| I am not 100% sure what you are asking but will answer the way I think you meant the questions.
That's a fairly small percentage of the dogs It is a very small percentage of dogs are is far smaller now then when I starting training this sort of dog about 10 years ago.
so most of us do not have a dog that has the confidence and courage to really excell in this type of work Yes by the logic above it would be fair to say most do not have a dog that can perform real protection work. Even fewer have a dog that would excell at it.
How can you tell what side of the fence your dog is on? Have it tested by an experienced PP dog etc trainer. Most reputable PP etc trainers will be able access your dog for you and tell you whether it will be capable or not. One must be careful though as they may just be telling you what you want to hear too get you to pay to train your dog. Most however will not train a dog that they do not think it is capable of. AS too whether your dog would excell would take longer to truly access. I tell most people if I work their dog say about 6 times I will know what it is really capable of achieveing.
While sch work was a test or display of a dogs abilities that by focusing on essentially a big game of tug o war, dogs without the nerve are still passing these tests. This is correct.
Do you know if any of your dogs are in that 5% Personally in my back yard I have one male and three bitches. My male is a proven working dog (he is trained in PP work and has done security work), the eldest bitch is also a proven bitch. The next eldest is Dru who is about 3 and who dispite my best efforts does not have the genetics to make her capable of such work. She is thin nerved and although puts up a good front has no real courage to back her up and would fit sqarely in amounst the "not" capable 95%. My youngest bitch who is about 16 months old has only started this training (done about 7-8 sessions) and is showing Good to Very Good promise in this line of work. Time will tell how good she really is but it all looks promising.
Just to give you and idea her direct brother is one of the most natural dogs I have ever worked.
You must also remeber however I breed strongly for working dogs, from proven working lines with both parents always being strong working dogs which stackes the odds in my favour. But s you can see with Dru even then it goes wrong sometimes. Breeding for this sort of thing is not easy.
if they are not would you still train them on the sleeve?
Yes to a certin extent I would. Dru is a prime example of this. She is an extremely high driven dog with poor nerve, but by using her drive we can get her to bite a sleeve and look impressive. But for me it is just good fun and she really enjoys it. Remove the sleeve and she is as weak as water but with it there she looks OK. However I would never breed from her and I would never talk about her as anything else but what she is. Too many of the dogs I speak about get their titles so that they can breed even though it is clear that there is a genetic nerve weakness there. It is not the training I have a problem with but peoples use of such training. I am happy for people to train as such but just call it what it is.
Hope that this answers your questions.
Mick.  |