This week, Jim Alloway, president of the USCA, sent a notice out to all USCA Members making us aware of a movement toward a WUSV rule that imposes an international ban of the use of e-collars and possibly other training devices. You can read the memorandum here.
How did we get to this point?
Brian Harvey has a unique perspective on this, built on his 30 plus years of being active in the sport. Watch his video and please share your own experiences in the comments section below.
Brian Harvey and PronouncedK9 are dedicated to the training the true Schutzhund. PronouncedK9 is a training method developed by Brian Harvey to promote fundamentally-sound Schutzhund training for sport, police and protection dogs. Our goal is to teach you to produce well-balanced dogs with reliable training that are capable of succeeding both in real-life situations and high-level competition.
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God bless you Brian. We have been at this a long time. It was always about real dogs. IT WAS ABOUT REAL TRAINING. Not props and tables and pillows thrown from a helper. I always saw the helper as as a sparring partner. The fake bad guy. That could praise a dog for his defense, aggression, fight, but always remained the bad guy teaching the dog how to do those things. NOT HIS BUDDY. Thank you for standing up and telling it like it should be not how it is today. Get your new organization together. You have an old salt that wants to do it again like it was meant to be. Let the new generation play the IPO game. Let’s us do SCHUTZHUND like it should be.
Brian,
Thank you for standing up for our foundation values.
We are in imminent danger of losing the real dogs,
and we need people like you to tell it like it is.
Jim Engel
What a bunch of crap, sport people take your head out your rears, sport is politics, clicks, he said she said, no pressure but some silly screaming. Dogs have gotten soft as well as the trainers. have you seen videos ( jokes ). Makes me sick and tired of sport dogs period. German Shepherd Dogs are shot and over bred. You can’t even find one anymore. Belgian Malinois is going down the same road. Greed is out of control, over priced and americans not knowing any better. Dogs are equipment oriented and not interested in the man anymore. Dogs are talking to differing places and are use to their own fields and act different off fields. K-9 world is not what it was and might never be as we continue down that road. Just don’t see how people lay their heads down at night selling police, military and protection dogs to folks known there nothing more than a song and pony dance that don’t have a clue about real world outside of a tug / sleeve or suit. Please I could go on forever. Long Story short its no longer about dogs to most its now about the almighty DOLLAR, this guy Jim is right its lost its way, but lost its way along time ago and is only going to get worse.
Well said.
When LIBERAL “values” come into all aspects of our lives, the foundation of America is screwed. Step away from sport element and ask the same question about personal protection training. We aren’t buying milk at 85 cents a gallon, we must make reasonable changes in how we train. Marker training does work, the old school of YANK AND CRANK is crazy. You don’t have to water down instruction, but you have to use techniques that prepare the dog for the REAL WORLD and the aspects in which you train. The Delmarva German Shepherd Dog Club in Harrington, Delaware feels milk toast instruction is wrong, everything has a balance and new techniques are not always bad…neither are some of the old school ways!
I concur with what has been said, by including all the fangdangled methods of obtaining a dog that scores more points, it has caused more compromise on the performance of the dog. Soon, the compromise will be to lose test of courage etc. This then further degrades the IPO into a competition heelwork. Having been a Metropolitan Police Dog Handler, I have always taught a dog to bite and when I leave IPO I will continue to do so. In relation to the training of working protection breeds as the true meaning gets degraded so does the standard of dog and nobody will need a e-collar.
REALITY CHECK!!!!!!
Great video. Everything Brian says is hitting the nail on the head. The protection work has become a prey/play activity for the dogs I see these dogs doing Hold and barks in the blind and they’re barking at the sleeve, rather than the helper.
It’s all about balance and getting back to the true test of the working dog . But with all the money, points, trophies and humaniacts there comes there comes the problem.
Nobody is stopping you from training the dog however you see fit. If USCA outlaws ecollers then find or start another club that allows it. You don’t need to continue to follow the Germans over the cliff.
In 1975 police were still looking to the Schutzhund clubs for their working partners. I remember well folks being proud of a dog with great character and hardness to the helper. Yes, things have changed….boy have they changed…
How did this happen ?? People rolled over and let it happen. No one wants to stand up for fear of being ostracized, and who can blame them ? I have people asking me where they can find a real dog, and there is nothing out there.
First the equipment, it is always how one uses it. One can kill a dog with one of those cable like collars I have seen show people use. You cannot kill a dog with a prong or e-collar. Those who lean too hard on their equipment, often are not successful. Only properly balanced training can produce a properly balanced dog.
Second the training, the helper is not my dogs friend and a good helper conveys this to the dog. This is boxing, he must fight to win and if he puts his guard down, he gets punched in the nose. My dog should come to the field with anticipation of a fight he can win, if he fights hard enough. He will NOT be fighting for his life, rather be confident and strong.
Lastly the sport, To me it should be like high level college football. There will be some that are doing the best they can and are better for having made the effort. There will many good dogs that are good and may excell. But we should be rewarding the real dogs (like the few that go to the NFL) that are out there, that have the power, nerve, confidence, and strength. And hopefully our training can do them justice.
Otherwise a time may come when we leave the sport for something that does our dogs justice. It would be sad to see that happen, because trying to cater to “feel good” people just diminishes the dogs and they will lose the people of passion for the benefit of fair weather friends.
It would be like telling NHL Hockey players that they should compete in figure skating, after awhile there would no longer be hockey players.
As usual telling the real truth Brian. I thank you for your knowledge, conviction and growing in your expertise throughout the years with never ever losing sight of what a real dog is and giving that dog the honor and respect and care that it deserves through CORRECT training . Today people do not realize that the far out stuck position which the sport is in is actually extremely harmful and detrimental to the dog..both weak and strong..as well as really being inhumane if you really really think about it and dissect what is being done to the inherent nature and physicality of the dog
One more thought while I’m on my soapbox.
I have seen e-collars stop compulsive behaviors in dogs that would have been much harder on the dog and handler to stop other ways, such as excessive or constant chewing, barking, etc. (assuming that bark collars are e-collars). I am not sure how one positively motivates a dog to stop doing what it would prefer to be doing without a form of consequence that does not include some form of hand-to-paw combat? That would seem less humane.
Well said Brian!!
Real stick, soft stick , no stick….the assault on our sport continues! Thanks Brian
The root of what is happening in dog sports can be described succinctly as Progressivism. That “progress” is toward an unnatural, untenable leftist “utopia” only visible from atop an ivory tower. Make no mistake, the thought process at work here will evolve to become a ban on protection sports. There will be some kind of junk science misinterpreted or misrepresented (or falsified – the ends justify the means) to support the claim that training a dog (with whatever methods) is abusive (see PETA). The next logical step in that line of thinking will be a ban on private ownership of working dogs (why own such dogs, they are a relic of a time past and are no longer necessary, just like the private ownership of guns. They will be classified as a weapon. It will be a criminal offense to train any breed of dog in protection. The slippery slope is real, the question is, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to continue this inevitable slide into insanity? Where do we draw the line? We need a strong political lobby, and we needed it yesterday.
If we project a course based on past way-points we can reasonably determine our final destination. It won’t be long before the media casts the “Eye of Sauron” on working dogs and protection sports as it becomes aware of a hitherto unnoticed “vestige of patriarchal thinking.” What will that look like? Highlight and run front page stories on protection trained dogs who bite “innocent” people (never mind that they were home invaders). Run stories on working dog attacks. Saturate the airwaves. Make it seem like an epidemic. Run skewed statistics. Have talking heads question whether the average citizen needs to own such a dog or is qualified to train it. They’ll ask for more, but settle for less, by suggesting that working breeds should be for military or police use only (I got news for you guys, they will eventually take them away from you too). The majority of owners of working breeds don’t do protection sports and they’ll quickly throw us under the bus to save their pets (who could blame them?). The talking heads will wring their hands and soberly shake their heads in consternation, a big pause and a breath, we’ll be right back… They’ll pepper news feeds with emotionally charged stories about the family dog that attacked the child of the house, showing a once angelic face horribly disfigured, stoking the flames of outrage and fear. They’ll ask, how could this happen? They’ll find the pre-determined, scripted answer faxed to them by PETA: protection dog training / sports are the cause! They’ll find actual video footage of some hack trainer abusing their dog and then they’ll juxtapose that grainy video with an undercover video, selectively edited, to give the appearance that a mainstream competitive trainer uses the same abusive training methods. They’ll smear a big name. E-collars will become synonymous with abuse. Balanced training might as well mean bigot. For your average citizen or dog owner this isn’t even on their radar. What? Protection dog sports? Isn’t that like dog fighting? they’ll wonder. Protection sport trainers will be equated with Michael Vic. Nobody will ask for the truth. Nobody will interview anyone who knows and understands the dogs or the sports. Facts will be ignored. Something must be done! Will be the mantra. That’s all it will take folks, it’s the progressive plan of action and as long as it works, they’ll continue to use it.
AMEN.
well said Brian, when will it become what th eK9 does on th efield and not th ehandler that is equally judged.
there are still a few breeders doing it right but then they are critizied bby the elitest and clics that rule the sport
Well said Brian!!
It truly is sad to see what Schutzhund has become and what has happened to the working GSD.
So many good comments to your video. I just hope it isn’t too late and there is enough interest
out there to swing it back in the direction it should be.
So true Brain, I don’t waste my time with the sport as they have completely ruin the GSD breed. I am a member of your site because you still recognise what it was meant to be a test for the dog capability not to gain points and win a competition. I do own a real protection dog and thank God she was trained by a dog trainer that breeds and trains her dogs for real life threatening situations… not where the dog thinks it’s a big game.