I have an 8 month old male GSD from working lines. I am a novice at Schutzhund. I have recently started his SchH work with a local trainer giving private lessons, I have been told many good things about this man. I am 2 hours away from a Schutzhund club accepting members and about an 1 hour away from a police dog trainer. Today we were doing tracking with my dog and I was told to tell him to platz. The dog didn't do it (I've only done simple, positive obedience with him). He was commanded a few more times with no success so the helper took him and told him platz. The dog did not do it. So this man proceeded to hit my dog upside the head and "machine gun" him (collar correction). I was in shock. Sure, I could see giving the dog a collar correction but was there any reason to go after my dog with fists of fury, chasing him down and yelling at him?? I could possibly see giving the dog such a harsh correction if he was 2 or 3 years old or had bitten a human or dog...but not my young boy and not for something rather trivial. The man apologized, saying he keeps forgetting how young my dog is. He treats his dogs the same way if not worse. Sure, they are SchH III but I don't see them really enjoying their work. They work out of fear. All I want for my dog is for him to have a job to do and for him to ENJOY it. I love Schutzhund. I have seen many other dog sports and I like Schutzhund the most by far.

Soo..I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I will not go back to this man and I have very little options for SchH left. In your opinon, should I go back, taking the helper's apology...or should I find something else for my dog to do and if so...what?? Like I said, there is nothing in my area. Very little if no SAR work, no herding and a great deal of AKC obedience (which I am not all that interested in). <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

IMO schutzhund is not THAT important. There's a ton of challenging obedience work and agility type work that you could do at home or with friends. If you just want your dog to have a job and enjoy the journey then i would not worry about it for now. There's alot of extreme trainers out there. We have all run into them. Don't second guess yourself. Enjoy your dog and watch other people train for awhile before you hand the leash over to them. Again JMHO.

Like I said, there is not much in my area...no agility, very little SAR, no Herding, Flyball, Frisbee...you name it. Zero. The biggest dog sports where I live is SchH and AKC Obedience.

What I meant was you can still throw your dog a Frisbee without joining a club and have someone show you how to hold your arm. You could start doing obedience off of one of the Leerburg tapes. There's ALOT you could do with joining a formal dog sport club. I've got a friend that has taught his dog around fifty different behaviors in his driveway. It's incredible to see. He doesn't have time to get involved with dog sports. Enjoy your dog!

Bite the bullet, drive for 2 hours and consider yourself lucky.

Yep, I wouldn't go back to the abusive trainer again, that's for certain. Drive for 2 hours, if it's a good club with good trainer - the drive will be worth it, then. I've never driven less than 2 hours each direction, 1-2X per week, for the past 13 years. Every time I hear of someone who lives within an hour's drive of their Schh club I think "must be nice!" "Better to get NO training than BAD training". I would drive past a bad trainer 10 minutes away, to get to my trainer 2 hours away, without a second thought.

I was absolutely delighted when I found a SAR team based only 1.5 hours away!

I don't go to EVERY training, particularly those during the work week that are further away than 1.5 hours (we have 2 other members that are about 1.5 hours in the opposite direction that I am so we move practice around some and 3 hours one way is a bit much on a worknight but not a Saturday)

I had been on a team that was a 3.5 hour drive but with callouts being anywhere from 3 - 5 hours away it was too much since people don't seem to get lost at convenient times. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Find someone you like to train with and make the trip. Going from sch to say obedience is like giving up football for golf. Do you really enjoy the challenge of protection and tracking? Buy some books, buy some videos. Find a trainer and even just go once a week. Tell the trainer upfront what you want. Tell the trainer you want to handle your own dog and you want him to show you what to do. I started in 1992 with a great guy who never touched the dog...and I bought the dog from him. It was all based on teaching the owner how to handle the dog correctly. I learned a ton and it was over an hour away. For the first two weeks I went every day. Then two weeks of 2 days per week and then once a week for about 7 months. Then basically whenever I needed help. That positive experience got me into and kept me into dogs. Derek