"You're teaching dogs to bite!?!?"
If I had that proverbial nickel for every time I've heard something along those lines I'd be writing this article from a beach somewhere...
This misconception is very widespread, and the ignorance behind it fuels strong objections to Schutzhund, even amongst those with
years of experience in various other dog training venues. I suppose from the perspective of someone completely unfamiliar with protection training
this type of attitude is somewhat understandable. Certainly it is the protection phase that is what sets Schutzhund apart from other activities people tend to do with their dogs. Protection really stands out and grabs people's attention, often to the point where they forget the other two phases even exist. And in being the most unique and exciting phase of Schutzhund, plus admittedly the most scary seeming to those unfamiliar with it, it's naturally going to be the most misunderstood. All the photos
of Schutzhund dogs doing bite work and
hearing Schutzhund people throwing around terms like 'aggression' and 'full,
hard bite' probably don't help and perhaps leave the impression that biting people is the main, or only, focus of the training.
When I encounter this sort of view of Schutzhund, one thing I can safely
assume is that this person has had little, if any, actual exposure to
Schutzhund dogs and Schutzhund training, and they most certainly don't have
an understanding of what this training entails. In every case I've ever
encountered, and there have been many, this negative attitude toward
Schutzhund has quickly changed if the person was willing to spend some time
getting to know the dogs and the trainers and seeing what Schutzhund
training is all about.
The truth is, Schutzhund dogs are some of the safest and most reliable dogs
around. How could that be?? Well, let's examine some facts...
ALL dogs CAN bite
Schutzhund doesn't teach dogs to bite. Dogs are born knowing how to bite,
just as people are born knowing how to hit and kick. It doesn't take
training, it's instinct. Nature endowed every animal with a basic fight or
fight response. Place a dog, or a human, or any creature for that matter,
into a threatening situation and that animal is going to fight to defend
itself. For a dog, that means biting.
ALL dogs WILL bite under certain circumstances
The vast majority of dog bites are the result of fear. The dog's inborn
fight/flight response has been triggered by a perceived threat and the dog
must make a choice of how to react. If placed in such a situation, even the
most laid back, mild mannered couch potato family dog will bite if he feels
he must in order to defend himself.
For many dogs, their first course of action is to try to run away. They will
only fight if they feel trapped, without an avenue for escape. When flight
is no longer an option, they will turn and fight. What constitutes being
trapped varies from dog to dog. For some dogs, they would have to be backed
into a corner. For others a room, a house, a fenced yard, a kennel, a leash
or any barrier, real or perceived, may cause the dog to feel trapped and
thus can make a dog who would prefer to run feel that he must fight.
Conversely, there are many dogs that are likely to choose fight as their
first response. This is especially true of dogs that descend from the working
breeds, where this 'fight first' attitude was integral to the dog performing
its job, and thus intentionally maintained through generations of selective
breeding. These dogs' first instinct is to fight, and they will only run
away if their initial attempts to scare away or defeat the threat prove
unsuccessful.
Additionally, different dogs have different thresholds for feeling
threatened. Dogs that are considered to be of sound temperament are ones
that have reasonably high thresholds. It takes a lot for them to feel
threatened or that they need to defend themselves. They would have to be
faced with a very obvious, strong threat before their fight/flight response
would be triggered.
Other dogs have lower thresholds for fear. Some unfortunately are so low
that regular, everyday occurrences scare them. They frighten easily, and
thus their fight/flight response can be triggered by innocent, unthreatening
people, animals and objects. Some can be so hair trigger in this regard that
they will respond with aggression to something that startles them or makes
them just a bit uneasy, taking a "best defense is a good offense" sort of
approach in an attempt to scare the potential threat away before it can
become an actual threat.
Dogs of weak nerve and unreasonably low thresholds are unsuitable for participating in Schutzhund training. These temperament traits, and the behaviors that go along with them, will disqualify a dog from a trial. Additionally, one of the huge benefits of Schutzhund training is that it builds confidence
in a dog. The dogs are challenged and mildly stressed, and by overcoming
each challenge and working through each stressor, they gain more and more
self confidence. Starting with a sound nerved, confident dog and then socializing that dog, training him, and conditioning him to be even more sure of himself makes Schutzhund dogs some of the most safe and trustworthy dogs around. Obviously, since most dog bites occur out of fear, the more
confident the dog, and thus the less likely he is to feel threatened, the
better!
Schutzhund training also helps give a dog more clarity and better judgment.
By exposing the dog to different threats under carefully controlled
circumstances, how to recognize a true threat. He also learns how to respond to that threat appropriately, including modulating the strength of his aggressive response to fit the situation and the imminence and severity of that threat. Thus he is better able to discern a true threat and respond accordingly,
and at the same time less likely to make a mistake and perceive a threat where none exists or to overreact in a potentially threatening situation with more force than is needed.
Training doesn't change temperament
Temperament is genetic. The dog is born with it. While different behaviors
and reactions to certain stimuli can certainly be affected by environment,
the core of who the dog is doesn't change, and cannot be changed by any
training venue. If a dog has sound nerve and temperament before Schutzhund
training, he will have sound nerve and temperament after Schutzhund. He'll just have even more confidence, more skills and better
training. Likewise, if he is a dangerous fear biter, or one of the rare
canine equivalents of an unbalanced homicidal sociopath, he will always be
so and training will not change that.
Since dogs in the latter category are quickly washed out of Schutzhund
training and one of the prerequisites for Schutzhund training is that a dog
DOES have sound nerve and temperament, from the genetics standpoint in terms
of inherent personality, Schutzhund dogs have a leg up over the general dog
population.
Schutzhund Protection: Obedience under pressure
Everyone who's ever trained a dog knows that as distraction level goes up,
reliability goes down. The dog who will always sit for the cookie in the
quiet family kitchen may act as if he's never heard the word 'sit' before in
the middle of the pet store, or playground, or dog park, or in the vet's
office when the tech comes in to draw blood. The dog who always walks nicely
on leash may start hauling his owner down the street like something out of a
Marmaduke comic strip if a squirrel runs past or the kids next door are
throwing around a tennis ball. The same holds true when the dog is exposed to
pressure or stress. Just as we find it hard to concentrate and focus during
times of anxiety, so do dogs.
When dogs are exposed to a high degree of interesting, exciting or stressful
stimuli, their ability to focus on their handler and concentrate on
following direction is compromised, and thus their response to obedience
commands decreases. A huge part of Schutzhund training is exposing the dog
to those distractions and stressors, and teaching the dog to work through
it. Nowhere is this seen more than during the protection phase.
Schutzhund training involves extreme distraction training. The dogs must
track despite a half dozen people tromping along next to them. They must
focus on their handler and perform a wide range of exercises as part of a
long and complicated obedience routine despite the huge crowd of people a
few yards away. And then lie down and stay there while their handler walks
away, maybe even out of sight, despite that same crowd and another
handler/dog team running around doing their obedience exercises just a few
feet away.
Just the tracking and obedience phases are pretty impressive, but when it comes to working under distraction and pressure, even those are nothing compared to the Schutzhund protection phase. Here the dog
must search out the bad guy and hold him in place with barking alone, while
his handler catches up. No biting is allowed at this point because the bad guy
is being neutral and not making any threatening moves. Then when it's
appropriate to do so, the dog must engage the bad guy in a fight, stay in
that fight when the bad guy starts fighting back, then immediately let go
and disengage from the fight when commanded to do so by his handler.
Throughout all this, the dog must read the situation and respond appropriately to the amount of threat presented by the bad guy at any given time, all the while remaining responsive to his handler's directions and commands. And it all happens off leash, with the handler controlling the dog by voice command alone, often from quite a distance away.
Above all else, Schutzhund is about CONTROL. A dog who is successful in
Schutzhund is impeccably trained, and he has had that training tested under
extreme situations. He has learned to be able to think and function despite
distraction, stress or drive level, and to always be aware of his handler
and respond to his handler, no matter what else is going on. Even when the
dog wants to bite or feels he has to bite, if the handler says not to, the
dog obeys. This skillset and attitude developed in the dog through the
training carries over into real life, off the Schutzhund field, giving the
dog's owner an extreme level of control over their dog in virtually any
situation that could arise.
Schutzhund training is also HANDLER training
Most dog owners simply don't know what it would take to make their dog bite, because they've never been in a situation to find out. If one day they do find out and something triggers an aggressive response in their dog, they and their dog are both going to be totally taken by surprise and left completely unequipped to deal with it. This lack of preparedness can quickly turn a bad situation worse.
Schutzhund is a team sport; the team of dog and handler. And thus, it is as much handler training as it is dog training. Through this training, a handler gains an intimate knowledge of his dog's personality.
He learns how
his dog thinks and how his dog will respond to different people, places and
things. He learns his dog's moods, likes and dislikes, what sort of
situations might make the dog feel stressed or frightened or otherwise
trigger unwanted behavior.A Schutzhund handler already knows, or can make a very accurate educated guess, how his dog will react to different situations. Thus, the handler can be proactive, avoiding potentially risky situations and stopping trouble before it starts. And if trouble does arise, both dog and handler have the tools to deal with it. Not only has the dog been taught to listen and respond to commands despite what's going on around, but the handler has learned how to keep a clear head, communicate effectively with his dog and manage his dog under all sorts of anxiety laden situations.
A dog of genetically sound nerve and temperament + confidence building + good judgment based upon experience + exceptional training + an educated and conscientious owner = a very safe dog.
It also equals a Schutzhund dog.
Schutzhund Dog = Protection Dog?
The term Schutzhund means "protection dog" in German, and the fact that Schutzhund training involves bite
work often leads to the assumption
that a Schutzhund dog is a protection dog. This isn't necessarily the case. Schutzhund is not meant
to be personal protection dog training. It is first and foremost a test of breed worthiness for working breeds like the German Shepherd Dog, designed to evaluate dogs for overall working ability, of which the aptitude for protection work is only a part, albeit a very important one. The original purpose of Schutzhund was to identify individual dogs suitable for placement in working fields, and determine which dogs possessed the genetic temperament traits suitable for breeding more working dogs. Today, it is also a highly competitive sport, and truthfully more people approach Schutzhund from this aspect than as a breed test. The result is that many Schutzhund dogs who are geared more toward the sport aspect, either in their temperament, training or both, do not have the makings of real protection dogs. For those who approach it more as a breed test, Schutzhund can and does still serve the purpose of identifying dogs with the temperament suitable for protection work, but Schutzhund protection training alone is not sufficient to completely develop all the skills needed for real life protection work. It certainly does lay excellent groundwork for dogs to be later utilized as security, military, police and protection dogs, but additional training is needed to turn a Schutzhund dog into a real protection dog.
Unfortunately, due to ignorance regarding what true working temperament entails (and it is a whole lot more than just the willingness to bite or protect) and misconceptions about protection training, many people fear Schutzhund dogs because they believe that they are
dangerous canine loose cannons that have been taught to enjoy biting people just for the heck of it. Many Schutzhund
enthusiasts have been asked why we want to make our dogs "mean and
vicious". They simply don't understand that true working temperament and correct training makes for a stable, trustworthy dog who is confident, exceptionally well trained, able to work with discrimination and judgment, and above all is always under the control of his handler.Schutzhund and other protection sports trained with a "bad guy", usually referred to as the decoy or helper, wearing a padded protection sleeve or bite suit. Many sport oriented dogs have no desire whatsoever to truly harm the decoy, and view him as little more than a buddy to play a very rough game of tug with. While this view toward protection work isn't correct from a working breed test standpoint, it is sufficient and often preferred amongst those who approach Schutzhund strictly as a sport. To dogs bred and trained more from a working test perspective the decoy is certainly not a playmate. But even here their more intense, serious and real approach to protection work stems from their view of the decoy as a threat to be neutralized and challenging opponent to be defeated, not because they are vicious. Essentially, to the dog the decoy is a sparring partner.
Obviously, the dog who views bite work as a game is not a protection dog. The dog that approaches bite work with a more serious attitude can be. But while the skills taught in Schutzhund are similar to those used for personal
protection, security and police K9 work, and many Schutzhund dogs are later
converted to such uses, to take a Schutzhund dog and make him mission ready in these fields requires additional training.To use a commonly referenced analogy, Schutzhund training is like boxing or martial arts for dogs. A person taking karate classes learns self-discipline and control, in addition to learning all the moves and how to fight. But this training all takes place in a safe, familiar environment where true threat or risk of injury is minimal. On the Schutzhund field, as in the karate classroom, there are rules of conduct, the scenarios are pre-planned, and no one is in fear of his life, or truly trying to kill or severely harm one another.
To expand on that analogy as it applies to Schutzhund dogs versus protection dogs, just because someone has an advanced degree in martial arts and has maybe won a tournament or two, does not mean that he would be able to successfully defend himself in a street fight. He may not have the personal strength of character or ability to adapt his competition skills to a situation where there are no rules and the threat of both inflicting and incurring physical damage is very real. He might, but additional training in more "real life" scenarios would significantly improve his chances of success.
The same holds true with protection dogs. Whether a dog will protect for real in a true life scenario is more a function of who the dog is than his training. There are titled Schutzhund dogs that would not. There are many that would, and there are also many untitled pets lying around on couches that would rise to the occasion if needed. Training doesn't change who the dog is. But if the dog does have the character to protect for real, protection training would certainly give both dog and handler an advantage. The training allows the handler to truly understand who is dog is and match his expectations to reality, and gives the dog the confidence, skills and judgment to respond in an appropriate manner while remaining under his handler's control.
