Hi, All!

I'm new to the whole Schutzhund/Protection thing, and am in the 'obervation' period right now. Is there anyone in the Phoenix/West Valley area that would allow me to watch them work? My husband is friends with a local Police K9 officer who offered to let us watch, and give some pointers; however he was recently shot on duty and will be out for some time. (We're all pulling for him!)

SO! Is there anyone in my area willing to let me 'tag along'?

Hi Megan, welcome to the forum! Sandy Moore and I are both in the Phoenix area too! Nice to see some more 'Phoenicians' on the board As far as tagging along for some observation time I'm sure we can give you some pointers in the right direction. Sandy and I are both involved in protection training with our dogs, which is a completely different issue than Schutzhund training but we have a wonderful trainer that has/is doing Schutzhund with several of his malinois'. His FIANCE is also a very accomplished trainer that is getting her degree in veterinary sciences. These two are the best in the Valley (our opinion..and we've seen a few)for overall, all around protection/schutzhund/behavior modification training. We also could offer opinions to you where NOT to go. That's one of the nice things about opinions..they come free!! LOL! If you would like to shoot me a PM, I will be happy to give you their information. You are also welcome to come out to watch us do some protection training, if you like. We train in Queen Creek, which is a bit of a drive from Phoenix but, hey, Sandy drives out from 83rd Ave so it can be done! LOL

Megan, you couldn't ask for two better mentors in Robbin and Sandy. Definitely get together with them and take any and all advice

Mike,

I plan to! Queen Creek is a drive, but I'll make it work!

 Quote: Mike Morrison

Megan, you couldn't ask for two better mentors in Robbin and Sandy...

Or two better people. Ooooh, I'm so envious, Megan. You are going to have so much fun with these ladies.

Megan, welcome to the forum . We'd love to have you come anytime you'd like. We train in Queen Creek because our trainer, JJ Belcher, lives in Tucson so basically he's accommodating me since I live in Phoenix. Robbin lives in Queen Creek so it's more for my sake that JJ travels there from Tucson to train our dogs.

We normally train on Saturdays at 8 AM. It takes me about 1 1/2 hours to get there, it would take longer for you since you're further west and south. It's a nice drive that early in the morning, no traffic

I'm so sorry to hear that your friend, the K9 Officer, was shot but it's great news to know he'll be well, really good news. Maybe when he's back on the job, he'd let me come watch. That would be great fun for me!

P.S. : Robbin and I just recently started with protection training. I've been doing it (formally) since last September (have been doing drive building since my dog was a pup and he's almost 2 yrs) so I wouldn't consider myself a mentor in any way. But I've learned a couple of things and we definitely can have fun . If you come to watch, JJ would be the one to give the advice and mentoring

Thanks Mike and Sarah, for the vote of confidence. You're both very sweet.

Sandy said it very well...we are both in 'training', definitely wouldn't consider myself 'mentor' material but we have had a few experiences, mostly in the "don't do this" areas, lol! Even so, we are always students (probably forever) and JJ and Nicole are AWESOME. JJ has a quiet calm about him and Nicole is a spitfire! (like me ). I have learned to trust them and their judgement over and over again. Having confidence in a trainer has proven to be the most important thing to me. There are many out there that claim to be trainers but are only egomaniac wannabes. My dog is worth too much to me to just hand him over to anyone. JJ is my hero and Nicole has a wealth of information to offer when it comes to health and training (still, JJ takes the bites, lol Anyhow,we both look forward to meeting you and introducing you to the best trainers in Arizona!

Sandy, wanna hook her up with your ##, maybe put a carpool together?

Mike and Sarah, thanks for the beautiful vote of confidence...

I'll pay you later..shhhhhhhhhhhh....

Sandy & Robbin,

I'm really looking forward to meeting up with you guys! I'm not sure if it's too late to start anything with my dog or not, but I still want to learn all I can. (Eventually I hope to have a Mal or GSD that's been 'correctly' worked with from the start.) I'm sure I'll learn tons from you guys to get me started, and get a better feel for the whole subject!

It's hard for me to check msgs on the weekends (dial up...ugh!) so PM me if you want my contact info so we can chat further.

Is this the same Nicole/Nikki I know? Her dog would be Argus.