A Question about the purpose and intent of ScH?

[hunterisgreat]

Originally Posted by KJenkins

What leads you to believe that the bite isn't the defeat of the aggressor to the dog?..I mean really how do you know what exactly goes on in a dog's mind....push enough buttons and just about 99.99% of all dogs above ground will at some point disengage and/or get rattled.

The bite could be the defeat... Or it could be just a prey-instinct satisfaction. Both are bites.

I'd bet there are a larger than 0.01% that will fight till their death

[wolfstraum]

Anne - EXCELLENT Post!!!!!!!!

Said much better than I can!

Lee

[lesslis]

This entire thread is so interesting.
I do wonder if the type of dog Anne discussed in her last post should be offered to the general public?

[Mrs.K]

Originally Posted by lesslis

This entire thread is so interesting.
I do wonder if the type of dog Anne discussed in her last post should be offered to the general public?

That type of dog has been in the hands of the general public ever since it was first produced. There are so many litters in Germany, where do you think these dogs are all going?

A German Shepherd should be capable of adapting to normal family life without going all crazy and nuts.

That being said, there are dogs that should never go into the hands of a family however, most dogs I have come across would not have an issue to live a healthy and active family life without ever seeing a sleeve.

[Vandal]

I do wonder if the type of dog Anne discussed in her last post should be offered to the general public?

Well, I kind of wonder how what I wrote gave someone that impression. Once again, it is clear , that people have no idea about SchH. When you tell a lie long enough, it becomes truth. Just like the woman I talked about who stood up and shouted about SchH being a game; much to my amazement, many people actually believe what she shouted.


How incredibly sad that SchH trainers have done such a poor job explaining it and worse, how GSD breeders have no idea what a GSD is supposed to be. Sorry to use your quote to say that but really, there is a rather huge need to start to educate people about GSDs. They were INTENDED to be protective dogs with many other capabilities as well. The SchH protection routine, as I said in that post, was designed to not only test whether a dog had those instincts but to ensure the dogs could still THINK when they were in that state of mind. Believe it or not, some of what you can see in protection, can tell you how a dog will react in real life situations. Or at least it used to. The reaction to a reed stick hit and the behaviors a dog would show when experiencing a bit of pain, can be translated into how they would behave in a home if a child fell on them. You could see if that pain made the dog a little nasty and not able to contain himself afterward. Some of the dogs could not out after that because it disturbed them that much. The better dogs would escalate but not in the way I just described. You could see how composed they remained.
Nowadays, they are mostly not working in a way where we can see that. The training is designed to make them LOOK like they have that ability. Because of what I said, I could make a good arguement that they are more dangerous than they use to be because SchH does not test what is REALLY necessary. It is an entirely different situation when a dog is viewing a "helper" as a bad guy vs when he is not. Just like playing "guns and robbers" is not the same feeling as when someone is trying to break into your house. Much easier to control yourself when it is a game, and biting and chasing a big toy was never what SchH was about.

SchH , IMO, was never intended to be something people dabbled in on weekends. It has been marketed that way in order to create more members for big dog clubs. The show dog crowd does not care for GSDs who act like them, (meaning the head of the SV in Germany), so they watered the SchH test down, removed the Police Trials from the annual Bundessieger trials and replaced it with Agility. This had the effect of attracting completely different types of people.
They started lying about what SchH is. It’s a sleeve game and now, some years later, MANY people actually believe that is what it always was and that it had NO PURPOSE! It still has a purpose but not like it used to, not at all. This is just fine for some people who enjoy competing in it. I am not judging them as much as I am lamenting about the loss of something that preserved the breed for decades.


To answer the question, yes SOME members of the General Public would do just fine with them. These are usually the people with brains who realize raising a GSD or any other kind of dog where protective capabilities were part of what made up the breed, require management, training and TIME with the dog.
Sadly, the people have also changed and so many now have somewhat strange expectation of their dogs. Some of that thinking is promoted on this board.

Here is part of the standard concerning temperament of the GSD. Does this concern anyone?

The German Shepherd should appear poised, calm, self confident, absolutely at ease, and (except when agitated) good natured, but also attentive and willing to serve. He must have courage, fighting drive, and hardness in order to serve as companion, watchdog, protection dog, service dog, and herding dog.

Also, a little more trivia. The "Helper" in SchH used to be called an" Agitator". There was a ten point system they used to measure Courage, Hardness and Fighting Drive. Take note of the standard and the words used. Now, we have "helpers" and we have no scale for measuring courage , hardness and fighting drive. It is referred to as "pressure". I know why they changed the words, because words are powerful. It is the same reason the Police Trials are not at the Bunddessieger any longer. All of it was designed to change the entire mentality. There are more cynical things I can say as to why this occurred but I will leave it at that.

[msvette2u]

Anne, this is fascinating stuff.
So the "tougher" a dog is on the field, the better companion he is, because his nerves are unshakable?
This made them excellent family pets?

So this is also why...in reverse...dogs not proven in Schutzhund may have sketchy temperaments because we're not pushing them...
That was my next question, btw, how does this translate into day to day life, other than as a Police K9 officer...! And you've answered it...

[Vandal]

Would you please comment on why prey was introduced to these type of dog and how.

Prey work was used to teach the dog to channel their drives. We channeled the aggression into prey and that does not mean it was all about the sleeve. That is the Reader's Digest version. Get the book that was recommended and read it. I have not read it, ( just glanced through a friend's book), but I cannot imagine it doesn't explain it.

The problem we see now is the dogs are not working in the right drive, ( often due to genetics), and then people "channel" play into prey. Or it is all prey work.

[lesslis]

Anne, very much in agreement with your posts. My dry sarcasm offered nothing to this thread. My comment should have focused more on how humans/buyers see a GSD. Seen more then my share of unbalanced dogs that owners think are great ambassadors of the breed.

[Catu]

Originally Posted by msvette2u

Anne, this is fascinating stuff.
So the "tougher" a dog is on the field, the better companion he is, because his nerves are unshakable?
This made them excellent family pets?

So this is also why...in reverse...dogs not proven in Schutzhund may have sketchy temperaments because we're not pushing them...
That was my next question, btw, how does this translate into day to day life, other than as a Police K9 officer...! And you've answered it...

One pet peeve of me when people bashes Schutzhund is people asking for dogs "with not too much drive" Like drives, which by itself means nothing, has anything to do... when they really mean "I don'r want a neurotic dog that can't settle.

It reminds me a graffiti I saw once that said "NO TO THE ECONOMY" Okaaaay..... you can be against socialism, or against capitalism, but how can you be against economy?

[cliffson1]

Good post, Anne.....this pretty much sums up what I've seen over the years.