IPO-R title - Page 9

Susie,
"Almost every breed is able to track, almost every breed is able to be obedient, BUT only a few breeds are able to compete in IPO, Ring, or Mondio.
A German Shepherd without hardness, courage,  and fighting drive ( sorry, I´m an Oldtimer...) is not breedworthy in my personal opinion."

Exactly!  I can take almost any dog from the pound and teach it to track and do obedience, very few would be able to do IPO, Ring, or Mondio.  

Kevin,
And, BTW, my experience is far different from yours - those who think the FH is "stupid" because they failed and/or didn't adequately train crosstracks.  Any such failure would be on me, the trainer, and those I associate with no doubt think the same.

I completely agree.  I have no idea what "momos" experience is or where their statements come from?  Training with a group of AKC people is excellent, but certainly different than doing IPO and trialing and competing.  Few dogs in AKC type sports could complete an IPO 1, far fewer an IPO 3.  I find it hard to believe this statement: "I believe so, but I am also not discounting the temperament of the dog, especially when FEMA certified Labradors are making the IPO trainers look bad on the FH and RH courses.  

A FEMA certiifed dog will track or trail in a completely different style that an IPO FH trained dog will.  Footstep tracking is not applicable to the real world.  A footstep trained dog will have a great deal of trouble locating a missing person due to the nature of the tracking style.  It can be done with different rituals and styles of training.  IME, a SAR person will have no reason to do precise footstep tracking training as required in an FH.  AS far as cross tracks go, every person training a dog for IPO past the IPO 1 needs to train cross tracks, loss of track indication and problem solving.  My personal SchH dogs were easily working 5 hour old tracks, 1000 paces or more, with cross tracks, changes of terrain and in all weather conditions to prepare the dogs for an SchH / IPO 3.  

Momo,
For some us with actual experience, internet forums are not a "test bed" for our ideas.  If I want to test an idea or a theory I go out and train it and see how it works on the field or on the street.  I will seek out recognized experts to train with and compare ideas and techniques.  The last place I "test bed" is on here.  I will discuss training theories and techniques with those that I respect and have actual experience.  It doesn't matter what venue they have experience in because I have learned from SAR people and adopted ideas for our Patrol canines, Agility folks, AKC obedience competitors, etc.  But, first they must "show me" that they have some accomplishments and experience working dogs, just not working a keyboard.   If you enjoy theoretical discourse than by all means, there are plenty of people on here that like to "discuss theory."  Be careful as some that relish discussing theory have never done more than read it in a book or on this forum.  Applied animal behavior is great; and is meant to have theory combined with actual hands on training and experience.  More often than not I will take actual hands on experience over "book smarts" and anecdotal evidence.   Especially, when the anecdotal evidence comes from an internet forum.   

I only jumped in on this thread because I had an issue with the premise of your posts.  Many of us have gone to college, many have not, some have actual real world experience training dogs and some do not.  A college education or even being a college professor does not automatically make one a better dog handler, trainer or even understand dog behavior better than a common man with hands on experience.  







Sorry, for the bold type.  It seems I can not turn off the bold.

maybe you need to go back to school to figure it out :)

Sorry, for the bold type.  It seems I can not turn off the bold.

Momo, Life´s changing over here, too,
but for me a German Shepherd always was and always will be a working dog breed, and "working" for this special breed does include bitework for me.
As soon as this will be forbidden for private dog owners, I´m pretty sure, that I won´t be interested in this breed any more ( the breed I love and I lived with for almost my whole life ).
I´m not interested in a companion dog looking like a German Shepherd, I do like the German Shepherd dog for what it is.
As soon as it will be allowed to breed without proof of hardness, courage, fightingdrive ( sorry, once more ) the German Shepherd will become a companion dogs as a lot of breeds before.
And I´m not a person belitteling agility, SAR, flyball, or whatever, for me it´s just no proof of breed worthiness for this special breed.
If people are not able to breedsurvey their dogs they simply shouldn´t breed German Shepherds.
If in the future no bitework is allowed any more as a test for breedworthiness, this breed shouldn´t be bred by private people any more, there are enough companion dog breeds on this planet right now.
There are already thousands of German Shepherds out there that are not breedworthy, I really don´t want to know the outcome, if there is no test at all any more...
For me it´s better to see no German Shepherd in the public than to see the shadow of a formerly great working dog breed.
 

@slamdunc  I said the group does AKC, SAR, IPO-RH and FH.  I know all the venues and the differences,as do you.  Contrary to your statement there are FEMA certified dogs doing IPO-R and FH, you should have run into some by now, they do exist.  I am VERY surprised that you have not seen IPO trainers get frustrated with the FH and give up, I've seen it on the StP as well.  But like I said, different region, different trainers, etc.  I don't get why you are mocking my perspective and experience when I have done no such thing to yours.  I too train on the field, but the web is available 24/7, even by smart phone today, I could be traveling by vehicle to a trial/train/demo right now for all you know.  Questions like this can be posted here and pondered over, replied to and refocused for weeks, you CAN'T do that in person.  This started as a rules discussion, so this is certainly an appropriate venue for such.  I encourage you to use technology, in a non-linear way, it can be your friend and move you in directions that cannot be gathered the old way.  However, this chain of comments does show what, "would be" "question askers", should expect from the schutzhund community.  Seems you can only ask or phrase questions that the schutzhund community is interested in and certainly not anything outside the box.  Slamdunc, you should be ashamed that you made yourself and your peers in schutzhund appear as such a hostile bunch, for all to see on the web.  This type of discourse only hurts the expansion and acceptance of the sport.

Thank you, Slam - just read your post - it´s almost impossible to discuss drives and temperaments with someone interested in "dogs" only... - the goals are way too different - a lot of pet people would condemn my dogs for the traits I love them for...

Momo, this is part of your original post, and this statement makes all of us shake our heads : I am saying not every dog is a biter & has the drive to do an IPO-1. So that is why there should be other working titles, that are equally important.

The first response, made by Haz, was the best response you got.
" IPO is a breed suitability test.  If your GSD doesnt have the drive or ability to title IPO 1-3 then thats what it is. Lesser titles are not equally important because there are very few dogs that cannot achieve them.  I would say a GSD that cannot go IPO 1 is a very poor example of the breed considering how watered down the sport already is.  This isnt little league you dont get prizes for just showing up.  By all means get into something less stressful like dock diving or agility but dont equate that to a breed suitability test/title.
Once again we are talking GSDs right?  No drive or ability to bite = poor example of the breed.  A breed test that does not contain bitework is not complete.

Last thing we need is people running around with some pseudo ipo title and using that as an excuse to breed their dog."

Not very polite, but true...

zdog,
LOL!  I will see if I can find an Adult Ed course locally to fix the PDB bugs.  

@suzie THAT COMMENT MOST CERTAINLY IS NOT PART OF ANY OF MY POSTS HERE.  That is the OP's comment, I am NOT lober911 . If people think the IPO-R is so easy, go out and title a dog in it.  Many would struggle at the RH-E level, just as they do with the FH.  I've never said IPO was easy, but I do feel its becoming less relevant when codes, local ordinances and insurance companies are working together to limit bitework training to law enforcement circles only.  If the laws change as drastically as I expect your points will be moot and a substitute will need to be found in the USA.

So disingenuous of you to misquote me this late in the game! 

Its also strange that Slamdunc would make a disparaging comment about Professors not having enough field experience with hands on dog training in the traditional sense.  Is Slamdunc insinuating some kind of unfounded bias because folks participating in the RH venue, that happen to be FEMA handlers, also disproportionately have high numbers of PhD's in their ranks?  Seems so.

Every top IPO dog i have seen and i have seen a great many of them as has others on here; The one thing they have is the ability to change there working mode to one of a kind loving family dog. These dogs are bought up from babies to live a life as a family member but also to partake in a sport which requires a huge amount of time just as other dog sports do if they are to be done correctly and that in a big part is down to selective breeding. i agree with Susie ALL Dogs should be breed surved before being bred from and they should have been temperament tested in some form or other. Look on this forum 1000,s of dogs being bred from a huge amount just because they are a G.S dog; plus a great deal have never been Joint tested a basic thing which must be done before a dog is bred from. Over here we have no problems like you have in the USA at the present time thank goodness. My other Dog is a Long coat beautiful on obedience and was a good Tracker but his biting was not up to the standard to take him too far so he was retired? but walk him though the streets and every one wants to make a fuss of him he has a great stable temperament. At home he lives out doors as all the dogs do we have had, you will not get a better guard dog. All sports take time and in my case Gina has had well over 3 years to get to where she is now in 6 weeks time or so she will be IPO 3. she has not been rushed but taken along steady, i saw no need to get all the titles on her any earlier, it of course can be done but more pressure on the dog and i have seen many promising young dogs not take the pressure, and start making a lot of mistakes and never recover from them. but when you think of the hours spent training just the one dog from an 8 week old Puppy to get it to where it is now is a huge amount. and that is just the basics of what you have to work for. now to go up to another level the work rate is very near endless; That is why there are really not so many top dogs around Good Dogs but world class competitors
Steve1
VKGSDs
I too pay an Insurance for the dogs. it is only right we never know but if someone breaks in and undoes the pens of the dogs then they are asking for trouble. plus they have to scale a 7ft plus high fence first which would alert me in doors as the dogs would be barking;

I agree, that is one thing I *don't* like about the breed survey and title requirements...folks that rush to slap a title on a dog and never appreciate what the TRAINING and the entire process tells you about the dog's temperament and character.  That process is what reveals what you would need to know when making good breeding decisions, not just whether or not the dog could pass the title.