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Controlled Aggression

Controlled Aggression

By: Jerry Bradshaw
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Want to learn about K9 obedience, police dog training, learning theory and more? Jerry Bradshaw has been a sports competitor and police dog trainer for 25 years, and as the executive director of the Protection Sports Association he's been around the world competing and training K9s. Welcome to the Controlled Aggression podcast.
Episodes
  • Attention at a Distance

    Attention at a Distance
    Jul 24 2026
    In this episode, Jerry Bradshaw discusses: The importance of mandatory eye contact and how to generalize for distance work. Moving from negative reinforcement to positive punishment to move from escape to avoidance. Training progressions to train mandatory eye contact with your dog. Transitioning from lure to reward to variable reward. Key Takeaways: To get your dog to pay attention to your face, consider putting a food reward in your mouth - like hot dogs, cheese, or chicken. Build duration before you build distance in your training progression. If they aren't paying attention at 2 feet, they're not going to pay attention at 20 feet. You have to take the training wheels off as you move between training progression levels. When you get to trial, you have to operate on an extinction condition - there is no reinforcement or rewards on the field, so it is better to have your dog on a very, very thin variable reward schedule by that point. That only comes through training progressions and systematic generalization. "If we never get to the point where the dog understands there's a correction for inattention, then that's not going to be a very reliable tool for us for attention at a distance. We want to generalize it. We want to continue to create a systematic desensitization to all the things that the decoy might do." — Jerry Bradshaw Episode References: The Working Grip Foundation: https://workinggrip.org/ Stewart Hilliard's Kynology: https://kynology.org/ Get Jerry's book Controlled Aggression on Amazon.com Contact Jerry: Website: controlledaggressionpodcast.com Email: JBradshaw@TarheelCanine.com 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 Kirby K9: k9irby.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.
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    46 mins
  • Podcast Short: PSA2 Muzzle Attack

    Podcast Short: PSA2 Muzzle Attack
    Jun 19 2026

    In today's podcast short, Jerry Bradshaw discusses issues with muzzle attacks in the PSA Level 2, noting that many dogs and handlers struggle with this exercise. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the fundamentals of a good muzzle fight and suggests starting with unsuited muzzle work to build civil aggression. Jerry advises limiting strikes in training sessions to manage your dog's frustrations and to gradually introduce other equipment, such as bite suits and hidden sleeves. He stresses the need for decoys to provide accurate feedback and to avoid distractions in early training sessions, especially when starting out on muzzle work.

    "We want the dog biting through the muzzle. The muzzle is just something that's keeping him from biting that decoy." — Jerry Bradshaw

    Get Jerry's book Controlled Aggression on Amazon.com

    Contact Jerry:

    Website: controlledaggressionpodcast.com

    Email: JBradshaw@TarheelCanine.com

    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.

    Show more Show less
    19 mins
  • Essentials of Civil Aggression

    Essentials of Civil Aggression
    Jul 10 2026

    In this episode, Jerry Bradshaw discusses:

    • Bringing more civil aggression into your sport or police dogs.

    • Utilizing prey guarding to start training young dogs for proactive defense.

    • The difference between uncontrolled aggression and expressive aggression.

    • What to look for in a patrol dog regarding civil aggression.

    • The three ways dogs manifest a reaction to a threat.

    Key Takeaways:

    • In our training for our police dogs, we're concentrating on these civil aggression essentials and thinking about how that decoy can bring about some of that aggression, and then we can start to minimize the cues that bring out that aggression, and then it becomes much more contextual.

    • Don't let people make you believe that just because a dog shows expressiveness and aggression in an expressive way, the dog will become uncontrollable and incapable.

    • Defense is not a dirty word. There's nothing to be scared of. Defense is not a weakness.

    • When promoting aggression and tapping into the defensive side of the dog, and building confidence in those reactions is ignored, oftentimes the dog cannot figure out how to bring a prey response out of a decoy, which can lead to displacement behaviors.

    "It's easier to cap a dog when he understands how to be expressive than to never allow him to be expressive in the beginning." — Jerry Bradshaw

    Get Jerry's book Controlled Aggression on Amazon.com

    Contact Jerry:

    Website: controlledaggressionpodcast.com

    Email: JBradshaw@TarheelCanine.com

    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.

    Show more Show less
    57 mins
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thank you for sharing this valuable information! I'm getting started here on the West Coast and am so very excited!!!

very informative

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as always a ton of good information, I'm going to have to listen to this episode a couple more times. pros of slick floors was useful.

Very useful information

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Very good, easy to understand, even for a beginner like me. A lot of commercials up front but heck it’s worth it for all the good shared knowledge.

Loaded with free information

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