Understanding The Creation Of A "Sleeve-Happy" Dog (Undesirable equipment orientation of Personal Protection /Law Enforcement Dog)

What causes sleeve/equipment-oriented dog? Well, duh!!!!! it is bad training stemming from a misunderstanding of the topic. The dog needs to be flexible. I am attempting here to explain this. While the dog will always prefer to bite some area, he should not be stuck on stupid and be able to bite everywhere. The area of preference are areas where he learned that he can win and which are fun. Also, such areas are predetermined by genetic memory.

Based on the survival and natural selection of dogs who are doing the right thing in order to survive. They do so literally for hundreds of millions of years ( even lizards and dinos had prey drive), so it is there quite well established. To me, it is obvious that wolves in the pack inherently have genetic memory for such preferences. Some pack members go for legs to slow the "deer" down, and the other finishes it off by throat bite, and so on. IMO all wolves have the instinctual ability to bite any "good" area but will prefer whatever worked for them during - especially - the first hunt. The first hunt is determining factor for the default development. While this example involves prey drive, it is applicable to defense drive as well. Thus this is what I call "default." Whatever worked the first time will work again and thus will be used the same way again; if you in the age of 4 learn that 1+1=2, then you will apply this knowledge for the rest of your life. The higher the stress on the dog, the most obvious is the default because during the higher adequate stress, it is the most likely that the default will come to the surface. This genetic knowledge in a dog comes from survival needs leading to genetic memory while in wild as a wolf and even before. We, as trainers, then must understand that. We need to use it, and at the same time, we need to make sure that the dog does not get stuck on stupid and prefer ONLY one such area. In our training, the dog will succumb to sleeve happiness in sportism type training, where the dog is allowed to,... nay demanded from that he ONLY target is the sleeve. Whilst this is great and necessary for sport, it is detrimental in PP/LE training ( = Personal Protection/Law Enforcement). That is why "Sportism" which is PP/LE derived from sports training, is so illogical and thus wrong. Our desire for PP/LE dog must be governed by teaching the dog to fight and NOT to bite !!!! They already know how to bite. However, today's sportism desire to do so-called "foundation bite work" and the teaching PP/LE dog "grips" is vastly misguided for PP/LE dog because, due to the default effect, it leads to fabric fetish, or if I say it more politely, it will lead to in PP/LE undesirable equipment orientation (sleeve happiness). 

That is why (IMO) such part of sportism is yet another illogic of such a training approach. Thus to avoid equipment orientation trainer needs to teach the dog/puppy to target the man and not his gear. THIS NEEDS TO BE DONE FROM THE VERY FIRST SESSION. The first session is THE most important one in order not to establish faulty equipment orientation.

 Another sportism's sin in training Personal Protection / Law Enforcement dogs is that the first lessons are done in prey drive. That, too, is illogical. Why? Because I want the dog who is protecting to use protection drive of defense and not prey drive for hunting. Use of prey drive must come only AFTER the dog understand that he is protecting. ONLY AFTER such understanding is established, we must employ prey. In that, prey is then relief from the stress of the negative challenge of a defense. When the negative stress is gone, and fun or prey starts - that is the motivation and reward. Together with enthusiastic praising by the handler, the prey action is one of the dog's rewards for a job well done in defense. Thus one more time. Personal Protection / Law Enforcement protection starts with defense drive, and subsequently, it is rewarded by fun prey. All this is and MUST be done before equipment is ever introduced!!!!!!! Thus, AT FIRST, the dog is targetting the man and NOT THE EQUIPMENT. After all this way you train the way, you will fight and fight the way you have trained. Happy training.