This is a comment I've just made in reply to someone who was criticising the ringsports' emphasis on leg bites, saying that for a real situations this would be pointless and put the dog in danger (as it leaves the criminal's hands free).

''It's quite conceivable that a criminal (in a real situation) might use an object to block the dog and make it harder for the dog to bite the arms. As pointed out, once a criminal is bitten he may likely be in too much pain and panic to defend himself properly, but trust me many people will fight furiously to STOP the dog biting in the first place. I know I would!!! :o LOL This is something we do frequently outside of sport training, when testing professional security and family guardian dogs. Here's an old photo of me effectively neutralising the attempted attacks of a pretty strong bandog, using a plastic dustbin. I've done the same to other dogs with a plastic garden chair. These are both objects that a burglar (for instance) could pick up and use. For me personally, I like the dog to happily bite both the arms and the legs. In sport or in a real violent attack/crime, the arms may not be available for whatever reason. The criminal could be on the stairs above the dog, or stood on a table etc. to escape. He could be wrestling with you, in which case I'd be very happy for a dog to come in a hit the guy's leg. Each to their own. Nothing is perfect, not any dog- and not even me! :p ha ha ha I like sport AND 'street', in different ways but actually I think there's far more cross-over than most people realise. Just like many good boxers or wrestlers can still smash someone up on the 'street', I have no doubt that a strong dog which really means it, and has been taught to channel their aggression into a disciplined sport, can and will hammer and defeat a human criminal. Watch some videos of police dogs biting. Some take an arm, some take a leg. Nearly all of these dogs come from 'sport' lines, and the sports were designed as breeding tests for police-type dogs, anyway. A well-bred and well-trained police/security/sport dog should want to bite anyway, for the pure enjoyment of it. How each person channels that drive, and trains the dog depends on their own needs and preferences. Obviously... ;)''

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The amazing Sarah Hanson posted the following clip (of her herder in a down-stay, surrounded by chickens while Sarah collects eggs), and I made this comment: ''Sport and real world crossover. You might be using a real situation to train an exercise for sport, and actually the original point of the sport exercise was to train dogs for real situations! :) I love all that stuff; how Northern European farm dogs were taken and molded into police dogs, using the sports as a breed test and a frame of reference...''

 

 

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