Schutzhund training was developed in Germany and is a dog sport used to test the skills and potential of German shepherd breeds as police dogs. The method was developed in early 20th century and is a tough test for Dog trainers Houston tx. Instead of taking into account the physical appearance of the dog, this dog training helps the trainers to choose best animals for them. As it is a stringent test, only a few dogs from different breeds are able to pass it.
What is Schutzhund dog training?
This training method is in use for the last 100 years and has undergone several developments. Today, it is not as abusive towards dogs as it was a few years back but the level of strictness is still same. It completely evaluates the animal and its potential with the help of different tests. Only manuals and organized courses were available in old-day Schutzhund training. Nowadays, one can get DVDs and videos to start training a dog even at home.
The basic idea behind this training is to test the dog for different traits such as tracking, sniffing, protection, and retrieving, mostly useful for police and army. This dog training starts in early age and last for several weeks and even months until the suitability of dog is not confirmed.
What is in Schutzhund dog training?
There are different types of training aspects, but the main idea remains the same. Following are some of the major training methods involved in Schutzhund dog training:
Clicker: Clicker training may not be used by all Schutzhund trainers, but it is a really useful method that works especially with German shepherd breeds. This training can be started at early age so as to well train them, preferably after 3 months of age.
Obedience training: This includes somewhere around eleven obedience commands of Schutzhund training. The names of commands are focus and attention, sit, down and stand, front, pointing out of an object, targeting, heel positioning, heeling, retrieving, jumping, motion exercises, and go out.
Tracking objects: Special dog training is given to dogs to track different objects such as bombs, drugs, etc. They are also trained to recognize a particular smell and identify their target.
Protection training: Schutzhund training also involved training them as police dogs, guard dogs and attack dogs. Special commands are taught to identify the threat and attack it.
Schutzhund dog training enables the dogs to learn a specific set of skills, but unfortunately very few of them are able to finish it successfully. Once can also use this for training a dog at home, but should be sure about the philosophy and methodology.