# Any helpers here???



## Nscullin (Sep 29, 2019)

I am in the very beginning stages of learning to take bites on dogs safely and develop grips. Just wondering where everyone’s favorite equipment is from. Who’s your go to manufacturers? What’s your typical sleeve progression(brand/model)? Do you prefer scratch pants or a leather apron? Where’d you purchase them? Thanks!


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## Chip Blasiole (May 3, 2013)

I don't know who you are learning from but I'd wager you are being taught incorrectly. Young pups are best started out on a small bleach bottle tied to a string and a short stick. You want to make enough prey to get the pup's interest, but not so much you are "begging" the pup to bite. Unlike jute, a bleach bottle doesn't allow a pup to get any accidental bites by getting his teeth caught in the jute. The pup learns he has to possess the bottle or he will lose it. Next, you should go to a leather pillow. The leather is slick and forces a dog to bite down hard or lose his prey. Here is a larger pillow but you can find smaller one on this site for younger pups.








Legacy K-9 | Legacy K-9 Gear







legacyk9gear.com




Aprons are useless. Nylon scratch pants are preferable to leather. It is so much more about correct technique than equipment with the exception of early prey objects like the bleach bottle and leather pillows. If a dog keeps missing, don't increase the prey movement, simply put the dog up after several misses.


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

I would work with a club and let those mentor you, they will tell you the equipment they prefer. If you don't have access to a club, maybe join Pronounced K9. PronouncedK9


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## GatorDog (Aug 17, 2011)

Where are you located? There's a ton of equipment that I like, depending on what we're working on  Most often, I find myself using Raddog gear lately.


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## Nscullin (Sep 29, 2019)

GatorDog said:


> Where are you located? There's a ton of equipment that I like, depending on what we're working on  Most often, I find myself using Raddog gear lately.


I’m in the new Orleans area. 


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## Bentwings1 (May 29, 2017)

GatorDog said:


> Where are you located? There's a ton of equipment that I like, depending on what we're working on  Most often, I find myself using Raddog gear lately.


I used to get most equipment from Ray Allen or Leerburg.
i just hot a verynice two handle leash from Leerburg. I have an Aussie and this is perfect for training both in the ring or on the street. In traffic. I oil it up with mink oil so it gets softer and more flexible.
re training. When I started Schutzhund and beginning helper work ,us newbies were not allowed to work pups or very young dogs. We were taught on the experienced dogs. As we worked them the trainer would guide us then ask what we saw in the dog and why we did what we did. It was drill instructor type training raw recruits. You had to really look into each dog, eyes,ears tail stance and actions. Often comparing one to another. You could be dressed down pretty hard for missing something or making a mistake. I went to every seminar I could often spending an entire weekend to take it all in. We learned just how hard to push each dog to achieve the desired results. I can’t do this anymore due to medical issues. the biggest and most valuable thing that was pounded in was to leave ego at home. This training was serious business and no place to show off your strength or toughness. There was skill in catching a big powerful GSD OR A FURRY bullet Mal. Each required technique to ease the shock loads so the dog had optimum opportunity and did not get over stressed or injured. The general motif was you might get hurt but never the dog. If you got hurt you were not allowed to cry, not even the girls. I ultimately got a sports career ending injury to my knee that ended most sports for me for many years. I manage to play baseball untill 72 but finally had to hang up my glove and bat.a further injury while walking my Aussie ended all sports forever including tiddlywinks winks a couple years ago. Once the virous is over I’ll be on one and a half legs so even walks will be challenging.

anyway be very careful working pups and young dogs. In protection training they have to “win” every time yet work to the edge of their ability. It’s this fine line that separates the good helpers. I’ve seen some horrible mistakes on the fields and early on I was a lot more vociferous and got into confrontations that I felt the fog deserved someone stepping up, so I did. I’m not the end all expert by any means but I don’t like outright mistreatment of dogs. I’m not really a bad guy and I don’t mind debating issues. It’s good to do this I think especially with all the variables in this training.


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## Bentwings1 (May 29, 2017)

Ok today this is for the K9 trainers and the club helpers.

back in my hard training days I was fresh out of pro drag racing radar guns had not really been developed fully then and sported ones were few and far between. It was difficult to get use of one for anything but officials use. So I was often asked which is faster the GSD or the Mals. Of course the “courage test” was the logical place to test this but results were very subjective. Being a mechanical engineer I could devise something to measure impact and bite force but this stuff was very expensive then . So one day we’re we’re discussing the idea of a drag race dog against dog against the clock. Various tests had already been done with a stop watch but they were inconclusive. So the group kept after me since I was the drag racer ex pro to come up with a suitable “ dog drag strip”.
we trained on a Base ball field with a long chain link fence It was about 330 feet long so it looked like maybe we could set something up. We would start the dogs at one end with a helper coming out of each side at the far end. It so happened that there were two of us helpers that could catch the dogs from either side . It can make a difference as we found in performance so dogs were trained to hit either arm or side presented. Not hard to do with experienced dogs. So we set up blinds on both sides of the fence end. Each dog had opportunity to run each “lane” however the catch was not the finish line that was a line about 30’ from the end as the dogs launched from about there.obviously two strong dogs running side by side along the fence could get into trouble so we added other events along this fence to test and proof the dogs. Part of our ongoing “what if this....” situation comes up. Since my dog was the group demo dog we generally ran through first. It took a couple weeks to get all the dogs comfortable running side by side with helpers challenging but it went pretty smoothly. So the day came for the “local K9 championship drag races”

my 95 pound GSD against forgotten name officer Belgian Malinois all of 75 pounds male against male to get rid of sexist remarked. We had a starting lin the dogs had to have both front feet on the line . I was immediately disqualified from being a helper for my dog so we used two other helpers. We had several training languages the experienced dogs were multi lingual. So we had SAFTEY officers at each lane for the required out. Also two finish line judges . Typically competitors can pump the dogs up but we were not allowed to do this the dogs had to start on command. Just as pro drag racing has lots of rule many were added to this simple event to insure maximum saftey for the dogs and event crews. It was to be the best two of three. at the last minute we added an impact judge. I felt this was to subjective. 
but let’s get started. We each had the dogs down on the starting line then once each helper got out and made his shallrnge we were given the signal to send the dogs. I had a cold chill just like pulling to the line in the funny car. But I got a good send out and my guy ripped a bunch of grass didding out as did the Mal. We had stop watches butthey were just not accurate enough to judge close races.the Mall beat us by about two strides the first round. He hit the helper on the fly very nicely . My guy was like SAM missle and took the helper down hard. The Mal did well too but didn’t body slam like the GSD. Both outed correctly so it was a fair race. physics calculation is 1/2 mass x velocity squared. It would say that the Mal has more kinetic energy but dispersed it by acting like a spring as he hit the helper the helper absorbing it by moving slightly. Still a very hard hit.
round two was about the same for sped so I had to concede there but the helper went down again. The Mal again hit hard but there was just a little too much pole for him to bring down. So it was judged about a draw. The Mall was faster  but the knock down pofpower of the GSD was greater. So we had a great day. I pass this on for another group to try out. Do it safely however. There is lots of room for the unseen here. I wish we could have had the sports radar gun of today as the dog speed was something to see. We always called the Mal a furry bullet and they are. Mals have taken over dock diving here.


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## Chip Blasiole (May 3, 2013)

I don’t see a radar gun having anything to do with correct bite mechanics. Once a young dog has progressed to a leather pillow without the helper being a dancing monkey, the next phase is whether to teach a pushing vs. a pulling bite. In IGP it is best to teach a pulling bite, but that is for grip and points and doesn’t teach the dog to fight, but to win his prey and increases equipment orientation. But that is what the sport requires to do well. If I was working a dog for IGP on a leather pillow, I would try to build good strikes, calm, full grip and possessiveness and eventually adding environmental stressors. I frankly don’t care for the sport because it teaches dogs in a way that they are so much less man oriented. That is the case with all sport but IGP is a prime culprit.


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## Bentwings1 (May 29, 2017)

Chip Blasiole said:


> I don’t see a radar gun having anything to do with correct bite mechanics. Once a young dog has progressed to a leather pillow without the helper being a dancing monkey, the next phase is whether to teach a pushing vs. a pulling bite. In IGP it is best to teach a pulling bite, but that is for grip and points and doesn’t teach the dog to fight, but to win his prey and increases equipment orientation. But that is what the sport requires to do well. If I was working a dog for IGP on a leather pillow, I would try to build good strikes, calm, full grip and possessiveness and eventually adding environmental stressors. I frankly don’t care for the sport because it teaches dogs in a way that they are so much less man oriented. That is the case with all sport but IGP is a prime culprit.


the radar would only be for speed. Sports units work very well now but the old highway radars didn’t do well at all. As for bite force please please don’t ever use psi. I can take people apart on this using high school math. We never did build an actual grip force device as the force transducers were pretty expensive then . As a reference we just used a restive guess by discussing how hard it was to get you hand, arm out of the sleeve . To build strength we used cylinder sleeves . It’s pretty tough for many dogs the first few times as they really have to open mouth up wide and clamping down is different for them . Once they get the idea it does build the drive . When they can squash the cylinder down hard enough it’s difficult to get you arm out fast and clean for good reward . Bite bar sleeves are trial sleeves. Judges like to see a deep full grip. The cylinder sleeve really helps this in my opinion . Makes get a pretty good deep grip once they get the technique .big GSD will bend the cylinder down pretty well . After they have built grip strength you can really feel it in a bite suit. Mals can open wide but they tend to grip with mouth. GSD add the body punch with feet too. Once Rottys get the idea they can be an arm full.. I liken them to a big linebacker in football .


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## Bentwings1 (May 29, 2017)

The idea of radar was just to satisfy a question of how fast the dog could run .as for actual helper work , remember the helper is there to help you and the dog the better your obedience is the better and easier time you will have in protection work . The dog has to to be able to search forvthe helper endless running of blinds isn’t goingvto get it the dog has to look like he is really searching Not just running around the blinds . If he stops to check it out that’s good then if he responds quickly to your direction to search over there as you point that’s even better Tease by having helper in different blinds some time in all some times in only one. The dog has to be ready to perform at each blind as K nine trainer we occasionally had to help a SCH3 dog really look for the bad guy in a building search for example it only took a few times for the dogs to know they might have a fight on their paws the harder the dog the harder the fight might be. Here again it’s the helper job to judge the dog . You don’t want to over power the new dog not even the older dog. Just right is the goal. This is the most dangerous part of this training it’s so important that the helper leave the ego at home this is an energy filled exercise I’ve been in hiding and had big dogs rip things apart to get to the helper bad guy one big GSD cracked a door and nearly got through before I was able to slip out. At this point the dog has found the helper , now what? Here is where other parts of his training come in Many K 9 dogs can really get out of control I made an ER trip as a result of this As we say the dog is a furry bullet so must be capable of being called off or out. This was probably the most important part of K 9 patrol dog certification we used rubber knifes often with paint or coloring on them to note if the dog got injured. . We had paint ball guns too it takes skill by the helper here to direct the dog when in this high of drive. The dog may see the weapon and go after it the helper needs to prevent this and give the dog a better target like fire arm or anything else the handler needs to be close by to give immediate praise or even direction so the dog knows it’s ok to choose a safer target. The padded stick works but you have to be very careful using it to direct the dog. We painted ours silver to look like a knife the dog is taught to avoid this and go after something else by this time gun fire doesn’t bother dogs or it should not This is tough training for every one. I don’t recommend it without good help The dogs that don’t have superior training and obedience can wash out on this exercise 
Sorry I got off track a bit


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