The obstacles in Schutzhund are not particularly demanding. Any reasonably athletic dog can easily negotiate them. However, in order to do so the animal must be a little “in spirit.” If it feels inhibited or nervous, the dog will jump badly. If it jumps badly it will continually hurt itself. As a result the dog will hate and fear the obstacles and possibly the retrieve as well.
Therefore, the obstacles are taught in fun and play, and absolutely separately from the forced retrieve. Only when the dog is easily and joyfully negotiating the full height on both obstacles and retrieving reliably do we bring the forced retrieve and the obstacles together.
Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal
1. Jumping the hurdle
2. Scaling the climbing wall
3. Retrieving over the hurdle
4. Retrieving over the climbing wall
The training hurdle must be a board jump made with planks, so that it is possible to raise the height gradually from a point very close to the ground.
The handler begins by setting the hurdle up with just one slat of perhaps twenty centimeters (7.8 inches) in height. He starts the dog on leash from one side of the jump with the command “Hup!” and excitedly runs the dog over it and back, jumping with it each way, and then praises the animal and plays with it with the ball.
The animal will think that this is a wonderful game, and we will stay at the lowest height of the hurdle for a while until the habit begins to sink in that the dog will always go between the standards of the jump (that is, over the hurdle) and never around them, and that when it jumps out it always jumps back. Then the handler begins to gradually raise the height of the jump in five centimeter increments until it reaches the full height of one meter (39 inches). When it becomes too high for him to jump with the dog, the handler runs alongside instead.
Technically, the wall is not a jump, because it is not desirable that the dog jump it. If the animal bounds to the top and then sails off the other side its shoulders will take a completely unnecessary pounding.
Instead, we teach the animal to scale the wall, to climb up one side and then climb down the other. We do this by opening the wall up so that it is only about four feet high. Because the sides of the wall then ramp very gently, the dog begins by simply trotting up one side and then down the other.
Just as he did with the hurdle, and with the same “Hup!” command, the handler runs the dog on leash over the wall and back, lavishing it with praise and playing with it with the ball after the return. Of course, he cannot run over the wall with the dog, so he just runs alongside. As training progresses, we gradually creep the feet of the wall together, so that it grows higher and the sides grow steeper.
As the wall nears full height, the handler takes particular care to slow the dog down as it tops the wall, so that the animal will keep the habit of climbing down the far side of the wall instead of simply jumping off.
Once the animal easily negotiates the hurdle at full height, we can combine the retrieve with the hurdle. However, rather than just setting the jump up at full height, flinging the dumbbell over it and waiting to see what happens, we instead repeat our careful progression.
We return to the lowest possible height and practice the retrieve for a while with the dog just hopping over the twenty-centimeter board. If there are absolutely no problems, then we gradually begin to raise the height of the jump to the maximum, just as we did before.
Because of the size and dimensions of the climbing wall, it is a little more difficult to ensure that all goes well on the first few retrieves. This is one reason that we come to the retrieve over the wall last.
We prefer not to put the wall down at a low height and then walk the dog through the exercise with the leash the first few times (as is the most common practice). In our experience the handler causes more problems doing this than he prevents, simply because he gets in his dog’s way.
Instead, the handler puts the wall at a medium height, throws the dumbbell out over it and then sends his dog free. But while the animal is running the retrieve the handler scuttles forward and jumps to the top of the wall. When the dog picks up the dumbbell and turns, the first thing it sees is its handler at the top of the wall. The handler calls to it and slaps the wall with his hand. When he sees the animal start for the obstacle, the handler jumps off and runs backward. The dog follows him up and over the wall, and then comes-fore and delivers the dumbbell to him.
GOAL 3: The dog will run away from its handler as fast as it can and in a straight line until it is commanded to lie down.
In our opinion, the send away is the most difficult of the Schutzhund obedience exercises to teach. In all the other exercises, the dog orients toward its master, looking to him, listening to him, moving with him or moving at him. In the send away the animal must do something entirely different. It must orient completely away from its handler and run out fast and straight until it hears the “Down!” command. Experienced trainers know how hard this is to teach to the average dog.
Of course, here we are not talking about what we call “home-field” send aways. Like all other Schutzhund competitors, we have shown our dogs often on their home field where we trained them. When time was short before a home-field trial we have, like everyone else, faked the send away. This is easily done by simply teaching the dog to go to a place, usually at one end of the field by the fence, where it will always find food or the ball. The only day on which it does not find the reward is on trial day.
A fake send away is extremely easy to teach. But, of course, the dog will only do it on its home field, and only toward the spot by the fence where it is accustomed to finding the reward. Both of the authors have experienced the consternation of putting together a fake send away during the week before our dog’s first Schutzhund I appearance, using a spot at the east end of the field, and then having the judge decide that the send aways would instead be run west on trial day!
A true send away is another matter entirely. The trainer can take his dog to any field, point it in a direction, send it, and the dog will go out fast and straight. The animal is not going to anything. Rather, it is going away from its handler.