Recently, a buyer reached out and asked about Protection Dog Freya, our Czech female German Shepherd. He asked what level of IPO/IGP she is. I told him that she is not titled in IGP because she is trained in personal protection. Given that IGP seems to be the protection standard, he had some questions so I followed up with an email explaining the differences between IGP protection and Personal Protection Dog (PPD) protection. This is a topic I’m very passionate about and one I’ve educated myself on extensively since starting this business.
This article discusses prey versus defense-based protection dogs.
This key concept is rarely mentioned in the protection dog industry, which is a shame, because it’s the core of what we do. It’s the very foundation of the product we’re selling!
For someone who’s not in the dog world, the protection you see in a dog sport called IGP, Internationale Gebrauchshunde Pruefungsordnung, which consists of search for helper, hold and bark, prevention of an attempted escape, defense against an attack, back transport, attack on the dog out of motion , etc) may look very similar to the protection you see in Personal Protection (defense of handler, carjacking, kidnapping, home protection, home invasion).
The biggest difference, and the part that most companies ignore, is that IGP protection is based on prey drive, whereas Personal Protection is based on defense drive. The two could not be more different when it comes to the ‘why’ of protection dog training.
IGP protection dogs
IGP protection is more of a demostration of protection. Is the dog going through all the motions of protection? Yes. But they’re just that, memorized and pre-trained routines where the dog knows exactly what to do expect and is trained to look good while doing it.
A calm, full, hard bite; a steady, strong, confident bark; etc. The dog is performing. He’s not worried at all about protecting himself, because in IGP no harm is done to the dog. The dog is in prey drive; he’s having fun playing a game he knows well and has practiced often.
When a dog is in prey drive, his bark is high-pitched, his body language is happy, and his ears are high and alert.
Prey drive is brought out of a dog at a young age. Puppies as young as six weeks old can start training for IGP’s protection phase as long as they’ll chase a rag or bark at it. This prey drive is further developed in young dogs as they learn the IGP protection routine.
In prey drive, a dog is in pursuit of its prey. When a dog is in prey, the dog is in chase mode, he’s having fun and thinks of it as a game. A dog in prey drive is not thinking about protecting himself or others. When a wolf chases a rabbit, does he worry about the rabbit hurting him? Of course not!
Here’s an example of IGP protection from the world championship:
I’d like to note that Xanuk is a West German working line German Shepherd, which means he’s bred for IGP essentially. To learn more about different German Shepherd bloodlines, read my article: Different Types of German Shepherds.
Personal Protection Dogs
Correct Personal Protection Dog training is based on defense and the dog’s willingness to defend himself, his handler, family, and property. When a dog is in defense-based protection, his protection is real. He’s barking and lunging at the threat, his hackles might be up, he’s poised to make himself look big (standing tall, chest puffed up), and he’s ready to attack at a moment’s notice (weight on front feet) etc. Even after the threat (decoy) has left, he continues to be in a high state of arousal and scans/searches for the threat. He also comes back out of his crate the next go-around looking, again, for the threat – in the early stages of training, at least.
Defense-based protection training is all about presenting a real threat and testing the dog’s courage. It is not about toys, sleeves, suits, or playing. It brings out the dog’s adrenaline and puts the dog in a fight-or-flight situation.
In Personal Protection, training begins when the dog is ready and shows natural instinct and willingness to protect what’s his and react to a threat. The ‘right age’ depends on the dog and could be 12 weeks of age, six months of age, twelve months of age, or twenty-four months of age. The threat could be a decoy, an uninvited visitor to the home, or any other suspicious intruder.
In our protection dog training, we gauge the dog’s maturation and implement defense-based protection when we feel the dog is ready, and we always air on the side of caution. This type of protection involves a certain level of stress because for the dog, the protection is real. It is not a memorized routine he has seen 100’s of times. It’s a threat approaching him (and his handler), and it’s up to him to make that threat go away. For a 12 week old puppy, that’s a lot to take in. Here at Valor Protection Dogs, we usually wait until after the dog is six months old before beginning this work.
Protection dog videos
Here you see a video of Valor Protection Dog Xxanto’s first protection session (also called agitation training or civil defense training):
Note: you’ll see the decoy is wearing a bite suit. This was just by happenstance. We had finished working another dog when Xxanto was highly agitated (in defense drive) so we decided to work him right then and there. Dogs often learn from watching other dogs, and that’s exactly what Xxanto did! The suit did not play into it and did not matter. As an adult dog, he bites for real and does not look for a suit first.
Once the dog’s training is refined, it’s a thing of beauty. You turn the dog on (alert him to the threat) and you turn the dog off (neutralize him), or he alerts to the threat based on instinct, scenario-training, or the threat’s body language or behavior. On. Off. This training is applied to handler protection, carjacking, kidnapping scenarios and more. You train the dog to recognize threats and scenarios, and you teach him what’s appropriate and how to respond.
Here you see Protection Dog Freya doing a carjacking scenario for the first time. This was her first time doing carjacking training; she was young and she was learning to ‘see’ the carjacking picture and put two-and-two together. The next video is Protection Dog Major doing handler defense; his defense drive came out strong and early as a young pup. He was naturally a strong and territorial dog.
Understanding how sport protection differs from personal protection
In personal protection dog (PPD) training, the dog’s bite is not as important. You want him to bite, keep his eyes on the decoy, and stay in the fight. A dog with good genetics will have a nice, full bite – because a full bite feels good and natural to the dog – but it is not something we train for.
In both types of protection (IGP and PPD), you teach the dog to bite on command, release on command, come to you, etc. Obedience is paramount but secondary because the dog’s primary job is the protection element. That’s what he’s obsessed with. This doesn’t mean his obedience is not good – it’s great – but the dog is ‘in drive’ and focused on the task at hand.
This is a subject I am highly passionate about and discuss often because the problem with prey-based protection is that the dog isn’t thinking about protecting himself or his handler. He is playing a game and having fun. He knows the decoy is wearing a sleeve, knows what the decoy will do, and can predict the outcome of the training session. Sport and prey-based bite work is fun and safe; the dog senses no threat.
Things go south when the decoy doesn’t respond the way he expects or the dog gets hurt.
This isn’t the best video – I’m having a hard time sorting through the 1000s of IGP videos on YouTube – but it shows the dog unsure of what to do when he doesn’t get the first bite right away. This is a sport dog who becomes unnerved at the slightest deviation from the normal routine.
This is at the World Championships for IGP in 2017. It looks like the dog slips going into the bite, and that rocks his nerves. He isn’t sure what to do so the decoy stops driving him and puts him in a bark & hold. Imagine if that decoy were a threat coming into the dog’s home. He’s not in protection mode. If he were, he wouldn’t hesitate to re-bite and subdue the threat.
Sadly, many police K9s are trained in their protection dog training using prey drive. This means they think bite work is a game and they look for a suit or sleeve as a precursor to a bite. I have spoken to K9 handlers whose police dogs have zero ‘live bites’ even after many years of police work because they cannot understand why the bad buy does not have a sleeve and therefore do not engage or bite. They run alongside the bad guy instead, bouncing along and looking for a sleeve! (This is not only disappointing but also dangerous! Officers are counting on the police dog to subdue the threat. When he doesn’t, it puts them at greater risk.)
There are videos on the internet of police dogs who do not bite the bad guy because the bad guy is not wearing the bite sleeve. There are also videos of police dogs who run away when bad guys hit or harm them, fleeing due to self-preservation because ‘the game’ didn’t go as planned.
They’re in prey drive and not defense.
In defense, a dog does not care if the bad guy has a suit or a sleeve; he bites the first thing he gets a hold of. He is targeting MAN – not sleeve. The harder the bad guy hits him, the more he fights back. He is in fight mode and is not playing around.
Here you see Protection Dog Rip ready and willing to bite the bad guy; no suit or sleeve needed. In the second video, you see a very young Protection Dog Major learning to protect his perimeter against a threat. Had the decoy stepped any closer, he would have bit him.
Watch our dogs; they’re the real deal. The more the decoy pressures them, the more they fight back. We have done countless training sessions that were never recorded, with different decoys, where the pressure is real and the dogs do not back down from the threat. Witnessing it will send chills down your spine.
I hope this offers some clarity on prey versus defense-based protection. The bottom line is that, in one, the dog is targeting a sleeve, and, in the other, the dog is targeting man.
The scandal with other protection dog companies
Can Personal Protection dogs do IGP? Yes, the right dogs can, but they are then working in prey drive. The more a dog is worked in prey drive, the higher their prey threshold becomes, and a dog cannot be simultaneously in both prey and defense at the same time. They are in one or the other.
A dog can start in defense, then switch to prey, as is often the case when a dog, for example, barks at the bad guy then chases him off the property. Barking = defense; chasing = prey
The more a dog is worked in protection exclusively in prey, as is the case with IGP dogs, the harder it is for him to turn on his defense. The protection picture would have to look drastically different; it would have to run completely parallel to the dog’s IGP training.
This begs the question, for a layman, how does one know what you’re getting for when you buy a protection dog? My advice to you: Look for the proof. Proof of the dog’s protection dog training. Both in video (prior to meeting the dog) and in person (upon meeting the dog). Ask questions. If you’re educated on the topic, then you know what to look for and what questions to ask.
Many companies sell poorly-trained protection dogs – dogs that wouldn’t protect themselves much less their owners. Many of these dogs are sport-trained dogs who are titled and flipped at 3-5 years of age or they are breeder dogs who were started as sport dogs but failed health testing so they are sold to the highest bidder at 1-2 years of age. The sad thing is that most protection dog companies are unaware and uneducated on the difference between sport protection and personal protection or they simply do not care. They are looking to make a quick profit off buyers who do not know what they are looking at.
The lack of knowledge and integrity in the protection dog industry is alarming. Where there is money, there will be scandal.
I personally would never buy an IGP dog for Personal Protection unless I personally met the dog and evaluated its instinctual defense drive because most sport dogs have very high prey drive and very low defense. They are not naturally protective, have too much prey drive, and do not make for good family protection dogs.
Are you looking for a REAL personal protection dog? Steer clear of companies who sell IGP titled dogs that think protection is a game. Steer clear of companies flipping unwanted dogs for a profit. Avoid companies who introduce bite work using rags, tugs, sleeves, and toys or use one of their trainers who raises the dogs as the decoy too. These dogs may be flashy and put on a good show, but when they get punched, stabbed, or shot by an intruder trying to harm you, the dogs will not stay in the ring and defend you. They will run and hide.
Valor Protection Dogs have balanced prey and defense drives. They do defense-based protection and target MAN. Protection is real – not a game – and they will protect you with their life!
