Blogger in Paradise

As I’m sure everyone has noticed, I have a new German Shepherd puppy. We’ve been looking at training him to be an all around dog – gentle, obedient, and able to protect when needed. We’ve decided to participate in Schutzhund which is a training sport that teaches obedience, tracking, and protection. It requires brains, not just beauty. Of course, our dog is handsome, but he’s really smart, too. We’ll see if we can train him. I’m sure he can do it, but can we?

There was a trial at the German Shepherd Schutzhund Club of N. Fort Myers this last weekend so I went to see what’s up. It was a small trial with several people getting their BH (Basic Handling) certifications and one trainer going for Schutzhund III – a very high level. The first video below is the obedience part of the BH – you also have traffic and crowd tests which I didn’t upload. The second is the obedience part of the Schutzhund and the third is the protection part of the Schutzhund. I didn’t video the tracking part of the Schutzhund III test.  In the protection part you’ll see the trainer walking straight down the field pointing at blinds that the dog is supposed check looking for the bad guy. He finally finds him in the last blind and corners him. Then some attack exercises. None of the dogs were perfect, but the two that I’m showing passed. You can’t go for the BH (which is mandatory prior to Schutzhund) until your dog is at least 15 months old. That will give us time to train ours as he is only 5 months. Take a look. You’ll see dogs that can protect you and cuddle, too. There’s a little wind noise, so if it bugs you, just turn your sound down. Nothing important in the audio.