Randomly popping in because OMG PUPPIES!! (Ask Adaon about my love for puppies sometime. He seems to find it amusing.)
0mikr0n wrote:Anyway... German Shepherds are pretty cool. But don't you think getting it trained like that is a bit... overkill? My uncle had a dog (K9 unit for the police) and I couldn't get fifteen feet from it without it going nuts and trying to kill me.
Schutzhund is not exactly the way that k9s are trained. Although they are similar in some ways and a schutzhund dog can become a police dog (though it isn't usually the other way around for good reason!), there are some very significant differences.
Schutzhund is a dog
sport. It's a game with clear rules, in the same way fetch that fetch is a game with clear rules; schutzhund just involves teeth. The dogs know when they hit the field that they are about to play the game. Schutzhund dogs are trained to target a bite sleeve. The presence of that sleeve is what gets them revved up and going, and they bite the sleeve not the person. (Which is not to say that a schutzhund dog won't protect you in a real world confrontation. They may or may not and would probably at least put up a darned good bluff on your behalf, but it is not what they are specifically trained for.)
K9s and personal protection dogs, on the other hand, have to play for keeps due to the dangerous nature of their work. They are taught via full body suits and hidden bite sleeves to be suspicious of people, to target
people. They will bite anywhere they get an opportunity. They will push the really big, obvious schutzhund sleeves out of the way or simply head for any unprotected anatomy trying to get to the soft fleshy parts.
SqueezeMe wrote:Doing the training helps to deal with the pup's abundant energy, and it help us get a good handle on him.
I'll certainly second that! My dogs have been trained in personal protection and it was a wonderful outlet for their energy, particularly the youngest. She's a very bold and aggressive dog and would have been downright unmanageable if we hadn't channeled her energy into an appropriate outlet. And whereas before she would have been dangerous to own without the structure that training provided, now she knows under what circumstances it is and is not appropriate to attack (and thus is predictable), releases on command, and can be recalled mid-charge.
Just be very honest with yourself about what your dog is capable of, maintain him accordingly (which basically translates to keeping him secure in your yard/house and away from stupid people when out in public), and have fun with the training!
I believe you.
As a nice, sensitive guy, I find myself constantly defending my sexuality to females. Even though I'm straight as an arrow. So what do you do when people mistake you for a gay guy and think you're into Duo instead of Relena? I just need a way to fight back, since no one believes me when I say I LIKE GIRLS! 
