Another member (Pete, thanks for the input) posted this in reply to another message.

"If you have ever attended a Schutzhund trial, then you know how extremely complex the sport is and the many, many separate tasks that the dog is required to perform (in three completely different disciplines, yet). A dog that is able to master these tasks has given a very good accounting of its working ability AND its tractability. And personally, I would never even consider training a dog in personal protection if I ever had any doubt of the tractability side of the equation."

My question then is if a dog performs well in Schutzhund is it likely it will do well in protection work? Have any of you ever seen a good Schutzhund dog shut down in a real life altercation?

As for Pete's post, and I hope it was ok that I pasted it here, the one BIG thing that seems to be missing from the Schutzhund field is the stress level that would be present in a real life ordeal. So if I'm going to protection train my dog, should I be using traditional Schutzhund training or should I be using another method. Thank you.

There is an implied problem in your question. How do you proof a dog for protection? As seen on several posts,a dog on their home field with aggitators they know can look really good. Take them away from "home" and test them on someone they don't know and they may fold. It doesn't matter what method you use to train, if the dog is capable and well trained they will do the job. I have seen some dogs that worked well while being trained and put in a trial with aggitators they don't know and challenge them and they will cut and run.

I had a GSD that had a SCH III. He was a working fool, absolutly fearless. He would take out a bad guy even severly injured (broken jaw). I have seen dogs trained in personal protection fold with little stress.

Now the problem. Counting on a dog that won't bite when needed is like having a gun you don't know is empty. You are counting on help you don't have. So how do you proof your dog? Well you could hang $20's out of your pockets and take the dog to the baddest part of town and hope that someone will try to rob you. I wouldn't do it, but it is an option. Another option is train for a trial and see how the dog does in a strange place with bad guy's it doesn't know. Enter a trial.

Different types of trials provide different tests, and there are a lot of them. Schutzhund, KNPV, French Ring, Belgian Ring, American Street Ring, Mondio Ring, NAPD, and in other places there are Russian Great Ring and others. You can look at what is available in your area, what trainers in your area train for and make decisions from that. Decide what you want to train for and go for it.

Doing good in a trial will not guarantee that the dog will perform in a "real life" situation, but it will give you a better idea than if the dog will bite the aggitator(s) that trained it. Besides that it is fun to work for the trial, the people are nice for the most part, and it gives you a wonderful opportunity to spend time with your dog.

Patrick, as far as your questions go (and it's fine with me if you want to put up my posts, though I'm no big expert) -- I think Ed Frawley got closest to the answer when he said that he can look at a dog in a Schutzhund trial and ascertain quite a bit about what he could do with the dog. There is a lot implicit in that comment (which I'm paraphrasing). Among other things, an experienced trainer can look at a dog doing SchH protection and get a pretty good handle on the prey drive/defense drive ratio in the dog. From what I have seen myself, dogs that excel in PP are usually somewhat more civil in nature, i.e. they take their man work more "seriously". These are dogs that derive enjoyment out of the confrontation itself, not just biting a sleeve. Bear in mind that things like the dog's defensive threshhold are GENETIC and do not reflect on the Schutzhund sport at all.

I know a woman who has competed at the national level in Schutzhund with a SchH3 GSD bitch that is the sweetest dog in the world; this dog has NO civil instincts that I can see and would be entirely unsuitable for PP work. But this same little bitch has knocked more than one helper off his feet in the long attack. Does that mean that there is anything undesirable about the dog? No--she excels at the Schutzhund sport (obviously). Does that mean that a good trainer can look at her and see that, while a great SchH dog, she would be unsuitable as a police patrol dog or as a serious personal protection dog? Certainly. Does that make Schutzhund any less valid as a working dog test? Of course not.

The confusion I have seen a lot of on this board (and by no means just from you) seems to revolve around the issue of "SchH dogs" vs. "real protection dogs." As Ed has already pointed out, Schutzhund generally does NOT train dogs to be "real protection dogs" and no one should make the assumption that it does.

My own dog never went far in the Schutzhund world (hip/elbow problems), but he has already demonstrated his willingness to protect me in a real situation and I have no reason to doubt that he is deadly serious about it. I can't ascribe this to Schutzhund training, which he has had, or to lack of it. It's in his genes.

The point is that an experienced trainer or handler can watch a Schutzhund trial and pick out the dogs that could do police service work, the dogs that would excel in personal protection (like my dog most likely would), and the dogs--such as the bitch I mentioned above--that would be best suited sticking to sport work. None of this reflects badly on the sport of Schutzhund or the dogs involved in it. It doesn't mean that many of the dogs doing Schutzhund right now couldn't also do perfectly fine personal protection or police service work (WITH ADDITIONAL TRAINING, of course... I must be absolutely clear on this subject!).

Most Schutzhund training directors these days downplay the "realness" of a dog's encounter with the decoy. There is nothing wrong with this; Schutzhund IS a sport, first and foremost, and like any other sport it has its own p.r. to keep up (especially sensitive when your sport deals with biting dogs). To really understand the difference in the disciplines, try to form a sentence with these two phrases:

"A dog sport the whole family can enjoy..."
"...teaching the dog to alert on a passive subject."

See my point? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Pete Felknor

Good post Peter. For me it’s the bark and hold that gives me the biggest clue. It is a rare thing these days to see anything but a prey bark and hold in Schutzhund.

Thanks, Vince. Yep, the tone of the bark often tells you a lot. I also like to watch for the intensity of the dog's vigilance on the helper during the transports--you'll often see how the more serious dogs never take their gaze away from the man for even a tenth of a second, even if the handler accidentally steps on them--and then again, many of the less serious dogs will actually be looking right at the handler all through the exercise!

Pete Felknor

I belive that once again this boils down to people's point a view vs. fact.
Fact. Just bceause a dog is trained in personal protection does not mean the dog will bite for real. The question that one must ask is who trained the dog and does that person have an understanding of a dogs drive temperment etc.
Schutzhund is a sport. While I think you can look at a dog and get alot from his bark,unless you are an experienced trainer you won't be able to tell the diffrence between active prey, and aggression/fight drive. Alot of high active prey dogs, look strong, but would not defend you during real fight, I don't care how many trials you go to, it might show something about the nerves of your dog, but it does nothing really to prove if your dog will bite. This comes down to how the dog was trained. Now can a schutzhund dog od real protection. The answer is yes if the dog has the right genatics and training. SO don't put yor life on a title!

Is it possible for a dog for a dog to not take schutzhund seriously, seeing it maybe as a game? Could this dog then not show a strong bark and hold in schutzhund but still be a good personal protection dog?

With poor helper work this can be true. Bad dog training does not produce well trained dogs - not matter how hard people wish it did. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

This is a very good point. I agree with Ed. Poor helper work can create this. You can alos have a dog that does a strang hold and bark but still not do PP work. It boils down to gentics and how good your decoy is.