Schutzhund: Theory and Training Methods

After The heeling pattern in a Schutzhund III obedience routine comes a series of four closely related exercises that account for thirty of the 100 points available in the obedience phase. We call them the exercises out of motion, and they consist of (1) the walking sit, (2) the running down, (3) the walking stand and (4) the running stand.

We use the phrase exercises out of motion to refer not only to the skills listed above, but also to the recalls and finishes that the dog must perform after the down and the running stand.

GOAL 1: The dog will stand out of motion instantly on command.

Schutzhund obedience requires a number of difficult skills, and one of them is the stand out of motion. The average dog has little trouble learning the sit and down out of motion. But with the introduction of the stand things can go mysteriously wrong. The animal may simply seem unable to comprehend the stand, or may catch on to the stand just fine but in the process lose either the sit or the down—or both!

It sometimes appears as though the dog can only handle two possibilities in the exercises out of motion. Because it is called upon to react so quickly and decisively when it hears a command—and has so little time to decide which command it is that it is hearing—the stand often becomes the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

To prevent this problem, we introduced the stand itself very early on in training, and for the same reason we will now begin teaching the stand out of motion before introducing either the sit or the down out of motion.

Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal

1. Standing from a walk

2. Standing from a run

The handler begins with the dog on leash and wearing a flank strap. He heels the animal very slowly along and then abruptly commands “Back!” and corrects somewhat sharply with the leash, at the same time stepping away from the dog. If the animal tries to follow him or take a step in any direction, the handler corrects it again and repeats “Back!” If, on the other hand, the dog becomes confused and attempts to lie down or sit, the handler prevents this with a tug on the flank strap.

As soon as the dog stands still, the handler steps back to it and praises it quietly. He then commands the dog to “Heel!” and walks a few feet before immediately doing another stand out of motion.

After a few sessions the animal will have the idea, and the handler can begin to stand the dog and then drop the leash and continue walking away. He walks out about thirty yards, turns to face the dog, pauses five to ten seconds and then walks back and praises the animal.

Once the dog has learned to freeze instantly into a stand from a slow walk, the handler can begin to dispense with both leash and flank strap so that the dog is completely off leash. He will also begin moving more quickly. He walks at an increasingly faster pace as he gives the “Back!” command, until eventually he begins running. The dog must now come to a clean stand out of a fast trot.

We must not allow the dog to take even one step after hearing the command. If it takes a step or two, then we are just teaching a bad habit that will be very persistent and cause both handler and dog a lot of headaches.

GOAL 2: The dog will sit out of motion instantly on command.

Only after the dog is doing a perfect, clean running stand do we begin to teach the sit out of motion.

Important Concept for Meeting the Goal

The handler heels his dog on leash at a slow walk. When he is ready, he commands “Sit!” and corrects the animal into a sit with the leash. As he does so he stops walking, pausing just long enough to bring the dog fully into the sit, and then continues on past to the end of the leash. He stops, turns and faces the dog for a moment, then returns to it and praises it. Then he heels forward again and repeats the exercise.

As training progresses, the handler makes less and less of a complete stop while the dog sits down. Eventually he heels along at a fast walk, commands the dog to “Sit!” and continues without breaking stride. If the dog’s sit is still crisp and fast, he can begin dropping the leash on the ground and walking out an additional thirty or forty paces. As the dog progresses, the handler can finally omit the leash altogether.

GOAL 3: The dog will down out of motion instantly on command.

Only when the dog sits cleanly out of motion and still has a perfect stand do we introduce the down out of motion.

During basic training, the dog has already learned a strong “Down!” command. By strong we mean that the command has weight and power and that, if the handler raises his voice a little and glares at the dog as he utters it, it virtually crushes the animal to the ground.

For this reason, it is extremely easy to teach the down out of motion. In fact, it is by far the easiest of the three exercises out of motion and that is precisely why we teach it last—in order to avoid the straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back syndrome. Our main concern is to keep it from interfering with the sit and stand out of motion exercises.

Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal

1. Down from a walk

2. Down from a run

The handler heels the dog slowly along and, with a sharp command and a somewhat threatening lunge toward it, he downs the animal. He pauses in his walk just long enough for the dog to hit the ground, and then he continues a pace or two to the end of the leash and turns to face the dog. He pauses, returns to the dog and praises it and then heels forward and repeats the exercise.

After just a few practice sessions the dog will begin to drop out of motion as if shot, and then the handler can begin

• pausing less and less as he says “Down!” so that soon he gives the command without breaking stride

• downing the dog from a faster and faster pace

• dropping the leash as he gives the command, and continuing up the field thirty or forty paces before stopping and turning to face his dog

If the handler increases his pace gradually enough, while always taking care that the dog’s down is quick and clean, the down from a run should be no problem. However, if the dog tends to lie down slowly or take a step or two after the command, this error is easily corrected with the leash. The handler uses it somewhat like a flail. As he heels the dog on the run he holds the loose end in his right hand, with about two feet hanging free. At the moment that he gives the command he swings the leash over and across to his left and slaps the dog very sharply on the withers with it.

We must be careful not to make the dog’s response to the down too strong, or overdo it with the leash correction, because then the sit and stand out of motion exercises would suffer. In addition, each training session begins and ends with a little practice of both the sit and the stand.

GOAL 4: The dog will run at top speed to the handler when recalled, sit close and perfectly straight in front and then finish quickly and precisely when commanded.

In the case of a willing dog that has been well reared and adores its handler, there should be no question of having to force it to come. Left behind by its master on the field in a down or a stand, the animal should be positively quivering to rejoin him. For the willing dog, the command “Come” is a release rather than an obligation. It means “You may come to me now,” not “You must come to me now.”

Precisely because the dog’s desire to recall is so strong (and we will make it even stronger with the ball), the main difficulty in this exercise is anticipation.

If we make a practice of recalling the dog frequently from the down out of motion and the running stand, we will cause the animal to be quite preoccupied with the recall even as it is performing its exercises out of motion. This anticipation of the recall, an exercise it enjoys a great deal, will “drag” it down the field after its handler, making the dog creep when it should be stopping instantly on command.

In precisely the same way, if we habitually recall the dog and then always finish it from the come-fore position, we will also find the animal’s anticipation of the finish interfering with a good, straight sit in front. The dog may sit crooked, leaning toward its handler’s left, or it may even omit the come-fore position altogether and instead recall straight to heel.

We can prevent these problems of anticipation by compartmentalizing the recall from the exercises out of motion, and the finish from the recall. In other words, we teach and practice all these skills separately.

Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal

1. Motivating the dog for the recall and separating it from the sit, down and stand stays

2. Teaching a close, straight come-fore position

3. Separating the finish from the recall

The first step is to give the dog speed—to make it come as fast as its legs will carry it when called. For this we use the ball and a great deal of repetition. We prevent this repetition from ruining the down and stand stays by the simple expedient of not using them to practice the recall. Instead of leaving the dog on a stay we give the animal to an assistant, who keeps it from following the handler by holding the dog’s collar.

The handler leaves his dog with the assistant and runs away across the field. The dog is under no command at all. It is free to bark and lunge and surge into the collar, and its handler encourages it to do so by calling to it excitedly and throwing the ball up in the air. The handler runs perhaps sixty or seventy yards, until the dog’s frustration at watching him go drives the animal into a perfect frenzy of excitement. The handler then turns to face the dog, pauses and, in very formal posture and voice, calls “Come!” The assistant releases the animal, which vents its frustration by sprinting into a dead run toward its master.

When the animal draws near, within twenty or thirty feet of its handler and coming in fast, the handler suddenly throws the ball. The direction of the throw is important: The handler always throws the ball behind him, over his shoulder or between his legs, in order to bring the dog in straight. The animal will spring closely past him, grab the ball and then the handler praises it exuberantly.

Quite naturally and properly, coming to its master will soon be the dog’s favorite obedience exercise.

The next step is to teach the dog to sit close and straight in front when it comes to its handler. We cannot accomplish this by running long recalls across the field, because a well-motivated dog will come scorching in and undoubtedly bounce off the handler (being knocked down is not uncommon) and then sit crookedly. So, we teach the dog to come-fore perfectly from a short distance before we ever ask it to do so from all the way across the field.

The handler begins by repeatedly calling the dog from a sit stay, but no farther than one leash length, so that the animal stays calm and moves slowly. By using his hands and the ball to attract the dog to the middle of his body, the handler can center the animal perfectly. Each time the dog starts to sit crookedly, the handler steps back a pace, repeating the “Come! Sit!” commands, and again attempts to guide the dog into a straight come-fore position. Only when the dog is sitting straight and close does the handler throw the ball.

When the handler wishes to practice his dog’s finish, there is no need to run repeated recalls. Instead, he merely sits his dog, steps in front of the animal to the come-fore position and then gives the “Heel!” command. Once the dog reaches his left side and sits, the handler can reward it with the ball or step in front of the animal and finish it again.

In this way, we can school the finish as much as we wish while still keeping it compartmentalized from the recall and come-fore.

GOAL 5: The dog will not confuse the different exercises out of motion and will keep all the parts of the exercises clean and distinct.

At this point, we have taught all of the constituent parts of the exercises out of motion:

1. The sit, down and stand in motion

2. The recall and come-fore

3. The finish

We have also been careful to keep them separate and distinct from each other in the dog’s mind. Now we must gather them all together so that they mesh into polished and impressively executed exercises.

Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal

1. Differentiating the commands

2. Randomizing the recall and finish exercises

When the dog has good exercises in motion it reacts very quickly—meaning that it stops as though it had hit a wall. The animal has just a fraction of a second in which to discriminate which command it is hearing and decide what to do—sit, lie down or stand. It is therefore vital that the handler take pains to differentiate the commands, making them sound as different from each other as possible: The “Sit!” command is upwardly inflected. It is a gentle, high-pitched command beginning with a distinct hiss. The “Down!” is guttural, compelling and authoritative in tone. It comes from the belly. The “Back!” is staccato and clipped-off (“Bek!”).

We never recall the dog from the down and the running stand until it has perfectly mastered all four of the exercises in motion, and the come-fore position as well. Even once we do begin recalling the animal from the down and the stand, we do not make a constant habit of it, because anticipation can still be a problem for us. If we are not careful, we will inadvertently untrain the exercises we have worked so hard to teach.

Instead, the dog is seldom recalled from the exercises in motion, and this is done completely randomly, so that the dog has no idea when it will be recalled and when not. Although the handler runs thirty or forty paces up the field, stops, turns and faces his dog as he would in a trial before giving the “Come!” command, most of the time he just returns to the dog and praises it.

Likewise, most of the time when we recall the dog formally (across a long distance and complete with a come-fore) we do not finish the animal. Instead, we do most of our practice on the finish isolated from the recall.

All the pieces of the exercises in motion and the recalls are kept separate from each other and well polished in training; they are fitted together only during trials and during a few practice sessions leading up to the trials.