Hurdling hound: Schutzhund Club has local chapter

By CHARLES W. JOHNSON / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

Middle Tennessee Schutzhund Club president Richard Scott works his dog, Odin, at the local trials course on Wheeler Road near Viola. The dogs must excel in three areas to claim Schutzhund status, tracking, obedience and protection.

If you want to see the ultimate in a working dog, then you need to visit a Schutzhund club. This organization, started in Germany, is dedicated to the training of both the handler and animal, and the eventual testing of the relationship between the two, requiring an exhaustive series of trials that gauge the skill of the team in three areas – tracking, obedience and protection.

Each of these must be passed with a perfect score before the dog receives his Schutzhund rating.

For those in the area interested in this sport, we are lucky to have our own local chapter, the Middle Tennessee Schutzhund Club, under the auspices of Amelia “Andy” Anderson, who runs a trials field on Wheeler Road near Viola.

According to Anderson, Schutzhund has a very specific meaning.

“What that really means is “protection dog,” she said. “This sport was developed in Germany over 100 years ago to keep the working dog from just becoming a couch potato.”

Anderson stressed the importance of keeping a working dog active.

“What you don’t use, you lose,” Anderson said, “and they didn’t want the dog’s natural tracking and protection abilities to just go down and be lost. So they wanted to give the dog something to do to keep all of his natural abilities built up to their fullest.”

She also emphasized the fact Schutzhund is a recognized sport.

“It is a sport,” she said. “We’re not here training attack dogs. It’s not that at all. It does look like attack work,” she admitted, “but to the dog, it’s just fun.”

Anderson does say the training is very similar to the training used for police and military work, it just doesn’t go past a certain point with the recreational sport. Middle Tennessee Schutzhund Club president Richard Scott agrees, and says the dogs can easily be trained for important work after they achieve their Schutzhund rating.

“In fact, after 9/11, I donated one of my dogs to the Metro Police Department for training as a bomb dog,” Scott said.

“But it is a sport,” Anderson reiterated, “and we have certain rules and certain ways that everything has to be performed. Everything is graded and scored.”

Another misconception Anderson wanted to correct is that Schutzhund is for only one breed.

“It’s not just the German Shepherds,” she said. “This sport is open to any capable of doing the work. Whether it’s German Shepherd, Rottweiler, Doberman, Malamute, or your mixed breed dog, doesn’t matter. If he’s got the ability to do it, he can go compete with the best dog in the country.”

In addition, Andy, who is currently president of the Warren County Humane Society, wanted to remind all animal lovers to attend the next meeting to be held Tuesday, March 25 at 7 p.m. at Warren County Courthouse.