 Alright, today's video I'm going to be talking about muzzle training for protection dogs. I was asked by several people, do I believe in muzzle training for protection dogs? It's very common to see that in videos in YouTube and police work and a lot of military work. But nobody's ever seen me do it or talk about it, so they were curious whether or not I use muzzles in protection training. Now, first, why do people, trainers, law enforcement, military, why do they use muzzles? Sport training at Belgian Ring does it in particular. So muzzle training has a few components to it that these particular places or people who use muzzles are looking for specific things. So it's very common to, one, test a dog on somebody that's not wearing equipment, okay? To see if the dog will actually go after somebody and pursue an attack when there is no equipment visible, okay? So, now, that is why I use hidden sleeves instead of muzzles. I want to see the dog actually bite and hold on and lock on and fight, see the grip, see the true fight, right? Defensiveness of the dog when there is no equipment available to the dog to see, okay? Getting away from equipment conditioning. So for me, the muzzle's out in that perspective, okay, when it comes to me personally. Now, I'm going to show you a young dog here, German Shepherd. He's between a year and two years here, still a young dog. And I trained this dog through Skype from puppy, building his drive, building his bite work, okay? And as a puppy, you could tell he's very defense driven, okay? This is one of those, you know, smaller examples of a dog puppy that has true defensive nature, fight drive, okay? Naturally, his prey drive was not that strong, you know, you bring a ball out and we did the ball on a string with him and it was, eh, he really didn't have big prey drive. He's much more defense driven, which you love for a real protection dog, okay? So we built the drive through Skype, had him do all that, then started his bite work, his bite skills, his control. And then the owner came to me for, I believe it was three days during my, one of my train-the-trainer camps. So really, he's had very little protection work, very little, and outside of his own family and people he knows, right? Three days was the first time after we had built him up on Skype, just for him to take bites from other people, okay? So really, he hasn't had any, you know, really formal protection training. So here you're going to see that they have another trainer come in Georgia and they're going to be at a gas station and they want to see if he will protect the owner, if somebody pops out and tries to attack the owner at the gas station. They're going to put the muzzle on him. I think he's had the muzzle on once before, twice, but it's not conditioned. And he did attack those times as well, right the first times, and he was young. So this is just a great genetic dog, okay, for real protection. So you'll see him here that the trainer is going to surprise him and just jump out at the owner, attack him and her. And we wanted, you know, they wanted to see what he was going to do when the guy has no equipment on. The dog has no prepping of surprise work with muzzle, right? Really has never had the muzzle on, but a few times in his life it's not a conditioned thing by any means. So meaning he doesn't, he was never taught how to attack with the muzzle or that's what it's for, that's what it's about, okay? So this is really straight up to test his genetics, okay? And the little training he's had through Skype with me over, you know, his first year. So here you're going to see what happens. All right, great. And you see he keeps going, he pursues him, being pushed aside and you see him getting at him and if he didn't have the muzzle on, he would really have gotten into it. Right, he really would have attacked this guy and put a beat down on him, all right? And he does not know how to muzzle fight. All right, so that's the next step to this. So what we see here is a dog being tested with no real muzzle conditioning, not knowing how to fight with the muzzle. Will his training and genetics hold up under a realistic threat? And it was perfect, beautiful, okay? And he's still a young dog, I want to say a year and a half may be close to two and shepherds really don't mature until two, two and a half. So I mean, he's young to fight, but he had that very young dad in him. So again, genetics. Now, when we talk about him going after the guy, right, against the truck and he keeps pursuing him. That's the other factor why training companies use muzzles, okay? Our military police protection trainers, they're doing it to teach the dog how to punch with their nose, right? So if they don't have the muzzle on, they really get their head in there and start to push that bite and push against the person, right? Not pulling away, which is one thing I take away from all protection dogs in the beginning. I don't want to see any pull back bites, none. Not as a puppy, I will not. I get rid of that very quickly, okay? I want to see in bites, in and push and push, okay? So muzzle fighting can teach that by using the nose and knowing they can't use their mouth. They get frustrated and they learn how to punch with the muzzle and you give to it, ah, as they push, push, push, right? Letting him push you backwards with the muzzle as he pushes his nose into you, okay? Gaining confidence that pushing forward and really digging into you and getting into the body is a good positive thing, okay? That is another reason, okay, why a lot of places use the muzzle. The other is similar to that, where you'll see a lot of, you know, decoys, the trainer will send the dog, get him, pocket it, right, attack. The dog will go attack and hit with the muzzle and the decoy will fall on the floor and the dog gets on top and learns how to wrestle, right? And keep the person pinned as if they're actually wrestling somebody and learning body position and putting that muzzle into them. So using their arms and digging themselves deep into the person to try to keep them pinned to the floor. As the dog bites and bites and bites and pushes in and really gets very hostile there, the muzzle work can make a lot of hostility because they can't use their mouth. It's frenetic now, okay? So the person's out on the bottom, out, out and the dog gets crazy and he wants to bite and he can't so he's getting really frustrated. So you start to cause a behavior of fierceness, right? Real aggressive behavior. While they wrestle and learn how to use their body to keep the person down and pinned there so they can nail them and keep on attacking and shred the person up, really, right? So those are the reasons for the muzzle. So now seeing that puppy, right? That's the way I would do it and they just happen to do it so I'm glad I have that to show you because that would be the way I would do it and only thing I want to see, okay? But again, I'm not a muzzle guy. I don't care about that, honestly. I don't use it. I don't need it. I don't think it's necessary at all. Like I just don't see the purpose to it unless you have a weak dog that's not as good and need to cause some aggression, right? But if good techniques, you don't need to do that if you know how to get that out of a dog without having to go that route. So I never use a muzzle. I don't do it. Not that it's bad. I'm not against it by any means. It's just not my personal route. I don't feel it's necessary with my techniques. I don't find I have to do that. I've never done it, actually. So again, not a bad thing and this was cool to see, right? This young dog with very little personal one-on-one training, okay? And bite work and seeing his genetics come out and just go after the guy with the muzzle when no, you know, real hesitation. Not knowing what he's doing. Not understanding the game of muzzle work and just green raw on it. And he did a phenomenal job and without the muzzle, that guy would have been in big, big trouble, okay? And I know this dog. He would have taken care of business. That's his genetics. And he's a great dog. A stable dog. He's not aggressive in life. Exactly what we want. There's children that live at the house. Children coming and going all day, right? Delivery people. He's good. You don't have to worry about him. He's not crazy. He's not aggressive, okay? He's very stable. But this is a very genetically defensive dog by nature, okay? Which makes great personal protection dogs, military dogs, police dogs, okay? So that is muzzle training for protection dogs. So again, not against it at all. It can be utilized in a great way. It can show you many things, okay? So I am not against it. I just personally don't use it.