Schutzhund: Theory and Training Methods

In some ways bite work is the least artificial and most interesting of the three phases of Schutzhund training, because it is here that we see raw dog behavior at its purest. In protection we observe the dog doing what comes naturally to it. Obedience, by contrast, is primarily inhibitory in nature. Obedience is mainly concerned with teaching the animal to restrain impulses to roam, explore, hunt animals and try its strength against other dogs. Tracking is certainly founded on the animal’s natural behavior, but Schutzhund tracking is so stylized by the necessity to determine a winner that it little resembles a hunter searching out prey.

To our mind, nothing distills the essence of what a dog is, nothing smacks so much of the predator, as the sight of a dog coursing in full stride downfield after a person, heading for a collision that it wants with every fiber of its being. The animal is momentarily unfettered, free and impelled solely by its own desire.

In bite work we see the character of the individual dog most clearly. Good trainers can and do “fake” dogs of deficient character through obedience and tracking. It is much more difficult to counterfeit a dog in bite work. On the protection field, as the dog copes simultaneously with the challenge posed by the agitator (whose job it is to test its nerve) and pressure from its handler (who demands that it obey), we can steal a quick look into the dog’s heart and see what is there.

We look for courage, because without courage the animal is empty, hollow. We also look for a dog that is “in hand,” that obeys the handler utterly, in spite of an urge to bite and forget all else.

But what we look for first in the dog is raw power. Power arises from desire, and we look for a dog with a desire that drives it to use its body to the utmost—an animal that hurls itself with a crash into the agitator. This kind of desire arises first from genetics (the dog must be born with a full complement of vigorous drives) and second from the first few months of its training. We call this initial stage of schooling drive work.

Drive work has three basic objectives:

1. To establish in the animal boldness, commitment and power by creating an intense desire for combat with the agitator

2. To strike in the dog the best possible balance between defense- and prey-motivated aggression

3. To teach the dog to bite with a full, hard mouth

During the second phase of training, field work, we teach the dog control, harnessing its power to the exercises of the Schutzhund I, II and III protection routine. We cannot proceed to field work until we have fully accomplished the three basic objectives.

In drive work we lay the dog’s foundation. If the dog is not solid, steady of nerve and passionate in desire, then it will not weather the inevitable discouragements of field work. Each correction that the dog receives will diminish its quality and, in the end, we will all wonder why such a good-looking young dog did not turn out as well as we thought it would.

A fundamental difference between the two phases of protection training is that in drive work we physically restrain the animal, while in field work we begin to teach it to restrain itself.

In drive work all control of the dog is physical. We don’t command it—we hold it back. There is no obedience in drive work, because obedience kills drive. There is no punishment, no correction. The dog is manhandled from one place to another, free to strain and fight the collar to its heart’s content. Not only do we allow the animal to struggle against its handler in order to get at the helper, we encourage it. Being physically held back creates the frustration that builds drive.

It is extremely important to understand that protection training is utterly different from obedience. This applies especially to those who, although novices in Schutzhund, are experienced in obedience training and already have their own way of doing things. We do not compel or command the dog to bite, we allow it to. The dog does it on its own and there is little that we can do to help if its nerve fails, especially when it is defending us from someone we are afraid of. It is entirely the dog’s endeavor, and it needs both spirit and a sense of independence to accomplish it. The animal must develop an initiative and a will apart from ours, and obedience training (especially heavy-handed obedience) has just the opposite effect. Slaves make poor bodyguards.

To put it another way: We don’t need brakes until we have some horsepower.

GOAL 1: The puppy will bite the sack.

Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal

1. Playing with the sack

2. Working on the agitator

3. Making prey over the sack

4. Beginning runaway bites

Ideally, drive work begins in puppyhood. But, because puppies are neither physically nor psychologically fully developed and are consequently more fragile than adults, the vast majority of puppy work is based on prey.

The first step is simply to play with the puppy and establish a biting response to the burlap sack. This response will be automatic and very strong in some puppies. With others the desire must be awakened and the mechanics of the bite itself worked upon (puppies are clumsy!).

It is not necessary to use an agitator in this initial stage. The handler can accomplish a great deal by playing with the puppy himself. There are two important points to remember. First, the puppy must always be the victor and win the rag from its handler, so that it does not learn the habit of giving up. Second, we must never play the game until the puppy grows tired or bored with it. In fact, throughout training, no matter what the age or level of the dog, the fundamental rule of agitation is: Never allow the animal as many bites as it wants.

Once the puppy displays a strong biting response to the burlap rag, and once it is accustomed to the leash and collar, it is ready for formal agitation. This may be as early as ten or twelve weeks of age.

Very confident, driven puppies can work all by themselves, one on one with the training decoy. Less confident puppies will profit from being agitated in groups that include older, more experienced animals that pursue the helper hotly, so that the youngsters can learn by watching them. If a puppy is too interested in pursuing the other dogs instead, and ignores the decoy, then wait a few sessions to see if it begins to transfer its interest to the decoy. If not, begin agitating the puppy by itself.

The best group agitation method is line agitation. The dogs and handlers are arrayed in a line at evenly spaced intervals. The decoys run up and down the line, zigzagging, jinking and waving sacks, and hiding in blinds when they need rest. Movement is continuous, fast and very exciting, and the decoys take care never to run directly at any of the younger puppies. For the first few sessions, the completely naive animals are placed at the ends of the line and ignored by the helpers until they are accustomed to the situation. If they show no fear of the decoys or the other dogs, and if they pursue the sack, then they are gradually included in the activities of line agitation.

Once the puppy is comfortable in the line, and once its desire for the sack is intense, the helper begins allowing it bites. At first, he just lets the pup snatch the rag out of his hand as he passes by. Later, he keeps hold of the rag for a moment or two after the puppy seizes it, and tugs lightly. If the youngster bites impetuously and with a big mouth on the sack, and holds fast to it, the helper begins progressively to make it fight harder and harder in order to win the prey.

While struggling over the rag, the agitator must be active and vigorous with the puppy without either intimidating it or being physically punishing with the youngster. The trick is to appear violent but to be gentle.

Once the decoy allows the puppy to take the rag away from him, he waits quietly while the handler praises the animal and then gently forces the puppy to give it up and drop it on the ground. Then the decoy moves in toward the grounded sack—the puppy’s prey. The decoy should act submissive and fearful as he approaches. He directs his attention always toward the rag, not the puppy, reaching tentatively for the burlap and then skittering back. Furthermore, he makes no attempt to threaten or stimulate defensive behavior. However, if the pup suddenly becomes a little aggressive toward him, he must react, retreating in order to reward the animal’s attempts to guard its prey.

As the helper reaches for the sack, the puppy will normally strive to repossess it, straining toward it and trying to bite it. The helper should encourage this prey-guarding impulse by grabbing the sack as if to steal it and then flicking it, in the same motion, up into the youngster’s jaws.

Eventually, the agitator steals the prey, snatching it away with a motion that causes it to flare out, bringing it alive again so that the pup is stimulated to pursue it once more.

When the young dog bites with energy and also some force, and shows an intense prey urge to possess and guard the sack (sometimes as early as twelve to fourteen weeks of age), it is time to begin teaching it to pursue the decoy.

At a moment during agitation when the puppy is especially aroused, the helper passes by the puppy quickly, letting it try for but not reach the rag, and keeps going a few steps. The handler lets the puppy run a short way against the resistance of the collar (running with it but holding it back in order to inspire it) and carefully allows the puppy to overtake the decoy and bite the sack. Gradually, these pursuits become longer and longer until finally the handler just drops the leash and allows the puppy to run free.

These fledgling runaways are the young working dog’s first taste of the heady excitement of the chase. If its heart is brave, runaway bites will begin to build in it a warlike passion for the driving sprint and crashing impact of the courage test.

GOAL 2: The puppy will bite the sleeve.

When the puppy begins to teethe at around four months of age, do not discontinue agitation. Simply allow it very few bites, and be sure to be very gentle with its mouth. If the desire to bite has already been well awakened, then several weeks of vigorous, frustrating agitation with very few bites will do the young dog nothing but good.

In general, it is best to wait until the dog is ten to twelve months old before introducing it to the sleeve, even if it has a great deal of quality and is more than willing to bite the sleeve at five to six months, as some puppies are.

Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal

1. Using drive to bring the puppy onto the sleeve

2. Repeating the progression

Do not introduce the youngster to the sleeve carefully, by agitating slowly and then gently offering it to the dog. This method gives the dog too much time to recognize that the sleeve is something different, something it hasn’t seen before, and to hesitate. It is virtually the worst possible way to approach the animal. Always remember that it is the puppy’s drive that gives it power, and that drive arises from intense agitation. We must use the animal’s drive to make it impetuous, so that it dives into new situations without hesitating.

In order to prepare the puppy for its first sleeve bite, it is best to run it through several frustration sessions in which it is agitated but not allowed to bite, so that it is aroused and completely in spirit.

We always “fool” the puppy into biting the sleeve the first few times. The agitator wears a sleeve on his left arm and carries a rag in his right hand. He agitates very energetically for a few moments, running past the puppy and letting it try for the sack, and then, when the animal is quite beside itself with excitement, he steps away. Very quickly, before the moment passes, he wraps the sack loosely about the sleeve and, giving the puppy no time to reconsider, steps in and lets it bite the sack and the sleeve under it.

It is important to drop the sleeve the instant the youngster grabs it. Let the animal win the sleeve before its new weight and texture cause the puppy to have second thoughts. The handler should allow it to maul the sleeve for a moment and then break the puppy loose from it and move the animal back, so that the decoy can snatch the sleeve away and begin to agitate again.

The agitator “fools” the puppy into biting the sleeve for the first time by stimulating the animal with a sack, and then wrapping the sack around the sleeve. (“Blitz”)

As training progresses, the sleeve bites become progressively longer in duration and more challenging. However, we proceed very cautiously. Because the sleeve seems at first to be part of the helper’s body (while the rag is obviously not), biting the sleeve is much more demanding of the puppy’s nerve. For example, we do not assume that just because the young dog does a good, fast runaway bite on the sack that it will automatically do the same on the sleeve. Instead, we repeat the same careful progression we employed on the sack:

• obtain a good, hard bite on the sleeve

• introduce short pursuits on leash

• progress to long pursuits on leash

• introduce short runaways off leash

• progress to long runaways off leash

GOAL 3: The dog will perform committed runaway bites.

By the time that the dog is one year of age it should be biting hard with a crushing, full-mouth grip on the sleeve. If it does not shift its grip while biting, show any sensitivity to the agitator or growl on the sleeve (growling is profoundly defensive, and thus the product of unsureness), then we can begin letting it run free to the bite. The quality of the bite (and of the dog) is seen not only in what the dog does while on the sleeve, but also in how it gets to it. The bite is not just a grip, it is also a strike. When the dog is powerful, when its desire is so overwhelming that it leaves no room in its heart for fear or hesitation, then the dog hurls itself at the agitator.

We first look for commitment in the young or novice dog during the runaway bites. This will be the first time we will have the chance to see the dog bite without the support of a tight leash connecting it closely to its handler.

Important Concept for Meeting the Goal

Once the young dog drives hard into the collar and chases spiritedly in the on-leash pursuits (see Goal 1, Concept 4), it is ready to go off leash. The first runaways should be very short, perhaps ten to thirty feet. If the dog throws itself into the sleeve and bites convincingly, we can gradually make the runaways longer and longer.

Runaway bites are the decoy’s job. How well he catches will determine how hard the dog hits. He must be smooth and well timed so that the young dog does not pay a price in pain for a good, hard impact.

First, he must not run too fast, as a fast pace demands too much calculation on the dog’s part and will slow it as it tries to match its stride to the decoy’s. The trick is to run quite slowly while still giving the impression that one is desperately fleeing. The dog should overtake the agitator like a bolt of lightning!

The decoy must not be unsteady or unpredictable. He must not swerve! He should make a good, reliable target for the animal. There will be plenty of time later on to teach the dog to catch people that try not to be caught. For now, the person should be a sitting duck.

Last, and most important, the agitator must absorb the dog’s momentum effectively. The agitator must pivot smoothly with the animal as it enters the bite, minimizing the impact on neck and jaws. We must not make a good young dog suffer for its courage.

The courageous, spirited animal will thrive on runaway bites, and we will soon begin to use them to reward it when it has done fine work.

GOAL 4: The dog will withstand the stick and drive without anxiety or disturbance of its bite.

In Schutzhund protection, there are two main phases during which the judge gauges a dog’s courage and spirit: the courage test and what we will refer to as the stick and drive. In Schutzhund I the stick and drive takes place in the attack on handler, in Schutzhund II during the reattack after the helper’s attempt to escape and in Schutzhund III during both the reattack and after the courage test.

The stick and drive poses two main difficulties, two stressors for the dog: It is struck with a reed stick and is driven before the decoy. Fighting a person who rushes forward, driving the dog backward, is a far different matter for the animal than fighting one who pulls away, struggling to escape.

In training the Schutzhund, it is always useful to subdivide exercises and isolate the sources of stress or confusion for the animal. We therefore compartmentalize the stick and drive, and teach the dog first to withstand the stick hits alone and then the drive alone. Only then will the helper stick-hit the dog and drive it at the same time.

Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal

1. Accustoming the dog to the stick

2. Introducing the drive

3. Combining the stick hits with the drive

We further divide the threat represented by the stick into two different stressors: the actual contact with the stick (the blows themselves) and the very powerful and menacing gestures that the agitator makes in wielding the stick. (Stick-shy dogs almost invariably seem to have as much fear of the gestures as they do of the stick hits.)

Early in agitation, the decoy takes great pains to accustom the puppy or novice adult dog to his hands, to direct contact with them and also to the sight of them moving past or toward its head and eyes while it is biting. If the dog shows no fear of these gestures or soft blows of the open hand, then the agitator begins to carry a stick.

At first he uses the stick very little, and his gestures are mild. With time, as the animal becomes more powerful, the agitator uses the stick more and more menacingly. He begins to lash out, making the stick hum through the air about the dog as it bites. Although he never strikes the dog, the helper frequently and gently touches the animal with the stick, to show the dog that it will not hurt. The objective is to accustom the dog to progressively more and more intense threats without ever actually awakening fear. If the dog blinks or winces at the stick, seeks to pull away from it while it bites or growls, then the decoy is progressing too quickly. Remember, growling on the sleeve is not a sign of strength but of weakness. Ideally, the dog should seem oblivious of the stick.

If the animal shows no anxiety in response to very strong gestures, the decoy begins striking objects around it with the stick. He hits the ground, the handler, a fence, but never the dog. Eventually, he hits the dog’s leash where it runs taut from the collar to the handler, so that the dog can for the first time see the gesture directed at itself and feel the shock of the blow through its collar.

Only after the dog has enough experience to be fully accustomed to the stick whistling all about it will the agitator actually strike the animal. At first, although the gestures are very strong, the blows themselves are very light. Gradually, the intensity of the blows increases to match that of the gestures, so that the dog both sees and feels the stick used on it. However, the stick is never, under any circumstances, used full force. A good helper never hits a dog harder than he himself would be willing to be struck in the pursuit of a rough game. In addition, the dog is struck only in a very specified manner, on the upper sides of its rib cage and never on the head, neck, legs, pelvis or tail.

All initial stick work should be performed on leash, and the decoy never uses the stick on a runaway bite until he is certain that the animal has no anxiety about the stick hits or the runaway itself.

Once the dog “stays” under the stick without difficulty, we begin introducing it to the drive. First, the agitator drives the dog laterally around the circle formed by the leash, with the handler at its center. In this way, the dog is driven laterally or sideways rather than straight backward, and also the handler can easily reassure the animal by maintaining tension on the leash.

Later, he drives the dog straight backward toward its handler, who maintains leash tension by backing up. Only if the dog accepts being driven on a tight leash without “backing-off” its bite (taking a smaller mouth on the sleeve), growling or changing its grip will the agitator drive it after a runaway bite, when it is far from its handler and there is no tight leash to encourage it.

The decoy never combines both stick hits and the drive until the dog is absolutely comfortable with these two stressors individually. Furthermore, the first few times that he hits the dog while driving it, this will be done with the animal on a tight leash and with the handler close by to reassure the dog.

A very good dog will not require all this careful schooling on the stick and drive. However, in dog training, as in all else, caution almost always pays. If we proceed without caution and suddenly discover that our dog is not completely stick-sure—when it loosens or releases its bite under a rash stick hit—then, unfortunately, much of the damage has already been done.

GOAL 5: The dog will enter its bite at full speed in the courage test.

The courage test is the culmination of the Schutzhund protection routine. It is primarily here that the dog shows its quality or lack of it

The courage test is difficult for two reasons. First, this exercise carries the dog far away from its handler to where it feels itself to be alone. Second, in the courage test the agitator runs directly at the dog rather than away from it.

Our goal in training is to teach the dog to hit just as hard and enter its bite every bit as fast on a charging agitator as it does on a runaway. We prepare the dog to bite a charging agitator by breaking the exercise down into a progression, a carefully designed series of steps in training.

Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal

1. Biting a charging agitator on leash

2. Biting a charging agitator off leash but at short distance

3. Biting a retreating agitator at long distance

4. Biting a charging agitator at long distance

5. Catching the dog correctly

The handler holds the dog at the full length of a six-foot leash attached to the animal’s leather agitation collar. The agitator begins at a distance of about seventy-five feet, and charges straight at the dog. He rushes, at first somewhat cautiously, all the way to within six or eight feet of the dog, stops and runs back out to his starting point. Twice he rushes in and stops short like this, so that the dog undergoes the experience of being charged at without enduring the stress of actually having to bite in these new and challenging circumstances. Then, the third time, the agitator charges all the way in and lets the animal bite the sleeve.

In the beginning, the decoy keeps his distance from the dog on the two false starts; he stops well short to avoid intimidating the animal. And when he does close with the dog for the bite, he is not terribly forceful.

Later in training, he becomes progressively more unyielding and aggressive. He stops his charge only inches short on the false starts, and when he comes to the dog for the bite he will give the impression, until the last instant, that he is going to crash head-on into the animal. Here, where conditions are ideal for the dog because it is held on a tight leash and closely supported by its handler, we show the animal the hardest, most intimidating courage tests that it will ever experience, so that it will be absolutely accustomed to the worst a decoy can ever do. The helper must show no give to the dog. He must charge down at the animal as though he had no intention of slowing down. However, he must also be extremely adept at braking himself at the last instant and then slipping to the side so that the dog experiences only the very slightest collision as it bites.

Any satisfactorily prepared dog of fair character can be made to bite like a lion in this static courage test. The problem will be to get it to bite just as powerfully at a distance and unrestrained by the leash. We accomplish this by performing a careful transition composed of several intermediate steps.

First, we set up the static courage test exercise again, with one difference. On the third pass, instead of remaining stationary and waiting for the decoy to arrive, the handler runs the dog forward to meet him. Now the dog actually has the experience of charging at an onrushing agitator, but it is supported and inspired by the leash that tightly restrains it to half speed.

Second, on the final pass of the static courage test the handler drops the leash, allowing the dog to rocket forward across the last few yards still separating it from the charging agitator and crash into the sleeve. The effect of releasing the pent-up, frustrated animal at such a moment is much like loosing an arrow from a tightly drawn bow.

Next, we forego the initial two passes. The dog is released on the helper’s first charge, when the helper is still fifty or sixty feet out.

Next, we send the dog at long distance, with the agitator seventy-five to 100 yards away. Agitator and dog rush toward each other at full speed. The decoy yells and brandishes the stick menacingly. When they are still forty or fifty feet apart, he suddenly stops short and reverses direction. At the moment when the dog arrives, the decoy is in retreat, backpedaling as fast as he can.

Finally, we perform a full courage test at seventy-five to 100 yards. The decoy does not reverse, but instead bores all the way in. The dog is so inspired that neither fear nor hesitation exist for it, and it goes into the decoy with all its strength and spirit.

Thus, by approximating the courage test in several different ways and depending upon the animal’s blind eagerness to carry it into the sleeve, we bring the dog to the point that it will perform a brilliant, spectacular courage test the first time that we give it the opportunity.

At this point, everything depends upon the helper. He must rush the dog in such a fashion that the dog is fairly challenged, but he must also, at all costs, avoid a head-on collision with the animal. A good decoy does this by, at the last instant, slipping his body mass—his center of gravity—out from behind the sleeve and allowing the dog’s inertia to pivot him. The maneuver requires considerable experience and athletic ability and, if badly done, it can be dangerous for the animal. Therefore, with a good dog that bites bravely, one must be extremely cautious about sending it on courage tests.

However, at the same time, there is no need to practice the courage test frequently. Quite to the contrary, the fewer the full courage tests the dog performs, and the fewer impacts it experiences, the more impressive it will be on trial day.

The only problem we have encountered in using this method is that sometimes the dogs become too brave, too committed to the bite. In the case of a dog that is too fast in the courage test for its own safety (or the agitator’s, for that matter) we simply practice the courage test repetitively. We use an expert helper, keep the distances short in order to keep the dog safe, and after repeated impacts the animal normally becomes more prudent.

SUMMARY

Depending upon the dog and the trainers, the drive-work phase of protection training may last anywhere from two to eighteen months. The time interval is not important. The task is accomplished and the dog is ready to progress only when it bites with a reasonably full mouth and great power, is reasonably well-balanced between prey and defense, has absolutely no fear of being driven and stick-hit and performs the most impressive courage test of which it is capable.

However, do not think that drive work is ever entirely finished. Throughout the dog’s working career, we will concern ourselves constantly with maintaining (and intensifying, if possible) our dog’s desire to bite. This task was vital early in its training, as we sought to establish its power. It may be even more important in field work, when we will begin, for the first time, to harness and control that power.