The protection phase gauges the dog’s courage, desire for combat, self-reliance and obedience to its handler under very exciting and difficult circumstances. This phase involves searching for and warning its handler of a hidden “villain,” aggressively stopping an assault on its handler and preventing the escape of the villain, among other skills.
The trial is presided over by a recognized judge. It is understood that the judge will be a fellow trainer, a person who has years of experience with working dogs. He must have “feeling” for the animals and be able to look at the whole picture of what a working dog represents. The judge is expected to have the ability to watch a dog work for a little while and then know what is in its heart—what it has inside.
The judge’s job is ostensibly to determine a winner. But possibly more important, his job is to promote those animals that display outstanding quality of character so that they will be used for breeding (providing they also meet a number of other requirements for beauty and physical soundness), and to weed out those animals that are deficient or unsound in character. Accordingly he can, and will, disqualify a dog at any point during a trial if the animal shows a severe temperamental flaw.
The Schutzhund trial is sanctioned and organized by a local Schutzhund club, which is part of a large Schutzhund organization. Although there are some professionals who make their living through the sport, Schutzhund breeding and training are meant to be amateur pursuits, and a reputable club is strictly a nonprofit group.
In Germany, the two largest Schutzhund organizations are the SV (the German Shepherd Dog Club) and the DVG (the German Alliance for Utility Dog Sports). The trial rules and regulations of both organizations are essentially identical. However, the emphasis is slightly different in each. While the SV is a breed club dedicated to the promotion of the German Shepherd Dog, the DVG is a training club that accepts a number of other breeds besides the German Shepherd in competition. The SV emphasizes the character test and breed worthiness aspects of Schutzhund, and the SV judge looks not only at the training of a dog in trial but also at its quality, asking himself if that dog should be used to produce other German Shepherd Dogs. The DVG emphasizes the sport and competition aspects of Schutzhund, and the DVG judge looks primarily at the dog’s training and how well its handler presents the animal in trial.
Normally small and friendly, each local club is part of the larger Schutzhund community. A Schutzhund enthusiast from just about anywhere can expect a nice reception at a club in another province, or even in another country.
The club serves a social function as well, especially in Europe. Families and friends get together on training days to eat, drink, laugh and tell tales in the clubhouse and around the field as the dogs run through their routines. The closeness and team spirit of a good club are in evidence. Because everyone is nervous, all the competitors and club members support and encourage one another.
Through its commitment to Schutzhund and its uncompromising insistence on strictly controlled breeding practices, the SV has succeeded in producing the best German Shepherd Dogs in the world. As a result, German-bred German Shepherds are exported by the thousands to places as far away as Japan and Hong Kong. Along with their dogs, Germans have also exported their dog sport. Schutzhund trials have spread to countries throughout the world, including Africa, Australia, South America, North America and even Soviet bloc countries. In many countries stadiums fill with people and brim with excited anticipation when Schutzhund contests take place. In Europe, for example, approximately 40,000 German Shepherds participate in 10,000 trials each year. Besides German Shepherds, many other breeds of dog now compete, including Boxers, Doberman Pinschers, Giant Schnauzers, Bouviers des Flandres, Rottweilers and Belgian shepherds (Groenandael, Malinois and Tervuren).
Despite its longtime popularity in Europe, Schutzhund has only recently come to the United States. The first Schutzhund-type trial on American soil was organized in June 1963 by the Peninsula Canine Corps of Santa Clara, California. The Peninsula Canine Corps was formed in 1957, and boasted as its prime mover Gernot Riedel, a German emigrant who has been an important figure in the American dog sport ever since. The trial was not officially sanctioned, and did not even include tracking, but it was a beginning.
As we seem to do with many newly introduced competitive sports, Americans grew to prominence in Schutzhund with a speed that astounded the skeptics. In 1969, six years after the initial competition in California, the first SV-sanctioned trial on American soil took place in Los Angeles under the leadership of Henry Friehs, another German emigrant. In the same year Alfons Erfelt (of American Temperament Test Society fame) and Drs. Preiser and Lindsey formed the North American Schutzhund Association (NASA).
In 1975, a large group of American Schutzhund pioneers, including Phil Hoelcher, Gernot Riedel, Bud Robinson and Mike McKown, convened in Dallas to try to reconcile the ambitions of the dozen or more local Schutzhund clubs that existed at the time. The result was the founding of the United Schutzhund Clubs of America (USA) under the chairmanship of Luke MacFarland. Scarcely two years later the USA fielded its first team at the World Union of German Shepherd Clubs’ European Schutzhund III Championship (consisting of Phil Hoelcher with Cliff vom Endbacher Forst, Wayne Hammer with Nikko von der Ruine Engelhaus and Gernot Riedel as team captain).
Around 1978, an early American branch of the DVG called Working Dogs of America (WDA) dissolved in some dispute. DVG America was obliged to limp along only until the next year, when a sharp and acrimonious conflict of policies and personalities resulted in the expulsion from the USA of seven influential trainers, including Phil Hoelcher, Tom Rose, Laddy Nethercutt, Pat Patterson and Mary Coppage. They immediately went over to the DVG, and with their help DVG America quickly burgeoned, becoming especially important in Florida, one of the hot spots for the dog sport in the United States.
In 1983, the German Shepherd Dog Club of America (GSDCA) allowed some of its members to form an adjunct to the club, which they called the German Shepherd Dog Club of America Working Dog Association (GSDCA/ WDA) and which was somewhat nebulously associated with its parent organization. It had to be done this way because of the GSDCA’s fear of displeasing the American Kennel Club, which has frowned upon Schutzhund since the beginning. (Earlier, in 1973 and 1974, the GSDCA had conducted a brief flirtation with Schutzhund, sponsoring trials and scheduling judges provided by the SV, but the GSDCA disavowed the sport in 1975 primarily because of AKC objections.)
Today, Schutzhund is firmly established on American shores. Although DVG America is thriving, and the GSDCA/WDA is still on the scene, the USA is the largest and most important organization in the States, boasting approximately two hundred clubs. Recently, the USA has even taken steps to adopt a regulated breeding system for German Shepherd Dogs much like the SV’s, issuing its own pedigrees and so forth. However, while the USA’s primary emphasis is upon promoting the German Shepherd, the organization welcomes all breeds in its competitions.