Teaching Protection Skills without a Decoy

with Michael Ellis

39 Videos | 3 Hours of Content

Many trainers do not have the luxury of easy access to training helpers. This video teaches various exercises trainers can work with on their own dog. The exercises were designed by Michael Ellis.  They are advanced tug exercises using tugs and biting equipment.

While the exercises replicate work with a decoy, the dog doesn’t see it as bite work. The dog see’s the work as advanced tug work with their owner/trainer. The goal is to get the dog familiar with the mechanics of bite work so when they are exposed to a decoy they will recognize the exercise and feel more comfortable in the work.

Many of the members of these groups have gone on to get Schutzhund and Ring Sport titles. His system has been used on police service dogs, personal protection dogs and even Agility dogs. Many top Agility trainers are learning the value of teaching their dogs advanced tug skills.

This course is an in-depth, step by step study of Michael's system on establishing the foundation of biting skills without a helper or decoy. Trainers only need a friend or family member that will handle a bite wedge, bite tug, or a high value toy to assist them in rewarding correct behavior. 

The value of the training methods we show are that the dogs learn correct behavior and capping skills at a lower drive level. In the training steps, Michael explains how to start the training for each skill. He also explains when to add drive and stressors for these various protection skills. When these things are done correctly the work with decoys goes much faster and with fewer mistakes.

This is the 6th course and originally DVD in our series of training content that we have done with Michael Ellis. We assume that the people who want to learn the work in this video know and understand marker training (The Power of Training Dogs with Markers and The Power of Training Dogs with Food). We also must assume that the trainers who wish to do this work know and understand the concepts we teach in our DVD titled The Power of Playing Tug with Your Dog.