I have a male GSD with impeccable working bloodlines. How much do you charge to take the dog, when appropriate, through the three levels of Schutzhund training?

I do not train dogs for people, nor do I recommend people send their dog to someone to get a Schutzhund title. In every circumstance this is a bad idea.

There are two ways to train a dog sport dog. You can train motivationally or with force. People who hire out to train other peoples dogs in schutzhund want to get the training done as quickly as possible, this can only be accomplished with FORCE TRAINING. To train motivationally takes months or even years.

In 25 years of being around schutzhund I have only seen a couple of people that I would trust to train other peoples dogs. These people train with motivational methods.

Dogs that are exposed to the kind of stress force trainers use never recover.

If you must pay someone to train your dog - go with the dog. Watch the training. Never send the dog alone unless its with a trusted friend. If this is the direction you decide to go I strongly suggest that you learn as much about the training as possible before you go. Buy some training videos - study them and then you will know something about good and bad training.

I suggest that if you want to end up with a trained dog you make an effort to train the dog yourself. There are a lot of crooks in this business – there are more unqualified trainers than there are qualified trainers. Put your pet with the wrong person and they will screw your dogs temperament.

Here are some tapes to consider:

If you would like to learn something about the principles of obedience training a dog, read the description for my Basic Dog Obedience video. You will probably find that you have not had the full picture on the steps of training a dog must go through before it can be considered fully trained. You can also read why I am not a fan of taking an untrained dog to obedience classes.

Building Drive Focus and Grip with Bernhard Flinks - one of the best training videos I have ever done. This is the foundation of the work. It can begin at 8 weeks and in reality never stops.

The First Steps of Bite Training explains the importance of bite development and the steps a dog as young as 6 months of age must go through before it can be ready for more serious defensive training. I would suggest that you read the description of this video on my web site. If you are not 100% sure of the drives that I refer to, I would direct you to the articles I have written on this subject on my web site.

The First Steps of Defense is the video that shows how to move a dog from bite development into the more serious work. All dogs that are going into more specialized training (Police Service Work, Schutzhund Work or Personal Protection Work) need to go through this phase of training before moving on.

Good luck – your dog is going to need it.