In the fall of 2001 I traveled to Northern Germany with friends to visit Bernhard Flinks at his kennel and Schutzhund club. This 58 minute video is a result of spending three days with Bernhard.

Bernhard lives about 1 hour north of Hamberg, Germany (this is in north Germany, very close to the sea).

I feel lucky to have spent this time with Bernhard. I not only had a chance to video tape him training his personal dog, Itor, I also got excellent footage of Bernhard working his 6 month old puppy who he hopes will replace Itor in a few years.

In addition to visiting his kennel facility, we also visited Bernhard's SV Schutzhund club several times, and a Rottweiler Schutzhund Club that Bernhard trains at that is located about 1/2 mile from Bernhard's kennel facility.

Bernhard offers private training for anyone involved in Schutzhund (at any level) at his kennel in Germany. I had volunteered to produce a short video highlighting these services which is how this tape started. But as I filmed I knew that I was getting excellent footage of a great trainer working on his home grounds, hence this video tape.

Before leaving to go to Germany I was looking foreword to seeing how Bernhard’s club members trained. I feel that Bernhard is one of the finest sport dog trainers that I have seen since getting interested in the sport of Schutzhund back in 1974. I was interested in seeing if his club members used the training techniques Bernhard demonstrates in his seminars. I also wondered what kind of people trained with Bernhard. I thought there was a possibility that his members were a group of national level competitors who had simply formed a club. I was wrong. Bernhard's club is made up of beginners. One is a 10 year old boy with an excellent young bitch which I put on this video, as well as intermediate and advanced trainers. In other words, Bernhard's club is similar in make-up to many other clubs one can find all around the world.

One thing that did strike me was the quality of dogs that club members owned. There have some excellent GSD working dogs. There are Malinois, Giant Schnauzers and Rottweilers in his club. This is rare for an SV club.

The interesting point that I noticed was that all members trained in drive. I saw very little compulsion of any form during training. The club members were extremely friendly and happy that we were visiting their club. They were very proud of their dogs and their facility (as they should be).

Bernhard is a full time police K9 handler in Germany. He works different shifts. When people come for private training and he has to be at work, he has made arrangements for them to use a number of different training fields to practice on with their dogs until he gets home. I show these fields in this tape.

If you have never been to Germany to visit a Schutzhund club, or if you are a fan of Bernhard Flinks training methods, you will find this tape very interesting. I can guarantee you that there is no Schutzhund club house like this in America.

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