GOAL 2: The dog will out cleanly on command.
Once the dog has a flawless hold and bark, the out is very simply taught. However, it must be well taught. If we school the out badly or incompletely, it will haunt us for the rest of the dog’s working career.
Early on in training, when the animal is still comparatively naive, we have one chance to teach it that it must release its bite on command—one opportunity to convince it that we are omnipotent and that we can reach it anywhere on the field and correct it if it disobeys. If we squander this opportunity, if the dog learns that we are actually far from omnipotent, then we will create a very persistent training problem for ourselves.
The amount of force used is critical. Too much force will inhibit the dog, killing drive and disturbing its mouth so that it bites badly or uses only a half mouth when it senses an out coming. Too little force will give the animal the opportunity to resist us, to fight the out, and as the frustrated handler gradually increases the severity of his corrections, the animal’s ability to endure them will increase as well. Soon the dog will bum as much energy fighting the out as it does fighting the decoy.
We differ from some other trainers in our desire to preserve, as much as possible, our dog’s sensitivity to us and to the correction collar. (Intensely hard animals are prized usually only by those who have never attempted to control one in bite work.) We preserve sensitivity by giving the dog little experience with corrections, so that it never has the opportunity to get used to them. When we correct, we do so sharply and effectively, so that there is not even a question of the dog resisting us. The animal quickly does as we ask and therefore undergoes few corrections. This has the effect of saving both dog and trainer a great deal of grief.
Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal
1. Back tying the dog
2. Forcing the out
3. Preventing discrimination
4. Outing the dog at distance
The first step in teaching the out is to create for ourselves a great mechanical advantage over the dog. After all, we are preparing to take the sleeve from its mouth or, more correctly, to force the dog to relinquish it. We have already spent months teaching the animal to be extraordinarily passionate and stubborn about keeping its bite against all opposition. Now we will have to overcome this stubbornness, and it will have to be done smoothly and precisely and with as little fuss as possible.
If we attempt to wrestle the sleeve from the dog by simply pulling or prying or jerking it backward off the sleeve, we often just succeed in teaching the animal to hold on more tenaciously, because we inadvertently stimulate the same oppositional reflex in it that we exploited in order to fix its mouth on the sleeve during drive work.
The trick is to correct into the sleeve. We begin by tethering the animal to a post or a tree on its leather agitation collar with about ten feet of line. In addition to the agitation collar, the dog wears a correction collar, which is fitted so that the leash attaches to it under its jaw. In other words, the correction collar faces forward, not back.
The handler and his assistant (who controls the correction leash) both stand outside the dog’s circle, facing it, and the decoy works in between them and the dog, being careful not to foul the correction line. If the agitator wears a left-handed sleeve, then the assistant stands to his left, or vice versa. Thus, when the dog is on the sleeve, the correction leash will run from the collar, under the decoy’s elbow, and to the assistant. If the assistant cranes his neck a little, he can still see the dog’s mouth on the sleeve—so that he does not inappropriately correct an animal that is already outing.
The tether line and the correction leash form a straight line running directly from the tree to the assistant’s hands. With the tree to anchor it, all the force of any correction is transmitted directly to the dog’s neck. Therefore, it is possible for the assistant to administer an effective correction with precisely the amount of force he intends, neither too harsh nor too light.
The traditional method, in which the handler corrected back and away from the helper with no anchoring post, made for a very sloppy correction because the decoy’s arm absorbed a great deal of the force intended for the dog. A hard correction would simply drag both helper and dog a little closer to the handler rather than force the animal off the sleeve. The result was often that, in the end, excessive force was used in order to accomplish the out. For this reason, the back-tie method described here is actually far kinder to the dogs.
The helper begins the process by, as always, stimulating the dog. He runs back and forth around the circle described by the dog’s tether until the animal is extremely excited. Meanwhile the assistant plays the line so that both decoy and dog have the freedom to move without becoming entangled. The decoy allows a bite and then he fights the animal very strongly, pulling against the tether to fix the bite. When the dog is hard on the sleeve and very much in spirit, the decoy takes three precisely timed actions:
1. He takes a very short step toward the tree, so as to drop about six inches of slack into the tether. (Never attempt to out a dog with the animal’s mouth under tension. Remember, physical restraint stimulates the animal to bite harder.)
2. He then freezes, standing still with the sleeve across his torso, braced strongly against the dog’s attempts to drag him to and fro.
3. When he is ready, the agitator signals to the handler with a nod.
The handler gives a crisp “Out!” command—he does not shout—and at the same instant the assistant corrects the dog sharply and with enough force that the animal instantly releases the sleeve. The assistant does not pull or tug at the dog; he delivers a snapping jerk. If the first is not enough, then he delivers another crisp and slightly stronger correction, and so on. As we have already stated, the amount of force is crucial. Therefore, the person in the club with the best “hands” and the most experience should always serve as the assistant.
The dog should out and, because of all its schooling in the hold and bark, automatically rock back and begin barking. However, if it attempts to rebite, the assistant calmly corrects it again.
The instant the dog settles and lets out a bark or two, the handler allows it another bite and a vigorous fight and then slips the sleeve for it.
In other words, we reward the animal for its out with a bite and then possession of the sleeve. Too many trainers think of the out—and all the other control exercises too—as solely forced exercises, something that the dog is only resentfully compelled to do and that it will fight against tooth and claw. But there is a way to present the out to the animal so that it is in its interest to do it, not just in order to avoid a correction, but also in order to gain a bite and then possession of the sleeve.