Protection Training Pics

We had a couple people over this evening to do some training. A pup, a younger dog, and Gunnar. We did some interesting things- having the dogs to into my shed to root out a bad guy, and having them get a bad guy who was hiding under the pool deck.

Here's Gunnar going to get the "bad guy" hiding under the pool deck. Bruzer was along for moral support:

This is Zahn, a 15 month old GSD with lots of ability.


A young handler in training!

Awww, haha pretty nice activities and trainings!

very cool, something i would like to get involved in some day down the road

ROFLMAO! I love how Bruzer is totally uninterested and just sniffing around while Gunnar is working. Hope you don't have an intruder on his watch :lol-sign:

Gunnar looks amazing, as usual

Great pictures!!

I'm glad Bruzer was there for backup. Gunnar looks great as usual. It's so good seeing you do things around your house with Gunnar so he becomes used to dealing with different events that can occur. The other pup is cute.

:rofl1: I noticed and was thinking the same thing! haahahahha

Very nice pics and work Dan And Zahn is flipping GORGEOUS!

Thanks for the comments everyone!

pwcorgi, Bruzer was hilarious. He'd run along side Gunnar until Gunnar would start barking, then he'd back off and let him handle the dirty work.

Barb, we did stuff in the shed too, simulating an intruder in there. A good situation to up the stress level some, with the darker and enclosed conditions, but still a win for the dog.

Angie, Zahn is a handsome boy isn't he! And drive like you can't imagine. He's pretty small, only about 70lbs, but he'll fill out. He hits like a freight train though. The little female pup is his half sister- same father, different mother. We didn't get an pics of the other little male pup who is her littermate- he's nearly twice her size already.

I love GSD's

Gunnar is an awesome looking dog! How old is he? What are your plans for him? Are you going to get a BH on him or do you already have him titled?

Charlie Dog, he's about 3 1/2.

Plans are- get back to my AKC guy and get a CD on him and then progress from there.

Get everything fine tuned with his obedience and protection work and try and get a PSA PDC title - http://www.psak9.org/psapdc.htm

Nice! Sorry for all the questions.

Are you working on tracking with him? That was the one part I never could really figure out how to do on my own.

I don't do strict Schutzhund, nose in each footprint style tracking with him. We do area search type of situations- have a decoy agitate him and run into the woods, and a few minutes later send Gunnar in to find him. We do lots of hide and seek stuff at home. He can find a twig (I'm not kidding) that I hide in the yard. He'll need to follow my track and then locate the twig and bring it back to me.

Tracking isn't that hard, it's just something you need to do every day. You can look up how to get started and follow those guidelines. There are a lot of ways to do it. Some people start with a "stomp box" where you tramp down a small area of grass and put bait in there, and the dog will sniff nice and deep to find the bait. Then you can gradually start taking steps, using bait in each step to get the dog to follow. Eventually you work down to not using bait in each step, and finally, no bait at all, with some kind of reward at the end of the track- food, ball, tug, etc. This is how it was shown to me by a guy who did Schutzhund. Other people may have other ways of teaching it. My K9 cop friends don't care at all about tracking each foot step, only that they get the bad guy, so air scenting, crisscrossing the field, all of that is fine as long as the result is good.

LMAO! Of course Bruzer is unconcerned . . . He's just told Gunnar to "handle it."

Gunnar does look amazing, as usual, and I really like the expression and direct gaze on young Zahlin!

Thanks Dan, I'll have to try that. I'd love to eventually have Ozzy track and find, but right now am so not motivated to really work on teaching it. My fault, lol.

Here's another shot of Zahn, full of drive trying to get to the shed where the decoy just peeked out at him.


And here's a shot of the little female pup Roxy in action, going after the rag.


btw, that dog house has been sitting there unused for 8 years! We bought it for Midnite so she'd have shelter when she was outside, and she never used it. I should sell it...