wrote:
Robin Nuttall wrote:



A successful schutzhund dog, especially a schutzhund GSD, has a rock
solid temperament and in fact is often difficult to put into fight
drive. Most schutzhund work these days is done in prey anyway.


I wonder if the difference is regional. I'm not that far from Sarah
and I've seen some rather unstable dogs trying schutzhund at the club
level. The better clubs don't allow the unstable dogs for the bitework
training. One of the TDs I worked with made obedience and tracking
manditory each and every session before any protection work was done.
That helped weed out the macho jerks that thought schutzhund meant
having a big bad dawg.

For any real schutzhund club you better bet that obedience is mandatory.
While the helpers will play with puppies in prey drive and work not to
squelch that, the end desire is always the dog who can work under
control even at a very high arousal level--in other words, a dog who can
cap his drive and direct it appropriately. ALL of schutzhund is directed
to that goal. Build the drive, then cap, control, and direct it. After
all, the dog MUST be able to out the sleeve on a single command, and
dogs that are "dirty" with biting suffer severe score penalties and are
often simply failed.

Also remember that in order to even be given the chance to get a
schutzhund I, the dog must pass the BH, which is the "traffic safe
companion dog" test. A much longer and more arduous heeling pattern than
AKC, then a long down with the handler 30+ feet away with their back
turned while another dog works that long heeling routine. After all that
is the actual temperament test, which includes crowd work, bicyclists,
joggers, cars honking, and a tie out with a crowd passing by including a
dog. Only after that safety test is passed can a dog even apply to get a
SchH 1.

Bitework sports require clubs to have special insurance. No legitimate
club would tolerate truly unstable dogs for long, nor would they allow
anyone to work protection without doing obedience. In fact, we threw a
guy out of our club last year for that very thing. Only wanted to do the
protection work. Forget it.