on cue. So there's perfect. Okay. And then when we're ready, I tell the owner, tell her the watch command, and then she can go out in front of you and go crazy. So as an end game to protection, you will never see any of the dogs that I've trained after the fact, when they're done on a leash, when somebody tells them, watch, they explode on a leash in the street doing this. That to me is unacceptable. That is out of control behavior. I don't want that. I don't need that for function. So in reality, if I have a German shepherd, I'm Belgian Malinois, a Rottweiler, a Doberman, any of those breeds next to me, and somebody's crazy enough to even think about trying me. And I have that next to me and he's protection trained and he knows how to do it or she, and I need to turn them on to scare them. The dog does not have to be bouncing out here on a leash crazily to intimidate somebody and make the show. So if they're next to me controlled and now I have no leash on them. So let's say I don't have a leash, another problem. And I say, watch, and the dog goes crazy. And they're going to blow out like that. And then talk. Now, what do I do? Because the dog doesn't have the boundary there either. They're going to start going running forward. And most dogs who do this, when you tell them to turn on, there's a lack of control in that training. Anyway, dangerous. And I've seen leashes drop on dogs that are supposed to be well-trained and protection. And the moment that person was doing this, and the leash got out of their hands and dropped, the dog ran and bit the person when they weren't supposed to. And the dog, the owner couldn't call them back because their training was not that good. It has to be elite perfection when you're going to teach dogs to bite. So that's why you will never see a leash game on my protection dogs in the end. Now, because diamonds in her beginning stages, we have to develop certain things. I can't expect her to stay on the heel leg right now. I haven't even developed the suit yet. I mean, we just started. So there's so many processes we have to go through right now with her. So that's why we're letting her jump on the leash and do this and get a little crazy because it's going to help us maintain her passion and aggression just in the beginning stages. So I want that to be very clear that unacceptable for a dog who's in advanced stages or done to be bouncing on a leash when you tell them to turn on. Okay. So the other thing also here, you're going to be seeing us do this, tell the owner she's calm. She's quiet watch. And she goes and hits the end. Talking when we're ready. We give her the word we're going to use in the end to bite the watches only to turn on, not to attack is to threaten. Okay. Then we switch our word and we use our attack word. And then you see the owner, he says the word and let's go the line. And then she pursues and bites me. So as an advanced look at this, what diamond will do very quickly in a few more sessions here, I'll show you Rocco same kind of process here. The owner has him next to her. She says watch with no leash on and I'm there. And he starts talking to me while he holds her leg and cannot leave her. Even though, you know, he wants to bite me. He's only allowed to turn his mouth on and talk to me and warn me and stay there with no leash control. He does it himself. Okay. So you're going to do watch. And then I tell her to send him. So on the word, when she says the word, he takes off and knows it's okay and acceptable because we've sent him on the word and now he's allowed to go do it. Then when he does it at the same time, he hits the perfect area where he's been taught right in that area. And when the weapons up, bammo, right in that area, exactly where we want it. Great commitment, speed and power. And man, he hurts. And the other thing here you see with diamond is when she's biting right now, we're telling her out and pulling the leash a little bit. Just to start associating that very soon she's going to have to on the word, let go with no leashes and only once when we tell her just like Rocco does here. Oh, so also in my system, once the dog is told to out, I will only say it once. I'm not going to repeat to a dog out, out, out, out. I'm not going to do it. So they have to be very fluent in everything that we're teaching them. So they're like, they're Rocco out, boom, right away. Let's go. And just sits there. The outs have to be perfect, clean, first time immediate. And diamond we'll go through this in the next few classes. But right now we can't push everything of control and too much discipline because then we'll make her a little shaky in her bites and her pursuits. We want to keep everything steady and perfect for perfect protection training in control. When the dog is needed, great pursuits, great aggression, power and the control after when the power is there, the biting's there, all of that. She has to listen and let go of it all when told immediately. So we have a lot of things going on here. Okay? So that's the way the protection game has to go. So just to give you diamond from the beginning, and then I'll put videos up showing her going class by class through the next stages of that total control package and having everything come together. So I hope you enjoyed the video. I try to give people as much education as possible and how things work. So until next time, it might be dog whisper.