NASS 2011 !!!!!... - Page 8

Paola Haus Juris VP10....this pup had great color!!!!

Junior handlers!!!....

.

did you happen to video the working class females?
i'd love to see VA5 Honey

Here is a video of the kennel groups...

1. vom Mittelwest
2. Globalhaus
3. von Wilhendorf
4.  Dei Precision

 

           Quote:

               "The purpose of the stick hits isn't to hurt the dog but to provide a distraction to see if the dog comes off of the sleeve.  The distraction is there    regardless of the severity of the contact".

I spent many years actively shoiwing SchH and Conformation (1978-2000) including many National events. Bitework (not called PC Grip work bakh then) was to test a dog's ability to stand up to real threats...to test to see if the dog would actually old its own if needed to protect. In those days the stick hits were made using a bamboo stick the diameter of your thumb. Not the padded, very flexible softstick of the last 10-15 eyars.

I disagree with the quote above. It is true the stick hits were not to cause phyiscal damage, thus the requirement of  the allowable places to hit the dog; but the stick hits WERE to cause some level of pain...NOT just be a distraction. If the dog could not maintain a strong bight through some pain, it was not deemed strong enough in charachter and fight drive. Today's dogs do not get the same test of willingness to stay in the fight even through some pain, and as a result we have many dogs that are much softer that the 'show dogs' of yesteryear. Many (not all) of today's experts have been in the sport less than 10 years (it is a younger person's sport due to pyusical demands). They have no recolection of how dogs usd to be really tested becasue thier experience is under the current softer methods.

If the bitework is just to be a glorified tug game under the 'distraction' of a soft sitck with the dog perveiving no threat and feelong no pain (PC-discomfort), then why have bitework at all? The bite work used to be to test a dog's ability to stay in the real fight if necessary. Sure, poeple will think I am nuts or wrong, and to each his own-feel free to call me stupid or whatever, but it IS sad the dogs only do 'grip work under distraction' now, and not bitework. The hardness and fighting drive (2 parts to the TSB rating) are diminished in the modern German/Eruopean show dog... If you are old enough to remember the Peppe-la-Pue cartoons, it is that type of pursuit we see in so many dogs in the long bite (used to be called the Courage test)..loping along and slowing down before the contact/bite....not the full speed, driving contact that denotes courage and fighting drives.

I was very pleased to see the SV is taking action to at least improve the way bitework is evaluated at the SV Sieger show. Hopefully it will come in to greater play as to determining the final placements, much like they had to bring in measurements gradually to bring the dogs back in to standard size. It provides a ray of hope.

We should bring back the real stick as well (will never happen), but at least they will begin note the dogs that slow down rather than driving through as they approach the helper, and the dogs that lack obedience control or lack attention to the helper. The dog should be transfixed on the helper, not looking like he/she is barking for a cookie reward. The dog should be able to have excellent conrtol, and enough TSB that the control required of the dog does not diminish the drives in the pursuit and bite. Ah, for the good ol days...

sorry, I had read 3 pages of the thread when I made my comment aobut biteweok (or lack therre of these days). I had not yet read that you dont' want that on htis threa....sorry. My opinion stands, but if there was a different thread for it, I appoligize.