Ring Sport Decoy Workshop

About Chad Hunter

If you hired Chad Hunter to teach you how to become a Ring Decoy, or if you went to one of his workshops on decoy training, you would get the same information that is in this self study course.

This video for this self-study decoy workshop was filmed at a Leerburg seminar.

The instructor was Chad Hunter. Chad is a French Ring judge who has also competed in over 90 French ring trials. He has trained 4 dogs to Level 3 in French Ring.  Chad is also a level 2 French Ring decoy and while he has decoyed trials he considers himself a training decoy. 

Chad brought his friend Justin Gannon (a Level 3 French Ring Decoy) to assist in the decoy workshop. His friend Spencer Bowman (a level one decoy who is about to test for level 2) was at Leerburg for our 3 day French Ring handler’s seminar that took place after the decoy workshop. Both Justin and Spenser are excellent decoys as well as talented instructors.

The French ring and Mondio Ring decoys are the most skilled decoys in all of the biting dog sports. I chose to offer this seminar as a self-study course because it was so well organized and presented.

The video contains the raw video footage that has been cut up and put into the various modules listed below. There are close to 100 short videos. It took 5 days of editing to do this. If you want some of the best decoy training material available buy this course. If you expect a polished video production with fancy graphics that’s not what this is. I put this together to help people learn how to become safe skilled decoys. The information in this course will help train decoys in every biting sport, including police service work.

There are only about 200 people in the French Ring in the United States and maybe a little more in Mondio Ring. some camera movement bothers you, don’t buy the course.

Learning to be a safe decoy is not for everyone, but those who want to learn should learn from someone like Chad. I have been to a lot of seminars over the past 50 years, Chad is one of the best I have seen. From the very beginning Chad’s goal was to teach the students the fundamentals of becoming a safe decoy for the dogs and to catch dog’s without getting hurt themselves.

I broke the seminar into a number of modules based on topics. They were:

• The morning and afternoon lectures for both days of the two day seminar along with the closing lecture at the end of the seminar.
  
  
• There is a module on proper use of the stick.
  
  
• The fundamentals of proper foot work for the face attack. Chad and Justin took a lot of time explaining the footwork that the results in the dog safely biting the leg.
  
  
• The module on the flee attack explains the correct footwork to safely catch a dog on the back of the decoys leg, without falling down.
  
  
• Defense of handler is an important exercise in both French Ring and Mondio Ring. While the exercise varies a little for each. Chad, Justin and Spenser take the time to explain the correct methods to approach the handler/dog team. They explain (in detail) the various methods a decoy can use to entice the dog to make a mistake and bite before the handler it touched by the decoy.
  
  
• The Escort is an important part of both French Ring and Mondio Ring. Chad spent a good deal of time explaining the various methods decoys can use to attempt to escape from a dog.
  
  
• Object Guard is the hardest exercises to train in all of dog training. The dog must work alone with the handler out of site. He cannot bite until the decoy is within 1 ½ meters and he must OUT on his own.  We have included 16 videos in this course module of students working the object and Chads helping in their training
  
  
• There is a module on teaching decoys how to take upper body bites. Ring dogs are taught leg bites first. Once that’s done decoys teach the dog how to get the dogs to safely bite high without jamming the dog.
  
  
• The bark in the blind module teaches the decoy how they should approach the “bark in the blind” exercises. They learn how to set themselves up in the blind before the dog arrives and then what they can and cannot do while in the blind.

The blind work in French Ring includes a decoy escort out of the blind by the dog. Chad and Justin explain how to test the dogs training in the first 20 steps out of the blind.

Ed Frawley

WARNING:

There are a million ways to get hurt in dog training. Those people who want to become decoys should be in good physical condition and only work under direct supervision of a trained decoy who has a lot of experience.

We recommend you visit the last segment of MODULE 10 to see how serious this training is. You will see photos of a friend who broke a leg doing decoy work.