| Muckdogs,
I would say a definate "YES" that you are spending too much time worrying about something that in the end will serve no purpose other than to try to get something out of this dog that the dog will not natually show and thus goes against his character and temperament. For me you are better to work what is there rather than trying to change him for somthing that really will not effect his overall performance. For what I do in bite training I see if the dog will carry naturally, try to help this out if possible very quickly and then move on. Either he does or he doesn't. Calmness on the bite matters, calmness once off the helper for me is something that has been blown out of proportion in recent times.
For the record (this is meant not for your dog but in general), shaking the sleeve once off the helper is not always a sign of poor genetics as some sport people would like to believe but can actually be a sign of very good genetics as the dog can be venting due to having a non classical aggression (more often seen in police service, personal protection senarios than sport these days), or that the dog has good genetics but poor training causing high level conflict that makes the dog loose clarity in the exercise, as well as many other reasons. Genetics of course is one of them but to say that a dog that shakes the sleeve is clearly weaker than a dog that does not is not always correct.
Mick.  |