Vit Singh Part Four Kris Kotsopoulos' Re Breeding, Training and Mental Tactics for Protection Dogs

April 8, 2012 - PRLog -- Adaptive dogs tend to adjust to error in a proactive way, reactive dogs by nature operate outside the realm of an “Optimum Function Zone” and tend merely to react to negative feedback without learning from it and remain inhibited causing maladaptive behaviours and negative feedback loops. My focus in my life is on training, the relationship to breeding and the reflexive feedback loops that characterize dog behaviour and most importantly ‘powerful’ working dog behaviour.

There are two kinds of feedback, negative and positive. Negative feedback is self-correcting, and positive feedback is self reinforcing.  Thus, negative feedback sets up a tendency toward equilibrium, but negative and positive ‘emotional’ feedback within the “Optimum Function Zone” sets up a dual feedback system producing “dynamic equilibrium”.

This is not to say that these adaptive dogs should be treated with disrespect, quite the contrary. Access to knowledge regarding genetic selection and animal learning (canine learning) establishes that such dogs are easier to train and maintain robust responses because they are naturally more forgiving.  I am a strong believer that breeders and trainers should be focusing their attention on these dogs which will in fact give the World behavioural predictability.


Do you have sport dogs now in Europe that you like for their ability to transmit their traits to real work...

I have seen many dogs over the years but there are some dogs we have Australia that are quite impressive. As always in my country they are either in the hands of the inexperienced or owners who are only interested in having the dog as a family guardian, however some are committed to training for their own satisfaction.

I am unable to comment of what is happening in Europe in detail but as a whole I find these days I can’t get away from certain blood lines which have infiltrated most breeding lines of which I prefer not to comment about.

What I will say is that the quality in the last 7 years is the most improvement in the European gene pool I have experienced in decades. Training philosophies are brilliant from brilliant people. I do know that a mixture of the gene pools West, East and CZ works for me, but hey let’s not forget that they all come from the same origin – West Germany. I am currently writing about all this in my protection training book due for release this year. It is philosophical as much as it is technical and I will eventually refer to the behaviours described above in video on our website www.vonforell.com for people to begin to visualise and identify for future reference, my only limitation currently is time and resources, nevertheless is must be done for the benefit of the working breeds, German Shepherds, Dobermanns, Rottweilers and the Malinois. They may appear visually different but the fundamental behavioural traits of a quality dog is the same.


Please elaborate on the methodology of producing a female from your kennel or finding one otherwise that is worthy of the males from which you have frozen semen.

There have been many good dogs over the years and unfortunately some of these dogs were underutilised. I am sure there are many people kicking themselves for not doing a mating they now know they should have or have seen males that were never mated to that ideal female. I am sure we have all said imagine if we had that male now 20 – 30 years later.

Well the dogs I have saved were great for their time and offered traits I liked and they operated within this zone I am talking about. Finding the correct female for them was almost impossible. Firstly because not many existed and secondly because we could not really identify them, hence I took it upon myself to breed a female line that I can utilise some of the dogs I have in the frozen semen bank. This way I am able to diligently control what I produce by testing and selection our dogs and when that right female comes along I will use my males on ice and potentially produce the balance I am looking for. I have so much diversity in frozen semen that my program will never reach a point of inbreeding decline and to test this we conducted inbreeding coefficient testing with a genetic laboratory in Australia to establish how close we are.

The results were promising and concluded that we can in breed for 7 generations before the genes begin to get too close in both my Dobermann and German Shepherd Breeding programme.  


Some people may think that you are a DDR/Czech GSD breeder.... what do you say to that and can you give more details on how you have combined the major bloodlines like WGR, DDR and Czech.

I am a German Shepherd breeder and have no preference to any particular country or cultural influence, just like my Dobermanns. I look for what I admire and I do my best to test the dog myself or the very least watch the dog being trained in multiple environments.

Seeing its sire and dam helps me and of course siblings where possible to see any consistencies, positive or negative. I am not a breeder that breeds one type over another. Each line has its traits and it’s our job as breeders to identify the traits we want and get away from the marketing we are steered by. It’s old and antiquated and has no real merit in the grand scheme of things. A good dog is a good dog, no matter which country and no matter who owns it, it’s really that simple.  When we stop judging dogs by the owners we shall all move forward in hurry.


Please elaborate on the theory of optimal zones. How does this influence your choices of breeding stock? Also, can you give examples of dogs in the past who worked in that zone, and are there any names of dogs now from Europe that we might recognise?

This answer will be scattered throughout my next book on breeding and protection training but I will give you a glimpse into my current thoughts.

For some time, I have been observing and working with protection dog trainers and the results they achieve. From these careful observations and from discussions with many, my observation is that the root of the confusion that most dogs seem to have is that they are unsure of what is expected of them and or are simply genetically unequipped to meet protection dog training demands.

This confusion is also a result of a decoys lack of awareness and or the inability to work with the inherited reflexive mechanism that high drive dogs operate from.  Incidentally I prefer to describe protection training as “drive fulfilment training” or “reinforcing instinctive behaviour to achieve drive fulfilment”. The phrase “protection training” is a human generated term which creates ambiguity in our community’s emotions and I must confess it generates conflicting emotions in me.  Although the phrase “Protection Training” seems to convey what appears to be transpiring in the general public eyes, the reality is that there is much more occurring than meets the eye; through the positive reinforcement of naturally occurring instincts, nothing like the community perceives.

From my standpoint as a canine trainer, this view and book is geared towards the apparent complexity of the process. This complexity can be simplified when the correct steps are taken to ensure that all components that make a quality dog are in place and in the right order. To the working handler of such dogs, it is my hope there will be a better understanding in the area of breeding, selection and training of working dogs that has never been quite fully understood before. To my fellow trainers, I hope my world view in this book will provide a deep inquiry on how we get from the nest to a dog that is full of instinctive expression harnessed by thoughtful scientific training models.

END OF PART FOUR - If you wish to contact Kris Kotsopoulos please visit http//www.vonforell.com

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