The Relationship Between the Helper & Dog In the Initial Stages of the Bark Hold By Ed Frawley The purpose for this article is not to teach the finer points or small training steps for the Bark and Hold (bh), but rather to help people understand the concept of how this exercise evolves. If you don't enter this work with a clear understanding of which road to take you will get lost. New trainers in the sport of schutzhund or service dogs often misunderstand the concept of bh training. The correct bh is developed as an adversarial relationship between the helper and the dog. It is not developed search dog training dog food comparison in prey drive where the dog is trained to bark for it's prey, although this is certainly a viable way of training dogs that lack the nerve to do it properly. Lets take a second to talk about prey bh. A dog that barks in prey creates a picture of a dog that comes to the helper and barks in a controlled high or normal pitched bark. The image the dog presents lacks intensity. It is not the picture of a dog creating a serious threat. Sometimes, (but not always) the dog will actually be looking at and barking at equipment and not the dog food comparison dog food comparison man. Today s schutzhund judges expect to see a strong serious defensive bark in the dogs. They easily recognize a prey bark for what it is, which is either a dog that lacks nerves or a dog that was poorly trained. Before a dog can be started in bh training is must go through prey bite development. If you have questions on the drives I am talking about refer to my article titled The Drives of Protection Training and Drive Thresholds in Protection Training. If you are unsure of how to take a dog through these initial stages of bite work that lead up border collie puppies dog food comparison to this training refer to my tape titled The First Steps of Bite Training. In prey bite development we teach a puppy to bark for his bite. From very early on the pup learns that barking makes the helper do something. It may make the helper look away in a submissive manner, it may make the helper back up, it may make him run a few steps and stop, it may even make him run past close enough so that the pup or young dog can get a bite. The young dogs will even learn that barking will make the helper run away so dog grooming instructions dog food comparison they can be
