There has been considerable confusion, even at the American Kennel Club (which novices presume to be the citadel of dogdom), about the sport of Schutzhund and the proper role of protection and law enforcement dogs. Back in the mid-1990s, the AKC sent out some strongly-worded warnings about dog clubs putting on events or demonstrations that …
A few weeks ago I got into a bit of a debate with another trainer over the fact that I did bitesuit work with a dog who is destined to be a competitive Schutzhund dog. The accusation was that suit work leads to sloppy gripping technique as well as “dirty” cheap shot behavior in Schutzhund …
The history and the Standard of the German Shepherd Dog are, and should be, intimately related to the “parent club” of the breed. That’s true with any breed. If one does not agree with that underlying principle of almost everything concerning the breed, then unity in the sport and identification as a breed will suffer. …
Prey-drive, defense-drive, fighting-drive, etc. are the catch phrases of modern protection training. They are thrown around at every seminar we attend, they are the subjects of countless articles, but rarely do people agree on what is being said about these “drives.” About 20 years ago Helmut Raiser revolutionized Schutzhund protection training by identifying which inborn …
A few weeks ago I got into a bit of a debate with another trainer over the fact that I did bitesuit work with a dog who is destined to be a competitive Schutzhund dog. The accusation was that suit work leads to sloppy gripping technique as well as “dirty” cheap shot behavior in Schutzhund …
Building Drive in Obedience Discussions over the last few years regarding the protection phase center around active and reactive aggression. In these discussions the importance of having a dog initiate the work is generally agreed to by most. The concept of having the dog initiate the work is seldom discussed regarding the obedience phase even …
Unlike most dog events, working dog competitions are not so much a test of how well a dog can do a particular exercise, but a more fundamental examination of the dog’s temperament. Whether it is Schutzhund, Ring Sport, herding or service dog trials, the points may be determined by how well a dog does each …
In the last two articles I had the opportunity to discuss Prey Drive Promotion. I feel that protection training should always begin there. If dogs have been trained in a similar way, we can start to incorporate defense drive promotion as part of training. At this stage I would like to see at the very …
After my last article I was really stumped for my next topic. There are so many things one can write about. But with a lot of topics I found that a magazine article would either be too general and not of any great value or way too long and detailed to go into a magazine. …
It’s club training day, phase B training is coming to an end. Time for the good stuff: Protection. Once the helpers, training directors and handlers set their mind on protection, obedience becomes a distant memory when it comes to training concerns. Obedience is over with the end of phase B. Or is it? Again, I …