weight pull right or wrong

[jjbulls]

I Voted bated with harness.. but ive also had my Beau pull on a collar & bated. it worked well

[theoldgit]

fair point

[phil]

Buddy used to pull in a collor baited but not in a harness at all , daisy will pull in a harness un baited ,but she pulls more confidently in a collor, yet star is very happy in her harness but needs somthing to focus on being that a toy to encourage her. dogs will only pull what they can harness or coller. athough pulling in a harness needs techneque this comes with training and dogs that are confident and trained well can pull amazing amounts.

[tera]

aslong as the dog pulls I couldn't care a foook how it does it!!

[LeighandApple]

For me I can't stand watching a dog being baited to pull for these reasons
1\ The amount of times I've seen the dog almost bite its handler in its attemps to get the toy.
2\ Lunging and snapping not only can't be good for the dogs shoulders but also doesn't really look that good to the public watching the event.
3\ With the last two points in mind before the DDA was brought in there was a TV program (I think Panorama but not sure) that used a video of a baited weight pull to show how Pit Bull & Stafford owners trained their dogs and to be honest it didn't really show our dogs in a positive way (even though in reality the dogs were only doing what was asked of them by their owners), but as we all know that's not how the public view it.

With regards to baited dogs being able to pull more weight, I keep hearing this but have never seen it. Not in competition or on videos from around the world.

Dogs not pulling in a harness - Any dog will pull in a weight pull harness but this takes training and showing the dog what is being asked of them.

I do have a question (let me know John if this question should be asked on its own post?)
Do people choose baited purely because they don't know how to train for weight pull and if there were places to learn this would they attend and compete unbaited? If the answer is "No" you would still bait what is the reason?

[mark lamont]

some good points L& A

1/ you could say the same for a frame where ive seen a good few actually been bitten

2/ i agree its not good to see a dog lunging into the harness but some do it unbaited

with regards to public perception you will never change that so f***k em and same for one sided tv propoganda programes that feed the public perception

3/ if you want to please the public perception then you need a 14" staff fat as a barrell take it to the park in your car let it out for a short run and 30 secs or so and put it back in the car , dont bother with athletic events and dont have a dog in even reasonable condition because when people see a leggy fit lookig staff they immediatley think its trained to fight

how often have you seen the media say they took fighting parafinalia from books /pics/ wp harness/treadmills etc or a clip of a dog lunging at a pull,
something most of us have even though we have never even been to a dog fight

from my experience i would agree a dog will pull more baited murphy can and will pull on command he has wp 1,2&3
but he gets bored and your lucky if you get 2-3 pulls. baited he will go on and pull more and smoothly no lunging so my answer is the same i dont mind baiting in a pull

thanks
mark lamont

[LeighandApple]

Hello mate,

Here's my answers to your points........& these are just my views

1\ Getting bitten doing A-frame - I agreed there mate and again that shows a lack of control and the owner needs to work on that. I wouldn't accept that from my dogs and they would be corrected for that poor form.

2\ unbaited dogs lunging - again I have seen this to but this is also down to a lack of training or wrong training technique and needs to be worked on to stop this. My dog Charlie sometimes does this but this is down to mistakes in his early training and I'm now using different methods to stop this. In a sanctioned event this would be a disqualification.

3\ Public perseption - I know where you're coming from, it winds my up big time too but, I think if we are to make any head way we have to start looking at it from both sides. You are always going to get the ignorant public & media but there are a lot of the public that have their opinions made for them purely because the media is all they have to go on. The media wants us to give up but personally I'm not going to give them that satisfaction.

4\ Pulling more baited - In the States where they've been training dogs for weight pull a lot longer then over here the results speak for themselves. There's no physical reason why the dogs over there are out pulling ours in a huge way, it all comes down to the training methods.

Thanks
Leigh

[mark lamont]

another good reply L&A

mostly i agree with all you have said and as said it is down to training and the relationship between the dog and handler

as for pulling baited its only on my experience with my dogs as i said murphy will pull on command but hes only ever pulled at events no training other than that so realisticly hes only done pulling sparadicly on a handfull of occasions his second attempt was at lightwater 2005 where he pulled the most on the day( wasnt x body weight)

thanks

mark

[LeighandApple]

That's a great testiment to your bond with Murphy and his natural physical ability that he attained WP1 to WP3 untrained. Like I've said before mate it's always a pleasure watching your dogs perform.

Thanks

Leigh

[mark lamont]

That's a great testiment to your bond with Murphy and his natural physical ability that he attained WP1 to WP3 untrained. Like I've said before mate it's always a pleasure watching your dogs perform.

Thanks

Leigh

thanks for your very kind comments Leigh

all the best

Mark