Rocky – My New K9 Challenge

Couple of months ago we were looking for a dog to protect our customer’s construction site (his interest led to us developing a new solution for protecting commercial properties and construction sites described here). One of our contacts referred me to a police officer in New Jersey who imported a dog from Netherlands to be used by a SWAT police department. I already wrote about Rocky’s behavior in the previous article. This news blog discusses our experiences with this interesting challenging dog in a much more detail.

I hope it will be both interesting and educational. I will keep updating this article with my work and life with Rocky focusing on fun and not so fun experiences in our daily lives, training techniques that were successful and those that did not work while focusing on addressing behavior problems with this very challenging high prey drive dog.

Why would someone want to sell a great police dog? It turned out that there were some challenges with Rocky. The police officer told me that Rocky has an attraction to squirrels, and they cannot release him to do an area search without him diverting his attention to squirrel hunting. I was surprised that this was the reason for giving away this dog, as many high prey drive dogs have attraction to chase squirrels and other critters. I suspected that there was more to the story. The same policemen assured me that Rocky would bite anyone on command (one of the requirements of our property protection solution).

It turned out that Rocky was not in New Jersey anymore and he was returned to the dog importer who was in upstate New York. I was not going to make the five-hour one-way drive without more information. Eventually, I received Rocky’s pedigree. It was very impressive. Rocky was a offspring of a well-known Bonky who produced many successful KNPV and police dogs. Rocky’s father, Guus, participated in Netherlands’s KNPV National Competition (only the best dogs in Holland make to this level). The importer also told me that Rocky was trained for explosives detection. This was interesting as we could have used him in our K9 detection business. I decided to make the 5-hour trip to upstate New York to check him out.

I arrived early in the afternoon. Rocky was a handsome dog but looked very thin and a little malnourished. I put my bite suite on and we did a quick bite test. Rocky swiftly attacked the left bicep. His bite was very strong, but he attacked with little stress. When I pinched him during the bite, he pushed hard with added aggression — that was very good. It was clear that he was green in terms of bite work, but his fundamentals were good. I then put Rocky in my truck to test his explosive detection in the local Tractor Supply store. He was neutral to anyone in the store and his detection work was pretty good. It was clear that Rocky was not a dog for protecting the commercial property — he was too inexperienced in terms of bite work, and it would take too long to train him. His detection work was good. I started to like him. At that point the dealer was willing to give me the dog for free as he was receiving a large shipment of dogs from Netherlands and did not have space for Rocky. I took him and made the five-hour drive back the same day.

Before continuing with this story, I would like to remind the readers about the definitions of the basic drives — primary prey and defensing drives. These drives cause a lot of excitement and pleasure when the drive is executed and deep satisfaction to a dog once the drive’s goal is reached (e.g., catching and biting prey). The objective of the defense drive is self-preservation (or staying unharmed). During this drive a dog experiences a lot of tension during the drive action and relief and satisfaction once its goal is reached (e.g., a threat was removed). Basic drives have an important role to play in dog’s aggression model. I suggest referring to my article titled Dog Aggression on this news/blog page.

Rocky has a very high Prey Drive and almost no Defensive Drive. Many traditional dog protection trainers expect a balance between defense and prey drives in a multi-purpose working dog (dogs that are used by police and military for attack, search and detection), but more advanced experts focus mainly on high prey drives. Why? Would a dog with a strong defensive drive (i.e., a drive for self-preservation) jump into a breach in a wall of a building that was just opened by an explosion to look for weapons, explosives, and bad guys?! Not likely. But a dog like Rocky that has a huge prey drive, confidence, and almost no fear, will do this after a lot of proper training!

Rocky, however, had more serious issues than just a tendency to chase squirrels. Rocky did not handle frustration well. If there was a strong prey stimulus such as squirrel, deer, someone jogging on the street, someone on a bike, children playing with a ball and running, etc., that Rocky was restricted from chasing, Rocky got frustrated and annoyed. This frustration manifested as charging hard towards the stimulus with a lot of nervous “screaming” and barking. Correcting with an e-collar or prong collar did not do much as Rocky was not sensitive to pain and was too excited to pay attention. Also, hard corrections during this behavior only pissed him off and made him aggressive. As you can see, I got myself a great dog with a lot of challenges.

First, I had to attend to his physical issues — he was very thin (he weighed only 64 pounds) and he limped on his left front foot. Examination by a specialists determined that Rocky was suffering from Lime disease and had parasites. We treated him with herbal medicines for Lime and performed de-worming using traditional medicine. We also gradually transitioned him to raw meat with added steamed vegetable diet. We added supplements, and, when necessary, added binders to clean his system from all the dead Lime and parasites. The limping was gone in four days, but the Lime treatment continued for about three months. In about two months Rocky gained weight and weighed 71 pounds (he was 64lbs when I got him). I feel he should weigh about 75 pounds, but we will see how he looks when he continues to gain weight (in the last month, he has not gained much weight).

From the first week, we took Rocky everywhere despite the challenges. We would take him for a walk to the local parks and to the beach. When he lost it after seeing someone riding a bike, running, or some critter, I would pull on his collar, call his name, when he turned and look, I would mark with a Yes, and give him a ball.

Markers are one of the most important fundamental concepts in dog training. Dogs do not associate a reward with their action if the reward comes longer than 2 seconds after the desired action. When using markers, we train the dog to associate a sound with the reward. Therefore, instead of giving the dog the actual reward such as a treat, we can substitute it with a sound marker. I use the word “Yes” for marking correct behavior and my dog can stop the activity (also referred to as terminal marker), and the word “Good” for marking a behavior I want to continue (such as lay down and continue to lay down). The word “No” is my negative marker or verbal correction for incorrect behavior. I highly recommend listening to one of Michael Ellis’s videos on marker training.

After about a week, he would turn to me on his own looking for a ball. When he was busy with a fun prey like activity, he did not pay much attention to the surroundings. For example, at the beach, he loved to fetch a toy from the ocean. Although it was clear that he had never seen an ocean before, nor knew how to swim very efficiently, he jumped in almost immediately.

As I stated before, for the most part, Rocky seemed to be fearless. He also loved to go to the lake and jump off the dock after a toy. As long as he had his toy in his mouth, he was able to sort of handle stimulus. As he did not have near the obedience and control that we had with Luna, we still had to keep him on a tight leash. Overall, Rocky is a very sweet and friendly dog. I was surprised to find out that he loves to cuddle. I was starting to really like him.

After about a month of using the ball method to distract Rocky from a stimulus, I felt I was not making good enough progress. True, Rocky was distracting his attention from the target and taking the ball, but I did not feel that he was learning a new behavior. It seemed to me that Rocky was just transferring his frustration into the ball but not getting any better in terms of reacting to various stimulus. After talking with some trainers, I reached a conclusion that I need to start rewarding Rocky not for just getting his attention with a ball, but for being able to calm down and stay calm for a period. I then modified my training by making Rocky sit and giving him the ball reward only after he calmed.

First this new modified method seemed to work, but after a week, Rocky’s behavior was becoming worse not better. He was becoming more anxious and frustrated. After considering what was happening from this dog’s perspective, I realized that I made a mistake. Rocky felt that he was not only restricted from chasing the stimulus, he was also not given the desired ball right away. This made him more frustrated over time not less. I went back to the method of calling his name and pulling on the leash, marking when he turned and looked and then giving the ball.

When I got Rocky, it was clear that his obedience training was very basic. He kind of knew how to sit and lay down, but he would not hold neither position for very long, his execution was sloppy (sitting crooked and laying with his legs out to the side). From the second day, I got Rocky into a daily training school regiment. In my article about working dog sports, I make the point that not all training done in working dog sports is useful for real-life working dog action, but many training techniques and exercises in the sports world can be very beneficial. Working dog sports require a degree of accuracy and consistency that to a degree can be very useful for personal protection, police, and military dogs. I typically train certain exercises from Schutzhund, Mondioring, and PSA. The intense daily training may also help Rocky to get over his mental challenges.

My daily training routine with Rocky consists of the following exercises and activities (I vary the session depending on Rocky’s behavior, performance, weather, and time). We start in the morning with a ball play. I throw a ball as far as possible and Rocky and Luna fetch it back to me. Simple, but in the beginning, Rocky had problems releasing the ball. The purpose of the first part of the ball play is mainly exercise the dogs. They must run and return the ball as fast as possible. After about a dozen throws, I am slowly adding some obedience. Rocky must sit, then sit and down, then sit and stand, etc., before getting the next ball throw. Both Rocky and Luna must learn to stay out of each other’s way and avoid the temptation of grabbing each other during the game (Luna was the worst offender trying to grab Rocky’s behind one time leaving a good tooth mark on his side).

It became fashionable to talk about capping. Good obedience is not “capping”. Capping is one of the most misused concepts in dog training. The best way to look at capping is to observe how a fox learns to hunt a mouse. The first time it hunts, the fox is eager to get the mouse. It runs fast and pounces, but the mouse dives into its hole and the fox mises. Then the fox learns that it needs to be patient and slowly and silently creep towards the mouse before pouncing. Eventually, the fox succeeds. The fox learns to cap its desire for action to succeed — it learns to be patient. Similarly to the fox, a dog must learn to cap on its own. We as trainers can help it by giving it some subtle hints and by withholding the reward until the dog learns on its own to be patient. Therefore, when a dog executes a given obedience comment is not capping.

I then do an additional dozen ball throws, but now with the added obedience commands in between.

After the ball session, I give the dogs a short break and drink some water. After this first high drive activity, we switch to calmer learning session. Rocky practicing Sit, Down, Stand, Heel, Touch (I find that training a dog to touch an object on the ground and stay on such an object is very useful), Come, Front (to come into a front position), to come into a heel position, etc. The emphasis is on increased accuracy and improved execution in terms of speed. We also practice some commands out of motion such as heel and sit while walking or running, heel and then down, etc. Again, I mimic some Schutzhund or PSA requirements (I do not require Rocky to do focused heeling as I do not feel it is practical for real-life working dogs). During this portion I reword Rocky and Luna with food as I found that both dogs are too stimulated by balls and tugs to effectively learn.

Since Rocky had already some obedience training in Holland, I had to learn the commands in Dutch (Af, Zits, Los, Zuke, etc). I could easily retrain him commands in languages I typically use (a combination of English, Russian, German and even Hebrew words), but I thought it would be useful to keep the commands for Rocky different from commands given to Luna (so they know who the command is for). One wrinkle in my plan, though — Luna quickly learned Dutch and started executing the Dutch commands! Rocky, however, has been ignoring Luna’s commands (Luna is the higher IQ dog).

We have been practicing a long-down lately. I gradually increase the duration. This is excellent for teaching the dog patience.

Lately, I also started to train Rocky to calm hold a Schutzhund dumbbell. I initially tried to train him to retrieve a dumbbell, but his retrieve was too chaotic, and he chewed hard. Now, I calmly give him the dumbbell with a “hold” command calming patting his head and giving the Good marker when he is calm. Then I tell him to out (Los in Dutch) to drop the dumbbell and a Yes market with a following food reward.

After this calm training activity I raise the drive level a little and train to jump over a hurdle fetching a ball (you can see the PVC hurdle in the background of the photo above). As Rocky does not consider a PVC pipe as a barrier (he simply crashes the pipe knocking it from position), I had to hang a rag to make my hurdle look solid. Rocky has amazing jumping ability, so jumping is not an issue. However, after he gets the ball, he still has a little problem focusing enough to jump back.

At this point, we elevate the excitement again and either do some playing with a tug or a bite exercise. Rocky had only basic bite work training in Holland. He bites hard and with some aggression, but he also brings some stress into the bite. I am trying to get him used to biting calmly. I back-tie Rocky and offer him a hard sleeve bite (he tends to mouth on softer sleeves). I stretch the line, so he has back-pressure. I make him hold the bite for about 3 seconds, sometimes petting him calmly on the head with a Good marker. When he is calm, I release the pressure on the back line and let him push into the sleeve.

After some rest, we switch to our last activity of the training session — playing with a Frisbee. Frisbee is an excellent game for working dogs. It is good exercise, and it teaches the dog to target well, develops coordination, and teaches patience. I played Frisbee with Luna since she was a puppy, and she is excellent at it. Rocky had problems at first catching the Frisbee as he was too eager. It was funny to see him jump over the Frisbee and over-run it. When he caught it, he would mouth it hard bending the poor Frisbee and then run all over the yard. As you can see from the short video below, he is now getting much better at it.

I am also training Rocky with Laurence Armstrong of LA Harde Hond Academi in basic protection and obedience (to train him with other dogs). Laurence is a good friend and a very good dog trainer.

My goal is to certify Rocky for explosives detection. Rocky was trained in Netherlands for detection using a small metal pipe to build drive (similarly the way some train in US using PVC pipes). Rocky is a very solid detection dog, but when testing his detection in various scenarios, we noticed that he was not doing well detecting strong odor sources and odor that would come from multiple sources rather a concentrated one source (as would from a narrow pipe). I am working with Shawn Edwards of Stateline Canine in this area. Shawn is a very experienced police dog trainer and a great decoy. Shawn will be helping with some bite work training as well.

Finally, I also started training Rocky for tracking. I started foundation tracking work using Armin Winkler’s squares concept. I highly recommend reading Armin’s articles on dog training here. Armin is one of worlds best for training for real-life police and military dogs. I consider Armin as a mentor in the real-life working dog training area, and I have learned a lot from him. Armin is also a passionate Schutzhund enthusiast, but in addition to Schutzhund he trained and participated in many other European working dog sports such as KNPV and various ring sports.

This is all for now. As I stated in the opening, I am planning to update this news blog with new achievements or new challenges with Rocky and any new training techniques I have learned.

January 10, 2025 update.

Earlier in this article I made the claim that Rocky has a strong prey drive with almost no defensive drive. And yet, he has a very low threat threshold. The way I determined the low threat threshold was that Rocky reacts quickly and violently to any perceived threat from a human or an animal. For example, my wife and I were walking on our quiet cul-de-sac street late at night before Christmas. We were walking busy talking and not paying much attention. We noticed that a car seemed to be driving slowly behind us but were still engaged in our conversation. It only took about 10 seconds before Rocky made an about turn towards the car behind us and started barking and pulling towards the car. The driver started talking in a language I first did not recognize but with a middle eastern/Arabic accent. Given the strange nature of the situation and me being aware of the terror risks that exist in our country, I got very concerned. When the driver started talking through the open window, this got Rocky even more concerned. Rocky was on a 16-foot retractable leash, and he quickly moved towards the driver. He was in the air trying to attack the driver through the open window, when in the last second I was able to pull him back. I have no doubt that he would have gone through the window and bit the driver! Given the situation, his behavior was very reasonable.

The driver was probably from Azerbaijan and heard my wife and I talk in Russian (this was why he followed us for 20 seconds trying to understand in what language we were talking). He asked us in a broken Russian for a certain address. Given the excitement and the nature of this situation, I first did not realize he was speaking Russian.

Since I realized that Rocky has a low threat threshold (there were many other examples), I had been trying to reconcile this with my assertion that he also has a low defensive drive. If he reacts quickly to threats — this should be manifestation of a defensive drive. I determined that he had low defensive drive because when initially I tied him to a post and a decoy tried to do bite work with him by threatening him with a stick, Rocky did not respond. He did not seem to be very fearful just very confused and did not know what to do. He did not respond by barking nor trying to bite the decoy. Dogs with defensive drive should naturally either respond by barking or barking and trying to defend themselves by biting the decoy.

I later concluded that his behavior during the first back-tie bite session was not a reflection on his defensive drive. His reaction was most likely a result of a bad previous experience with such training. Maybe, the police officer from New Jersey who originally owned Rocky put too much pressure on him during bite training, or Rocky had a different confusing and bad experience causing confusion and lack of confidence in this situation.

I now believe that Rocky has what Armin Winkler termed an Active Defense reaction. Active defense is when a dog attacks the threat in a very violent and confident manner. You can read in more detail about drives and aggression in my article on Dog Aggression on this site. Armin claims that based on his experience, only one in a thousand dogs exhibit Active Defense response. It seems that Rocky is one in a thousand!

April 2025. Rocky has come a long way. We are considering selling him either to police to server as a SWAT team dog or for personal protection. Currently, we are continuing his training in PSA that will improve his obedience, ability to handle strong stimuli, and his bite work. We are also planning to get him certified in explosives detection work. Here is Rocky’s page on our website with more details.