# How young can puppy be to begin Schutzhund training?



## Clay

Last week-end I visited a local Schutzhund club, minus my GSD puppy, and was told to bring my puppy for an evaluation. Today, Kaiser is 11 weeks old and tomorrow I am planning on taking him for the evaluation. I have not seen anything which suggest an age to start a puppy in this type of training. I assume it is up to the abilities of the dog to determine when it is the right time. Any feedback would be appreciated, especially from someone involved in this type training.


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## onyx'girl

Bring your pup, he will learn to stay in the crate for several hours and play a bit with the helper in some ragwork. No obedience at this time other than bonding and him focusing only on you and no interacting for the most part~ people or dogs. The focus your puppy has on_ you_ is very important at this stage.
You can start some scentboxes for the tracking foundation, but not sure that will be done w/ the club(more of "on your own" activity).
Our helper will take a pup and just do some ragplay, a bit of tugging and it would be a very short session, ending on a happy note. Nothing strenuous or stressful til they get much, much older. It is all fun and bonding with you time!


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## Clay

This is the club I am visiting.
Central Alabama Schutzhund Club


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## onyx'girl

At my club we have a pup the same age. He comes out for a bit of focus work with his handler, and they are working on this for the most part:
YouTube - RoniTristar's Channel 
So bring lots of treats, a tug toy or ball. and water!
I would get a harness for your pup so he isn't wearing on his neck with all the smells and such. As you can see in the video, the pup is lured into positions and marked, placeboard training and not going to the dozen people in the room is all that is "required" at this age. 
A great book recommended by my pups breeder is by Sheila Booth Purely Positive Training; From companion to competition. It has a great section on puppy foundation training.
Happy Training!!!


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## jesusica

Ask this question of 100 trainers/handlers and you will get 100 different answers. I would personally do things differently than what Jane mentioned. Save your sanity and just go have some fun with your dog at the club.:thumbup:


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## onyx'girl

what would you do Jesusica? Could you elaborate?
It should all be positive at this age and fun confidence building for a baby puppy.


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## jesusica

Well, you start with a sharpened prong and ecollar jacked all the way up...

But seriously, my comment was meant merely to prove my point, not rag on you. The next person to post would raise their puppy yet another way and on and on. As a newbie, OPs best bet is to just go to the club rather than try to sort through every internet person's advice and go mad trying to figure out what your puppy should be doing and at what age. I'm certainly still new to this whole thing but I remember being BRAND NEW and it's so unbelievably overwhelming to have so much different, often conflicting advice flying at you.


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## holland

I did tracking with the club didn't much use treats for obedience and didn't use a harness It can be done in different ways ... I also began obedience from the begining and I am ok with what I did in terms of foundation work


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## elisabeth_00117

For us, I started tracking at 10 weeks. Scent pads, small (and I mean small) tracks that lead out of the scent boxes, etc.) is what we started with. I also had a club member show *me* what to do. 

Obedience was pretty simple and still is, I worked mainly on focus and really worked on platz, sits, recall, front finishes, etc.. Heel work was started but nothing too intense. That is my one regret - not working on heel enough. I am having issues with heel right now (competition heel, not loose lead walking) and wish I had a better foundation.

We did a lot and I mean a lot of rag work and tug work from the beginning. We worked and are still working on building or bringing out drive.

At 1 year old we are just now affiliated with a club and starting our formal training.

I kind of wish that our obedience was better at this point but we will get there. He's a tracking star though.. lol.


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## Clay

Thanks for the replies. I thought I might get different opinions on this topic, but I wanted to get input on what to expect, or not to expect. I wasn't sure if he first needed to go through obedience training through one of the several obedience clubs in the area, or jump right into Schutzhund. The only formal training I have been involved with was with Kasey when he was 6 months old. It was an obedience class through community ed. I learned how to teach him the basics and was enjoying the experience until the woman teaching the class told me Kasey needed to be put down. She said he was too aggressive since he lunged at several of the other dogs on several occassions. That was the end of the class for me. Kasey went on to be great with people and other dogs. 
Thanks again.


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## onyx'girl

jesusica said:


> yet I remember being BRAND NEW and it's so unbelievably overwhelming to have so much different, often conflicting advice flying at you.


 This even happens within the club. I have different people telling me different all the time. 
Lure with food, don't lure with food, don't lure.
Position the ball by your neck, don't position the ball there, put it where you will pay them. Don't use a ball for this, use food or a tug....on and on.


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## holland

Hmm I forgot about all that...maybe I can forget some more...please...


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## Liesje

Just do what seems natural and comfortable for YOU and your dog. With my next dog I will be doing a few things differently but NOT because of what any one person told me. The first two pups helped me learn some things about raising dogs in my home/lifestyle that I can apply toward the next puppy. Honestly though if my next dog was for say agility and not SchH I'm not sure I'd raise it differently than for SchH other than doing scent pads.

If you are unsure or uncomfortable with something, better to just not do it than mess up and confuse your dog and have problems later on.


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## Jason L

Liesje said:


> If you are unsure or uncomfortable with something, better to just not do it than mess up and confuse your dog and have problems later on.


This is really true. Follow the hippocratic oath: "Do no harm". If you're not sure about something, best to leave it alone.


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## Jason L

Clay said:


> Thanks for the replies. I thought I might get different opinions on this topic, but I wanted to get input on what to expect, or not to expect. I wasn't sure if he first needed to go through obedience training through one of the several obedience clubs in the area, or jump right into Schutzhund. The only formal training I have been involved with was with Kasey when he was 6 months old. It was an obedience class through community ed. I learned how to teach him the basics and was enjoying the experience until the woman teaching the class told me Kasey needed to be put down. She said he was too aggressive since he lunged at several of the other dogs on several occassions. That was the end of the class for me. Kasey went on to be great with people and other dogs.
> Thanks again.


I would skip the obedience class and just go the club and learn to do obedience there. There are some differences between how an obedience trainer and a SchH trainer approach things ... especially if the obedience class is aimed towards doggy manner for companion dogs. There are things they care a lot about that a SchH trainer would not and vice versa


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## Elaine

We start puppies as soon as we can get our hands on them. They can start tracking, simple obedience, and simple bite work. Socialization is always good and everyone loves to snuggle the new puppies.

I wouldn't take your puppy through an outside obedience class first as most of them are not designed for training the high drive dog. You can go at a much later time to improve your dog's ability to work under distraction and for more precision work if you have access to a very good obedience class that is geared for competition dogs.


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## Clay

Elaine said:


> We start puppies as soon as we can get our hands on them. They can start tracking, simple obedience, and simple bite work. Socialization is always good and everyone loves to snuggle the new puppies.
> 
> I wouldn't take your puppy through an outside obedience class first as most of them are not designed for training the high drive dog. You can go at a much later time to improve your dog's ability to work under distraction and for more precision work if you have access to a very good obedience class that is geared for competition dogs.


Thanks Elaine, that is the same thing I was told about taking him to a regular obedience club prior to starting Schutzhund training.


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## Clay

*Joined*

I joined the club today and am excited about getting started. Kaiser did real good on his evaluation.


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## Elaine

The best part about starting puppies as early as possible is that you can set in good learning behavior patterns for your dog long before they have a mind of their own and you don't have any bad behaviors to fix, just set in new good ones. Plus they learn self confidence. And, as a new handler, they can help you from making mistakes in your training and help you from making mistakes in raising him at home that would interfere in your training. All in all, it's a good thing.


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## Liesje

Again, it's really up to you. I took my dog to a puppy class starting when he was 12 weeks old. But, I had a big picture in my mind of where we were headed, I knew pretty much how I planned to train and motivate him, and my "regular" training is knowledgeable and respectful of how we train for SchH. There really were not any issues going to a regular puppy class. In fact I have taken him to other training classes pretty consistently. He did the puppy/basic obedience, then intermediate/CGC obedience, we drop in on the rally classes, we've done two sessions of conformation class, and now we just started beginner agility and have done this all while training for Schutzhund as the top priority. I've found that just engaging with my dog and building our bond and motivation in general carries over to all aspects of training and is not in conflict with Schutzhund training, but I keep my methods consistent so everything is complementary rather than confusing for the dog.


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