Dogs Under Pressure! - Controlled Aggression | Lyssna här

In this episode, Jerry Bradshaw discusses:

Different ways to deliver pressure reliably to your canine while tracking how the dog is doing while under that pressure.
Understanding the baseline bite pressure.
Reading your canine's body language while in a bite.
How training under pressure is a progressive thing that never ends.
Training emotional regulation in your dog from a young age.
Training under the assumption that something is going to go wrong and, at some point, something will bother your dog.

Key Takeaways:

When we don't bring civil aggression and pressure into the biting, we can get failures in the bite. Build in the training now, build the resiliency, give your dog something to lean into when things get stressful.
When trained to handle pressure, police canines can be used to bring suspects into custody in a way that is safer for both the suspect and the officers involved.
Where most training gets in trouble is when an inexperienced decoy is working with an inexperienced dog, or when training progressions are rushed.
You do not have to go to the lengths of physically hurting dogs in order to create resilience. People do that when they don't actually understand what they're doing.
Stress inoculation is an ongoing training process for the dog's whole life. It is not something that will be finished at any point. It must happen both gradually and variably.
Not everything boils down to genetics. Environment and training are also key to getting the most out of any dog.

"Conditioning is training. You have to show the dog the pictures. You have to run through the processes. You have to be aware of what you can do with this dog and where he is in the levels of training. Stress and pressure then become predictable and addressable by the dog. This is so important. If they never see stuff, it's not predictable." — Jerry Bradshaw

Episode References: