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Always maintain a platform, where the body stays as vertical as possible.

Use the body where the helper can leverage his strength to the disadvantage of the dog.

Allow the dog's power to aid the helper with the momentum of the attack, instead of trying to fight it.

The body is stiff and upright, allowing no flexibility.

The left leg is extended, effectively creating a block to the dog's forward energy on the sleeve side.

The helper's feet are spread too far apart from front to back, creating an unstable platform under the helper where he has little control over his footwork because of poor balance.

The sleeve presentation is relatively low and the entire bite surface is parallel to the ground. With this presentation, the dog can choose what it wants to bite. If it bites nearer the end of the sleeve, the helper has lost all leverage and must simply go where the dog takes him. If it bites in the center, the power drives through the center of the helper, pushing him straight back.

While the body is still vertical, note that the knees are more bent. This allows the helper to absorb the power in the legs, acting as shock absorbers, not in the torso where the power pushes the helper straight back. The bent legs also allow the helper to spring from this position upward and to his left side after the bite, bringing more helper leverage and strength to what happens after the bite. Skiers will identify this movement as unweighting, where the upward movement of the knees allows the body to quickly change direction with power.

The feet are closer together, almost directly under the helper. This idea of creating and maintaining a platform shouldn't be anything new to those who are involved in skiing, surfing or martial arts. The idea is to keep the body as vertical as possible from the feet through the upper back. It creates not just good balance, but also a “platform” from which the helper can maximize the amount of the helper's power against that of the dog's strength and speed.

The right, not the left, foot is extended just before the bite. This simple change, when combined with adjustments to sleeve presentation, changes the whole dynamic of the picture. By dropping back the left leg, the helper has opened up a channel to the helper's left that allows the dog's energy to pass by the helper's left and turn the helper for the drive. In short, instead of absorbing the dog's energy, the helper has used this energy to pass the helper and pull him around for further work. It takes little effort from the helper who has good footwork and proper sleeve presentation.

The last point concerns how the helper is presenting the sleeve. In the next article, I examine proper sleeve presentation in greater detail, but Figure #3, when compared to Figure #1 should show how this simple adjustment changes the entire dynamic of what choices the dog has. By raising the sleeve upward no more than three to four inches and tilting the end of the sleeve up and in, the helper gives the dog little choice but to bite the sleeve just below the hinge or elbow of the sleeve. This seemly small adjustment carries dramatic results. The dog's energy carries to the left side, not the center, of the helper. When the dog bites just below the hinge, the helper can leverage the dog with the left bicep and shoulder, instead of the dog leveraging the helper when it bites lower on the sleeve. By keeping the sleeve slightly higher, the impact of the bite torques the helper's upper body to the left so the helper's turn starts with the shoulder. The rest of the body simply follows the direction of the shoulder, in a corkscrew movement.

	Who's Got The Power? Isaac Newton explained it best in his First Law of Motion: an object in motion, (a dog), tends to stay in motion with the same speed, in the same direction, unless acted upon by an unbalanced force (the protection helper). This bit of insight, now over three hundred years old, explains the problem. An 80 pound dog running at 20 miles hits the sleeve with 1,100 foot pounds of force. This is about the same as a bullet traveling at 1,700 feet per second. Put it all in the calculator and it spells power. Helper work is a contest for power with the dog. Either the dog or the helper has the power–there is no power vacuum. While it might be assumed that the answer rests in the helper out muscling the dog, this approach often has inconsistent, even disastrous results. Further, any indecision or mistake by the helper during protection work, even if for only a split second, gives the power to the dog. The simple answer would seem to be that the protection helper must constantly control the dog and make few mistakes, but how many people, even the best of athletes, can live up to this standard with Newton lurking in the background? Nor is raw strength the answer. I have seen big, physical helpers that, using strength alone, couldn't move a big Rottweiler more than a few feet. On the other hand, I once certified a woman protection helper who was a professional dancer and weighed about 110 pounds. She drove a 90 pound dog all over the field. So if pure strength doesn't get it done and athletic skill does, are we left with only the best athletes working our protection dogs? Fortunately the answer doesn't have to be that extreme. There are those times, especially where the dog has some speed, when the skilled helper can use the dog's power against it. Most good helpers will tell you that the easiest dog to control, such as on the attack, is the one that comes in the hardest and fastest. What they are saying is that they are turning the dog's power against it. So it isn't just being stronger or more athletic, but understanding the fundamentals of how a good helper uses his or her body to take the dog's power and speed to take advantage of it. This series focuses on how the helper can and should use the body to keep things safe and under control; it's a simple matter of developing good body mechanics and then having confidence that the helper's skills will control protection work. In studying good body mechanics, the trainer should keep three points in mind. Always maintain a platform, where the body stays as vertical as possible. Use the body where the helper can leverage his strength to the disadvantage of the dog. Allow the dog's power to aid the helper with the momentum of the attack, instead of trying to fight it. Figure #1 is one example where these rules are all broken on an attack. The helper has put himself in a position where the dog has all the options and the helper, by poor sleeve presentation and body position, has few or none. At first glance, nothing seems particularly wrong with this helper's presentation and body position but, if the details are examined, nothing is really right. The body is stiff and upright, allowing no flexibility. The left leg is extended, effectively creating a block to the dog's forward energy on the sleeve side. The helper's feet are spread too far apart from front to back, creating an unstable platform under the helper where he has little control over his footwork because of poor balance. The sleeve presentation is relatively low and the entire bite surface is parallel to the ground. With this presentation, the dog can choose what it wants to bite. If it bites nearer the end of the sleeve, the helper has lost all leverage and must simply go where the dog takes him. If it bites in the center, the power drives through the center of the helper, pushing him straight back. While these may seem rather small or subtle points, when combined the result is everything the helper doesn't want. Figure #2 is called a flying catch, where the dog, having nowhere else to go, flies through the air to the helper's non-sleeve side after the bite (note:the low bite on the sleeve). This maneuver has been widely condemned both in North America and Europe because it puts the dog into a highly dangerous situation where it can hyperextend its spine, compress the cervical spine or fly off the sleeve and injure itself. Yet, if you go to many championships, you will see helpers consistently flying the dog. Another result, almost as bad as the risk of injury, is that once the helper flies the dog, he has lost control of the situation, allowing the dog's power to take over. On the one hand, the helper must then set the dog down and then, from a dead stop, start driving the dog in a moving attack. On the other, the helper may be so out of control that he will fall or hyperextend his arm or shoulder. I have seen these results more than once. Figure #3 shows only a few adjustments to the helper's position, but, with these few changes, the helper's options go from zero in Figure #1 to taking the dog anywhere the helper wants with only a minimum of muscling the dog around. While the body is still vertical, note that the knees are more bent. This allows the helper to absorb the power in the legs, acting as shock absorbers, not in the torso where the power pushes the helper straight back. The bent legs also allow the helper to spring from this position upward and to his left side after the bite, bringing more helper leverage and strength to what happens after the bite. Skiers will identify this movement as unweighting, where the upward movement of the knees allows the body to quickly change direction with power. The feet are closer together, almost directly under the helper. This idea of creating and maintaining a platform shouldn't be anything new to those who are involved in skiing, surfing or martial arts. The idea is to keep the body as vertical as possible from the feet through the upper back. It creates not just good balance, but also a “platform” from which the helper can maximize the amount of the helper's power against that of the dog's strength and speed. The right, not the left, foot is extended just before the bite. This simple change, when combined with adjustments to sleeve presentation, changes the whole dynamic of the picture. By dropping back the left leg, the helper has opened up a channel to the helper's left that allows the dog's energy to pass by the helper's left and turn the helper for the drive. In short, instead of absorbing the dog's energy, the helper has used this energy to pass the helper and pull him around for further work. It takes little effort from the helper who has good footwork and proper sleeve presentation. The last point concerns how the helper is presenting the sleeve. In the next article, I examine proper sleeve presentation in greater detail, but Figure #3, when compared to Figure #1 should show how this simple adjustment changes the entire dynamic of what choices the dog has. By raising the sleeve upward no more than three to four inches and tilting the end of the sleeve up and in, the helper gives the dog little choice but to bite the sleeve just below the hinge or elbow of the sleeve. This seemly small adjustment carries dramatic results. The dog's energy carries to the left side, not the center, of the helper. When the dog bites just below the hinge, the helper can leverage the dog with the left bicep and shoulder, instead of the dog leveraging the helper when it bites lower on the sleeve. By keeping the sleeve slightly higher, the impact of the bite torques the helper's upper body to the left so the helper's turn starts with the shoulder. The rest of the body simply follows the direction of the shoulder, in a corkscrew movement. So, lets look at the total effect of the adjustments in Figure #3 to understand how all this comes together. The helper takes the bite with the right foot and leg forward of the left. Both legs are bent and under the helper. When the dog bites below the hinge on the higher sleeve, the helper allows the energy to go past the left side of the helper. His left foot pivots, more through the energy of the dog than conscious effort, the bent knees drive up and to the left and the helper pulls the sleeve upward and into the body slightly to preserve leverage. Instead of flying, the dog continues to move in a straight line through the helper, pulling the helper with it. The helper can then, through proper footwork, either drive the dog or come to a stop. The dog doesn't fly. The helper doesn't lose control or come to a premature stop. In short, the helper has controlled the situation from the point of the bite through any work that follows and with much less effort. This general description should leave the reader with many questions about the specifics, but be patient and all things will be revealed in future installments. The important point to be made in this first article is that helper work shouldn't require the trainer to be taken hostage by the rules of physics. There is an alternative and it shouldn't be all that hard physically. Mentally? Well that's a different matter.