Schutzhund question: Is this unusual? - Page 2

I have done schutzhund and AKC obedience. There are many, many happy working dogs in AKC, in fact, it is preferred to see an animated dog also. Animated, but controlled. In my experience position and correctness are scrutinized closer in AKC. Just because the dogs are not forging at an almost diagonal angle to see the owner does not mean they are not happy. They are different sports with different rules and different goals. The huge misconception out there is a dog cannot do both.  I have not tried my hand at AKC tracking yet but I would love to, I understand the tracks can be quite long and difficult, the VST comparable to an FH? Has anyone done both that can give an opinion on that?

BTW, some friends of ours do high level agility and rally.  They keep saying our dogs would be great and love it.  May have to go give Rally a try. 

KC I really did not mean in AKC they don't look happy. I have seen many wagging there tails and looking up. I guess in Sch look more happy because they are pumped. But it also does depend on their training... I saw one female actually belly crawl out for the retrieve. That needed to be fixed before competing IMO!

I passed a Sch 1 (once - big deal) and trialed for a TD. I blew it with my boy (same dog) as I kept nagging him with the line, not trusting him. He was right on and 3/4 threw the track too when he quit. I guess he figured if I knew so much I should take the lead. LOL! Anyway I would say a Sch1 track is alot shorter than a TD!

I would like to add that in Schutzhund BH the dog does go on and off lead doing the same routine twice(1 on lead, and 1 off), and with gun fire. When I did mine, as other's have mentioned I had to walk pass jogger's, a person on a bike ringing the bells, a truck going by slow blasting music and coming back by us really fast, and leaving my dog(going out of her sight) with a group of people all around her. Like someone already said it can depend on the judge what he/she wants you to do. You can also look at DVG as well if you don't want to do the bite work part.

Haveing done both Schutzhund and AKC obedience, I have found that AKC obedience can be much more stressfull on the handler.

Most dogs that have their BH or SchH1 should be able to get their CD and most 1 dogs should be able to get their CDX. The hardest things on them would be that there are a lot more distractions. There are dogs everywhere, kids playing withing inches of the ring, people giving commands near you during your healling. Not only dogs working in the adjoining ring, you might have dogs doing their dumbell retrieves close behind your dog on the long stays. Heeling in for your long sits and downs, the dog behind you will be so close that they could put their nose under your dog's tail.

The hard part on the handler is that one mistake and you are disqualified. No matter how good everything else was, lose half the points on any one exercise and you are disqualified. For the handler sometimes it is hard to deal with. When I was getting Nika's CDX,  on the long down everytime she would shift from one hip to the other she would lift her elbows less than 1/2 inch and she would get disqualified for getting out of the down. Going into the long down having only lost two points or less, then to disqualify for such a small thing is very dishearting.

Animules.. RAlly is BORING.......... painfully so.. at least to us.. but my husband does agility with GSD's and just did the AKC World Team tryouts with his girl and has been to the Invitational twice, once with her and once with the old man and has won the GSDCA National Agility event.. has the 2004 Agility Victor and 2005 Agility Victrix.. .. he also did AKC obedience with his male, easily could have earned his OTCH but got hooked on agility instead... (he is a MACH3..  that probably means nothing to most everyone on this list but it is quite an accomplishment!)

Rally was designed to bridge the CGC gap between the more competitive obedience and agility levels... sad to say because it is considered a title, a lot of the conformation people use it to get their AOE (Award of Excellence), which just means the dog has a Championship and a working title.... clearing my throat now..most I've seen look terribly unhappy and because people think they don't need to train for it.. I think something sort of got lost in the translation.... some folks do enjoy it I guess but if you've done Schutzhund or anything else competitively, you'll be napping!!

Now agility is awesome but takes a ton of foundation training just like every other sport..... has come a long way since the first days!!

Not sure who mentioned it but there is no more gunfire in the BH

Denise

    Not sure who mentioned it but there is no more gunfire in the BH

lol denise was just going to post that too

If you want to compete with your dog in anything you want to raise a pup that way.. whether it be AKC obedience, agility, schutzhund and I still want my pet clients to have dogs that wins !!!  To me - raising a pet is not much different than raising a sport dog....but that's me!