The Benefits of Schutzhund Training
Have you ever been walking your dog off-leash, only to have him go from calmly sniffing the grass in one instant to barrelling full speed after a squirrel in the next? Dogs are smart and they have oodles of other outstandingly positive characteristics. However, they can also be extremely impetuous, and prone to less savory behaviors, like nipping or barking incessantly. Schutzhund training may be just the activity to iron out the kinks in your dog’s otherwise agreeable personality.
What Is Schutzhund Training?
Schutzhund is a competitive sport in which dogs are tested on their ability to perform as they’ve been trained in three areas: obedience, tracking and protection. Schutzhund training Miami FL is where dogs learn how to behave in such a way to become a more ideal companion to their owners, and a better training working dog, whether as a guide dog or a police dog.
There are three levels of Schutzhund that dogs can experience, ranging from novice to advanced. Challenges get progressively more difficult at each level, further testing the dog’s stamina, ability and control.
What Are Benefits of Schutzhund Training?
Dogs enjoy receiving praise and they don’t enjoy being scolded. The process of training for Schutzhund trials is one in which dogs – inherently intelligent creatures – are vying for good attention by performing as they are instructed. When the energy of the trainer is positive, albeit demanding, the dog responds by trying diligently to do what is being asked of it. The dog’s focus becomes the trainer’s focus, and this is tantamount to its success.
The skills that the dog learns in training will certainly benefit it for its whole life. Of particular importance is that critical when-to-listen skill that can help to rewire the more innately impulsive traits. Also, it’s the process that is the important piece to the training. If Schutzhund training can teach a dog to track a smell or to recognize a threatening figure, or any of myriad other tasks, then it can surely be trained for anything else that you decide upon, down the road.
Schutzhund training enables the owner to illicit more control over the pet, and this will naturally lead to a better relationship. The dog doesn’t understand respect as much as it understands that its actions can create pleasing or displeasing reactions in its owner. When you show your dog that it has tried, and learned to do something that is valuable to you, it also becomes valuable to the dog, and that is how habits can be changed.