Relationship/Assistance: Protection Training

One of the major contributions of dogs to humans is that they can protect them after going through a correct training (assisting dogs). However, the training of such dogs is associated with a number of misconceptions related to their training and owners beliefs that dog shareholders need to know. This chapter, in addition to describing these misconceptions, provides detailed information regarding protection training (PT). More specifically: it examines the basic theoretical issues related to that training (i.e., dog instincts and their role in protection training); it presents a framework describing the process for an efficient and effective protection training (i.e., technics, actors, etc.), as well as the steps necessary to carry out such training (evaluation, agitation, actual training, and completion check); it provides a road map of protection training planning (i.e., choosing a dog, training rules, etc.); and concludes by presenting the two dog competitions (IPO and Mondioring), which involves dogs that can cope with a series of requirements that rely heavily on protection training.