what's it like to be a schutzhund helper? - Page 1

I am thinking about doing this sport with my gsd.  The fellow teaching my intro class, who has 25 years experience, says that not enough young people are going into the sport and helpers are always needed.  He asked if my son might be interested in learning.  I had him watch a few videos and he said yes.

My son is a 15.5 year old, 6 feet, 195 pound football player.  I love the idea of him learning something new, maybe starting him down a path that could open news areas of interest.

My question is, is it fairly safe?  He plays football, so I know no sport is always safe.  Can someone be trained to be a good helper, or does the person really need an certain innate ability to understand the drives and attitudes of dogs and how to work with them to bring out the best in the animal?  I really know nothing about this.  I will ask the trainer more about it at our next class, but I was wondering how people here feel, or is any of you have been helpers.

any insights would be greatly appreciated.

 if your son loves displaying his valour he will be good at Schutzhund helper work. All he needs is spend time with many dogs and be able to read a dog. Also he has to become partly dog himself to understand the psyche

if he loves dogs he will be fine. Like all contact sport schutzhund has its risks but calculated.

cheers

loving to display valor has nothing to do with it.  Those are the guys that spend more time on how they look and throwing dogs around in circles on sleeves to show how tough they are.   A good helper cares more about how the dog looks than he does.   you have to learn a lot ot be a good training helper.  Being able to show a wide range of emotions from mental threat, face, body posture etc, to showing weakness, being afraid, and back to threat and then learning when it's too much to too little is always tough. 

Some are more natural at it than others, but anybody can learn to be better than what they are.  Learning to do the mechanics shouldn't be too tough for an athlete.  Learning to do things safely take some time, but I doubt he'll have many problems with that.  The tough stuff is learning to read dogs and timing and knowing that just comes with experience.  and it requires a good knowledge of dogs, behavior, how to change it, and schutzhund itslef.  You have to know the exercises and what's being done to know when and why you do certain things in training.

But nobody learns to do it without doing it and screwing up.  Even guys with 30 years under their belts screw up sometimes, they just know how to cover them up better or make sure they fix it quickly, where as my mistakes are glaring and I still have to aks what the f*&^ I did wrong, but it's all part of the process.

as far as danger, i'd say it's no more dangerous than any other sport as long as everyone is on the same page.  Starting to learn with seasoned dogs and handlers should make it very safe.  Things happen though, like falling wrong, shoulders get hurt, and with training dogs in bite sports, there is always the chance you could be bitten and that's not fun, but comes with the territory.

I know i'd have no problem letting any of my kids when physically able do helper work, or anybody I know for that matter.  And as they progress the dogs and situations I put them in would progress with them.  And why let your kid have all the fun?  It never hurts to learn how to present a sleeve or drive a dog :)

I agree with zdog completely.  It isn't about the helper looking good it's about reading the dog and presenting the sleeve, which in turn makes the dog look good.  I used to play football from elementary school level to college level and learning the physical aspects of helper work came easy.  The hardest part for me was to learn to be loose when the dog bites.  In football your taught to run people over and in schutzhund you have to give so you don't hurt the dog or yourself.  It only took getting yelled at a couple of times and catching a hard dog that knocked me on my butt.

But trying to read the dog took a lot of time and I am still learning with every dog I train.  As long as he is willing to take time to learn each dogs' behavior then he will do fine.  He must remember one thing: every dog is different.  The indicators may be the same but each dog is different and must be trained as an individual.  This, I believe, is what seperates good helpers/trainers from the others.

As far as safe:  There are ways to be safe and ways to get hurt.  As long as your son pays attention to what he is doing and always has an eye on the dog he is working than he will be fine.  You usually get bite if your not paying attention or you get to comfortable.  He has to always be on his toes.  I like this sport because it is an adreline rush and you learn to respect the power animals have.

I also think getting involved in helper work plays a big part of being a better handler.  Plus, if he wants to be a handler for a career, such as Police K-9, doing helper and hanlder work in Schutzhund gives him a good start.  He can always take his training as far as he wants and it opens more doors than being a K-9 Officer.

Hope this helps.  Tell your son good luck and have fun.

IMO a helper's first goal is to try to get the best performance out of each and every dog.

this would take eminence humility as apposed to valor.

thank you all for your answers.  Very helpful.  I will make sure my son reads them as well.