[boomer11]

with personal protection dogs, if a threat is coming towards it does the dog need a command to bite or does it just use its own judgement to bite? i just imagine a kid with a sword in his hand running towards the dog to "slay the dragon" and the dog takes the kids arm off.

 

[onyx'girl]

it's better to sell him to a PD where he can bite whatever he wants. It's no different than someone trying to take a dog that's not cut out for bite work and trying to force it into it.

how many PD K9s are allowed to bite whatever they want? They also need control...but then biting WHEREVER they want on the body is probably a non-issue. Of course the rogues are out there on the streets, and the handlers are probably taking the brunt of the bites.
These photos wer taken by my sister at a holiday parade last Saturday.
Kong should use this in their advertising.

 

[Merciel]

What I'm saying no to, is a dog doing both types of training at the same time. One or the other, probably (though as I've seen with my friends dog not always). I hope this makes sense.

Totally makes sense and I agree 100%.

I think a lot of foundational work is pretty much the same across sports -- I just started foundational training in agility last month and so far it's pretty much all the same stuff you would do for freestyle, Rally, or comp OB. Only today, a month into the class, did we start moving into agility-specific stuff like wobble boards and balance discs. Before that? Exactly the same foundations as any other sport.

But once you start getting to the competition level, and especially the more serious competition levels, then yeah it totally makes sense to me that you'd have to pick one thing and specialize in it. Even something as basic as heeling, in sports as closely related as comp OB and Rally, is sufficiently different that Pongu and I have to concentrate on one or the other for at least a few days in practice before each trial if I don't want to lose a couple of points on heeling glitches.

I imagine it's infinitely more complicated with bitework, and especially if you're doing something like unpredictable environmental exercises vs. the super stylized patterns in IPO.

So, yep, totally makes sense that you'd have a real hard time trialing in multiple sports simultaneously (which, btw, makes your six weeks thing EVEN MORE insane).

 

[martemchik]

so a dog that doesnt score close to 300 shouldnt be bred? its not all about scores and titles. not everyone out there cares to have a top sport dog. in connection to this thread, a dog that excels in pp but scores low in schutzhund shouldnt be bred? sounds like you have a pretty elitist attitude to me.

Why is that elitist? And I actually never said anything to that point. All I said was that a dog can get a title with a low score and although it gets that title, when you compare it to a higher scoring dog, IMO the higher scoring dog did BETTER and has proven more. I'm using the sport that was developed to grade breedworthiness for our breed as it was meant to be. A dog that scores 290 is better than one that scores 250 when compared objectively.

I've noticed people have really fallen in love with throwing the elitist word around this forum lately. It's like when someone just states an opinion on breedworthiness its automatically elitist. BTW...I don't do Schutzhund, my dog will never get a Schutzhund title. Does it make me elitist that I believe he shouldn't be bred because of that? Or should I start a thread about breeding him and then call everyone elitist for telling me not to do it?

 

[gsdsar]

Why is that elitist? And I actually never said anything to that point. All I said was that a dog can get a title with a low score and although it gets that title, when you compare it to a higher scoring dog, IMO the higher scoring dog did BETTER and has proven more. I'm using the sport that was developed to grade breedworthiness for our breed as it was meant to be. A dog that scores 290 is better than one that scores 250 when compared objectively.

You had me until this. This is wrong. So wrong. And sad to me that you think because a TEAMS score is higher the dog is better.

What it actually means is that the handler(pick one)- said the dogs name before a command, took a step back when doing the recall, went 27 paces instead of 30, stopped for 6 seconds instead of 5, the dog was a little crooked on one finish, the dog did not maintain the wrap around prance look for the entire pattern, the hold and bark was 1 foot away instead if 4 inches.

That's what looses points. Don't fool yourself into thinking that more points means better dog. All it means is the trainer did a better job preparing and "showing" their dog. If you truly believe what you say, that you look at SchH as a breed worthiness test, you will stop obsessing over points and look at the entirety of the dog. Look at the dog with a first time handler who messed up a lot, and the dog still passes, look at the whole picture. Not how it scores. I think you will be surprised at the quality if dogs not on the podium. The podium is for amazing trainers.




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[Baillif]

Trainers can easily cost good dogs points as well with their own mistakes so it is indeed a bit more complicated than "scoreboard" Scoreboard might not lie but it doesn't tell a complete story. Sounds nitpicky but its the truth.

 

[martemchik]

You had me until this. This is wrong. So wrong. And sad to me that you think because a TEAMS score is higher the dog is better.

What it actually means is that the handler(pick one)- said the dogs name before a command, took a step back when doing the recall, went 27 paces instead of 30, stopped for 6 seconds instead of 5, the dog was a little crooked on one finish, the dog did not maintain the wrap around prance look for the entire pattern, the hold and bark was 1 foot away instead if 4 inches.

That's what looses points. Don't fool yourself into thinking that more points means better dog. All it means is the trainer did a better job preparing and "showing" their dog. If you truly believe what you say, that you look at SchH as a breed worthiness test, you will stop obsessing over points and look at the entirety of the dog. Look at the dog with a first time handler who messed up a lot, and the dog still passes, look at the whole picture. Not how it scores. I think you will be surprised at the quality if dogs not on the podium. The podium is for amazing trainers.




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You're correct! And that was my original point! Hopefully the whole process of trialing and training will show the handler if that dog deserves to be bred or not. Of course you look at the whole picture...but if you're just trying to compare two dogs, and the only information you have are the scores...you have to just go off of the scores, correct?

Here's the funny thing. We tell people to look for a Schutzhund title, to look at how well it trialed, and to separate it objectively from all the rest. Well, your average owner isn't going to see all those things you just mentioned. Someone that goes to a trial or two, a training session or two, they're not going to see those minor differences in performance. They're going to rely on the judge to tell them which dog did better, that day.

It boils down to trusting a breeder and handler to make the right decision. But at the end of the day, a title proves that the dog can do x, y, z. My problem with discussing breeding a PP dog is that there are plenty of people that can claim their dog is a PP dog but won't ever be able to prove it in any way. It's why we have sport trials. I don't know how many times people have come on this forum and have claimed the sire (and in some cases the dam) of their puppy is a K9. Most of the time you know its a marketing ploy by the breeder. PP can be used the same way. Train a dog to bite a suit...show people it bites a suit, and look! A PPD! Lets be serious...that dog is probably not ever going to be tested in a real life situation.

Again, I don't think more points equals a better dog, I know better than that. But how are average people supposed to know that? Should they just believe a breeder when they tell them, "well, we lost all these points because of me, but he's still better than that dog that scored 295."

The last litter I wanted a puppy from (didn't have females) used a sire that was on the WUSV USA National Team. Of course I was impressed! I realize that the handler had a lot to do with it...but knowing the dog had the capability of doing that is still impressive. Knowing that dog got as far as it did, IMO, makes it look better than the other SchH3 dogs out there. Consistent high scores, being on such a high level team, it objectively separates that dog from the rest. At the end of the day...it's really the only way the majority of us potential puppy buyers can differentiate the dogs we see out there.

 

[Baillif]

In the end you just go for a good dog and going for high titled lines is a good place to start. The training techniques are getting so good dogs are getting titles that never would have titled 10-20-30 years ago so it hasn't been as good a measuring stick for the breed-ability of a dog as it was in decades past.

If you're the kind of person that wants at the podium in ringsports at a high level you're going to have and be going through a lot of dogs.

 

[mycobraracr]

You had me until this. This is wrong. So wrong. And sad to me that you think because a TEAMS score is higher the dog is better.

What it actually means is that the handler(pick one)- said the dogs name before a command, took a step back when doing the recall, went 27 paces instead of 30, stopped for 6 seconds instead of 5, the dog was a little crooked on one finish, the dog did not maintain the wrap around prance look for the entire pattern, the hold and bark was 1 foot away instead if 4 inches.

That's what looses points. Don't fool yourself into thinking that more points means better dog. All it means is the trainer did a better job preparing and "showing" their dog. If you truly believe what you say, that you look at SchH as a breed worthiness test, you will stop obsessing over points and look at the entirety of the dog. Look at the dog with a first time handler who messed up a lot, and the dog still passes, look at the whole picture. Not how it scores. I think you will be surprised at the quality if dogs not on the podium. The podium is for amazing trainers.




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:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: Thank you!!!


Points don't tell you about a dog. You have to watch the dog to see what it's made of. This is one of the reasons the breed is going to crap. People think "oh that dog was a WUSV champion I must breed to it" when in fact there are plenty of dogs that may be better to breed to. I hate this mentality. This is also the reason that many IPO trainers only train pattern after pattern. Don't believe me? Just look at videos of some upper level dogs. They don't even need a handler they have done the pattern so much.

 

[Baillif]

Go for dogs with MR's and then you know it can do work without everything having to be the exact same every single time.

 

[holland]

All of this makes me not even want a GSD again-

 

[bill]

A bad trainer can ruin a great dog. A great trainer can make a OK dog look good.a good trainer can make a good dog look great. A great trainer can make a great dog outstanding! But a great dog is all dogs they just want love from an old trainer bill

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