Hello,

Could someone recommend a protection training in Dallas area? I did search the forums and only found a few Schutzhund Clubs and most of them are either not operating anymore or located too far away from me.


Thank you
Andrei

What type of training are you looking for? I am a member of TPS, a PSA club that trains in Grand Prairie. http://www.tpsk9.com

There is also DFW working dogs. It is a good schutzhund club with a lot of expierence. They train in North Dallas and in Lancaster. http://www.dfwworkingdogs.com/

Hope that helps. Let me know if I can help.

I'd want to find a place/people that would help me to train my GSD into personal protection, property protection, etc. I'm not into competitive sports really. I just want the dog to be able to protect my wife and/or my children, if needed. I found one person who does this kind of training in Frisco, but he requires the dog to stay with him for several weeks in order to do the training. And I just do not think that after such training my dog will protect me or my family but not his trainer's.

You are wrong Andrei. Depending on the trainer of course, the bulk of the training can be done wherever you send your dog. Then depending on how good the dog is a few sessions at your actual residence. For this the helper/trainer does not have to be all that good so you should be able to find one locally.

ED's COMMENTS EDITED IN:
This is drop dead bad advice. People who send dogs off for training end up with stressed dogs and bad training 99% of the time. If anyoine feels they need a trained dog the way to accomplish this is to first educte yourself on the process and then go with your dog while a helper works your dog.

To do what DAN is saying is a prescription for abuse.

Dan, I am going to respectfully disagree with you. If at all possible, you need to work personally with a PP trainer, and for a long time, not a few sessions, especially if you are at all new to working dogs and personal protection. The training never ends.

It can take years to get a fully trained and reliable protection dog, and you need to know and understand every step of the process. You will own a loaded weapon and need to absolutely trust the trainer (and not just any trainer) with that weapon and how to handle it. Besides, the bond that you develop through the training will be as good as any trained response. A dog with good nerves (and they are a must for this type of training) and a deep bond to his pack will fight to defend it. The training is just the technique.

To the OP, you are doing the right thing by asking for references and doing your research. I can be of no help, as I live in Cali, but there are others here that can help you.

And if you absolutely have to send your dog away (and you don’t) he will still protect you when he does return home. Think of all of the PSD dogs that are trained before purchase. They quite literally will die for their handler. But that handler has extensive training of what his dog can do, how they were trained, are continuously trained together and are still supervised by even more experienced handlers.

P.S. And do look into the PSA club, you might be suprised. Also, go to the SCH club and talk to people. Even if the club does not advertise PP training, they may have a few members that do, an experienced helper who can help and or at least know someone who does.

Also, buy the Leerburg DVDs on the subject. I can't stress how much you have to know, and they will give you some very good information. A nice foundation for you and the dog, but also allow you to ask the right question of whatever trainers you choose to interview.

I would never send my dog away to be trained. Buying a pre trained adult dog works, but there's more than a few sessions of transitioning, there's a lifetime of maintenance training.

I have known 3 trainers personally that do the board & train thing. One of them is a totally compulsion trainer that does not believe in motivational training at all, the dogs he works are pets and they all look very sad in their work. The other does the board & train thing because he is not a people person, he'd rather just take someones dog and train it, than actually involve the client in the training process. His business failed by the way. The other one, well, he doesn't really do a whole heck of alot, then quickly a week before you pick up the dog he'll rush the dog thru some compulsion, do some bitework on a sleeve and lay down a quick bite foundation and make the dog look happy with food or toy rewards so the OB doesn't look too sad. Then he tells the client to come back for classes to continue the dogs training.

I have yet to meet a board & train place that actually does anything significant, you are better off going over there a bunch of times to work your dog yourself. Your dog will probably do more. You can't over work your dog anyway so it's not like boarding a dog for 3 weeks means they are training day in day out. Odds are they do 20 minutes of work in the morning, maybe in the afternoon too, then the dog sits in a kennel the rest of the time.

If you are going out of town and need to board your dog anyway, then I suppose it's not so bad to ask them to do some stuff with your dog while you are gone, but personally I don't want anybody doing anything with my dogs that I'm not there to see.

Sounds like you guys have been exposed to some extended training.. For some good dogs the light bulb goes on and they start protecting a property after one agitation session.

My answer was given as a generality. I have a trainer who I'll send my dog to without a problem. I know what I'll get back and I know how to handle it. If someone else can't then of course they shouldn't send their dog away.

You know, it sounds like you have had success, and congrats for that. And I don’t mean to come down so hard on you specifically, but soooo many people come here that are new to dogs and/or bite training, and a statement like that can make all of this seem like a toy you can go out and buy. 99.999% of people don’t really need a protection dog and few that do can really handle it. I wound just hate to see someone who has some money just go buy one.

And JMO, a dog that “protect a property after one agitation session” is probably a nervy and unpredictable dog. Again if that work for you, that’s great I just don’t see it (at least not in a safe manner.)

As a side note, a local K9 handler (and the trainer of the departments dogs) got bit bad enough to go to the hospital last night, by his own dogs. He got home late, and went to go let one dog at a time out (one patrol dog, one personal SCH dog, and 2 prospects he brought over {fully trained} to sell) when one of them unlatched an un-clipped gate and two of them went at it. I tell this only because this is a man who KNOWs high drive dog and knows them well. AND HE GOT BIT! (He is so angry at himself right now. He knows it is his fault. No excuses.) These dogs can be very dangerous and had he not known what to do, it could have been a lot worse

There are NO shortcuts to good training. One session of agitation does not a protection dog make.

Can you wake up a dog's drives in one session? Sometimes. But to say a good dog will be protecting a property after one agitation session is completely unrealistic.

Protection comes in degrees. A barking dog is one level of protection. One simple example of this is one session of car agitation. I've seen this a few times with good dogs. One session and they are barking when someone comes close to the car. From there you can take it as far as you want or leave it at that. I'd say that some definitely look like they would bite. Not nervy dogs by any means. Same thing can happen in the house or at the fence of a property. It's all smooth sailing from that point from a bite training perspective.

To take a dog through the full gamut of bite development and produce an offensive animal can hardly be called protection training either. Such a dog is not protecting anything, he's just eager to fight a person.

Cindy, I'm new to this forum and don't really know who posts here. I know of you from the leerburg videos so I'm sure you had experience with what I'm talking about. If you feel that my experiences are inappropriate to discuss here from the point of view of inexperienced handlers misinterpreting them please feel free to give me a nudge. At this point I'm not approaching this with a feeling of responsibility to how other people might perceive the information. I'm just shooting the shit about dogs.