Well, I've been toying with the idea of completion with Ripley since before I even got him. He's 7 months old now and is just a fantastic dog! He is so excited to do any kind of training that I feel like I HAVE to do some sort of competition with him. Initially, of course, I thought of Schutzhund. However, my trainer has now started a PSA club and I'm inclined to join that. It seems unnecessary to join a new club, full of strangers that I may not like and travel even further distances just to do Schutzhund. I am still training him in tracking, even though it's not part of the PSA competition and may do SAR work with him. We ran through (unscored) the PSA TC a couple of weeks ago. He did exceptionally well considering I'd never even done any off-lead work with him and half of the exercise is off-lead. The gun shots didn't phase him at all (that was a relief). I don't think we would have passed, but I think we would have been really darn close at this point.

I just wanted opinions of PSA from everyone who does Schutzhund.

What is PSA TC?

TC (Temperament & Control) = OB. You can either do it on its own, plus it is also the OB portion of the PSA 1. If you don't pass the OB (TC) in the 1 you cannot go onto protection work.

It consists of a heelling (left, right, about turn) down in motion, down in front of a seated decoy who will throw distractions to the dog (balls, tugs, sleeves, water), heel thru a group, gunfire and a long down. The field is scattered with distractions and food.


Stacie, we were a SchH club for many years and changed to PSA about 2 years ago. I personally prefer it. SchH (to me) is a test of the trainer, PSA is a test of the dog.