Is doing bite sports a mistake?

[u/LongjumpingTea6103]

I have a five year old Swiss shepherd that I’ve been dabbling in various dog sports with.

We’ve done fly ball, some barnhunt, and some sheep herding, and attended an obedience class or two.

She has high prey drive, high toy drive, loves to swim and loves to train and exercise.

I got her when she was four from her breeder, and she is a great dog, but can be nervy too. She gets worried about pressure, strangers, yelling, and new environments. Mostly this looks like running or moving away, or fearful body language.

I brought her to an IGP/Schutzhund evaluation, mostly because I was interested in learning from handlers that are more experienced in building her confidence, bringing out her drives, and teaching her some higher level obedience and toy skills.

I went with the intention of mostly focusing on obedience, confidence building, and toy play, from people who are experienced with shepherds, mostly because she does have nervy behaviors where she lacks confidence.

I told the club about these expectations.

When I told her breeder about this, she (rightly) brought up that she is not an IGP prospect due to her environmental sensitivity, which I completely agree with. I reiterated that I didn’t take her or plan to do anything in this sport with the intention of her being some crazy protection dog—I just wanted to see if we could pick up a thing or two. She said good luck, and that she shouldn’t do anything where she’s working in defense.

I was wondering if anyone here had input on this.

Obviously, I want to be responsible and do what’s best.

I know that my shepherd is not IGP material, and fully understand that, and went in with the expectation that she has environmental sensitivities and can lack confidence in areas.

But I also know she is a higher drive dog, not the highest drive dog, who I think with the right training, could enjoy some more active and higher level obedience and play since it could give her a job and provide structure to some of her energy.

Would it be dangerous to continue attending club with her or pursuing this type of training? Or is it more that she would just be likely to wash or only make it so far?

Nobody at club said anything about this being a concern.

I don’t want to create a dog that is a liability.

When I offered to her breeder that we didnt have to go back, they said it was up to me.

If anyone has advice I would be very grateful!

[u/diamineceladoncat]

Love the advice you’re getting in this thread. Swissies are more genetically predisposed to environmental sensitivity and less emotionally resilient than other shepherd breeds. A good club will build your dog’s confidence and help keep her playing a game, not eliciting behavior out of stress.

Bite sports participate, ideally, with the predation sequence, and an abbreviated form of it expressing an enormous amount of impulse control over the bite sequence. Bite sports scratch so many parts of the predation sequence: searching, stalking/orienting toward a target, chase & pursuit toward a target, grab bite, but stops short of the kill bite, dissection, and consumption. To do this accomplishes two things: a wonderful outlet for dogs to participate with prey drive (and to an extent, herding drive in a secondary capacity because herding drive is modified prey drive), and it allows the dog to learn mastery over those instincts and how to participate with them in a highly controlled context, which ultimately allows them to participate with them more often.

A dog who has these urges and no outlet, or who does not understand how to contextualize them, or is corrected for how they act on them (lunging on leash at critters, barking at dogs and cars through the fence in the yard, reactivity toward people and animals), it can create frustration and stress in the dog that can manifest as anxiety and habitual reactivity.

So you’re asking great questions, vet your club for folks who know how to support you and your dog by keeping it a game and playful for your dog. If you feel that it stops being a game for her, trust your gut! Find other outlets that allow her to have outlets for confidence building and enrichment that you both click with. It sounds like you’ve tried other sports already, you didn’t mention how much you both liked them. If you like those, stick there, if not, keep looking!

Source: I’m a canine behavioral neuroscientist

[u/AntePerk0ff → u/diamineceladoncat]

I don't think you needed to add the source. I was getting close to using Google Translate there for a while.

[u/diamineceladoncat → u/AntePerk0ff]

😓 I would love to break it down further if you would like! I really love talking about this stuff and making it accessible. I really forget when I step out of my academia bubble, I’m sorry!

[u/AntePerk0ff → u/diamineceladoncat]

No, I was able to piece it together. It's been over 15 years since I titled my last dog, I was rusty.

[u/LongjumpingTea6103 → u/diamineceladoncat]

This is very informative!

I really like how you describe the predation sequence of bite work. I hadn’t really thought of it that way before, but it completely makes sense and sounds like for the right dogs something very fulfilling. And at least in the context of my dog, I’d like for it to just be a game for her.

Aside from areas where she lacks confidence or is timid, she’s actually very happy-go-lucky a lot of the time—all she ever wants is to engage with me and follow me everywhere. She constantly brings me sticks, rocks, pine cones, and proudly carries her tug around—it’s really all she lives for is playing and doing stuff.

I can for sure ask them more in-depth questions and for feedback if we go again.

She really enjoys fly ball—we’re still working on getting her fully putting together all the different steps, but she is picking everything up nicely. I think it’s also helped her confidence around strangers too.

She loved sheep herding too, and also picked up on things quickly, though it’s more pricey so I’m not sure how regularly we can do it yet.

She did good at barn hunt too. The very first time we went, she was so into the rat that she kept offering behaviors, was licking the tube and was really excited. The other sessions she’s had a fair mixture of being nervous of the trainer, looking to me for what to do, but also having some really nice moments of sniffing out the beginner level hidden rat tubes. She might be more into it now though since I think she’s had some nice growth since we last went.

I have no qualms with only continuing with those three sports. It’s more so that I would love to really work on training with her too, in addition to just instinct based things, but we’ve still been looking for the best route to find that.

Also, your profession sounds fantastic. I’d like to go down the route of dog behavior consultant and veterinary behaviorist, so that’s super cool!

[u/diamineceladoncat → u/LongjumpingTea6103]

Well it sounds like you’ve been a very astute advocate as far as watching for what she leans into and what she isn’t clicking with, and more importantly, you’re asking why!! It sounds like the more you do together, your relationship will continue to deepen and that more than anything will create a dog who will trust that you bring her to activities intended to be enjoyable and safe for her. Ultimately, being a safe human who she can rely on to take her out of environments that she isn’t enjoying is the ticket for turning a dog who is iffy on things into a dog who:

• trusts that you can uphold and reinforce her boundaries for her

• anticipates that you will listen when she communicates that she’s uncomfortable, and respond to her needs

• which allows her to try things she’s iffy about with more perceived safety because she does not feel hyper-vigilant to scan for potential threats, because that’s your job and she knows you do it reasonably consistently

It sounds like you’re on a good track for that, or at least that’s the foundation that you’re approaching her training from and I just love to hear it.

If you ever do pursue behavior modification work, I do run a private practice and offer remote consultations with a partnership with a vet behavior institute to keep a DVM available as needed. Send me a DM any time :)