Delta Schutzhund Club

Event Information

Links

Delta Schutzhund Club

Below are some of the more common questions which

If you don't find what you're looking for here, please feel free to 

contact us, and we'd be happy to help in any way we can.

There are two governing bodys for Schutzhund: The Verein fur Deutsche

Shaefhunde (SV) and the Deutscher Verband der Gebrauchshundsportvereine 

(DVG). Although the sport was originally for the German Shepherd Dog, any

breed of dog which is capable of doing the work may compete. This list of

We don't know, can it? The only way to find out is to do the sport. Buying a

German Shepherd Dog does not necessarily guarantee success in the sport of

Schutzhund. There are several breeds of dogs which can do very well at

tracking and obedience, but few can be trained to a high level in tracking,

obedience, and protection like a German Shepherd Dog can. It all depends on

the dog's temperament, physical soundness, confidence, and drives. If your dog

The other side of this situation, is you. If your dog has the ability to do the work,

do you have the skill, attitude, and commitment as a handler to bring your dog

My dog loves to play tug, has a lot of energy, and I want to do more with

Schutzhund training is a ton of fun, and tremendously rewarding, but it is also

very time-consuming. Our club has no particular breed prejudices (we have

several people who have titled mixed breeds at some point in their training

careers), but the time commitment can behuge. We train 3x/week, roughly 3-4

hours each time, sometimes more on days when we practice tracking. At the

very least, you should look into the sport to see if it really is something you want

to make that much of a commitment to.

Absolutely. Many people in our club have successfully competed in Schutzhund

for years while raising children. Some of their children went on to become

superb handlers themselves. Schutzhund is a sport where overly aggressive,

fearful, shy, or unsocial dogs cannot do the work. These are undesired qualities

in any dog which will be around children. With that said, a child raised around

dogs should be taught how to behave around dogs, to respect them, and to be

aware of them; any large breed dog can hurt a small child simply by running by

them and accidentally knocking them down.

No, it doesn't. A Schutzhund dog is not trained in personal protection, nor are we

teaching our dogs to bite whenever the dog feels like it. Every dog in the world

knows how to bite. A Schutzhund dog is trained to bite only under specific

circumstances; when the handler tells it to, on the Schutzhund trial field. This

means that a Schutzhund dog may not protect it's handler from real danger in

the real world. In order for a dog to be trained in civil or personal protection, you

must greatly raise the dog's suspicion level, often to the point where it will not

trust many people, and may inappropriately react to strange stimuli. Calm and

collected dogs are found in Schutzhund, not ones which are suspicious and

Schutzhund is a sport which demands that a dog be social. Schutzhund trials

are generally large events, with lots of crowds, so the dogs must be

approachable by strangers. If anything, the training we do makes most dogs that

are suited to the work more confident and secure, and less bothered by unusual

circumstances.

My dog has bitten several people and I think he'd make an excellent

There are two ways we can answer this question; politely or impolitely. Politely,

we can tell you it depends on the circumstances which led your dog to bite. The

impolite answer is that if your dog truly does bite people and you like or

encourage that behaviour, then the sport of Schutzhund is not for you, or your

dog.

"Joy in work, devotion to duty and master... docility and obedience,

teachableness and quickness to understand."