I understand that at one time, Sch had a guard the object. What happened? I think , as you say, that and muzzle work would make for better dogs, at least more well rounded dogs.

That seems like a fair and easy thing to bring to the table. The main thing that's the most important to me is uping the breed quality.

If there's things that can weed the show people out, and hurt the chances of the duds then I'm all for it.

The object guard was eliminated, I don't really know why.

Any OLD timers have an idea, or any schutzhund history buffs out there?

Sport is fun, it can be a learning experience. You have an opportunity to meet with others that share similar interests. Working the street is never a sport. All of us that work the street also share a similar interest, We come home when the shift is over. The violence, adrenalin rush, and yes fear, can not be duplicated in a training event. Many times, no matter how good the training, until a dog has had that baptism of fire, so to speak, it too is a novice. To think that a dog is going to take every subject down and immobilize or incapacitate them is being nieve. "Bad guys" in real life react many ways, some are really tough and do not fold under pain or fear. Some, when escape is thier only hope have an inordinate tolerance to pain. In training, while trying to duplicate any situation, care is always taken not to hurt the dog, the bad guy doesn't care. I've seen some marvelous dogs in my career. One in particular had it's left front leg blown off by a rifle shot, yet died while biting the subject. I've seen others, that while ruthless in training, ran the first time they were actually assaulted and pain was caused. I've seen many more however that did exactly as they were trained to do, pursue, bite and hold until commanded to do otherwise. Sport is neat, and I enjoy reading posts about the dogs that participate in sport, the rules and the grading must be a bear to keep up with. We have one rule. We do all within our power to neutralize the situation, and go home when it's over.

DFrost

Dfrost,
I just spent the weekend with a good friend who trains personal protection dogs for SDVA (service dogs for victims of assault). While he and I don't see eye to eye on a lot of things he did make a comparison that I think has some merit.

"Schutzhund, generally speaking, is somewhat like AOL. It is a great place to learn the basics, but you can only go so far in the "saftey zone"..."

I know some people here will take that the worng way, but I think he has a point, with all the "politically correctness" we tend to see in the sport. In real life, there is no judge(unless you believe in god, then I suppose he is the judge).

Originally posted by oldearthdog:
I understand that at one time, Sch had a guard the object. What happened? I think , as you say, that and muzzle work would make for better dogs, at least more well rounded dogs. The very first SchH organization in America was NASA and the sport had several differences from the Germasn sport. One of which was the guard of an object. NASA has been gone a long time now but one of the first people to title a dog under NASA introduced me to the sport of SchH. Training was rough around the edges to be sure and the dog had to pretty much survive training. the result, not so much through design as through ignorance was that tough serious dogs endured, others dropped out.

Could one say that today's Schutzhund is more of a test of a trainer's abilities to make a dog look precise and exact rather than a test of true fighting spirit, courage and toughness in the dog as it seems the Schutzhund of the past encouraged?

Yes, I'd say it's more about the skill of the handler.

Muzzle work is fun to watch. Where could you fit it into SchH; could you replace the SchH III b&h with a muzzle instead of a sleeve?

I understand now that SchH is nolonger SchH but VPG, and that bite work is supposed to be called grip work, so maybe its going to get watered down?

Robert

Is that a very bad thing? If Schutzhund is a test more of a handler's skills than a dog's true "toughness", then overall doesn't breeding lead to more willing, more trainable dogs, rather than dogs that are less social, harder to train and possibly more ranl issues?