I don't know a thing about Shutzhund training, because unfortunately those trials are few and far between here in Canada.
All I know is what I've read, or seen on video's.
However, just from that one video clip that you supplied, Gunny, I can't imagine that Dante was ever beaten.
I can also understand the need for police dogs, military dogs, and protection/seeing eye dogs, like Dante.
It does bear thinking about what happens to these police and military dogs when they are a bit too old to provide a service.
Are there special homes picked for the police dogs, Gunny?
I can see where you would be angry, Drogheda, having had the experiences you have had, especially the dog trained in German, and the bitch that turned on you, and tried to kill her puppies.
I would not necessarily blame her training on that (if you were) because a Chi can do the same thing, or any breed for that matter.
From my understanding, shutzhund is a highly specialized sport, including tracking obedience and protection. The protection component is not to be confused with some other protection training, as the dog must be in total control of his handler, or he does'nt make the grade.
What then, is the difference between schutzhund trained dogs and police attack dogs, and what further training do they receive, if any?

As for police dogs Vs. SchH dog. There is not much difference. In regards to protection work, In police dog training they merely hide the sleeve under a jacket or overalls. With SchH training we expose the sleeve. The sleeve is hidden for police dogs because the sleeve exposed becomes a que to the dog on what's going on. If the dog does not see the sleeve it may not bite and be confused.

Our training is not applicable to real work, it's not "proofed" to work in all situations only in certain situations like in training or at a trial. Obviously in real work, the dog maybe needed at any moment, in any situation. We do not care about that in SchH we know pretty much the enivorment the dog is going to work in. does that make sense.

So if I took Addie and had you put on a sleeve she would bite it, if I took you and stood you next to a sleeve and said Pockin (Attack) she would go get the sleeve. There are "Civil" dogs that are not sleeve sure. They will bite without a sleeve. This sounds like it maybe a problem...But it's not. Well it is if the dog is working and the helper does not have a sleeve.

You see when the dogs are babies, we classicly condition them to certain cues, like the presence of certain collars, the sleeve, grass fields with blinds on them. I even tell Addie everytime we go out, I tell her..."ready to work" and she will start to spin in her crate and whine. You have probably notice similar things happen when you grab a leash, and the dog sees it. They get excited...they really do not know why. Just as pavlovs dogs did not why they were drooling when a bell rang. So, If there are no leashes present do you worry that your dog might get all wound up for a walk just because? No, it never even enters your mind. Same thing with a SchH dog. So, long as no one runs at her with a sleeve on, I am pretty sure she is going to look just like a normal dog. You see the dogs do not understand they are biting someone. At least not like we do. There is an incredible amount of knowledge and thought in this. The level of knowledge on learning theory among SchH trainers is amazing. I know this will ruffle a few feathers. But thier is a trainer name Ivan Balabanov training SchH dogs that makes Ceasar Millan look like an amatuer. and BTW he started his training Career at San Franscio Humane society....Volunteering to rehab dogs.

Also our obedience is sport obedience We care about things like the dog being straight in it's front, or when it jumps something they do not touch it. In police, who cares about these silly little minor things.

In tracking, we care about nose height....how high there nose is off the ground...obviously the police do not care about this, they just care if the dog can find what it's looking for.

But we are not trying to train dogs to run down criminals, find escaped cons. We are testing temperment and phyiscal ability to find suitable canidates for breeding to produce Future Real life working dogs. With out SchH the police, marines, customs...They would not have dogs.

It takes a long time to find good breeding stock. Time the military and police do not have. They buy dogs, that were produced from sport dogs, trained by trainers whom probably train in protection sports. Regardless of what anyone thinks the majority of military and police dog training is done on private farms, public park, abandon fields, old warehouses by civilians, then the dogs that make it are sold to the agency for evaluation and further training.

And my experience with newbies going at alone, is they always end up crushing the dog by being to hard on it and now the dog is flat and worried. that's it. It's not like people have it in thier brains, they teach the dog to bite then let it go terrorize the neighbors.

The amount of bites from trained protection dogs that are out of context of work or training are so minimal compared to the amount of pet dogs biting people. and that's per capita. I know one dog that has bit someone unprovoked and the dog was crazy from a parasite in his brain....me may have done it anyway.

We do not teach dogs to bite. They come out of the womb biting. We teach them when to bite, and when to let go.

Thankyou for the explanation Gunny. From what you have told me, and from the reading I did today, I can see that the schutzhund training is indeed very complex, requiring absloute obedience on the part of the dog, and more than a few brains on the part of the handler.I also read quite a lot about the history of the sport.
I can see the reason behind the obedience and tracking components of the sport, since the dog's movements and behaviour have to be so precise. I am still not so sure about the reason to teach the dog to attack the sleeve. Perhaps I'm dense, but if the schutzhund sport itself is not in itself a method of training dogs to attack, but more to train them in absolute obedience (for lack of a better
definition, and I know it is so much more than that) why is the sleeve biting part of the equation? I know that many people are confused about the purpose of the protection component of shutzhund training, and I guess I'm one of them.
Can you explain that to me? I'd like to understand this fully.

Well I think History is important, SchH started as a test for real life working dogs, then later became a friendly competetion between police departments in Germany. in the early 1900's it became a sport amongst commoners whom had working dogs on thier farms, they could not afford to be part of the show dog world. So it started off with as a sport with farm shepherds owned by poor farmers. Now the police departments quickly found value in having these farm dogs be tested, this relieved the police from having to have thier own breeding programs, raising the dogs and other time consuming parts to getting a dog ready to work. The relationship was recipiocal, the commoners now had a dog comeptetion of thier own (which was very useful to the police in finding out who the best dogs were) And it also gave them income when they sold dogs to the police. Wash outs of Schutzhund in the beginning would often go and be herding dogs. Not much has changed. Though not everyone breeds and most people just want to train and compete. The need for the protection aspect is the same...The police, and military still want dogs. So this is how we pick who is going to be breed to produce real working dogs. And the protection aspect is the most important aspect.

The obedience portion is all about control, The trakcing portion is all about the dog working out problems on it's own. and protection is all about the dogs courage. When a police dog goes out it's going to have to do it's job or the consequences are going to be catastrophic. So, this is how we test courage, by placing the dog in a controlled enviorment where we can judge all the dogs equally against the same standard.

Protection work is like OFA or PENN but for Temperment.

Protection is more of temperment test than an obedience exercise. Though obedience is judged and score on the point system, the dogs temperment is judged with a rating. So you could have a dog that makes a lot of mistakes and has a low score and still get a "V" or excellent rating on your dog. Or you could have a dog that does not make one mistake, but gets a verhunden...which means it has an unfit temperment for the work. So using a decoy and a sleeve, shows us a lot. The way a dog bites, a chewy dog or a dog just hanging on with the front teeth, is a dog who really is a bit worried about what they are doing, a dog that is biting full and calm, a very confident dog. A dog that hears the word out and screams in fustration and growls in anxiety is a dog that gets a bit hectic in it's work...this dog is on the other end of the scale he is not clear minded and a bit too much. We are testing the way a dog reacts to being in a conflict with a human being...no doubt about that. Now I will not get into the different ways to train to have dog be successful in this, but I will say one of them is the way I do it with addie...she believes the sleeve is a toy, no different than a tug and the decoy her playmate. In her mind, she is just playing tug of war. She does not think she is biting someone. So like I said in my previous posts about police dogs, they just hide the sleeve the dogs entire life. when a police dog goes and gets a "perp" he is not just chewing him up because he like the taste of human flesh. h Now do you see how I can be totally confident Addie will not just go and bite someone. In fact Addie has bite inhibition on human skin, I taught her that her teeth are never to touch human skin. And if she does, she will stop what she is doing and look at me like she is guilty.

If such thing happens, I would like to sign my dog up for a session. Of course I will also bring my softball bat and as soon as that jerk touches my dog I will do some behavioral training on his ******.

***Edited By: lpn169 on 10/22/2008 12:36:02 AM***
Reason: inappropriate language

Thankyou for that explanation Gunny, now I understand the whole sleeve component.