The end of Schutzhund - Page 6

Keith if you will hit my dog I will hit yours. lol
Haz You hit the nail on the head, but i think we could go one more step and remove the sport and just have a test that proves the dog. I am interested in a test but not the sport, Have some unknowns the really test the dog. Let seperate the men from the boys and the strong from the weak. But I thik your point is go out and do what ever it is, in public own it and not hide. I am with you.

PSA is still a trained, conditioned SPORT.

OK then once a year Paul can hire a big tour bus and collect all the hopefuls and a truckload of beer, travel down to south america somewhere, pay off some corrupt officials to look the other way  and let your dogs loose on a bunch of homeless people. 

WTF.

 

Hey Paul
I think the sporting aspect drives membership and gives us a venue to compare and compete against one another. Just like a sport I think you can condition and prep for a test. 
I will say this for PSA.  You can condition the dog for it..however there is only so much you can do.  Many dogs that have IPO titles would not be able to get to a PSA 1 if you condition them till the end of time.  Get to PSA 2 or 3?  Forget about it.  There is too much variation and while you can get an average dog through it I doubt your getting a nervebag to PSA 3. 

I think ultimately training is were you will discover what the dog is all about but the sport should present a high degree of stress and pressure.  Thats what makes it fun afterall.  Otherwise why not just get a BC go dock diving and call it a day.

apparently PSA tests are for pussy dogs compared to the fake stick hits, precision heeling and nose-plow tracking the IPO dogs do. 

i think it is a national disgrace to the US working dog community that PSA which appears to my foreign eyes an excellent program was allowed to wither into obscurity and irrelavance, your own home-grown sport arguably tougher han KNPV and inarguably tougher than IPO is or ever was. 

stick hits my butt

Haz
I think I have only seen a few videos of PSA. I agree with the high degree of stress and pressure, I will look further into it. But that being said as far the 'sport go to trial" to compete over and over, I am past that. But if it has a factor of "unknow" that intrests me.  My desire is train,test and put the worthy dog to work.

To be fair, your foreign eyes usually dont know what you're looking at concerning dogs :)

PSA is a sport. Same as the rest, well not the same, because the others aren't controlled by one man.

Stick hits will remain for any dog I consider for anything. Psa has nothing to do with testing breed characteristics. Its a bunch of meaningless yelling and screaming that gives an illusion of something to those that are impressed by it. And then think of some crazy scenarios to say you did some crazy scenarios.

It might make it a " tougher" sport, in no way does it make it a better breed test.

If Schutzhund or IPO is over, I will be sadden. Who is at fault? AR, SL, or AP [ apathetic public]. Now this thread announces tha PSA is over. No wonder, the amount of energy it takes to keep any national organization moving forward is huge. I will  give effort to furthering the working nature of the GSD. everybody in? 

I really don´t know, but I hope that the German Shepherd will survive as a working dog breed, not as a disguised pet...
But after all, everything ´s in change,  society and people.
Even in Germany a lot of the younger people aren´t interested in training 3 phases any more. I think these 3 phases are very important, it´s not only nose work, not only obedience, not only bitework, it´s about all of it, a lot of different traits are asked in dog and handler ( if you think about the phases in their origin meaning, it´s about versatility. pressure, and the ability to work under pressure ).
But even over here people start to specialize in one phase, or they train something totally different like flyball... No problem for the single dog in question, but not good for a working dog breed. We loose members every year, not only because of the training, but because most of the youngsters don´t want to be involved in a club any more. They are willing to pay money for training, if they are not involved in the duties of a club.. For decades it was a honor to be a trainer or to be a helper, now these guys start asking for money, too.
Our "top" members did learn from the Americans - no money, no effort...
Right now we still do have a lot of clubs, and a lot of people who are training and titling good dogs, but the temptation is strong, it´s too easy selling mediocre dogs for a lot of money.

Our only advantage is, that Germans normally don´t ask for a German Shepherd, if they are looking for a pet. They know, that this breed is no pet breed, unlike the common American or Asian, who is looking for Rintintin. And we are ( still ) forced to at least train, title, show, and breed survey our dogs ( you are able to train a dog for almost everything, but during training at least a honest breeder KNOWS about the quality of his / her dog ). That said, there are still a lot of people breeding German Shepherds behaving like German Shepherds.
Depressing thread...
 

Street fight = no rules. Win at all costs. Sport fight= many rules. Show your ability and confidence by sticking to the rules. MMA? started with very few rules. Now rules for the safety of combatants. There are many boxers who never reached potential because of ''Gym wars''. A Gym War'' is going at it too hard in the practice ring. Break a hand, get a couple of extra concusions, or detach a retna, makes for bad practice. Practice makes perfect? A live round to the sternum makes for a dead recruit.                                               An educated eye can tell the real fighter from the work ethic in practice. Get an education, get involved.