Hard Sleeve

In competition, Schutzhund dogs are judged specifically on the quality–the fullness and the power–of their bite, and awarded point totals and courage ratings accordingly. In trial, the animals bite what is called a bite‑bar sleeve. This sleeve is made of plastic or leather, has a blade or bar that provides a V‑shaped biting surface, and, when uncovered, is nearly as hard as a piece of wood. To give the animal’s teeth purchase and to protect the sleeve an expendable jute sleeve cover is used with it. This bite‑bar sleeve allows the dog, if it has the desire, to bite with its entire jaw, all the way back to the molars. Thus, it allows the judge to evaluate the animal’s quality of bite.

There are schools of training that employ a great number of techniques and devices in the effort to teach the dogs to bite full. Accordingly, these trainers use several different types of progressively harder sleeves, often concluding with an enormous hard barrel sleeve which theoretically gets the dog in the habit of using a huge, mauling mouth to bite.

This approach views the bite as a fundamentally mechanical event, a skill or habit that must be meticulously taught. We disagree. To us the bite is an emotional event. The basis of a crushing, full‑mouth bite is in spirit, not in mechanics, and a correct bite is not a function of how the dog is “taught” to bite and what sort of sleeve is used in order to involve the maximum number of its teeth. The bite is a function of the dog’s basic motivation for biting, whether defense or prey, and of how badly it wants to bite in the first place.

If the animal only half wants to bite, then we can expect it to bite with a half mouth. If, on the other hand, it is consumed by its desire, so that neither hesitation nor prudence exist for it, then it will engulf the sleeve (no matter what its form, shape or hardness) and no one will have cause to doubt its courage.

We urge the prospective Schutzhund enthusiast to see to the dog and its spirit, not some arsenal of sleeves, devices and techniques.

^{The ideal bite: full‑mouthed and hard. (Brandon Mathias’ “Nico,” Schutzhund I, on Kirk Maze.)}

Sticks

The stick is a section of reed. It is light, flexible and approximately thirty inches in length. In training we also use other sorts of sticks in order to harden the dogs. Rattly split‑bamboo batons, riding crops, whiffle‑ball bats filled with handfuls of noisy gravel and other devices can all be used to inure the animals to challenges and intimidation of any sort.

Protection: Drive Work

In some ways bite work is the least artificial and most interesting of the three phases of Schutzhund training, because it is here that we see raw dog behavior at its purest. In protection we observe the dog doing what comes naturally to it. Obedience, by contrast, is primarily inhibitory in nature. Obedience is mainly concerned with teaching the animal to restrain impulses to roam, explore, hunt animals and try its strength against other dogs. Tracking is certainly founded on the animal’s natural behavior, but Schutzhund tracking is so stylized by the necessity to determine a winner that it little resembles a hunter searching out prey.

To our mind, nothing distills the essence of what a dog is, nothing smacks so much of the predator, as the sight of a dog coursing in full stride downfield after a person, heading for a collision that it wants with every fiber of its being. The animal is momentarily unfettered, free and impelled solely by its own desire.

In bite work we see the character of the individual dog most clearly. Good trainers can and do “fake” dogs of deficient character through obedience and tracking. It is much more difficult to counterfeit a dog in bite work. On the protection field, as the dog copes simultaneously with the challenge posed by the agitator (whose job it is to test its nerve) and pressure from its handler (who demands that it obey), we can steal a quick look into the dog’s heart and see what is there.

We look for courage, because without courage the animal is empty, hollow. We also look for a dog that is “in hand,” that obeys the handler utterly, in spite of an urge to bite and forget all else.

But what we look for first in the dog is raw power. Power arises from desire, and we look for a dog with a desire that drives it to use its body to the utmost–an animal that hurls itself with a crash into the agitator. This kind of desire arises first from genetics (the dog must be born with a full complement of vigorous drives) and second from the first few months of its training. We call this initial stage of schooling drive work.

Drive work has three basic objectives:

1. To establish in the animal boldness, commitment and power by creating an intense desire for combat with the agitator

2. To strike in the dog the best possible balance between defense‑ and prey‑motivated aggression

3. To teach the dog to bite with a full, hard mouth

During the second phase of training, field work, we teach the dog control, harnessing its power to the exercises of the Schutzhund I, II and III protection routine. We cannot proceed to field work until we have fully accomplished the three basic objectives.

In drive work we lay the dog’s foundation. If the dog is not solid, steady of nerve and passionate in desire, then it will not weather the inevitable discouragements of field work. Each correction that the dog receives will diminish its quality and, in the end, we will all wonder why such a good‑looking young dog did not turn out as well as we thought it would.

A fundamental difference between the two phases of protection training is that in drive work we physically restrain the animal, while in field work we begin to teach it to restrain itself.

In drive work all control of the dog is physical. We don’t command it–we hold it back. There is no obedience in drive work, because obedience kills drive. There is no punishment, no correction. The dog is manhandled from one place to another, free to strain and fight the collar to its heart’s content. Not only do we allow the animal to struggle against its handler in order to get at the helper, we encourage it. Being physically held back creates the frustration that builds drive.

It is extremely important to understand that protection training is utterly different from obedience. This applies especially to those who, although novices in Schutzhund, are experienced in obedience training and already have their own way of doing things. We do not compel or command the dog to bite, we allow it to. The dog does it on its own and there is little that we can do to help if its nerve fails, especially when it is defending us from someone we are afraid of. It is entirely the dog’s endeavor, and it needs both spirit and a sense of independence to accomplish it. The animal must develop an initiative and a will apart from ours, and obedience training (especially heavy‑handed obedience) has just the opposite effect. Slaves make poor bodyguards.

To put it another way: We don’t need brakes until we have some horsepower.

GOAL 1: The puppy will bite the sack.

Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal

1. Playing with the sack

2. Working on the agitator

3. Making prey over the sack

4. Beginning runaway bites