Sandy, I caught one of our schutzhund dog that was a street K9 at one point of his life, I was 4 months pregnant, you just have to be "fit" in some way, good with your feet and very flexible (beside having a good coach to guide you)and having experience in the sport.At least that is my take on this...No I don't do it anymore but my 16 year old son( soon to be 17) caught his first dog last Friday! He did pretty well ,but he is athletic and has been competing in Tennis for 9 years and does Jujitsu ,I think the young guys are great for that kind of job on the field,or a really a good athletic guy or gal. Besides understanding the whole picture of catching dogs.JMO.

 Quote: will rambeau

Sandy, there have been several women that have attained DVG certification as a helper. Heck, I've attended helper seminars which had a 50/50 ratio of men to women training.

Why in the world do you believe that a dog would be less likely to agitate on a woman? I'm interested in your idea of this.....

Will,
Am I incorrect on what I said about a woman decoy being a different experience for the dog. Not that it wouldn't engage but that it "stumped" some of the dogs at first?
I mean, we are littler and smell a whole lot better.....just kiddin

i did not see a dog stop it's aggression for me!!
I did not like it and did not want to become a helper, it was one night when for kicks I tried it but by no mean I want to be a decoy..NO WAY.It was scary...

These dogs had never had a woman decoy before so I was just curious, training issues or just a new thing to the dog?

I think it's fun Angelique
But then I like going into burning buildings too....hee hee

I have seen dogs who's only experience has been with their club helpers react to a new helper, but not react differently because of a woman.

Maybe that is what it was.....just new helpers....Thanks Susan

ive seen sevrel good young anexperiance dogs that thouth twice and even left woman decoy couse they didnt hade the experiance with awoman decoy before all of the cases iv seen of not hiting the decoy lady where at asearch work and none of tham where in protection scenaryos.

in all of the cases of the miss the woman act as afraid, passive or not dominate but they could do the same thing with aweapoon or atrigger in they hand.

all of the miss cases iseen where with muzzle or hidden. and with dogs that hasnt work on woman or work only afew times with adominante acting feamale.

with that said ihade seen on the other hand dogs that did hit the woman at the same scenaryos and on the firs time one of my dogs even (luckilly for me) hit awoman on real in such areal scenaryo.

iguess the conclusions or at least my simple conclusions is that
like any other canin issue if you want your dog to hit acertain kind of target or each posibble target he will engage you should exspose him to similer targets or at least to the larger spectrom of targets kind you can get.

im sure that most of the dogs italked about whould hade the semiler problams in an opissent world when they main helpers where womans and the uniq decoy where aman that whould act difrrent than they useall decoy.

thats the reason that woman helpers are so precious and good woman helpers are priceless and isalute to thos who try despite of the difficultys.

will if you have so much woman helpers at your country please pack some and send tham some over here
iwill pay afew good dogs for one

nice photos bye the way...

sefi.s
israel

Sefi,

Thank you for that explanation. I appreciate it.

 Quote: Will Rambeau

Sandy, there have been several women that have attained DVG certification as a helper. Heck, I've attended helper seminars which had a 50/50 ratio of men to women training.

Why in the world do you believe that a dog would be less likely to agitate on a woman? I'm interested in your idea of this.....

I'm learning about working dog training as I go along, only having done basic training with my GSDs in the past, so bear with me. The reason I think a dog would be less likely to attack a woman is simply from observing my own GSDs and seeing their reaction to strange women versus strange men. The women have always been ignored, in some cases a show of reserved friendliness but the men elicite a different reaction from the dogs. Whether the GSD is female or male (male in the case of my 9 mo old GSD), the reaction to men is the same. It's one of watchfulness and general alertness when approaching men. Then as we pass by men, the ears go to the back to listen until distance is between us. These have been my observations which make me think there is a general discrimination in a dog between a woman and a man. I just didn't think it was natural for a well-balanced dog to attack a woman...as it is they have to be trained to attack a man.

Cases of women getting mauled to death could disprove all that, or it could be because a woman can't fight back an attacking dog as well as a man could. Of course we'd have to take into consideration that unbalanced dogs may attack without provocation and attack anyone, including children. But it's not natural for balanced dogs to do so.

Sefi explained it very well and in detail, and he's helped to broaden my vistas so to speak. After reading what he wrote, I would want a dog to be able to attack a woman and should be trained to do so. Obviously Sefi had an experience where he needed his dog to do just that and the dog came through for him.