Watered Down sport?? - Page 11

As a young US Army MP stationed in Germany (1975) just prior to my becoming a Military Dog Handler, I was invited by the local polizei to come to the local schutzhund club to observe training.There I saw (real) schutzhund training with some very tough dogs. I observed the 6' wall, gunfire, the dogs low crawling, real courage tests, as well as the dogs being struck with a switch multiple times while biting the sleeve. Every dog I observed that first session I would have proudly taken as a civilian or military dog, as they were very hard and showed no fear, took corrections well, then went right back to work.

Yes you could tell they were harshly trained harshly corrected as I saw a lot of those type corrections while watching. Most of the dogs didn't care as long as they could come on the field and work! There was no perfection in the blinds, sissy attention heeling, clean outs on the sleeve, etc: like I observe today, but you could bet most of those dogs then were a true and real representative of the breed compared to what I have the misfortune of occasionally viewing today.

Watered down. you betcha! Most of the dogs I observe today would have a hard time making it then, especially the show lines. I would take that type of training and dogs of those days anytime compared to the sport today if I were looking for a true representitive of the breed for f L/E P/P, military. it is a shame what schutzhund has been downgraded to, point, sports over courage and testing of a true working dogs ability like it was meant to be.

Just My Opinion

I was military police dog instructor in 1975, I know what you saw.

still see that today in ZVV3 and TART competitions and training in CZ, some strong dogs there

but you guys seen the change happening

Yep! But it's entertaining listening to folks who weren't born then tell you how those dogs were.🤗🤗🤗

Perhaps the above happy little band of old blokes would like to tell us just how teaching dogs to do "attentive heeling" (of which btw I am no fan either) waters down the ability of those dogs to do other parts of the trials, ie bitework, tracking etc.
I get very tired of hearing the working side tell us how if we do not currently train in IPO/PPD/LE etc, we should shut up about character and temperament in the breed, as we do not know what we are talking about because we are not doing it. S'funny that's ALL they ever say, before they resort to the real insulting remarks (most of them, not you Gustav !) - NONE of you ever actually explains in simple terms exactly what about the work you think you can see but 'we' don't. Anyone else noticed this ?

Hundmutter, I was a Scout dog instructor doing the tail end of Vietnam war. We sent thousands of dogs to the Nam during the term of the conflict. First, let me tell you that Scout dogs were NOT trained in bitework. They walked the point of a patrol and were trained to alert to the scent , 3,6,8 hundred yards from enemy. They would alert by indicating if the enemy was 10 o'clock, 12 o'clock, or 2 o'clock as way of telling the platoon where enemy forces were located.
Here's the point, these dogs had to walk quietly, they had to be on constant alert and air scenting, when engaged or pinned down,( especially at night) they had to tolerate bullets whizzing by their heads, tracers flying through the air, sounds of grenades, they had to stay down and quiet in these instances so as to not attract gunfire. They had to be reliable in extreme heat, through rivers, jungle, swampy terrain, and MOST IMPORTANTLY when the mission was over, if they had confrontation with enemy, they had to go back next time. These dogs were NOT trained for bitework, but could you see most of the GS you have owned or trained with, capable of this type of rugged character? Able to have people's lives in their paws under these circumstances? There is a difference in general GS today and the ones back then, regardless of how folks feel. Whether one is better than other is a preference or choice, but isn't it interesting that so many people that actually WORKED/TRAINED dogs then and now usually prefer  the former. Maybe a coincidence, though🤔.

Its about the steadfast working character under stress that is diiferent, that makes them able to do scout work, or seeing eye work, ( which don't involve bite work for those that use that as crutch to justify their arguments) that you don't see military or seeing eye foundations no longer finding the GS suitable out of high percent of the ones bred today. WHY is that?; since no bite work is required to do these type things....someone explain it to me.

its very simple hundmutter, modern training replaces use of natural drives for trained/shaped behaviour in several exercises, so the dog can be without, or have low drive and still perform his exercise

chewing on, dumbell, speed in apport etc can all be manipulated with Ecollar so do we look at dog with great natural drive or great trained behaviour
natural guarding or trained behaviour
preybite or civil bite
transport, do some dogs even look at the helper during transport, some are looking up like in heeling during transport
Tracking natural or again trained/shaped

now I absolutely have no problem with fact that training became more humain in new system, but nowadays you really have to watch if you are looking at natural behaviour (genetic quality) of the dog, or trained/shaped behaviour, which the dog will not pass on to offspring obviously

A dog that looks at the handler during the back transport will be faulted for it in the points and in the critique. That kind of picture is training error and isn't the picture that many of the top competitors want. You can still pass a trial and get a decent score considering that exercise is worth 5 points and you'll probably lose 1 point for that kind of picture. You'd lose more if your dog is out of control or forging a whole body length in front of the handler.

Bavarian wagon, what do you think of a dog looking at the handler during transport, intention/drive,

you already say it cost less than a dog forging, so drive to the helper cost more than not interested in helper=obedience exercise

Depends on the amount of forging...most judges I've seen don't care at all about about a foot or so. If we're talking about forging where the handler is barely by the tail of the dog...it makes sense that there are points lost for that, the dog is clearly not trained well. For someone that doesn't care about points or success, you're getting into semantics. A dog forging by about half a body length will also probably lose about a point, if it's more, it might be two if the rest of the exercise is performed correctly. The point loss is basically equal. The only time you lose all the points or get DQ'd is if the dog is up the helper's backside and clearly not doing a transport anymore. Like I said, the exercise is worth 5 points so there's not much the judge can take...if the dog is still able to perform an attack and move forward, the judge will still give most of the points.

The semantics you're getting into are extremely rare as well...VERY VERY FEW people can train their dog to "fuss" when there is a helper on the field. The majority of club level dogs have almost not resemblance of control in the other exercises...so they're not going to do it in a back transport. Higher level dogs/trainers...extremely extremely extremely rare to see them doing that. Are people good enough to train it? Absolutely. But that also means they're good enough to train the dog to look at the helper during that exercise. It might not be in the "traditional" way you prefer (involving beating the dog for whatever reason), but it's still taught very easily to the right dog. When you see a dog revert to a fuss during the exercise it's usually because there is a hole in the training for some reason and the dog resorts to doing a "fuss" since that's usually what we expect from a dog on the field, so to the dog, that's the "safe" head position.

 

The back transport has always been an obedience exercise...that's why it's thrown into the Schutzhund/IPO routine. To prove the dog still has control. Back in the day...the amount of obedience expected was just not at the same level as it is today because people are able to train dogs better due to the higher standard that is asked for. I watched a handful of videos from the late 1980s and all the dogs were a good body length infront of the handler...clearly, the handlers didn't spend time training a better position because they didn't have any reason to...the better position wasn't being rewarded in the judging. At some point I'm sure enough people squaked that they weren't getting credited for actually following the rules and training their dogs the way the rule book signified. So the judging got stricter, people needed to raise their expectations of their dogs.