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American Schutzhund: Continuing to Grow and Continuing Forward!

By Kevin Sheldahl

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This past weekend, August 28-30 in Baltimore, American Schutzhund continued its march forward as an organization. On August 28th, Judges and Board members met to continue to iron out wrinkles and practice judging within the rules of AS.

The next two days, helper seminar and helper certifications were done. The importance of this training and selection cannot be over stated. Joeri Verth brought the Dutch approach to training the helpers to American Schutzhund and its rules. The goal is helpers that can safely pressure the dogs in the trial and provide a strong test of the dog under the watchful eye of the AS Judge. John Bochenek assisted Joeri as well as Brandon Jenson and Timothy Vaillancourt to providing a small instructor/student ratio.

The Dutch approach to the oncoming dog is one of a step through methodology instead of the all to common pause or close to pausing on the skills where the dog is directly inbound. No sidestepping. This is very important especially in the resurrected attack on handler (gone for more than 20 years) in AS 1, but also present in the Courage test and attack from rear transport.

Some hallmarks of AS: Drive trumps perfection. No long down (honor downs) in AS 2 or 3. No preferred style in the heeling exercise.

In the protection work, the helpers are expected to be able to bring pressure to the dog safely. The attack on handler is back in play and the dog will receive a rating of courage, hardness, and fighting instincts with 9-10 being exceptional, 7-8 notable, and so forth. For the old timers out there, this provides greater insight into the dog's character and the impression the Judges have of the dog. Breeders should take note. In AS3, there will be a calloff in the examination. A coin flip will determine which is first in the routine, calloff or courage test!

To further the breeder's tools is the BT which replaces the BH from IGP with a set of 6 environmental and drive testing conditions. This will allow an overview of the dog's nerve strength and a look at hunting/retrieval drives outside the context of training. These ratings will be forever in the AS scorebook.

Of course, there is also the transition away from tracking. As of June 2021, tracking will not be part of American Schutzhund. Instead, AS1 will have a article search (available currently), AS2 will have detection test, and AS3 has an expanded detection test (and later an expanded article search as well).

So take a look at this sport, the number of clubs is increasing! West Coast, East Coast, and even Southwest all have clubs.

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About Author

Kevin Sheldahl

Kevin Sheldahl is a retired Deputy Sheriff who began training with police service dogs in 1982. In his career, he trained K-9 Teams for his department as well as neighboring departments as a Deputy Sheriff. He has experience deploying patrol, detection, SWAT and tracking canines spanning the duration of his career. He is credentialed as a Master Instructor, Certifying Official, and Police Dog Judge. Kevin has participated in numerous dog sports such as Schutzhund/IPO, ring sports, and police sports. Currently, Kevin instructs courses in Basic Patrol & Detection in the Albuquerque Metro Area and teaches advanced course at Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton, Wisconsin. View his website here.