sleeves and more sleeves

[josebrwn]

Dear Butch,


In my eagernes to have all the right equipment I made a little mistake. I bought the most expensive sleeve I could find, the Ray Allen International, a "new concept" in bite sleeves. It has a hard ergonomic bite bar, and a large circumference. With a new jute that is tight as a drum, it is a difficult bite. My dog quickly learned that the easiest place to bite is the hand or the upper arm, where the jute is loose.

Realizing the mistake I purchased a puppy sleeve. That thing is plumb scary when she bites on it, you can imagine. So now I realize I need an intermediate sleeve, putting my sleeve budget somewhere near $600!


Anyway, in class today instead of keeping her on the pole the whole time during the drive work I took her off under the trees to work with one of the club's intermediate sleeves, with a fat, soft bite bar. I had her doing a sit and then called her in for a bite, like the "hardest hitting" exercise in irondog. Well she hits it pretty hard, but what she does is more like a head-butt!

How do you introduce a dog to a hard sleeve, and recover from this kind of situation, where the dog is avoiding the center of the sleeve?

Thanks!
Joe

[ButchCappel]

Not familiar with the "ergonomic" sleeve but it sounds like a "Marberg" or as it is called today a "barrel" sleeve. Proper sleeves are great for developing a correct bite but they do the opposite as well. So if you are not sure of the dog or the proper use of the sleeve DON'T DO IT.

Also good rule of thumb, "never look at a product catalog while you are haveing a biting problem or a few beers". Especially if it is close to payday.

The equipment will never help the dog if the trainer is not familiar with the proper use of it. Only the human can help no matter what he wears. That is why, in the training video we are producing, I try to describe the different sleeves and their proper useage. You can lose as much as you teach if not careful

If this is a very large, hard sleeve to bite,like the Marberg, it should only be used when the dog is fairly advanced. Then it should still be only an occasional bite when needed to improve fullness of the bite. Usually on this type of sleeve you will lose intensity if used too much. Trying to be brief here, the progression of sleeves I use is like this 1. Tug or sack bite
2. Puppy sleeve 3. Soft sleeve with a cover 4. Regular trial bar sleeve 5. all other "hard" or "full mouth" sleeves after that, only as needed to correct a problem.

Make sure the bite is firm, full, and solid before progressing onto each sleeve level. When introducing the next level sleeve keep the OB work to a minimum so the dog can be more excited and pumped up before tackling a new and harder bite surface.

I think the most important rule in training is "always back up 2 steps to advance one" If your dog has a problem it is probably due to something the human did wrong (that is why so much of the video is devoted to proper decoy presentation). So if you go back, say to sack work, and make sure the dog is doing that right every time, you have possibly erased the bad habit you were starting at the point you left off at. this gives you a chance to reintroduce that level properly with good habits redeveloped.

Remember this is a human game, only we know the outcome we expect.
Therefore we must be exceedingly clear in how we present the game to the dog because they have no idea what the goal is.