에피소드 27: Debbie Zappia 파트 2

It's not so much relying on the dog's ability to scent, as it is teaching them again behaviors that they have to do around a track to get from point A to point B. With article search and scent detection, you are relying more on the instinctual behaviors of the dog. And then you're incorporating them into a sport that's going to test those things. So that's where we came in there. So the way we've set it up is we actually have the article search in the AS1. We have detection, the first part of detection in the AS2. And then we have a more advanced level of detection in the AS3. So what would they search and how big the area and terrain and all that? Yeah, for the AS1, the article search, it's a 40 by 40 field. We have it set up, if you look at the book where individuals clubs can kind of mark off their field so that the dog knows the perimeter of the field. And there's two articles. There's one article that's on the right and there's one article on the left. And if again, if you look into the rule book, it'll tell you the distance from the outer boundaries and the inner boundary where you have to walk that the articles have to be laid. But the dog has to search freely. It takes six, you have six minutes to complete the test. They have to be able to indicate the articles, hold an indication while you pick up that article. And then you have to be sending your dog again. And the judge is looking for the ability of your dog to take direction from you, as well as its hunting ability, its searching ability, how long it can withstand without losing direction and intensity. So all of those things are what we're looking at at that test level. I'm assuming is everybody in the trial using that same space or they are different 40 by 40? No, everyone's using the same space. And before the first person goes, that whole area is trampled. So everybody that's there watching the particular, that particular trial is walking all over the field, trampling it down so that it's more equal for each participant that's going. The articles, what are they kind of tip some similar to IGP or you have different articles for that? Right now it's IGP articles. We felt that that was the easiest thing. If somebody from IGP wanted to come over to our sport, that they would be able to do that quite easily. As we progress, our intention is to go to things like shell casings, things that are used more in real life situations. But right now we are using articles from IGP. If somebody is to get ready for that test, like what is the, how do they differ in the levels like one, two, three? You have three levels of AS, right?

Yes. So the first level is the article search. So that would be completely different from detection work. The first thing you're doing is an article search with your dog. We're looking at that, you're getting that score. The second level that you're doing is detection. And that is, we're using right now a black powder. And there are for the, for the actual one level, there's 30 blocks and the black powder is two, two fines, one in a block at one side and one in a block at the other side. So the judge can mix it up. As long as they're not really close to each other, they could set them up in two straight lines, 15 and 15. They could do 10, 10 and 10 and the dog will start the search and finish the search. The handler, when the dog alerts on something, will call an alert. The dog has to maintain that alert for a few seconds. Then the handler can call them off of that alert and send them on to find the next one. When they find the second alert, then that will be the end and the handler will have to call clear and the timer stops. It's timed. And it's still, it's still in that 40 by 40 or it's a different setup? No, that's a different setup. So that can be indoors or outdoors, depending upon the weather. So if you had an indoor barn or a building, you could set yours up in there. You could set it up on a field. The perimeter, I don't even know exactly the perimeters. We set it up in a 40 by 40 building. And you're able, I mean, you should be able, right, to have the different levels to have where you have the 40 by 40 with the article search and then the detection work in the same trial, correct? Oh yeah. It's always, yes, in the same trial. We're doing ones, twos and threes already, all in the same trial. And it just depends on what you have as area. Like I have enough area that I can set each thing up separately. But if you don't, then you could have one area that you set one up in and then another area you'd be setting up your detection in. You don't need a ton of space to set up detection. Like a 40 by 40 area is a big enough area to set your detection up. Right. When it comes to the three level, you have your, the blocks are exchanged for luggage. So you have luggage that the dog is searching and then you have two vehicles that the dog is searching. And again, you don't need a tremendous amount of space. It's much easier to accommodate than tracking. And the dogs are off leash, on leash. How is that?

The dogs are on leash for it. We actually toyed with letting them off leash and then thought it would just be easier for judging criteria to have all of the dogs on leash for the detection. Of course, off leash for article search because the dog has to be able to search an area. And what about the aging, the time after like the objects are laid or the powders? There really isn't much aging involved. So once the judge has directed where the articles are, they can call the handlers in and the handlers can then start the search with their dog. So detection, we have different aging. I think it has to be over, I have to look myself. Sure. 30 minutes, I think. And it can go up higher to two hours. So I think it's depending upon the judge, where it is, how the trial is going and how you're actually setting it up. But you have a range of time that you can set it up for. Yeah, so that definitely will call for a specific training for this. And what do you feel so far now that you've had a few trials and things have been going? How do you find it's working with the articles and the detection part? How are people, do they struggle? Do they like it? How are the dogs? How is it going right now? I think all of that, all of the above. I think that the handlers like it. They're enjoying doing it. Of course, it's a change for all of us. So that's a learning curve. It isn't easy to switch over to that. So if I'm talking about myself with this, I was very accustomed to tracking. Tracking was in my wheelhouse, right? I was good in obedience. My dogs tracked. Because I was good in obedience, I could teach my dogs to track. And I was in control. When I changed over and had to do an article search, I can't be as much in control. So that is much more based on the instinctual abilities of that dog, right? Each dog has different levels of hunt drive. You're, as a trainer, you're trying to expand those. If your dog doesn't have quite enough, if your dog is so crazy to hunt, of course, you're trying to pull that back in. But you don't have the level of control that you have on a track. So that was a very difficult thing for me who wants to be in control all the time. It was fun. Once I started, it was fun. And because I have two little hunting dogs and have to do some of the same things with them, I started to get a better understanding and handle on it as I went. But that was a learning curve for me. Detection, at least at the detection two level, I think is easier. Maybe it's because it's a little more controlled environment there for the dogs. They seem to catch on to odor pretty quickly.

Of course, then it's all the rest of it, right? How you're approaching it, reading your dog, everything else that would be involved in any other sport that you would be doing with an animal. And then at the three level, it gets more difficult. The luggage is definitely more difficult than the blocks and the searching of the vehicles. So that, again, every time that you go a little bit higher, it gets a little more difficult. But that, I think, was a little easier for me than the article search because there's a little more control there. For the article search, I had to let go of some of the things that I was good at. Does that answer your question? Yeah, yeah. I'm just thinking, as you're talking, I'm trying to picture everything. And it really looks, I mean, a lot like, you know, combination between certain nose work trials and actual detection, and the KMPV program, some element. And what I'm thinking is, like, I personally wouldn't see necessarily a problem, at least like for my dogs, the way I train tracking, that they will get confused. Like, I really do believe that I would be able to do tracking and do American shoot school at the same time without having a conflict, just because it's the environment, the antecedents, they call for specific things. And, you know, I would assume that the dog will have no problem with that. Just like if we go to a, you know, swimming pool, we know that we're going to be doing something in the water versus a basketball court. And, you know, so I really think this is actually different enough within the environment, within the antecedents, that it shouldn't be a problem to create confusion in the dogs. But, you know, before we go further, I'm a little curious to hear a little bit more how your take on the tracking, as you say, that you see it more of a obedience, more of a discipline program. Because I do, I can kind of see a little bit how you might see it that way, but I would think you agree that when you see a dog that has that kind of training, that it's based on discipline and obedience, they can either make the 99 points or fail miserably simply because they're not taught to actually track, right? I'm not sure if I see it myself, tracking as strictly obedience. Like the IGP tracking, of course, is more precise. So there is some rules of, you know, narrowing it down and making it as tight as possible versus search and rescue or police type tracking. That type of dog that is just doing obedience on the track is really not encouraged anymore in IGP. I don't know. I'm just curious to kind of hear your take on how you see the tracking.

And is it just every tracking or specifically the IGP tracking that you see more as an obedience exercise? Yes, it's the IGP tracking that I see more as obedience exercise. Not, certainly not, if you're doing hard surface tracking, that would not be the case. If you're doing police tracking, that would not be the case. But IGP tracking is you're taking a dog and you're saying to that dog, do not use your natural instincts. Do not use your eyes. Do not lift your head. Do not go at the speed you want to go at. Keep your nose to the ground. Only use that. Move forward in the way I want you to move forward. When you get to a turn and let's say you've missed it, these are the steps you're going to take to find it. You're going to be very accurate at that turn. I'm going to give you the tools that you need to make that turn. When you make that turn, this is the way I want you to do it. And I want you to go to the next exercise. I am taking away all of your natural instincts. You are not allowed to use them. And you are going to do what I tell you to do. Except for your nose. That's it. And that's why I look at it as obedient. If I can teach obedience, I can do that. If I can't teach obedience, I cannot do that efficiently. Not for high levels of tracking. And I'm going to say this. I can take a dog without a hunt drive. And I can score very high on a track. I cannot do the reverse. Even when the tracking is not, you know, this kind of moonwalking, easy tracking with a nice large grass or soft dirt or whatever. Absolutely. That I 100%. Yeah. I mean, we probably, not probably, we would disagree to some level on that piece here, which is totally cool. I see it as, like all of the things that you are saying, that there is certainly an artificial component into IGP tracking. It becomes, because of the points and how it's judged, you know, we know it has to become, to some level, very, the precision comes to become kind of artificial. But at any time, the tracks become a little bit difficult. That's when you see the dogs that are trained through obedience and the dogs that actually understand tracking. Because I know many dogs in my career that track, that they understand tracking and they can track better than police dogs, better than many dogs, because of the proper training for IGP. But yeah, I mean. Maybe we're talking semantics. Because I would certainly agree with that a dog that actually understands to track with its nose down is going to be good and is going to figure some things out. But when you're talking about that high level, so I'm not talking about the crossover that you would have, right?

Because if I took my IGP dog that had learned to do footstep to footstep tracking and I put it on hard surface and did certain things to help that dog, that dog is going to be better than a dog that didn't have IGP track. But with IGP, the way it is today, with the precision that we need, that comes through obedience to the track. You must have obedience to that track and you must do it exactly how we want them to do it. Right, right. Yeah, to the point that you can really take away the actual tracking out of the work. Correct. But to me, that's a training problem. That's not necessarily all IGP tracking dogs. That's all I was trying to say. No, I would agree with you there. That's not all IGP tracking dogs. But I think that that is the fundamental basis of an IGP track to score high at these events is that the better, you can call it obedience, you can call it training, you can call it whatever it is that you want to call it. But the better that you are at that, the better that dog is going to be. Right. To get from point A to the end of that track. Right. Right. And so what I was trying to say is like when the track gets difficult, now you need the dog to know that they can open up and use more of their senses. And do whatever they need to do to make it happen. And some dogs that are trained for those high points but totally by discipline, they don't have that courage to actually open up and do other kind of tracking. So to me, that's more of a way of training just like anything else probably. But yeah, that will be interesting for everybody to chip in when this is done. But here would be what I would argue with that is if I am going to an event that requires my dog to think on its own and to do things on its own, that's a different kind of event than an IGP-3 track. Now, if you're going to an FH championship and your dog has to do numerous tracks over different types of variable surfaces, that may come into play. But that's not the way I would train my dog for an IGP track. The way I would train my dog for an IGP track would be if it gets difficult, these are the tools I'm giving you to use. If it gets hard, these are the tools I'm giving you to use and I'm going to give you how to use them. And then that's then up to the dog and the trainer to make sure that that dog knows that and is able to do that in turn. My dog is not out there on an IGP track saying, let me use my own devices here. That is not that's I mean, you might train differently. Somebody else might. But the way I look at tracking is that that's how I look at tracking.

If you are going to follow my instructions on an IGP track, this is not the time for you to do a lot of researching and figure this out on your own. Because occasionally I can't even say that, really. Maybe a long time ago I might have hit a track that would require that. But normally speaking, in IGP, the tracks are such that an obedience trained dog can do it. But if you're talking about going to the other steps, that's been a different thing. Yeah, I think we're really just talking about it might be that the style of tracking, the style of IGP tracking that you're talking about is more popular because it's, and this is why typically the tracking grounds are fairly easy, that they kind of entice that type of tracking so you can make the 96 and 700 points. But where it gets really beautiful when everybody starts to freak out is when the tracking gets complicated. And the person doesn't see the footsteps. There was pretty good rain. There was, you know, the grass is not that friendly or the ground is frozen and so on. I mean, you've been, you've tracked a lot. So, and for these dogs, they're definitely IGP dogs that are trained to understand their task and find a way to make it happen and not fall apart because they're afraid to step out of the boundaries that they have by the trainer, right? Right. But those, I guess where I would disagree is that training obedience does not mean you can't step out of boundaries. Training obedience means what do you do when you step out of those boundaries? Training obedience means when my dog encounters that, where it's very, very difficult. Right. What are the tools that you have, dog, here that can get you back on track and give you those points that I need? It's a very interesting conversation we got ourselves into. I think it also very important to not neglect and actually really take under super serious consideration the genetic desire of some dogs, how they use their nose to track. Like, like, my young dog right now, he's two years old. He is not, like, you know how I talk about tracking? Like, I see them as two types of dogs. The one are on the track and the other ones are in the track with, like, their whole being is inside the track. Correct. And this is not done by, this cannot, at least I don't think I can do that through training. And so, like, with my two-year-old dog, he has very limited tracking experience. Like, he probably has, let's say, 100 tracks, which is ridiculous for a two-year-old dog. And it's just because I haven't had time and because he's such a natural to track, to where I literally can kind of push him off the track.

And he's just like, you can't push me off the track. And the whole body language of what the brain is doing is just amazing to watch. And, yeah, anyway, I think training can go that far. Just like with protection, some dogs will say, I'm done, I'm good, I cannot go on further. With tracking, it's the same, but with the easy tracking, we can force them to, well, you have no choice. You have to track. But, and you can do it intelligently enough to where eventually you allow the dog and you build confidence and the dog really, truly enjoys it again. And, but, but it's not a natural tracking dog. Just like not every dog can, again, do protection. It just doesn't have the courage. Not every dog, they all use their noses. But there is dogs that, it's kind of like what comes to mind, and I know I'm going to butcher that one, but there was Mike Tyson, the boxer, his coach. He said at one point something very cool about how Mike Tyson basically, he had everything. He just needed a direction and a guidance, you know. He didn't, like it wasn't that he could take any credit for who Mike Tyson was. And I think with training, it's similar like that. But yeah, it's an interesting, interesting take on, on that. That's, I think, what is also very cool about dog sports, because we all have a little different takes on things and how we see it. I think we've all, I mean, I think we all know what you're talking about with, you see the dogs that really are in the track all the way, want to track. That's what they love to do. But I don't, I don't see a huge correlation between tracking dogs per se and hunt drive. I've seen great tracking dogs that have very little hunt drive. I don't know if I could say the other way around yet. But I've seen really great tracking dogs that have little hunt drive. They're two different things. Right. I mean, again, that's, it's, the, the example, you know, with the Kiorong and German Shepherd gets its rating just because it has to get its rating. It doesn't mean that it stays on the sleeve that actually has anything to do with protection drive and confidence and dominant behavior and so on and so on. Right. They're just made to show a picture that is satisfactory to move on from there on. And there is that kind of tracking and that type of dog of tracking. So when you have a, like when you, how, how many judges is a one judge for this as well? Or, or, or do you have multiple judges for this, for the detection? No, it's one judge. It's one judge. One judge for a trial. And what would be the disqualifications time limit? What about the 40 by 40 is advanced?

If the dog gets out, does it matter? Or how? If the judge, well, the, the dog, excuse me, not the judge, the, the dog can come out of that area. As long as when the handler calls it right back in, it comes in. That would be the ability to give direction to your dog. So yes, it can go out of the area. That's not disqualifying as long as it comes back in. What is disqualifying if the dog was to urinate on the field? That disqualifies them. Same thing when they're, they're certain, when they're going into detection. If they stop them or to do something like that, they would be disqualified. The other thing, of course, that you can, naturally you can fail. If you go onto the field and you don't find your articles, you're not going to pass. What about the, the overall demeanor of the dog, like suppression, stress? How, how does that play? Can it play strong enough role to where a dog can get dequeued because of extreme discomfort? Yes. Yeah. So again, a judge is, is looking at the, and you can read the whole, you know, the whole scorebook, but a judge is looking at the drive that the dog has out there. It's endurance level while it's out there. It's intensity in the search. It's concentration in the area. A dog that doesn't have those things in an article search is not going to find the article, the two articles in six minutes anyway. But you're, you're being scored on that as well, or your, your dog is being scored on that. So the more intense the dog is, the more quickly it goes to odor and to source, that's going to be the dog that is scoring the highest. Right. In detection, it's similar. And, and that kind of tells me that, you know, the tail being up and aroused or low or the mouth is open or not, these are irrelevant factors, correct? That's irrelevant for that kind of work. Yes. But you're looking for intensity. Correct. I mean, yeah. Right. You're looking for overall intensity. The tail doesn't have to be up and be wagging while it's out there working. Which is something that the IGP, they got themselves in a pickle with what, what is stress and what is actually, what is stress putting on yourself, trying to do the best you can. You know, just like two chess players, you know, one, one's going to pace around and the other one is just staring at the board, not, not even blinking. And they're both in the same mindset. They just have to do different things to be in that mindset. And so IGP became a little bit, it's a little bit of a problem in all three phases with trying to almost guess how the dog feels

instead of by, by the tail and the ears and the, you know, and, and almost overlooking how the dog actually works. Right. And the ethics of the work. You have to, I think, distinguish what is the task. What is the goal here? So let's do the obedience because I'm, I shouldn't say that I, I like old dog training, but obedience is a part of training that is very interesting for me always. How is, how are the three levels compared to, to IGP right now? How are they, they, I'm assuming they're more, probably that would be the most similar to IGP routines or no? Yes, it's going to be the most similar. Sure. There's differences. Um, so at the, at the one level, we, for instance, right now we don't have a jump. We are going to be putting a jump back into the one level. And our reasoning in the beginning was to get dogs again, that we're going in this. And if they felt they were coming over and not ready to jump, but ready to do everything else, that they would be able to do that. But the jump is going back in at the one level at the next year, one year from now. Mm-hmm. So that there'll be a jump again. Um, but with that in mind, we're also putting more emphasis on things like the sit out of motion, because you know, in IGP, the sit has gone to five points. Yeah. We're still at, so it's 15 right now at the one level. It'll go to 10. So again, we have more points in that core exercise. Instead of looking at everything that's around it and making it just worth five points, it's a 10-point exercise there. Um, we have an honor down in the BT and in the one. When we get to the two and three, there is no more honor down. So basically, you're coming out onto the field at the two level and the three level on your own without another pair. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, at some point, it's like, yeah. Yeah. And I love the reversal of that points of the sit out of motion. I personally, I mean, obviously, you believe in it as well, since you've reversed in it. It's for sure one of the very interesting exercises, because, like I had that conversation with Harry Archen, who is in the utility commission and is an FCI church and so on. And I was trying to find out how it even came about to take those points out. And they were looking for points, I'm guessing, to put more points in the healing part. But taking them from the sit out of motion, I think it was a big mistake. Because how a dog unsnaps from healing and how it can or cannot even at all complete the sit out of motion, it shows where the dog mind is and how quickly it can switch. Which is unbelievably important for obedience.

And it cannot compare to a down or a stand, because it's asking very different behavior. Nobody even, I don't think anybody, when they came up with that sit out of motion, anybody understood how intelligent that it's a serious problem that needs to be taken care of. And if you think back to a number of years ago, before they put it to five points, that was the determining factor in a lot of big trials. That was the exercise that separated the winner from the next person in line, was that sit out of motion. And so what did they do? Along the same lines that they're doing other things, they've taken the points away from that and put it somewhere else. And you have still, the dumbbells are similar, like the one, two, three, or something else you're using for a retrieve? No, the dumbbells are similar. We put more emphasis, once you get to jumping, right? Not the retrieve on flat, but now you're the retrieve over the high jump, retrieve over the wall. We have more emphasis in the actual jump. So it's not just the retrieve, but it's the jump. There's a jump for a reason. Correct. And so today you're seeing so many dogs stutter step that jump. They can't jump. They hit the jump. Yeah. There's a reason for that. As we spoke about at the last podcast, German Shepherd dogs' backs, at least, are trashed, right? There is a big problem with them. So we're not going, I believe, I could be mistaken, but I believe IGP will either lower the jump or there'll be something soft on top soon. Because that's the next thing that's going to go, right? Right. So we believe very strongly that a dog has to jump. The technique that the dog uses, the way he jumps is judged. So if he is not flying over that jump and he's stutter stepping to go one way and stutter stepping the other way and hitting it with his legs drooping down, he's going to be pointed. Yeah. Or she's going to be pointed. So we have more points than that. Same thing on the scaling wall. We want to see power over the scaling wall, coming down, grabbing that dumbbell, turning, power back over the wall. Much more than if the dog is sitting a little crooked in front door. Those are not big things that we're going to be looking at. Right. We're going to be looking at the core exercise rather than all of the things that surround the core exercises. Yes. Because you can, like, I mean, it's a super good point. And, like, right now, you can have a dog that has a beautiful basic position, stable on the command. The retrieve is great. The front, everything is great. But touches both ways the jump. And it's not touching. It's struggling with the jump. Mm-hmm.

And a dog that has a little bit crooked front, a little bit chewing on the dumbbell, can actually lose more points today than the dog that cannot jump. And this is, that leads to a huge problem of what are we breeding? Where are we going with this? That's, I think, this is why Marinoas, as long as we have the ring sports, as long as they need to jump this 120 and 4.5 and 2 meters 30 wall, as long as this stays in the program, it's impossible to change the structure. The way a Marinoa look, they cannot look any different if they have to make those jumps. So I love how, I mean, I so far really like all the little things that you are paying attention to that are important, that somehow, I mean, those are a lot of the reasons why probably American Shutsune comes in place. We haven't even gotten to protection yet. What about the healing? How is the healing compared to the IGP right now? Any different as far as the criteria? Yes, or? The basic criteria is still the same. But I think, again, we're looking at what are we judging? We want to have a dog that is intense in its healing. We want to have a dog that is in harmony with its partner. Those are the things that are looked at. What kind of picture are they presenting together in healing? You know, it's kind of the same thing that we just talked about with a little crooked front or a crooked finish or in an exercise that is supposed to be a retrieve that we're looking at or a jump that we're looking at or a send out that we're looking at. So then those are the core exercises that we should be looking at. And then everything else kind of surrounds that and certainly plays a part in it. But in healing, I think that's the one time that you are looking really for the harmony between the handler and the dog. And it doesn't have to be a certain style of healing. We're not looking for style points. I like it. Yeah, this is another big issue with IGP. There is always the flavor of the day. It's like all of a sudden everybody, it's like, oh, this is the coolest thing. And you almost forget what actually is required for you to show. And people end up training something that should be irrelevant. Becomes all relevant. Yes. And I'm assuming you still have the gunshots, of course, right? Mm-hmm. What about like the BH? Do you have something like the prerequisite towards the or no? Yes. So our BT is quite involved. We really put a lot of emphasis on our BT. First, I mean, there's the obedience portion of the BT, which is the healing, the sit-out emotion, the down-out emotion, the recall, and the gunshot that's there. That's about the same.

But there's a whole environmental test that's done before that. So you brought back the gunshot already back to it. Yes. It's important. Very good. And then in addition to that, we have an environmental test that's set up. And so we give a general framework for the environmental test. What has to be tested, right? But then we allow the clubs some autonomy in designing their course for that. And then the judge kind of checks that out when the judge comes in. But we test a number of things. So one thing that's tested is footing, slippery surfaces. So we put the dog on some kind of slippery surface. We see how the dog goes across it. And the judge is not only to look at just the dog going across it, but how does the dog go across it? And the dog doesn't get to just go across it once. Because sometimes if you just bring a dog across something once, they're like, they don't even notice. No, they have to go across it several times. And the judge is going to watch how that dog proceeds across that slippery surface. We're going to have, what are the actual calls? Movement in tight spaces. So again, we're going to devise an area that is very, very tight for the dog. This last trial of ours, we actually put open screening, like wire fences that you could see through, but very, very low. So the dog had to crawl through it. And then at the end, it was closed off. So the dog had to turn around and crawl back out. So in the past, we've done dark spaces that the dog had to go into. This time we said, okay, we're not going to do dark, but we're going to do so low that the dog's got to, you as a handler can go to the other end. You can call your dog, but the dog's got to be able to go into that, climb through it, turn around and come back out. And for the, again, another footing one that we did this time was we had, we bought stairs from Home Depot, and we put them into a rubble pile. So the dog had to climb these stairs and then jump into the rubble pile and then come out and climb back down the stairs. So that was another test that we used. And then we have a hunt drive test. So we've done it a number of different ways in our own club. We've had it where we've hidden up. We've shown the dog a toy. We've hidden it up in an area. We've turned the dog around, given it 30 seconds, turned the dog back around and let it go hunt into that area. We've done it where the last couple of times where we've actually put it over a hill. So the dog sees the person that's holding the object, go up the hill and place the object. Then the dog is brought into a blind.

The person picks up the object that was put out there, puts it in their pocket and leaves. Then the handler and dog comes out and they send the dog and we time it. Two to three minutes, depending on, we did three. We thought it was too long. So after that, we did two minutes. And the dog has to hunt. The highest score will be awarded to the dog that intensely hunts for those two minutes. Now, they're not going to find anything. So at the end, we call the person with the ball back out and they throw it up there. But we're timing it. We're looking at the intensity of the dog. Is the dog staying on task? Does the dog come back out and have to be sent back up? Does the dog come out and leave? Does the dog come out and just sit there and look at the handler? I'm curious. You saw me smiling a few times as you were describing this because you took me way back in my early training days when I was still in Bulgaria under the communism. And the kind of, at the time, very hardcore Russian military style of training. And, you know, those were things that were very important. And somehow they got lost over time everywhere. And I'm curious how did you, where did you grab these pieces from? How did you guys put that together? Because it's a, that's already very selective. Like you, you already from there on, you know, the certain dogs will not cut it. How, how did you come up with it? Well, we, we, we narrowed it down. We had, we looked at things that we wanted dogs to exhibit. If we were looking for our own dogs that were one year old or what, what we want them to have two years old without being influenced by training. And then we started looking at tests all around that are given all around the world for police and military. What are they testing for? What are they looking at? What do they want? And so we started to narrow it down until we came up with these. And then we said, okay, because we started out too big. So we, we now have our six category that we test for. And we devise the test around those six categories. The last of which is suspicion and recovery. So again, clubs can devise it the way they want to devise it, but we want to test a dog's suspicion level. And then more importantly, we want to test its ability to recover from that suspicion. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. And then what happens ultimately because of that, if I am in the search and rescue type of training or police canine or military, and I am to choose dog selected from different sport programs, you got my attention. Like you definitely got my attention.

Like I would for sure pay way more attention of the dogs that have gone through American shoot school. When it comes down to the, you know, not gambling as much and having a better chance to select the right puppy that's going to go into search and rescue or police or military specifically because of selection. That doesn't, in IGP you can have a champion. And it's not a dog to be bred. It's a, it's a sad story, but it's a true story. Okay. And so to fail the BT, what would be like the big no's? So you're never going to fail the environmental portions. We have a, we have a scorebook. Okay. And in that scorebook, those environmental tests are rated. So there's an, it's, it's like, there's three categories for that. There's, you know, your sufficient category, your middle of the road category and your excellent category. So your dog is going to be in one of those categories and it's going to be recorded in your book. And then the judge also has the room to write something down if they choose to write something down. So now if you're a breeder and let's say you want to breed, but, but your dog needs more hunt drive. Let's just say that. Then you could call on this book. You could actually get a copy of the book and that particular page and look at what that dog received for hunt drive. Was it in fact the highest rating? Because maybe that's what you're looking for. So it's, again, it's a breed test. So we're adding that into our breed test, those categories so that breeders can look back at it, but that's not going to fail you. You can still go on. So you go on, you do your, as long as you have your obedience, you can go on to an AS1, but all of these things are recorded. And anybody can look at your book, your scorebook and know what you scored on the environmental tests. The other one is the movement, excuse me, is standing on unstable surfaces. So we always have an unstable surface of some sort and the dog has to jump up. Again, the judge is watching. Do they jump up and off? Do they actually jump up and stay there? Can you move it? Another test. Those are the six areas. But even if you, even if you did terrible on those, you could still go on and do your obedience phase. Even if the dog shits down on the gunshot or it refuses to? So the two things that the dog would be dismissed and not be able to go on. Gunshots, they have to be able to do the gunshots, and dog aggression. We do a separate dog aggression test. And if the dog was deemed to be severely dog aggressive, they would not be able to go on. That would be for life. Okay. So those two things eliminate you. The others are all recorded.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't eliminate you from going on to your obedience. Clearly, if your dog can't do those things and failed each one of those things or had the lowest score, you'd probably never title anyway. You're not going to title. Yeah, very true. Very true. Yeah, that's actually, yeah, very true. That should give you enough indication that you're not going to have a surprise when you go to level one eventually. Right. Very cool. And as far as the points, are they still from 0 to 100? And the ratings, are they similar somewhat to how rated in IGP? Do you still have satisfactory and good and very good? Similar, yeah. Very cool. Let's break down the protection. I'm sure everybody wants to hear that. It's all about the protection for most people. So with protection, again, as I stated before, we believe that schutzon is a test that is not a viable test if you don't stress your dog. There has to be stressors. The dog has to overcome it. The dog has to be able to rise to the occasion. So in the schutzon one level, for protection, we start with two blinds in the blind search, not one but two. The dog has to come around the blind and guard. Here are things that we don't accept, that we've seen accepted in other areas. So if the dog were to come around the blind and circle the blind and circle the blind and run back to the handler, the handler could send them again. But if that dog were to come back again and then run into the crowd and then still not go into guard, the dog would be done. Okay. Now, if it's a young dog and there's a crowd of people around and it runs to the crowd first and turns and sees the helper and goes in and guards, that's fine. But if the dog cannot go to a blind at all or takes so much to get it there, the dog is finished. Once you're there and your dog is guarding and we're looking at the same things that IGP should be looking at, I should say, at least. Okay. We want strong guarding. We want to see drive changes. We want to see the strength of the animal in the guarding phase. The handler has three choices to take their dog out. They can do what we used to do years ago, which is walk in, grab the dog by the collar, pull their dog out. The helper leaves the blind and they can go back into the blind with their dog. They can choose door number two, which is go up, sit your dog, heal your dog out, ask the helper to remove themselves. Or you can do a call out. You can choose which way you want to leave the blind. And that's just for the lower level or it's valid? No, that's just for the system one. Okay, okay. Just for the moment you can go out any way you want. Okay. Okay.

It's almost crazy in my head. It's been so suppressed that even when we say that's Shutsuon 1, it's hard for me to even think that we are talking about present time. I'm taken back 20 years or 30 years ago. It's so cool to hear even the words again. So we kind of went back to that. Then we added in a whole other level, though, of obedience from there. So once the dog, I don't care if you pull the dog back in. Once the helper has been called out of the blind, he's behind that first blind and the judge directs him to a blind. And you will know as the handler beforehand where you're heading. Because there are cones set up. There's a line set up. You will know exactly what your job is. You come out of the blind and now you're healing. So now once you've left the blind, you can't touch your dog anymore. You can have a leash on or a leash off. You choose. You're going to heal. You heal towards the central line. You make your turn on the central line somewhere, wherever the judge has directed it to be. And you heal down the field until you see the cones. At the point of the cones, you turn and you stop. And if you have a leash on, you take it off. If you don't have a leash on, you just stop. And then the judge is going to direct you to start to heal again until you're about 30 feet from the blind. At which point the judge will call the helper out of the blind for the attack. The helper will attack. The attack out of the blind is back. It's an attack on the handler and he's coming. So it's not a sideways attack. It's a head-on attack. And the dog has to commit to that attack. To fight, be driven, out, guard, and then heal down the field for a real long bite. Do you have that also in the higher level or that's level one only how it used to be? That's level one only. Okay. Very cool. So that's level one. So at level one, the helper comes out of the blind. I mean, so far you're really bringing all the points, all the elements that got removed for whatever reason that definitely changed what the program was. Agreed. I like it. And on the long bite, the courage test, you have the decoy run away and then turn and come at the dog? Or how? One, no. No. The shitsun one, no. Okay. The shitsun one, the helper's going to go to the central line of the field and be coming directly towards the dog and handler. But it is a long bite. It is not a short bite. It's a long bite. So the dog will have to grip, guard, show a transition stage for the highest point and do a side transport to the judge there. That is the one. The two. Do we have any stick hits already or no? Oh, yeah. There's stick hits. Okay.

There's two stick hits after the attack out of the blind. So you already could pronounce courage and so on to where IGP is going. And I know many people will hate me for saying this. But we have reached a point now that we probably should not be talking about courage pronounced or not pronounced because we are not really in IGP. We're starting to not be able to evaluate it. It's a wild guess at some point. We do have courage, hardness, and fighting instinct. We have CHF. We have a rating. So the dog will be rated in that and that will be in your scorebook. And so level two gets? Level two is very similar to level two in IGP. The biggest difference that I can tell you is that on an escape bite, the helper is not allowed to hang the sleeve out to the side for a bite. So the helper is to have that sleeve tucked and be moving it forward and back as he takes off running. So it's not going to be hang the sleeve out to the side, giving the dog a target to bite. That's a difference. The back transport is going to be a real back transport bite. So the dog will be following. The helper must pivot and turn and come directly at the dog. They are not allowed to turn, sidestep, go to the side, stand still. They need to turn and be moving directly at the dog. So that would be, I think, the two biggest differences with IGP-2 and AS-2. The rest remains pretty much the same. Okay. And then for the three level, you have a call-off and you have a long bite. So you're going to have a coin flip before protection starts. And that will determine whether you have your call-off first or your long bite first. But they will be back-to-back. They will be back-to-back. So what will happen is the blind search occurs. The dog runs the blinds, comes in and guards the last blind. Again, we really try to emphasize guarding. I mean, that's another thing that I've seen deteriorate tremendously, right? We don't see drive changes anymore. If we see silent guards, the dog is looking all around. Even in active guards, the dog is often looking around. So we really put a lot of emphasis on the guarding phase. So the dog has to come in and guard. The call-off occurs. You come out. You do your escape bite. Same deal. The helper is not allowed to hang the sleeve off to the side for a target for the dog. The next part is the same where there's a bite. There's an out. There's a re-attack. There's a drive. And now there's the back transport. Again, the same as at the back transport. The helper must turn and attack the dog. Now, once you're going down the field, the helper goes into blind four.

So you're at the end of the field and you're getting ready for your either long bite or your call-off, right? So let's say you have the long bite first. So the helper is going to come out of blind four to the center line, threaten your dog, turn and run down the field. There'll be a stake down at the end of the field. You will see it. When that helper reaches that stake, they will start to turn. It is your responsibility as a handler to send your dog before that helper has made a complete turn and is heading towards you. So you're sending your dog while the helper's back is still at you, just starting to pivot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're sending that dog while that helper is running. For those that listen that are not familiar with the old shoot-con program, that used to be how it was done, really. It was how it was done. So now the helper has turned and is coming at your dog. And again, the helper is to threaten your dog. So just before the bite, the helper raises his stick, threatens the dog, and then presents the sleeve and the bite. So there is a direct threat there to the dog. The dog bites, same thing. Drive, hits, outs, guarding, re-attack, drive, hits, out, guarding, the re-attack occurs. Now the handler has to come all the way down the field, pick up their dog, present to the judge, turn around and heal all the way back. I'm sorry, not present to the judge. Yes, pick up the dog, go to the judge, I'm sorry. And then head all the way back down the field again because they've got to set up again. Yeah. So now they're going to come back down the field, set up again, and we're going to have a redo. So now the helper goes back into the blind, comes back out again, threatens, goes down the field. Well, the handler has to send their dog again while the helper's running away. And then the judge will signal when you do the callback, which will be at about blind three, depending on the size of the field. Right? So once that dog hits blind three, the judge's hand will go up and you will have to call your dog back. If your dog goes down the field and bites, you're done. If the dog goes down the field and doesn't bite and comes back, even though it didn't come back. Done meaning the exercise fails or the whole protection routine fails? The whole protection routine fails. Okay. So that would be different than the ring sports. But if your dog stops, doesn't engage, comes back, you're going to pass, you're just going to lose points. Let's say you call your dog and it doesn't come directly back. Okay. You're going to lose a little points.

If your dog comes but doesn't come to heel, that's all pointed exercise, right? Sure. The judge is looking at that and pointing it. But your dog cannot bite at the end of the field. And do you have on the escape, like in, again, like I just going back and forth from ring sports comparing, because it's actually not complicated exercise when you, it's really not. I know people that are listening to us are freaking out that it becomes very complicated. But it's actually, you know, when the dog has clarity and the training is right, they actually, I feel that in some ways like that gambling of like, oh, last moment and it's not. But do you have anything to do with the point deductions or max points as far as how close or how far you call the dog off? You have to call the dog off. Just, I say at line three. So the judge is going to be standing just before line three across the field. And that's going to be your call off point. So would you say about 30, 20 feet or so or closer than that? I'm bad at distance. I'm going to say flying distance. So 30 feet. Okay. Okay. Because the dog has left you by 30 feet or so. Okay. And now the helper is already coming back up the field. Okay. I think that's the difference with ring sport and sleeve sport is that with the way that we do it and the way that the helper is coming back, there's, by the time that dog is traveling down the field, there's not a lot of distance between the dog and the helper when they, when this all happens. And the helper just has a sleeve on. Yeah. So. Yeah. There is some safety. You try to set it up to be safe. Yeah. Yet a big test. So as you said, if, if you haven't done this, so many people think, oh, it's going to be so difficult. And it, it is difficult. If you have a Schutzen 3 dog, an IGP 3 dog that has never been called back and it's seven years old and it's for seven years gone down the field. Gosh, you're going to make me try with my old dog now. So I actually will try it. But other than that, it isn't. And you can use a whistle. I mean, we've built that in. You can use your whistle for your callback if you want. Beautiful. Instead of just the name of the dog. Okay. So you can, you can do that. That, that even makes it simpler, easier. So I, I, I know, I know people are watching this and thinking exactly what you're saying. Right. This is crazy. But our way of thinking about it was the same. In today's society, the reality is if you send your dog, you need to be able to call that dog back. Boom. So that's what we're going on. That's what we've devised as a test for this.

We're trying to make it more difficult, raise the training and raise the breed standards for our dogs and trying to roll that into one. That's our goal. Yeah. I mean, you're really going to have like, you, you will get attention of the, the, the, the communities, as I said. Including the search and rescue and, uh, police canines and military, uh, that they will have now much more interest to work together and follow what's going on because it, it really is going to help them. Uh, uh, it, it can work both ways, including not just, not even just the, um, the genetic pool and the soundness and the temperament selection, but also training. Yeah. The, the, the training exchange between, like we're going back to being able to train together. Mm-hmm. What about the, the old school, uh, search of the helper after the call out of the blind? Do, do you have that or no? We haven't added that in yet. That may come. Oh, yeah? But we have not added that in yet. I think that was also another, like, I, I remember at the time, the, just, justification they had was, it just saves time, which you, you can have a good argument for that. But, but, having a dog on a down, staying a little bit longer while you're doing something else, you're seeing, you're seeing how that dog is handling that position knowingly that something's coming up. There is a lot to tell there, you know, there is a whole story you can have there. Yes, and at the time when your dog is laying there, and your back is to your dog, while you're walking away to do that. You're not making contact. You're not holding your dog with that body language. Yeah. That dog has to have self-control. I, I will encourage you, I will definitely encourage you to bring that back into, it's, it would be, like, thinking, me going, just going to, you know, any kind of police, uh, convention or, or, or workshop or anything, there is three big problems. Out, of course, is number one. Call-off is number two. That's why a lot of departments don't, don't bother unless they have to go through some certification that includes it, but even then, it's just for the certification. And, anytime they decide to pat down a decoy, the dog just blows up and goes on his own. These are three very classic, uh, uh, problems for, for training. So, uh, I definitely would be nice to see that back as well. We will take that under advisement. Because we've been talking about it. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it really, like, I, I, when I go back and watching some old VHS tapes and, and you see them, it's like, they, they, yeah, I'm on a down and I'm looking at the fly.

Or I'm at the down and I'm whining. I just cannot contain myself. Or I flat out just break because it's my opportunity. And, and you, you see the dog and you also see the training. And, um, yes, it does take time, but it should. It's a, it's a very good exercise as well. And as far as the, the stick, is it a, like the normal padded stick, I'm assuming, right? It is. Okay, good. And, yeah, it is. We have talked back and forth about reed sticks, but we've stuck with the padded stick. Yeah. I, I really think it's, um, it, it's sufficient to test, to, to twitch a dog enough to where, uh, you definitely have a test going. Um, that's very, very cool. And what about now more of the world global problems, electric collars, prong collars? How, how is American shoes going handling that? What is the, the position and what is allowed, what is not allowed? We are allowed to use electric collars. We are allowed to use prong collars. Um. And so you can really do how it used to be to where there is a trial day and you can come out of the car with the electric collar, then put it off and then go on the field, correct? Yes. Very good. Every club trial has to have an entrance to their field. So it has to be roped off so there, there's like a gate, an imaginary gate that you're going through. And you can have whatever you want on one side of the gate, but as you cross over into the, the actual field, everything has to be off. Yes. Very good. What is your kind of stepping off of the, the American shoes going for a moment, but since I touched the electric collar and the, the global movements against how, where do you stand and how, if you, what do you have to say about any of that? Well, I think that's just another sign. Let's take a general picture of everything being watered down, right? You can't use an electric collar. You can't use a prong collar. You can't use anything that would stress a dog derogatory towards a dog at all. So people, first of all, there's so many parts of that, right? There's a part of that, that people are still in training from 35 years ago when they were using electric collars or that's not the way these things are used today for the most of us. That's not everyone. Of course, there's always your exception to the rule, but the majority of us are not using collars in that matter. We're not using prong collars in that manner. That has changed so much over the years, right? We're so much better than what we were. So the collars and the training tools that you're using are used in a very different way. That's number one.

Number two, when you take tools away from someone that are trying to train a dog, you leave them with barbaric ways to do this. Because if we have dogs on one hand that we want to stress, right? That we want to have stick hits. That we want to have hardness, courage, fighting instinct that lasts throughout the years. If we want to promote those kinds of things, then we do not have dogs that can be trained purely positively. Now, if we take all of those things away, I think we touched on this, and we create dogs that can't stand up to any of this anymore. Well, then we certainly, then we can go all purely positive on everything. But we no longer have those same animals. We have a different animal that we have created over the years. We, in American Schutzen, are trying not to have that happen. We are trying to have those animals continue throughout the years. The reason we got into the sport, the things we love about the sport, are the dogs. And it's those dogs, when everything else is said and done, that we believe have to be sustained. So, I think that's, there's just so many facets to that, right? Certainly, if we change the dogs, we will change the tools. And if we change the tools, then those people that are in the purely positive camps can say, see, it could all be done with purely positive training. Right, right. We don't want dogs that can be done with purely positive training. That's why you're not understanding. And even if you can, maybe these are certain dogs and certain trainers. And also, like, I'll go back to what you said, because it's important. What, like, when somebody that has moved away from using aversive and says, well, I used to be one of these trainers 30 years ago, or I learned 30 years ago. It's like, it's exactly the point. It's 30 years ago. This is a very long time. What we do today and what was happening 30 years ago is dramatically different. And if anything, speeds up the process and brings clarity. And when I say speeds up the process, I know now the force free will be, oh, that's a quick fix. It's like, of course it's a quick fix, but how can you not like a quick fix that actually is permanent? It's not like a quick fix, oh, we got something done right now, but then it breaks down. No, it does not break down. It works, the message, and there is so much clarity there that it helps everything to move on. And we, like, we are eliminating a big part of frustration from both the handler and the dog. Yeah. To where you, you know, like, you end up with positive trainers that are grabbing their collars and just face-to-face screaming to death and...

Or putting them in crates for time out. You don't have, right, for endless time outs. Right. Process takes forever. And then you have, like, even right now in UK, not sure if you know, but they actually passed everything. So from the beginning of the year, it will be banned, with the exception of the military. So positive reinforcement works better, but the military, if they want to use, they can. And that's showing you that there is a need. You cannot, like, no matter how much you get pressed and you get pushed, there is time when, and the same happened with Germany. They banned the electric collar, but they are allowing prone collar in deployment, which is, again, it's just such a ridiculous ways how to look for some loophole, how still to allow the trainers that need to have reliable training to do their job, right? And ultimately, to almost everybody I have talked, and I had a very good podcast with Marcus Noyce, who is an IGP judge and competitor and police officer. It's like, I could care less about the prone collar. I would love to have my electric collar back. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, think about this country. Think about the United States of America. If police departments were allowed to put electric collars on their dogs. Right. The bite situations that we see on TV right now all the time would not be happening. Right. They would have the ability to call their dog back. They'd have an insurance policy that their dog carried with that dog at all times. They would be trained properly to begin with, and they would have a means to use it if necessary. But instead of doing that, we go through, well, we all know what we go through. That's right. And we see. Because we refuse to look at these things and to educate and to teach the proper way to use them and the benefits of. It would be like saying, let's say we're inventing fire and we're rubbing sticks together. And we finally get fire going. And now someone comes up with a match that every single time they hit that match, fire lights. And we say, oh, but that was a quick fix. Seriously? Are we going to go back to rubbing sticks? Right. Because now we have another means to create fire? I mean, we can look at every invention throughout time like that. And again, like if there is some consistency and you can show that there are better ways, everybody will jump on those better. Like, are you kidding me? Like, you can do this in a better way than me and I would not ask you what are you doing? Right. Exactly. But clarity, with speed. Right. And with kindness to your dog. I mean, even people that come to me for help with their dog.

Let's say they have a German Shepherd or a Malinois or a Rottweiler or any large breed dog. Right. And they can't take their dog off leash. So they have a German Shepherd that every time they go out of their home, that dog has to be on a leash. Right. That dog has no life. It's a German Shepherd dog. It does not want to be on leash for 12 years. Yeah. It just doesn't. Right. If I can give them a means to very quickly teach them with an electric collar how to have their dog come back on a recall, paired with treats and fun and play and very, in our way of thinking, slowly done so that they understand it and can use it. We've just opened up the world for that dog. Yeah. And we've opened it up quickly to where now they have a dog they can go out and play fetch with and play with. And somebody else, and I've been in meetings like this where purely positive people will talk about, well, it's a quick fix, right? We're going to do our 110 lessons with the people, keep coming back and getting their money. And they never teach the dog to come back. Right. That dog never has a life. But here's a tool that we can give you and explain to you and show you how to use it properly and give your dog a life. But no, that's cruel. Yeah. It's kind of mind boggling. It is. It is. And I mean, I know you have, you search for training, any good training everywhere. It's not like a narrow mind that this is the way. Most of good training, like, you have to stay open-minded. You have to pick things up from this collective training world, global, you know, people. Everybody's spending a lot of time. Everybody's trying. And some, we evolve, and we evolve very fast. And it will be so quickly. If somebody can show, hey, there is a better way, but this is the better way. Don't just tell me that there is a better way. And don't tell me that science says and any of this kind of stuff. But show it, demonstrate, like, you know, make a workshop, line us up, and show us. We are jumping on the train. If there is something, no question. I think this is why, like, in all of my, not all, but a lot of my podcasts, I end up talking about this, unfortunately. But it's such a topic that it has to be talked about. We cannot let it be. When you have sciences, and there is better ways, but you cannot demonstrate, or you are not willing to demonstrate, then there is a big question in the validity of what you are saying. How are you? Because, you know, like, when you, I know how, not all, and I have to make sure that that's clear, not all positive trainers are thinking the same way.

There is very intelligent trainers that are just choosing to challenge themselves to train that way. And hats off to that. But how they think that because we would have electrical or we would use some form of aversive, we get labeled immediately. Like, there is the cliche. They are the evidence science-based, and we are the punishment-based trainers. It's like, what is a punishment-based trainer? Like, you cannot possibly accomplish anything besides making a dog not do things if you are just doing punishment. If you are punishment-based trainer, this does not exist. And that's one of their main weapons. It's like in any conversation, punishment-based training will be said numerous times. And not even acknowledging that even majority of the positive reinforcement, strictly positive reinforcement training, comes from people that do protection sports, that use aversive. I cannot be more explicitly saying this, that we understand very, very well positive reinforcement. And we utilize it, I argue with many, much better than the force-free community. Much better. Yes. I would agree. We do. But we're the punishment-based people. It's a very easy, shut the door. It's like, no room for conversation. It's sad. It's very sad. And this is why my next question to you, have you thought of, because it really, the American shotgun would create a lot of interest. It's like, I think any collaboration will be, like the USPCA, the United Schutzhund Police, you know, like any of those organizations in the country. I think they have to know about American Schutzhund, and we have to almost get back to working together. You know how back in the 90s, you would have the police also included in the big events. Having the program that you're creating, I believe that now it's even more fitting, more interesting for collaboration. And have you thought of, or do you already have anything going on as far as like the police and everybody else? Not yet. Not yet. But that is, that's a goal. Good. That's where we want to head. We're trying to do so much right now with so few people that are, you know, at the base that are the workers. There's only so many things that we can accomplish on our own. We need to have more people get involved because they want to see something like this succeed. Yeah. And we're going to say involved, not just involved in the sport field, but involved, you know, at the core of it. Workers.

So with, I know between our first conversation and today, meanwhile, you had Helmut Reiser come, and you guys had some, like a judges or some kind of a seminar, and then I'm very curious to hear a lot about it. Like I'm dying to hear how that went. It was great. Helmut came and did a, basically a seminar workshop with our judges. So because we wanted to judge along that same criteria, that same way, he actually came. He had just amazing videos, tons of videos, explained the way that they judge and what they're looking at, which very much aligned with us. And it was like, it was so nice because it's like two groups, or he being himself, but representing his group. Yeah. And the way he thinks, coming together with us who have a lot of the same thoughts. So that was fantastic. And he was able to convey how they judge, what they look at, which again, fell in line with what we're doing. And then we had the opportunity to judge numerous dogs online. The judges for American Schutzen were able to do that and utilize those sheets. And really over a period of just a couple of days, be able to all come together and see things in a very similar way. So that their judging was within a few points of each other. So on that level, it was excellent. And then, you know, on a further level to talk about RSD Global and the possibilities of maybe joining forces in the future. Was fantastic. I mean, our opportunities are endless to come together with another group or a number of groups that are all of the same mindset. So we're definitely looking to do that. I wonder if, you know what I'm thinking. It's just so, so insane. Like I can train my dogs and I can put video with my dog having an electric collar on and doing everything. And I don't think about it. I'm just having fun. My dog is having fun. My dog is not like, you know, having those serious negative consequences, emotional well-being and all this nonsense, you know. And many, not many, I would think the majority of trainers that do protection sports in Europe, they want to hit light. They want to make a comment. But they will be hunted down if they do. Yes, I agree. This is a tragedy where we are right now. And so where I was going with this is like, I bet there will be interest. Like a lot of trainers would like to come and put their dog into the trial. But the way the whole system is working in Europe right now, you actually, even if you come to the States and you have electric collar or you perform a competition where there is tickets, when you go back home, it will be just as bad as if it happened at your club in Germany or Belgium or whatever.

And I don't know if they will be able to break that. It's a very interesting problem. And we, I think the Europeans did not help themselves in many ways, including, but you would be open. And like, I mean, I don't see a problem with anybody wanting to participate in competitions, right? Coming from somewhere else outside the United States. No, not at all. Last year at our nationals, we had Pierre come and he competed from outside the country. Yeah. And so hopefully this year we'll have more. But, you know, in talking with Helmut too, with his RSV Global, we're looking at the possibilities of joining forces with AS with that. It would give us tremendous access to their infrastructure. We would have a fantastic database, enormous database that we could join. We would have the ability to incorporate their breed tests and their breed programs into ours, which would really expand ours. We would have the ability to register our dogs a different way. So there are a lot of benefits to doing that, all the while maintaining our autonomy as AS. So we're kind of in negotiations or talk about doing that, but being able to absolutely maintain our autonomy. But that also would give us the ability, if somebody were an AS member, to go into the RSV 2000 World Championship. So for the first time, there would be a pathway to get there. So that's something that we don't have in AS. It was something we were not really that interested in ourselves, but we know a lot of people outside of the organization that were looking to come in were interested in that. And this would give them a pathway to that organization. It's like last year, I think it was, VIT Blisnik won the RSV 2000. VIT, of course, as you were just saying, VIT comes from the Czech Republic. And just as you were saying before, when I was there training, there were people that come to VITs from all over, right? Sweden, Austria, Italy, countries in which you're not allowed to use any kind of electric collar, prong collar, no training tools. And what I witnessed was, like you just said, like barbaric almost training. Because all they have left is their hands to hold their dog up, to stare in their face, to throw them in a crate, to use their hands. And I know in the Czech Republic, there's a fight against all of this too. They don't want to hear about not using electric collars. And so I was very glad to see VIT enter the RSV 2000 championship and win. Yeah. Because he certainly deserves that. And also because he represents what they're trying to do as well as what we're trying to do by doing that.

And I think the more people at that level that stand up and do those things, the better off we're going to be as a community. You know, if we're all so afraid to say anything or do it, that's what got us here. That's why we're here. Right. Because we didn't have the gumption to stand up and do anything. That's what I alluded to in the first segment was USA had that ability. I mean, USCA could have done something and they did nothing. You know. You mean like in a global level? In the educational level. At the educational level. Right. They're a powerful organization with a big membership. Big number. Big number. They could have done something. They refused to do anything because they wanted to bend the knee to Europe. That's why. Dirk put it best when he put out that message saying, if you are a member of that organization, then you have to. That's the way it is right now. Right. And they created that. They allowed that to occur. Because with their numbers, they had enough power to say, no. We're not going to do this. They wouldn't do it. They had the power before to educate people. They did not take advantage of that. But there is the danger for them being expelled from the world union. And maybe sometimes that's what needs to happen. Who knows? But let's look at that even. Right. Let's look at that. The GSDCA. Right. Is part of the AKC. Or was it whatever they were. I sometimes even get confused here now. But the WDA too. When the WDA was part of that organization. Right. So you have the arm of Schutzen in the AKC. The AKC's breed standard is different from the rest of the world union's breed standard. True. For years. True. They have been told they have to change their breed standard. Or they will be not allowed to be a part of the WSB. You know what GSDCA said? Sorry. No. We're not changing it. Well, how many years will it take? Don't know. Ten years pass. Are you going to adhere to the rules of the WSB? No. Sorry. They didn't expel them. Because they're part of AKC. Which is large numbers. Right. Power. Money. Power. Numbers and money. Exactly right. That's what it is. Power numbers and money. And that's why we're looking at the RSV. I mean, RSV, they can even send dogs to the FCI championships. They won that battle too. It's such a difficult, like, the dog world is, you know, there is a lot of stabbing and there is a lot of pulling the rug. And which is humans, you know, that's what we do. Tribes. But somehow, if we start to at least back up and defend each other to some extent, even when we don't like each other. I think it's very important in today's times that we need the numbers and we need to find a way somehow.

And maybe that's not possible. Maybe that's just me, my fantasies. But I know that numbers are important. I know even, like, organizations such as, like, the IACP, the International Association of Canine Professionals, which is like pet organizations. But they're the first one in the States that anytime San Francisco says we're going to be shock free or New York or whatever, they will step in. And we have to connect and we have to work together with such organizations and the police and the army and the search and rescue. And then we have a more unified front and reasons like, no, this is important. It's not just a dog sport. That's the whole point, really. It's not just a dog sport. It's not easy. It isn't. But we do know a few things. And one of those is what you just said. Numbers matter. People coming together matter. Those things matter. Education matters. Is it an easy answer? It isn't. So where do we go from here? Where is, what's next coming up for American Schutzhund? Where are we headed? Well, as far as what's on the immediate horizon, we have our nationals coming in November. We have asked you if you would like to be a guest judge. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said I would love to do it if, I mean, I have to sharpen up my skills and really understand the program. But yeah, there's, where is it going to be? It will be in Missouri. Okay. Same place as we held it last year. What it takes to, for, for a, like a club to become a member or how does it work? I'm not sure individual membership is fine, right? So, yes, you can be an individual member and you would sign up through the PSA website. Okay. Go to the PSA website. You would, you would follow the prompts and go to the signup sheet for PSA and then you would be a dual member of PSA and AS. Mm-hmm. And we're looking for a way going forward to make that clearer so that we know exactly who the AS clubs are and the PSA clubs. Because right now, some are both. Mm-hmm. And, and as far as a club forming our American Shoes Home Club, what are the requirements there? Three members. You have to have three members to form a club. And, and you have mock trial or anything like that, how the, the other IGP clubs do or, or they're immediately accepted as a club or? Right now, if you have three members, then you are accepted as a club. What you do have to do is within, it's just changing now, but within the first year, you have to have an event. Yeah. And then after that, so you get one year of having just an event and that can be a helper seminar, somebody coming in to talk about dogs, whatever it is you choose it to be. That's, that centers around dogs.

And then the second year, you'd have to have a trial. Yeah, that's reasonable. Definitely reasonable. I mean, it's very interesting and, and I hope we, we creating interest and, I don't know, I think, I know some people are like, well, why do we need to split even further apart and divide even more? But, I don't look at it as we're splitting it all. What you're doing is we're really preserving something that is becoming extinct. Yeah, that and we, we have no intention of, like, or no interest in barring people from IGP. We would love people from IGP to come in. You can do IGP and you can do AS. We look at AS as more of a breed test for German Shepherds and other working breeds, but you, you can do both and we welcome both. What is the minimum age? Like, what do you have, like, to get the, to, to enter the first levels? What, do you have age requirements or no? Yes, there are age requirements and they've changed. What is it, 18 months now, I think. I think it's 18 months, but, so there's age requirements, but I, I think most of the time you're seeing dogs, you know, two, two and a half before they're on the field. Right. But they are entering BTs. We've had, like, we just got in the books of some trials that are just BTs. So we've had trials that are like 20 BTs. So just because it's their first year, they're entering, they have people that are going through that first step. What kind of breeds you, kind of, what is predominantly right now that you have as far as breeds? We're seeing a lot of Dobermans, of course, Malinois, German Shepherds, and a couple of Rottweilers. And there's other breeds that have gone through the BT as well. But those are the breeds that you're seeing, you know, actually competing in the trials. What is a membership? What do you have for membership? What is the dues? The dues right now are 75, but we're thinking about restructuring that a little bit, too. But that's what it is right now. 75 as an individual membership, right? Yes. Again, if we, you know, look forward and do something with RSV Global, that might restructure itself a little bit because of the availability to the enormous database we'll have. I'm very glad to hear that there is conversation, at least. There is conversation and interest, and that's a perfect beginning. Right. That's step one. I know another thing that you just mentioned that I always think about because you were talking, you know, science-based, science-based. Right. And, I mean, that goes back to even just general training, right?

Because I get so many questions from people on, like, how do they go about becoming someone who can get on a regional level or a national level or, you know, get their dogs farther along? And I always look at it and say just that is that, you know, there's so much training that is science-based. Let's face it. You have a portion of everything we do that's science-based. But then the other half of our sport is the art of our sport. And the art of our sport comes into play when you talk about things like we talked about the last time. What's your preparation for an international event? Well, the first thing you have to do, as you alluded to then, is you have to know your dog. So this is a process that you go through when you start a dog, whatever age it is, and you continue on with that dog. You and that dog become a team. That dog starts to understand you and what you want. You start to understand that dog and what that dog needs and wants. And then those two things come together. And then you progress to the next step of saying, okay, people will ask me things like, well, how long do I heal this way before I change this? I don't have an answer for you for that. That's the art of this sport. There is the things that I can tell you that is the science of this sport. And then there's the art of the sport. And it's those things that are related to the art that makes you either an okay trainer, a really good trainer, a great trainer, someone that can compete on an international level. It's the art. It's knowing your dog. It's knowing when to push. It's knowing when to pull back. It's knowing how far you can push. Right? It's knowing when to do that. It's knowing what to do in a buildup to a trial. What not to do in a buildup to a trial. What are you going to do with that dog before you enter the field? All of those things. Most of that is not based on science. Yeah. That's to me. And I'm sure for most of us, that's the addicting part. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's what makes you stay in it. What makes you love it. It's 3 a.m. and you're like waking up and it's like, I need to go and try this tomorrow morning. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Or why didn't that work? Wait. Let me think. Yeah. Exactly. How about, like, I've had conversations lately and how do you see the difference between protection sports and, let's say, agility or fly ball or, you know? Because there are different sports. To me, I cannot say that they're easy. Yeah. But there are some differences. How do you see them comparing protection sports to any other dog sports that are very popular?

And, in fact, probably more popular simply because many more people with different types of dogs can participate and so on. But as far as, like, training and just everything, what comes to mind? I think in most protection sports, you're not just dealing with one phase. You're dealing with multiple phases. So it's not like taking, let's say, a retriever in which the entire sport is based on obedience, right? The dog is born, the dog is tested as to see what that dog is capable of doing, and then it is obedience that's going to make or break that dog, period, throughout the whole thing. You can look at other sports. Agility. Again, it's kind of one faceted. That's why so many dogs can do it. Yeah, one faceted is a very good word. Yeah. Where protection sports is not one faceted. You can have a dog that excels in obedience but cannot do the protection end of it at all. You can have a dog that goes out there, which is always amazing to me. It could have a perfect grip but has no courage, hardness, and fighting instinct, right? You can have a dog, like I said before, that can show great tracking ability but has no hunt drive or very little. So you're taking dogs that are so multifaceted and you're trying to have everything come together on all of these different levels. So you're trying – when you go to competition, if you're tracking, if you're doing scent detection, if you're doing article searches, whatever you're doing is that phase. You've got to have that at the top level. You've got to go to the next thing, which is the obedience phase, and you have to have that at the top level. Now you've got to go to protection, and you've got to have that at the top level, right? Right? Obedience means how does a dog relate to you? How does it listen? What does the pack drive? Protection means have the courage, hardness, fighting instinct to ignore me and stand out there and fight on your own. And not to turn protection into a frisbee competition but actual, you know – Drive changes. Yeah. Drive changes. We want to see drive changes in our dog, right, in protection, in the protection phase. That's what we want to see. And that's what we go for. If we don't see those, you and I are not happy. Right. So I think you're looking at a dog and a handler that has to be very multifaceted. Enhance one without breaking another. And that, yeah, I was just going to say, like, you can put too many eggs in one basket or line them up in their own way to where the other phases you sacrifice. Right. And you have to make sure that that balance of everything moving forward remains. And very, very, very interesting.

Anything else to tell the listeners? Anything kind of for how to join? How to – any advice, any ideas, invitations? Well, basically, if anyone's looking to join and they're all confused, they can go to our liaison, who is Kim Bat. You can find her online. And she will answer any of your questions. It's another thing that we've really worked very, very hard at, to have somebody who can connect with you, who can talk to you, who can help you through the first steps. So we have a human being that will answer your questions and help you get started. Debbie, I think that was – we had to do that part, too. That was – like, we really left it out in the air. Like, a lot had to be said and talked over. And I think we accomplished that. And one thing – and I'm sure you're planning on it, but I have to still suggest that today's age, like whenever the nationalists, for example, to have good promotion and have it streamed so people can watch. And I'm sure many trainers in Europe will be very interested to see where it's going. So hopefully, you're already planning on – I don't know if we work with working dog, probably, but definitely we have to stream these events. Yes. Yes. Again, if we go through – if our connection with Helmet goes through and the RSV Global becomes something that's actually happening, we'll have Keneva involved. We're already hooked up with working dog at a level of starting to register our dogs there. So these things are all starting to come together. But we will have the events streamed. And people – so what we're trying to do right now is – as I said, Pierre came last year and entered our protection tournament at our nationals. This year, we've upped it just a little bit. You have to have an AS1 before you can enter the protection tournament. But there'll be a trial available the week before for people to enter if they want to get their AS1 somewhere so that they'll be able to attain an AS1 and then enter the protection tournament if they want to do that. I think that's a good place to end. And I really wish you strength and energy because it's important. That's what I need. It's important. It's the energy, Ivan. Thanks. There is so many breaks that come from everywhere and you just have to continue to bulldoze through. And you have that experience. So anybody that wants to help, I'm sure you would appreciate any help. Yes. Gladly. And I thank you for giving us this opportunity to put that out for the interview. Great. So we will – I think we will be seeing each other soon. Good. The sooner the better, Ivan. All right, David. Take care. All right. You take care. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you.