Fun Stuff!

Hello everyone! Everything is going great for Tyson and me. Spring break is coming up, and Tyson was able to get off from work, which is VERY rare! We're so excited to be able to spend a whole week together! During this week, I get to go to one of Tyson's bite/narcotic dog training sessions with him. I'M SO EXCITED!

On another note......I'm so excited to tell everyone that I made the National Honor's Society and the Dean's List at Sam Houston State University! Yay for a few more things to stick on the resume!

As I told everyone in the last blog entry, Tyson just went through decoy school where he trained with some bite dogs, and how to work with them. We just received a CD of a bunch of pictures from his eventful week. It is really neat to see how these dogs work. I can't wait to get ours in one more month! Below are some pictures of Tyson training with some dogs. Also, below all of the taining pictures is a video of Tyson in action! Don't be scared. He knows what he is doing. :)

The "jist" of what this bite training is all about:

Every dog has an owner/trainer, and those dogs are taught to only attack on a command. They are trained on commands in either dutch, german, french, etc. Basically, mainly not in english. The dogs are trained to get excited to want to attack a "bad guy." When they get a bite, that is their reward, and they get so excited. You will see their tails wagging because it is like a game to them. Again, they are only taught to do this ON THE OWNERS COMMAND. They are just like a normal, fun, loving dog otherwise. Trust me.....it took me a while to understand this. They aren't trained to be mean, just to know if they see someone trying to intimidate them, or run from them, and the owner/trainer says the command.........they go. Other than that, they have to stay. During training, the "decoy" (the one who wears the bite suit and gets attacked for training purposes) must try to get the dog ready to attack. They start to run, the dog is released, and then the dog jumps up in the air and grabs what is put in front of him/her. Usually, the decoy is to try to pretend to fight the dog by hitting it with a rubber stick, or picking the dog up and pretending to throw it to the ground. I was AMAZED to see how many dogs just would not let go no matter how many times they were tossed around. Don't worry, the dogs aren't being hurt. The decoy does it GENTLY to try to emmulate real life. This is to see if the dog knows not to let go no matter the circumstances, unless it is given a command. The decoy is also supposed to pretend like they are hurt or screaming. This is the dog's rewards, and builds the dogs confidence by letting him/her know that they are winning. Usually, if the decoy pretends to go to the ground, this is also the reward. Well, there is the "jist" to make sense of some of these pictures.

There's no need to fear!

UNDERDOG is here!