Springpole

[EWO]

Actually I think you are right. And I think that is where the confusion and myths appears.

There is no way to tell which ones are sinking them the furthest. It is what they do after sinking them that matters.

GRCH Rufus was a pressure biter. He did very little surface damage. Wherever he put his mouth would swell like a balloon.
In the beginning he was not considered a hard mouth dog until they started dropping under him. Even trhu violent shakes and re grips seldom did he leave surface damage to 'indicate mouth'.

An example. With your right arm grab your left wrist. Squeeze as hard as you can and while squeezing attempt to move your right hand up and down your left arm. The harder your squeeze, the better your grip, the least amount of travel. Basically only the skin on your left arm will move.

The slightly lessen your grip. Repeat. Your hand will slide some up and down your left arm.

Completely release the pressure and your right hand will slide up and down the arm freely.

Example 1 is a freak mouth dog. Imagine if there were nails in your hand sunk in. They would be deep, and with the tight grip the holes would remain close to the same size of the nail. The damage would be deep.

Example 2 the damage would be just about as deep, but the holes at the surface would be bigger. And to the eye more damage had been done.

The third example would be appear to be a horrific murder scene, the lacerations would be all over the arm, not all that deep but all over the arm. It would appear to be a lot of damage when in turn mostly skin wounds.

Lots of dogs accredited with hard mouth are really in group 3. it is the lack of mouth that appears to be a lot of mouth. (on the surface)

Mouth should be determined by the total effect not just the outwardly appearance.

I agree with your post.

[EWO]

There is no correlation between the hide and actual mouth. I had a female once that would hang off a hide for just about forever. In the summer for so long til she passed out, wake up and then go again. Without a hide hanging she would eat rocks, roots houses, etc. So I kept her with a hide off a garage door spring and a hide 24/7.

She had so-so mouth. But what she had was violent shakes. Incredible neck strength and a powerful core. She did not bite incredibly hard but the aftermath looked like she was an axe murderer.

EWO

[skip11]

Gotcha. My 10.5 month old pup now who doesn't look like he has a hard bite because he can't hold on to the bait on the springpole. But I do think he does bite hard on the first bite but just can't hold. He accidentally bite my thigh when trying to grab my pants when he was 5 months old and got a good bruise from it.

[EWO]

Another story of mouth. DTA's Ch. Charlie. We were walking down a long dirt road with pastures on both sides. The snap hook on the lead broke and he made a 50-60 yard sprint, under the fence and latched onto a goat. It took us a minute or so to get over the fence and to him. We broke him off and headed for the truck. We carried him home and went back to pay for the goat.

Paid $150 for a busted up goat. We brought him home and put him down. As we skinned him the teeth marks looked amazingly similar to buckshot when skinning a dear. Holes were as big as a #2 pencil, the black blood had formed around the hole, the swelling had set it along with deep bruising. It looked awful on the inside.

On a mouth scale of 1-10 Charlie was a 7, an 8 would be stretching it. So if I factored in those freaks graded 9-10.

Then to think these dogs scratch back to this for hours on end. Amazing creatures.

EWO

[skip11]

Hahah that's crazy. The craziest bite I've ever seen on video was by Bad Rosemary. Left a big hole on the chest. Now that's a freak mouth.

To update my pup; he decided to finally hold on to the hide (2nd day ever springpoling w/ a cow hide) albeit for only 50 seconds (he was only holding on for like 2-3 seconds the first day). I think this confirms what you're saying EWO that a dog bites hard when it wants + how bad he likes the toy/hates the dog.

[EWO]

There are so many things that affect bite. Over or under weight can turn a dog who would bite on a 9 to a 5 in a quick minute.

My Hatchet male will fight a cotton rope for hours on end and will not give an actual hide a second look.

A well conditioned dog who has gas in the tank who bites on a 7 and is still biting on a 7 50-75 minutes in, appears to have way more mouth than the one that starts off at 7-8-9 but tires to a 5 in short order.

Dogs who are strong in the neck and core may be more violent in the shakes which in turn looks like more mouth, more bite strength.

If your dog is starting to work it then tease him a little with it between sets. Get his prey drive steaming and let him have it.

Your job is to make it fun and a big game for him. At 10 months old he should never think he is doing work. It is a mean trick to play on him but it will be well worth the deception later in life. LOL

EWO

[skip11]

Your job is to make it fun and a big game for him. At 10 months old he should never think he is doing work. It is a mean trick to play on him but it will be well worth the deception later in life. LOL

EWO

He was always lacking in toy drive. Only this past 1-2 months did he really start to want to play and maybe only the past month that he really wants to bite a toy. The cow hide is the only thing that really gets him geeked up. Other toys he'll play for a while then he'll get bored. He'll just suddenly stop even though it looks like he's getting into it. With the cow hide, he's literally searching for it during the day (he's a house dog). I could never tease him with another toy (maybe for like a few min then he'll just ignore it). 1st day on it, he can't hold on to it at all, won't tug too (actually he never really wants to play tug, he'll just grab the toy and lay down and tries to rip it apart). 2nd and 3rd day were really good like I mentioned above. He's finally starting to hold on to it. I really happy with his progress.

[EWO]

That's good. Let him progress naturally. Odds are he will get better and better. If he does great, if he does not, no biggie. Working the hide is only one tool in the shed. So many more to choose from.

Best of luck.

EWO

[skip11]

Thanks EWO. Do you do springpole or any kind of bitework everyday?

[EWO]

A couple three times per week.

I try to mimic as much about the show as possible.

I taper off at the end.

If in keep I do not let their feet come off the ground.

I usually do it at the end of the days work. Let them bite, rip and shake after they are tired.

EWO