Its been a while since my last post and i hope you're all doing well. I have a question specially for the people who practice the belgian ring. I noticed with much fascination that a lot of the BR dogs (especially the NVBK title holders) thrust forward after making contact with their target. Add to that the difficulty of having to maintain a full, gapless grip on the bitesuit extremity. Is this genetic or is it trained? Does the relatively "short" bite duration in the BR aid the dog in the doing this thrusting motion because i hardly see the decoy cutting the dog any slack especially in the last of the long attacks. I ask this out of admiration for the dogs that do this . (Notice the movements of Zodt, and Fils (young son of Workingmalinois's A-tim). Hope to read all your comments.
Fils is my boy! Glad you like him :-) Just like his daddy and his brother Gast, he has this pushing deeper movement in his grip.
This quality has to be there genetically. No way you can teach a dog how to do this. The urge to "get the MAN inside the suit" in stead of just the suit has to be there.
However it is very easy to destroy this genetic quality by bad training. You have to have a very good decoy, who "reads" a dog and works on the grip. Then there also has to be the bond between handler and dog. A handler must be able to make clear to the dog when he's doing the right thing and when he makes a mistake. When the dog makes a mistake (f.i. no outs) you have to fix this and this has to go quickly. Better punish hard so that it is fixed in one training, so you can work on the confidence again the next training. Mild punishments cause a dog to take advantage and test how far he can go. Like that you have to punish again and again and the confidence (and the grip) will go away.
The duration of the attacks have nothing to do with the quality of the grip. For K?rung 3 A'Tim had to do attacks that took much longer and also Fils would just LOVE to keep on pushing for 30 seconds
Hi Martine, Doesn't the rhythmic backwards movement of the decoy in BR also help encourage this biting in quality that is often seen in BR? I also agree that genetically full grips are there to begin with in most BR dogs, correct? Thank you for your inputs. Juan
To some extent it may seem as though the rhythmic backward movements of the decoy aids the dog in the forward thrust but correct me if i'm wrong - on the trial field during competition day, the exercises by which these movements are clearly observed are the escape on the escort and the unmuzzled object guard. The last of the long bites virtually have little movement coming from the decoy. Ive seen the footage of A-tim nearly fly over a large rubber tire and take on a decoy that that didnt back-off and still kept giving the dog baton hits over the back. In the 2001 Cat 2 championships Zodt stuck his head accidentally (or purposely :-) ) on a small space created by the hoolla-hoop "cube" and continued to push on the "statuesque" decoy after getting a full grip on the arm and still took hits on the back. I say "wow'! If that isn't commitment , i dont know what is! Makes newbie trainers like myself drool and turn green with envy. :-)
The slightly backwards movement while the dog is biting indeed encourages the dog to dig deeper, to get hold of the decoy. It makes the dog feel that he?s winning and gives him confidence. That?s why a good decoy does this with young dogs. However this technique isn?t used to improve the grip, just to make a youngster feel he is ?invincible?.
The good grip however has to be there genetically. Quite some BR dogs have nice full grips, but the ones with the sensational charismatic grips are rare. With these dogs the grip comes ?from inside? (courage, drive & dominance). They want to get the MAN and fully go for it. They only have one focus: the decoy and the shortest way to get to him.
When training a dog, all techniques have to be used:
- active decoy, moving, yelling and hitting the dog - decoy who runs away - decoy running towards the dog, threatening him (stick, shouting) - motionless decoy (no sound, no movement at all) - decoy sitting on a chair or lying on the ground - obstacles that have to be crossed - difference in duration of the attacks (from 5 sec to 30 sec)
A good dog will show the same quality in the grip in each of these situations.
Thanks for the very helpful input martine. Hope to visit Belgium next year and watch you guys train in your club. With your permission of couse :-). Nothing beats experiential learning you see.
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