Ditch Your Bite Suit!

In this episode, Jerry Bradshaw discusses: Keeping in mind the olfactory and visual cues of a bite suit that we don't often consider.  Reducing equipment fixation, creating habits of engagement, and training the behaviors you want into your dog.  Why your dog needs to believe the bite suit is irrelevant.  Focusing training on the most likely scenarios your dog will encounter.   Key Takeaways: Too much suit work creates a false sense of security for your dog.  Active aggression is a trained response, usually to an invasion of territory or other behaviors soliciting that reaction. Through classical conditioning, we can train dogs to show that behavior in training and, in turn, active scenarios in deployment. Create a habit of engagement. During the development of your younger dogs, you want to develop that habit so they know where they're going to bite, so they don't get into a state of choice paralysis.  Train leg bites - it is typically the easiest and most likely place the dog will be able to get a bite on in most engagements. You're increasing the probability of real engagements every time you deemphasize the cues of odor and visuals from suits.   "We want to camouflage these suits with different visual patterns, randomize the visual cue of that suit, and so that means different colors, textures, covering those suits with, jeans, jackets, raincoats, sheets, layers of blankets, right, all of these things to make the picture look a lot less like a guy in a bite suit, and a lot more like what a suspect might look like on the street." —  Jerry Bradshaw   Get Jerry's book Controlled Aggression on Amazon.com   Contact Jerry: Website: controlledaggressionpodcast.com Email: [email protected] Tarheel Canine Training:  www.tarheelcanine.com YouTube:  tarheelcanine Twitter: @tarheelcanine Instagram: @tarheelk9 Facebook: TarheelCanineTraining Protection Sports Website: psak9-as.org Patreon:   patreon.com/controlledaggression Slideshare: Tarheel Canine Calendly: https://calendly.com/tarheelcanine  Tarheel Canine Seminars: https://streetreadyk9.com/  Tarheel Canine Student Portal: https://tcstudentportal.com/    Sponsors:  ALM K9 Equipment: almk9equipment.com PSA & American Schutzhund: psak9-as.org Tarheel Canine: tarheelcanine.com The Drive Company: thedriveco.com  The Drive Company Instagram: instagram.com/thedrive.co  Dog Armour: dogarmour.com  Dog Armour Instagram: instagram.com/dogarmourpro  Rogue Arsenal: roguearsenal.com  Rogue Arsenal Instagram: instagram.com/rogue_arsenal_official    Find out more about Hold The Line Conference 2026 at https://htlk9.com/    Train hard, train smart, be safe.     Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie   Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.