At the FCI IPO3 World Championship in Baunatal the helpers newer attacked the dogs frontally. They just started to run sideways. My large, slow, female, 100% showline GSD (inbred Wienerau-Arminius and other showline kennels) missed the sleeve altogether. She just bit air. The helper did a barrage with the stick while continuing to run.. My dog managed to bite the arm, just by the rim of the sleeve cover, with literally only its front teeth. The helper lifted the dog up (like the helper on the video tried to do) and did the full Schutzhund routine with two stick hits with my dog hanging on just by the rim of the sleeve cover, front feet in the air during the whole thing. We never trained this and my dog had to hold on for a long time, nut just a few steps like on the attack after the back transport. So if my black-tan, “V” rated showline GSD can do this and a topnotch working malinois can’t... no comment.

Anyways the Germans train these scenarios. Take a look at the videos on http://www.team-heuwinkl.de/video_der_woche/Videos_der_%20Woche.html. There are couple of videos there where they train the dog to hold on by just its front teeth. Aike Sonne Entgegen (the female malinois on the video with Django) bit the top of the sleeve during the long attack at the 2001 DMC German Championships. This is a quick dog, and she managed to hold on just with her front teeth.

As for Django, unfortunately I didn’t see this dog. The sleeve presentation on the video was not optimal. But on the other hand my friend who watched the dog says it was very insecure in the blind. The dog hesitated enormously when the helper started using the stick. The arm used was a 11 year old Schweikert 84 arm. After a couple of years use, this arm becomes so soft (we use it for young dogs) that a dog should be able to easily hang on from any side. Firstly Django doesn’t hold the bite and than doesn’t make any real attempt to bite. The dog is 8 years old and maybe the sun being straight overhead and 95F temperature (probably even more in the stadium) was just to much for Django.

Kind regards
Michael

We obviously have a very different view of things. I am not Ed Frawley, but I've seen enough trials, and being a helper in my training group myself, I know when someone is being robbed.
Pedro.

I think a decent argument could be made that this helper wanted that dog to fail and he made it happen. I'm not even a good helper or an athletic helper, but I know what to do to screw up a nice looking dog.


Whether or not the Mal in the video is a good dog or not isn't really an issue. Of course a good dog should have nailed the helper or the sleeve again if it was a legitimate miss on the sleeve. . . and probably could have done one or the other even though the helper obviously didn't want him to do so.

Same goes for Django, a very good argument could be made that he really tried to mess the dog up.

A good dog with a lot of fight probably would have made him pay for that, a good dog might have been able to bite with the bad presentation anyway, a good dog with a ton of training might have been hindered in his desire to nail the helper due to his very specific training. Who knows?


I can't say that either Django or the other Mal look all that great to me in the videos, but IMO the helper does look like he screwed both of them on purpose. If that's the way they play the game, then fine. . .and more power to them. But if that was only the way they played the game with those two foreign dogs. . .??????

My only point with this is the sport is Schutzhund, not Ring, or a Korung or whatever. Their are rules governing the helpers and what and how the helper work is done. This was as blatant a show of POOR sportsmanship as I have seen.
One of the marks of a Championship level helper is being consistent and fair, which was obviously not a consideration with this trial. You can still run a weak dog, or show poor nerves playing by the rules.

Doug

Here is a link to a board where you can read what the judge has to say about what happened (its in German and you have to register to read it):
http://www.schaeferhund.net/wbb2/thread.php?sid=&postid=151141#post151141

I watched the first video a few times. The helper for one thing turned stick side and not sleeve side for the back transport. This could throw a weaker dog. This is not normally done in a trial or in most people’s training, but he was fully turned attacking the dog and the sleeve was there, not the best presentation but not awful either. Just about every time the dog went to rebite or made contact with the sleeve it looked like the helper was trying to drive him, but there was no dog. The sleeve actually went down on a few occasions. The decoy was pretty fast in general. At no time was the sleeve above his head. The dog had a few opportunities to bite and really if there were no issues the dog would have re bit after he did not get a good grip on the initial bite. Instead he did not.
I would like to see the whole video with Django, as he was on the stick side of the decoy not in front of him or by the sleeve side kind of to the far right side of the helper. While he could have popped the sleeve up to give him time to get a bite this is not the rules either.
What I have seen and read is that these helper’s tested the dogs nerves and gave no room for any weakness or benefit of the doubt. If they did not get a bite and did not have real fighting drive, or were not use to fast decoys then they did their best to show this. While there was some bending a bit of the rules I don’t see where it was really that bad.

http://germanshepherddog.com/members/Helper%20Program/USA%20Helper%20Program%20Issue%204.0.pdf

Scroll down to page 17, section I,B,a
These are not just the USA rules these are the International IPO rules, which govern helper work Internationally.....

Doug

I think this has nothing to do with that dog has strong or bad nerve. I believe this is a case a helper trying to throw a dog on purpose. That helper drop and flip the sleeve at the moment the dog bites, so that the dog missed it, and then he quickly spin, pull the sleeve away from the dog... If he is really about to test the dog's nerve, he would drive in the dog, using the stick all over the dog, instead he tried to spin and pull away the sleeve from the dog. It's pretty clear he never wanted the dog to get the sleeve. The dog may have chance to get some part of the sleeve or just bite the helper. But why should he? During training, training always enforce the dog to bite proper part of the sleeve in order to win and not to get dirty. Why would you all of sudden expect the dog to bite the chest or hold the rim of the sleeve? In this case, I believe this dog is just trying to get the proper bite. If it's about nerve, the dog would be afraid of biting. This is about how he was trained. Most schH training is about teaching the dog to behave in certain way or disallowed, including biting certain part, bark and hold and everything else. The dog did get the rim of the sleeve and let go, but I think he was trying to find a better position to bite the chunky sleeve part. His movement showed so. and then, when helper stopped, he was trained to stop immediately. This really has nothing to do with nerve.

I know this topic is rather stale but I just viewed the videos and I would have to agree with Nosowiski, Pluto had his chance and blew it. Yes, the presentation wasn't ideal but he should have stuck it anyways. Even though the helper should have continued attacking through the dog giving it a chance to rebite instead of knee checking him twice & delibertly keeping the dog from biting, we ARE talking about the World Championship here and not a club level trial. Steve Cobb posted "The helper pumps the sleeve 2 1/2 times helping the dog to the grip." Steve, are you talking about prior to the bite on the escape? Another note, after seeing the footage of the helper working the back half, he didn't make it easy for the dogs either, he was presenting his sleeve low and late (IMO, his reattacks sucked).

From the helper pumping his arm 2 1/2 - 3 times on the escape prior to the bite, to the same helper turning stick side on the attack of the handler, to the low & late presentation of the sleeve on the long bite, I think, were all executed on purpose to test the dog's targeting skills. After all, these Mals are suppposed to be the creme de la creme. Probably not how everyone normally trains but after viewing the clips of this trial, I hope everyone that handles national caliber dogs begin giving their dogs different looks in their guard work to help prevent this from happening to them. BTW, does anyone have a video clip, that works, of what happened to Ivan's dog?

I re-read this thread again, I find it interesting that several people say that this is the world, not club level. There are no rule changes from club to world. People were also talking about what drive the dogs were in. These are not powerful dogs. Since they were pups they were taught how to play this game. they are good at the game, then this jerk comes out and changes everything. Ever change something up on a pattern trained dog? And one of the posters said something about fight drive. I don't think that a dog at a world competition is going to have that kind of thing going. Another poster said that her dogs would have nailed the decoy. Well dogs like that are not going to that level of competition. Finally let me re-register my disgust at using Mals for this sport. Talk about throwing a breed in the dumpster <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />