Biting a charging agitator on leash

The handler holds the dog at the full length of a six‑foot leash attached to the animal’s leather agitation collar. The agitator begins at a distance of about seventy‑five feet, and charges straight at the dog. He rushes, at first somewhat cautiously, all the way to within six or eight feet of the dog, stops and runs back out to his starting point. Twice he rushes in and stops short like this, so that the dog undergoes the experience of being charged at without enduring the stress of actually having to bite in these new and challenging circumstances. Then, the third time, the agitator charges all the way in and lets the animal bite the sleeve.

^{Fighting an assailant who drives forward, threatening and striking the dog with a stick, is a far different matter than biting an attacker who pulls away, striving to escape. (Susan Barwig’s “Natz,” Schutzhund III, FH, on Chuck Cozine.)}

^{Here, where the dog is held on a tight leash and closely supported by its handler, we show the animal the most difficult courage tests it will ever experience. (Officer Russ Slade and “Amigo.”)}

In the beginning, the decoy keeps his distance from the dog on the two false starts; he stops well short to avoid intimidating the animal. And when he does close with the dog for the bite, he is not terribly forceful.

Later in training, he becomes progressively more unyielding and aggressive. He stops his charge only inches short on the false starts, and when he comes to the dog for the bite he will give the impression, until the last instant, that he is going to crash head‑on into the animal. Here, where conditions are ideal for the dog because it is held on a tight leash and closely supported by its handler, we show the animal the hardest, most intimidating courage tests that it will ever experience, so that it will be absolutely accustomed to the worst a decoy can ever do. The helper must show no give to the dog. He must charge down at the animal as though he had no intention of slowing down. However, he must also be extremely adept at braking himself at the last instant and then slipping to the side so that the dog experiences only the very slightest collision as it bites.

Any satisfactorily prepared dog of fair character can be made to bite like a lion in this static courage test. The problem will be to get it to bite just as powerfully at a distance and unrestrained by the leash. We accomplish this by performing a careful transition composed of several intermediate steps.

First, we set up the static courage test exercise again, with one difference. On the third pass, instead of remaining stationary and waiting for the decoy to arrive, the handler runs the dog forward to meet him. Now the dog actually has the experience of charging at an onrushing agitator, but it is supported and inspired by the leash that tightly restrains it to half speed.