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Practical Canine Obedience Training

Jim Engel    2006

Whenever the behavior of a dog is perceived as a problem the standard admonition tends to be "what that dog needs is a good obedience class." Obedience training is thus touted as producing a well behaved dog in the home situation, that is as assisting a pup or young dog to emerge as an adult who will refrain from eating the mail man, chewing shoes, defecating on the living room rug, digging up the yard or killing the chickens.

While there is a whole lot of truth in this, it is a challenge for the inexperienced owner to know where to go for a "good" obedience class and to understand how this is going to transform the mischievous pup into the wonder dog touted in the breed propaganda.

To further complicate things, the beginner is going to find vigorously defended training methodologies and philosophies each, like a religion, promising the one true way. And of course other regimens are portrayed as producing out of control dogs ignoring their owners and living as they please or unhappy dogs under the cruel yoke of human repression.

In addition to practical companion training, obedience in another context teaches the dog to respond to verbal commands or other signals with specific actions such as a sit, stay or come. The focus of such training is to prepare for a demonstration of a sequence of such routines before a judge so as to be awarded an obedience title, such as the AKC CD, CDX and UD. Obedience exercise are also a key aspect of more comprehensive events such as a Schutzhund, Police or a Ring trial.

Notice that these two aspects are very different in focus. One is concerned with teaching the dog to actively respond in the desired manner, that is, the manner that you, the judge or the rules require. The other is focused on what not to do, and the importance of refraining when no one is hovering with the threat of immanent retribution.

Why are these very different ends so often thought of as the result of one basic training process ? Are these really valid expectations ?

The answer is that all of this can be achieved through an effective obedience program properly and diligently applied because the fundamental process is one of making the dog accept you as his leader. Once this is achieved the dog'’s life becomes simple and orderly. He refrains from chewing your shoes or sleeping in the middle of the dining room table because these things are associated in his mind with your displeasure and he desires the harmony of living in peace with his family. The dog comes to believe that your rules are important and that life is good when your desires guide his behavior.

Thus the essence of obedience is the relationship between you and your dog. You need to become the leader; the dog needs to work from the instinctive and accepted concept that life is good when you are pleased. Quite simply, you must develop and maintain the role of boss. For the dog is born looking for his boss or the opportunity to be boss of bosses, that is, over all pack leader, and is never truly content when such a situation does not exist.

This is not to imply that obedience is or should be about heavy handed domination, breaking” the dog to be totally subservient and cowed. The downside of this should be obvious, a cowering, intimidated dog is no fun to live with, and is certainly useless if you need a dog for work or play where initiative is a primary aspect. Certainly such a dog would be useless for protection applications and sports.

So while you need to become the boss or leader, the desired gap between you and the dog should be small, so that he can show initiative and have joy in his work within the boundaries you establish and control..

THE KOEHLER ERA

For many Americans introduced to canine obedience in the nineteen sixties through the eighties obedience training was according to the methods and philosophy of Bill Koehler, the man whose methods, books and seminars rightly cause him to be regarded as the modern father of American obedience training.

“The Koehler Method of Dog Training, first published in 1962, quickly became the standard. Koehler more than any other man taught that obedience as preparation for the formal working trial and obedience resulting in a successful home companion are and should be the result of the same fundamental process. Koehler was in a sense old school in that, after an appropriate teaching phase to establish that the dog understands what is required, a level of compulsion is necessary and appropriate to produce reliable performance, even in the presence of distractions. Training with artificial distractions became the hallmark of the Koehler method.

Koehler of course did not invent obedience training or the specific methodologies, Conrad Most for instance in Germany produced an extraordinarily influential book early in the century, translated into English in the fifties. But the Koehler book formed the foundation for innumerable classes and brought cohesion and a common method to many obedience club training programs. When I speak of the Koehler method here, it can be thought of as a very good representative of a broad class of training methodologies emphasizing careful, patient introductory training and then the even handed application of reward and compulsion to produce consistent results. In the Bouvier world, the well known Dutch trainer Caya Krijnse-Locker was not particularly aware of Koehler when she came to America as a teacher, but her methods are quite similar.

Koehler stressed handler praise as the fundamental reward, and was in general negative about the use of objects such as balls or kongs or food as motivation in training.

There were of course some in that era negative on “the Koehler method portraying it as stressful and unpleasant, even unkind, to the dog. Much was made of the ear pinch as an aid in retrieval training and suspending or hanging a dog in a response to inappropriate aggression. Many did indeed paint Koehler as an overly forceful and unforgiving trainer. And the truth is that some training done in Koehler's name was and is unfair and unnecessarily brutal; some trainers applied it blindly and with their own inappropriate extensions and embellishments.

I was fortunate enough to converse with Koehler in conjunction with various seminars, a couple of times over dinner and via a number of letters. He was most helpful and encouraging when I was in the beginning process of pulling my book together and seeking a publisher. Throughout all of this his emphasis was always on consistency and fairness to the dog.

The Bill Koehler I knew and saw in action, when he visited my original obedience club, was a soft-spoken, low key, even gentle trainer. While the book covers a number of severe corrections, these are included as final, last ditch efforts to deal with serious behavior problems, where the alternative might well be putting the dog down. In almost all instances they are the consequence of strong or fearful dogs becoming out of control and with the danger inherent in a physically mature dog.

I am of course willing to take extreme measures, such as the use of a rubber hose on a dog, where necessary. But to keep things in perspective, I have, to the best of my memory, taken out a hose three times in some twenty five years of training, and actually used it twice. Both dogs were mature male Bouviers in other home situations. One was a dog with a propensity to go after small dogs. I took the dog to training night at our obedience club and, with the owner's prior knowledge, approached a small dog. The male went after the little dog and I rung his bell, struck him quickly across the bridge of the nose. Hopefully he had no idea where it came from and stepped back in some confusion. We subsequently approached another dog, and this time even though the lunge at the small dog was much more tentative, the result was the same. The third small dog was cause for a step back and that was pretty much the end of the problem.

Today the radio controlled shock collar has often taken the place of other, less sophisticated, methods of applying compulsion. (The "hearing aid" can be an effective adjunct to training, but should come after a thorough grounding in conventional training, and under the guidance of an experienced instructor.)

Another example is the famous Koehler ear pinch as a means of reinforcing the dumbbell retrieve. The common picture conjured up is a long brutal struggle involving much resistance, pressure and compulsion. In general, the reality can be and for good trainers usually is quite different.

Although I tend to use a prong collar as a correction in the forced retrieve, the principles are the same. Iron was a good example, he was a very strong dog imported from Holland after police reports on behavior in the original home caused the breeder to get him back and offer him to me. Iron was subject to the appropriate preliminary training where the dumbbell is placed in the mouth and held until the release command is given, to make sure he truly understood what was required.

The fateful forced retrieve training” occurred on one day. The dog was back tied with a two inch leather collar, the pinch collar with the separate, foreword directed leash was put on. The dumbbell was offered and with a slight tug on the pinch collar the dog took and held the dumbbell. This was repeated a couple of times on the back tie, a couple of times off the back tie and a couple of times from the ground. End of the dreaded forced retrieve.

Not that it is always that easy. I trained one Bouvier male, out of the fashionable Dutch show lines. This dog was entirely different. No matter how long the preparation was he would play dumb and resist the dumbbell. After a long and unpleasant session he would finally get the message and take the dumbbell. But two days later it was as if he had never seen a dumbbell before. The point here is that all dogs are not created equal, that the background, the breeding selection process in the lines behind the dog, has a profound effect on the trainability of the individual dog. Obedience training can bring out and refine the genetic potential, but can not produce character attributes not latent in the dog.

As mentioned above, Bill Koehler was in general negative about the use of food and play objects as rewards in dog training. His general thesis is that these things are not reliable motivators, that you are essentially offering the dog a deal, do this and get that. Which implies a choice on the dogs part, clearly not the road to reliability.

THE POST KOEHLER ERA

Over the past twenty years, food and prey or chase drive objects such as balls and kongs have become fundamental parts of many if not most training programs. Indeed, many trainers pander a "purely positive"” training philosophy where the dog is, theoretically, never subjected to negative consequences. Koehler is, implicitly or explicitly, often disparaged as old fashioned at best or as brutal and repressive at worst.

What is the truth of all of this ?

The fact is that competitive canine events from AKC obedience and the various protection sports such as Schutzhund and Ring have changed and evolved, with the emphasis on quick, enthusiastic performances and a very happy demeanor in the dog. In order to accomplish this, it is necessary to select for what have come to be called high drive dogs and build or reinforce these incipient drives which have become fundamental to training for competition.

So, is Koehler obsolete, as many claim or imply ?

My answer is no. The basic Koehler approach is still the best fundamentally and the most appropriate for the companion animal in inexperienced hands. This is particularly true of dogs such as the Bouvier destined to mature as big and powerful dogs.

The evolution of obedience competition to emphasize the quick rote execution and strong focus on the handler has meant that top level competition is increasingly restricted to specific breeds such as the golden Retriever and the Border Collie, and, indeed, into specific competition lines within these breeds.

This has resulted into a divergence of obedience classes into those focused on the garden variety companion dog with no prospects of ever scoring highly in a trial ring and the sport candidate and more advanced training for the obedience competition candidate.

Thus the obedience competition trainer, while he still will in many ways follow the Koehler regimen, must adopt his methods to gradually introduce combinations of drive building methods, that is food and prey drive objects such as balls and kongs, into his program. In short, competitive success today, while it can be effectively built on a Koehler foundation, needs to also incorporate elements of the drive building methods which have come into common use.

PURELY POSITIVE TRAINING ?

Just as a fishing lure must first appeal to a fisherman before the fish ever has a chance to give an opinion, some dog training books pander to what the paying customers want to see on the cover rather than what is actually meaningful for real life dog training. A good example is "Purely Positive Training." A typical statement in support of the emotion behind goes something like "I watched enough sad looking working dogs, no doubt they were trained by compulsion, and have seen and heard of enough dogs ruined that way!" The implication is that by being nice to the dog you never have to make him do what you want, that he will naturally reward your nice attitude by performing as you desire. Many of us have been witness to the sad result of similarly permissive theories of child rearing.

The simple truth is that effective training is always a balance between compulsion and reward. Everybody can see that compulsion in the sense of "Duh, see dis here stick, I will beat you within an inch of your life if you delay an instant in fulfilling my slightest whim" is obviously stupid, cruel and more to the point ineffective.

But why is it that so many buy into a program of "I will be just so nice to you and feed you more and more hot dogs and babble more and more effusive praise until you do what I want" which is equally ineffective ?

Ultimately, purely reward based training may be equally cruel if the dog's failure in training results in an accident or being sent to a "shelter," that is, a place where they kill your dog because you did not care enough to be the leader and trainer he needed.

What, exactly, is "Purely Positive Training" ? In particular, does it mean that you can train a dog for work or serious sport without any compulsion? If it does, it is utter nonsense, a stupid slogan designed simply to sell books or classes to the gullible.

The implication, and the appeal, is that you can go train without any unpleasant "compulsion" or "punishment", that the reward of a hot dog chunk and pleasing mommy will be enough. This is indeed the appeal of the slogan, but if this is applied literally it is preordained for failure.

If, on the other hand, "Purely Positive Training" in the end says to the dog "You can be positive that working with me will make your life very happy" - with the implication that less than your best effort will make your life less happy - then it is nothing more or less than a clever slogan to sell a book. In this case, the need of compulsion, while perhaps only implied, is nevertheless real.

Many canine sports have individuals and clubs with unbalanced training. Those lacking in discipline essentially are social organizations, and there is no problem with this unless you actually want to earn titles and are concerned with your scores.

There are those in AKC, Schutzhund and KNPV who have used very compulsive methods. Sometimes they may seem to have good success for a while, but in the long run both the trainers and the dogs tend to burn out. The best remedy is in judging, that is, for the system to reward a happy, up performance by giving the judge the latitude to reward with points for more than just rote execution of the exercise.

Sometimes I confine a dog prior to training. This is standard Koehler training, and the confinement may be 20 minutes in a run or half the day in a run or crate. As a general rule, it is a good idea. Our puppies never have their toys except when we play with them, and playing with puppies evolves into training. Training should always be the best part of the dog's life. Iron for instance knew that after training there will be Frisbee time, and it keeps his drive up. I will also withhold food as a tracking incentive, sometimes for 24 hours, but I will go longer if necessary.

Some will perhaps perceive this as abusive, but these are important issues which require candid discussion. I do not believe that dogs perform well because they "love" you. I believe that dogs perform well because they love the experience of training with you. When I was a beginner as a trainer I came to realize that I had to make the dog go to training, and that something was seriously wrong. Now all of my dogs pull to go out for tracking, obedience and protection. This is not bragging, I just simply stop and figure out how to restore drive when I find it is not present. Sometimes, this means finding a home for a dog, and that is the nature of breeding selection.

In all training, the time comes when track means track, heel means heal and out means out. The handler must be the boss, just as in my work I have a boss. When I was actively employed, my boss was usually a very good man, and we normally had an excellent relationship. Sometimes we might disagree, which is permitted. But in the end, the boss makes decisions and the employee carries out the plan or seeks a different situation.. So it must be in dog training. There will be consequences to fail to perform an exercise the dog understands, and sometimes compulsion is necessary. No dogs in any serious sport or line of work perform at the top without an element of compulsion.

In summary, compulsion is a fundamental component of all effective dog training protocols, but used to excess or with a heavy hand is detrimental in that an intimidated dog will be timid in his work and erratic and unpredictable when confused.

I would summarize my philosophy of training in this way:

OBEDIENCE CLASS ADVANTAGES AND SELECTION

Although training on your own or under the guidance of a competent instructor can be very effective, there are a number of advantages of a small group situation.

Before making a commitment one should check out the available classes and if at all possible observe several training sessions.  There can be big variation in the quality of instructors and classes. For those with some experience, a good alternative to a class is a group of friends who get together and train.

Anybody can go into the business of teaching obedience classes, and they do. There are no real standards or national certifications so it is pretty much a matter of buyer beware. In general obedience classes are offered by commercial enterprises, very often associated with a boarding kennel and grooming business. Also, there are private instructors operating in many venues, anyplace they can borrow or rent a suitable training room.

Commercial operations generally offer group classes and individual instruction. In general, opt for a group class unless you have special problems or time constraints. In these classes you generally pay in advance for six to ten weeks of instruction. In most situations there are significant numbers of drop outs, people who will come for a couple of times and then just disappear. This can work to your advantage, for you might end up with a very small class or even a semi private training situation.

Many obedience clubs offer training classes, and these can be very high quality, cost effective solutions.

Start with your local network, your friends and acquaintances. Ask around; inquire at you vetenerarian’'s office, look in the yellow pages, do a quick internet search. Watch for an operation that has some history, been going for a while.

When you have focused in on a candidate, ask if you can observe. If the answer is no, move on and don’'t look back. Mention the Koehler book that you bought and notice the reaction. If it is an "“Oh my god, not that" be on the alert.

In the class be alert to the instructors control of the class. Are problem dogs segregated for separate attention ? If serious problems are dealt with in class, everybody else may wind up standing around, wasting time and money.

In the obedience club I was initially involved in, the director of training and perhaps another senior trainer would observe a number of concurrent beginning obedience classes and be able to pull out a problem dog and/or handler for one on one problem solutions. In the more advanced classes such a situation would be very unusual of course, for the instructor is dealing with someone they probably know and problems will have been identified and dealt with.

A private instructor can accomplish much the same ends by pre screening the dogs and people and shunting problems into some sort of special handling situation.

INTERACTION WITH OTHER DOGS

An important aspect of canine training is appropriate reactions in the presence of other dogs. Most of my experience has been with larger and more aggressive dogs and in this environment it goes without saying that each dog needs to remain neutral in the presence of other dogs, and not even initiate interaction via eye contact. Indeed, in the obedience phase of the Schutzhund trial this is part of the test. In my original obedience training this was also the expectation and for me it more or less seems so obvious that there is little need to belabor the point.

In the wolf pack acceptance within the pack itself and automatic reactions to exclude intruding outsiders were the very essence of the social structure. In domestication man has to some extent alters these natural reactions according to his needs. In the beginning herding was a natural extension of the hunting instincts, and in many situations from the beginning up to the present day the primary function of the dog was to regard the herd as his extended pack or family and to drive off or if necessary fight any outside intruder, be in man or beast.

But the key to human and canine survival is flexibility and adaptability. In the lowlands of the British Isles for instance the Border Collies deal not primarily with sheep in herds, but with sheep who must roam free to find sufficient grazing in a sparse and sometimes rough environment. This is of course only possible in regions where predator pressure is very low, and the wolf has been extinct or very low in numbers in the British Isles for centuries. Thus the herding role evolved from keeping the animals in a compact group for effective control and defense to one of locating and retrieving effectively free ranging sheep. The dogs of the different shepherds must often coexist in close proximity during the ordinary course of their herding work.

The fighting dogs such as the pit bull are bred to immediately attack any dog who becomes present, comes into their field of view, and are ruthlessly culled for failure to immediately respond. While the pit bulls on the streets are often descended from among the culls, and are often cross bred to god knows what, much of the blind fighting instinct can be and often is still present, even when not immediately apparent. Sometimes the owners of such dogs are unaware of this potential and thus careless and irresponsible in the management of their dogs.

Thus on the streets and in the neighborhoods of contemporary America we have dogs from strongly diverse backgrounds with widely differing social propensities, from those basically a generation or two removed from fighting stock to those from more cooperative backgrounds much less likely to initiate aggression or dominance. In light of this the only sane way to raise and train a dog for this environment is to reinforce from the beginning the concept that new dogs in new situations must be ignored, that neutrality is the appropriate response.

Yet it has apparently become fashionable to have play time as part of training classes and in general encourage playful interaction. In the newly fashionable doggie parks, it is apparently the expectation that large numbers of dogs can just be turned loose together and expected to peacefully interact. ( There are also many public training areas, and here there is a strong expectation that each owner will keep his dog under control and avoid interfering with their training. )

If you teach your dog that a new dog is someone to socialize with, there is the ever present possibility that he is going to start a dog fight without really understanding what is happening. I firmly believe that all dogs should be taught to remain neutral in the presence of other dogs, not to initiate interaction.

My opinion is that one should be very leery of any training situation where the instructor is not firmly committed to this principle..

THE TRAINING PROGRESSION

In all training regimens, there is a natural sequence of teaching, training and proofing.

You teach the dog, for instance by putting the dumbbell in his mouth and holding it, and then on command taking it back. The dog does the right thing because you have hold of his head and the dumbbell. Training commences with the forced retrieve, which often can be accomplished in as little as five minutes, after proper preparation and with proper follow up.

Proofing is having the dog perform under distraction, perhaps with another dog present, or a man with a sleeve. The ultimate proof is the actual trial performance.

These phases are of course abstractions and generalities without hard boundaries, that is, teaching morphs gradually into training as the emphasis changes from showing the dog what is required to insisting that he take responsibility and training moves toward proofing as distractions are introduced.

Many problems in training come because preliminary phases are not sufficiently advanced before the next one begins. Many overly enthusiastic Koehler pseudo trainers will introduce distractions much too early and in an unfair way, which results in a dog being punished for behavior he has no way of comprehending as wrong.

As an example, I can remember a training class where the dogs were lined up and each handler in turn threw his dumbbell for his dog to retrieve. Naturally it was not long before a dog went out after his neighbor's dumbbell, and the instructor indicated that a correction was appropriate. This was wrong, for the dog had not been taught that it was specifically his dumbbell and his handler's command that required the retrieve.

TRAINING AS PART OF LIFE

While the tendency is to think of training in terms of classes and formal training sessions, the reality is that we train our dogs as we live with our dogs according to what we encourage, tolerate or punish. You do not have a choice about training but rather only the options of doing it well and with wisdom or poorly through the tolerance or encouragement of undesirable behavior.


People need to understand that dogs are dogs, not little people or children substitutes, although a little discipline of children works from time to time too. Dogs should learn from the get go to deal with different things. Like being in the crate for a few hours.

There are a number of things that can be beneficial for a dog to become acclimated to as he grows up:

Not all of these things are convenient or appropriate for every dog, but the more divers his experience in his formative years the better able he will be able to deal with separation and other occurrences which become necessary.


Every dog should be acclimated to spending time in a crate. From day one, put him in it for a few minutes to a couple of hours while you are around. When you disappear for a few minutes it will not be panic time.

In general, the most desirable way to transport a dog in a vehicle is in a crate. Yes, we all sometimes ride a dog loose, but it can be dangerous and unwise. The crate should be secured so that it will not slide around in the vehicle.


In the event of an auto accident and a dog gets loose he might run away, get run over or become overly protective of you, perhaps forcing a cop to shoot him in order to get to you for medical treatment. And a crate offers the best protection against injury in the actual impact.

It has been so long since we did not have a dog vehicle that the question of how to deal with a dog in a car never occurs to me. In general, for the occasional trip to the vet, the ideal solution would be two people in the vehicle, one to deal with the dog and one to operate the car. This is probably not a generally practical solution, and my advice would be to acclimate the dog to riding in the back seat and to make staying down and quiet an obedience exercise.

Be very, very careful of public dog parks, every idiot in the world seems to feel empowered for stupidity there.

The Bouvier is drawn from the dogs of the farmer and the herdsman, and a hundred years ago in Belgium when the sun went down there were no lights, no telephone, no police patrol. The farmer and his family probably could not afford or be allowed to have a gun, the dog was a primary part of the family protection system.

In spite of systematic efforts to water the breed down for pet owner winnies over a hundred years, elements of the old character are still there, lots of it if you are wise, lucky or a little bit of both.

THE CANINE ELECTRONIC HEARING AID

Over the past twenty years or so, the radio controlled shock collar which allows a remote correction of the dog has come into ever increasing use. The units have become much more sophisticated, reliable and affordable. They have been enormously useful in many situations such as small, fragile or disable handlers with larger or more hard headed dogs. They have come to have a well established place in the mainstream of canine training. The modern units allow the adjustment of the level of correction remotely, according to the needs of the dog and the situation.

That said, the potential for inappropriate and negative use is always present. The beginner should almost always do his initial training and work with his new dogs in the conventional way, with an appropriate collar and leash. I almost always train on a prong collar, but there are very well qualified trainers whose normal application is the chain link collar. ( I do use this for tracking. Get one with the very large links, one that the snap on your leash can be hooked to any link.)

The E collar requires patience, timing and discretion on the part of the handler; attributes that however latent in the beginner need to be developed through the normal collar and leash training process. When you make a mistake in timing or correction level with the normal collar it is immediately obvious, the link between cause and effect is apparent. This tends to provide quick, obvious feedback and allows the handler to develop the skill of the appropriate, correctly timed correction.

There are those who make a business of running expensive weekend seminars where the novice is led to expect that in two days he will be introduced to the E collar, probably sold to him at high mark up, and jump over all of the effort necessary to build skill in the old fashioned way.

These guys are just like the old fashioned snake oil salesmen, and will be out of town counting their cash when the negative consequences of the poor training begin to emerge and become apparent.

WHAT ARE OBEDIENCE TRIALS REALLY ?

In the normal course of events things tend to evolve, to have original good reasons and then gradually accumulate some real reasons as baggage. The obedience trial, and the obedience aspects or phases of the more comprehensive trials such as Schutzhund and Ring, were originally touted as serving two purposes, that is, as a demonstration of the necessary character attributes for breeding eligibility and for practical service as a patrol dog or companion dog. But as these practical trials evolved into sports, the baggage of nonsense accumulated and in some instances gradually came to predominate.

Part of obedience is the ability and willingness of the dog to heel, that is, stay at your left side as you walk or run, change direction when you do and go to a sit position when you come to a stop. In the spirit of the original purposes the more advanced dog would be expected to maintain discipline in the presence of real world, practical distractions such as walking on the street, the presence of other dogs, bicycles and so forth. And, indeed, these kinds of things are to some degree incorporated into programs such as the Dutch Police and Schutzhund trials.

But in some systems, and all systems to some degree, flash and style for points tended to emerge and predominate. Rather than staying alertly at your side, for the big points the dog must prance and twist his body into a big U so he can stare in your eyes and slap his dumb ass down as you do the contrived and unnatural stop required. The problem with this is that increasingly drifts from the original purposes and favors the subservient, hyper dog rather than the confident, obedient dog. There are significant differences here, with the KNPV dog expected to just do real world healing and the AKC and Schutzhund folks gradually evolving obedience heeling into dancing with the dogs. This is in general not a good thing, as it makes tends to emphasize subservience over confidence and aggressiveness.

As another example, consider the guard of object. The premise is quite simple, the police officer will often need for his dog to remain in place and take care of an object such as a bicycle while the officer goes out of sight, perhaps into a building on a police matter. In the Dutch Police trial this is pretty much how it is played out, the handler puts down his jacket or a bike and leaves the dog to take care of it. The helper appears and calmly walks toward the dog, who is expected to respond with aggression when he comes within perhaps ten feet and to break off the engagement when the helper retreats. Takes thirty seconds or so and is a practical exercise.

But the French Ring people have expanded this into an esoteric several minute exercise, requiring a great deal of time in training and interesting to watch, but with very little relevance to the real world. French ring has gradually evolved into a sport with less and less real world relevance and more and more contrived exercises. This is of course a tendency to be guarded against in all situations, but it seems to be human nature to tend to the elaborate ritual over the practical. The consequence is that French Ring has evolved as a competitive sport only for their specific line of Malinois. There is a certain irony in the fact that the French have driven all of their native breeds such as the Beauceron, Briard and Picardy Shepherd out of their national sport in favor of one developed in the Flemish or Dutch region of Belgium. For all of their historic animosity to the Germans, the Malinois they promote is in reality the product of the German culture and heritage rather than their own.

Schutzhund and IPO have no guard of object, food refusal or call off in the attack exercises, which are for practical purposes in the relevant breeds serious matters. On the other hand, this is to an extent understandable in that Schutzhund evolved as a breeding eligibility test rather than a full test to certify a dog ready for police patrol service as in KNPV.

WRAPPING IT UP

When you come to own a dog, there is no option to train or not to train but only the choice of proceeding according to a program and plan to produce the desirable companion or through ignorance and neglect allow the dog to evolve according to his own nature, often into things inconvenient, destructive and sometimes dangerous. The ultimate danger is of course to the dog himself, for if his behavior becomes annoying he might well wind up in a shelter, that is, you may send your dog away to be killed because you were too lazy and ignorant to provide the leadership and training he needed.

If you love your dog, train your dog. Do it in a kind and gentle manner to the extent possible, but be the boss ultimately and require of him those behaviors necessary for a successful place in the life of your family.

To do less is cruelty.

Jim Engel, Marengo    © Copyright 2006