Has Sport Subverted the Schutzhund Trial?
Jim Engel
Early in the last century von Stephanitz and other founders evolved the Schutzhund trial as a means of validating breeding worthiness in order to provide a viable working foundation for their emerging German Shepherd breed. In time the inherent competitive nature of man led to a secondary role, that is as a canine sporting venue; there has been a precarious balance ever since. To the extent that better scores correlated with inherent breed working worthiness, predictive of success in actual police and military service, this was a good thing. But trials based on style, irrelevant peculiarities of the trial rules, cleverness in training rote response or guile in conjuring up a picture to please a judge are a slippery slope to the emasculation of the breed, as we see before us in the SV conformation ring of today. Who believes that the seal most willingly balancing a ball on his nose or jumping through a hoop for a piece of fish is the best seal, the most worthy of replication, of propagating a race?
Now a century later Schutzhund is gone, and the spirit and culture from which it emerged is in steep decline. In its place we have an insipid field game, at this moment called IPO, many of whose proponents bristle at any suggestion that the result of the trial should correlate primarily with effectiveness, in the broadest sense, of real world service. But of course this is a work in progress, for in January of 2019 we will see yet another diluted reincarnation with yet another new name.
Klodo v Boxberg
Some trial revisions have been to accommodate structural degeneration increasingly characteristic of the show lines, as in the extreme angulation and banana backs fashionable in the SV show ring. The prime example was the substitution of the A frame for the scaling wall in the late 1970s, clearly in response to the advent of extreme angulation. The national venues in the Low Countries and France, KNPV and Ring Sport, have maintained the scaling wall and long jumps over a pit or barrier. This is clearly not a coincidence, for here the Malinois, increasingly more athletic and agile relative to the devolving German Shepherd, predominates, has no need for less physically demanding exercises.
Even more egregious than catering to degenerating physique has been the incessant lowering of standards to favor dogs increasingly lacking in the moral attributes of initiative, courage, working willingness and intelligence, as exemplified by the introduction of the padded stick, the elimination of the attack on the handler and the severe shortening of the long pursuit, formerly the test of courage. (Apparently courage is politically incorrect in Europe today.)
Beyond slackening the formal rules there is an endemic judging movement informally requiring and rewarding specific styles which are in reality irrelevant or detrimental. In particular, the police or military dog at heel, that is moving by his handler's side in any sort of tactical engagement, should be situationally aware in order to detect and respond to potential adversaries. This was a major reason for the creation of the police patrol dog in Ghent in 1900 and is still today a primary requisite for military or police patrol. Yet we increasingly insist on the prancing, dandified dog with eyes locked on the face of the handler, oblivious to potential threat. IPO has in fact emerged as a game incessantly penalizing the hard core dog showing initiative, situational awareness and persistence — attributes fundamental to sound police or military service. As a specific example, in the prisoner escort exercise of the KNPV program the dog is expected to respond to the dropping of an object such as a shell casing by indicating and retrieving it. Tracking and protection have evolved more and more into rote obedience programs; rather than tracking, obedience and protection we are evolving into tracking obedience, trick or obstacle obedience and protection obedience.
This pussification process is ongoing and relentless. In 2014 the Frans Jansen led FCI Utility Dog Commission grandly pronounced from on high, in the name of political correctness and subservience to the snow flake culture on the left, the elimination of the stick hits for the IPO championship in Sweden, and furthermore that they would subsequently be gone from all trials. Vigorous push back and resistance — from myself among others, particularly USCA president Jim Alloway — forced them to back down. But this was not a victory, but only a skirmish won; the intention of further emasculating the game remains strong in the FCI and the SV hierarchy.
The driving force has, as always, been the love of money, particularly endemic among SV show breeders. The working lines decline because they have no advocates on high, and because their adherents lack the will to break free and flourish in new organizations, according to examples provided by the KNPV and NVBK. There is a vital lesson here: just as the American Revolution against British tyranny set the stage for the French Revolution—even though these American colonies were weak, distant and fragile—where we have the courage American initiative has the potential to profoundly influence Euro affairs.
The degradation of the breed defining Schutzhund trial into the IPO play game began in high places, among the money motivated cabal of show breeders who, beginning some thirty to forty years ago, came to predominance in the SV. When a government runs currency off the presses without gold or similar backing its value diminishes, often dramatically, taking a wheelbarrow of currency to buy a loaf of bread. In a similar way, when SV judges began giving IPO titles to show line German Shepherds because of the political influence of their owners rather than because of their demonstrated inherited worthiness the IPO title was grievously debased, became more and more a meaningless scrap of paper. The emasculation of Schutzhund over the years for weaker and less willing show dogs, and the misplaced desire to increase the popularity of the game for casual companion owners and dilettantes, has not only debased the title but is emasculating the breed.
The existential paradox is that as breed popularity expands beyond the working community the desire to serve this market, to sell puppies and make money, leads to engaging in or condoning selection for less intense, easier to manage dogs, which become the predominant segment of the population. Note that this mass attraction is in the mythology rather than the reality, the projected persona of power and aggressive potential, the vicarious enhancement of machismo in an otherwise mundane and pedestrian life. The paradox is that the process is in the long term inherently self-destructive, that is as the dogs become softer — in perception and image as well as reality — the attraction diminishes, eventually leading to the next wonder dog surge as in the Doberman in the 1930s and the Rottweiler in the 1960s. Such dogs are comparable to cars with racing stripes and decorative spoiler wings, but nothing special under the hood. In time they lose their appeal as they become perceived as what they really are, that is decorated family sedans.
The inexorable progression is of popularity leading to debasement, the bad currency driving out the good, the diluted pet population becoming predominant; eventually leading to the eradication of the hard core working lines. We have seen this sad process play out in the Boxer, Doberman, Riesenschnauzer and my own Bouvier, among others.
It needs to be understood that in spite of the degeneration of the show lines and much of the pet breeding there still remains a strong if diminishing core of the German Shepherd population entirely worthy of the heritage, serious lines faithfully preserved by a cadre of indomitable working breeders and trainers. Declining numbers make this more fragile and vulnerable, diminishing the margin moving forward. Disturbingly, recently some lines seem to be increasingly physically fragile, too many prominent dogs being forced into early retirement.
This pussification of the IPO trial is especially disturbing for these higher level competitors and breeding resources, for increasingly placement is decided by very small margins, winners and losers selected by the fleeting opinion of a judge based on style rather than clear differences in performance relatable to inherent genetic quality. Better dogs demand more truly challenging and rigorous exercises, higher real performance standards, rather than inane style points allotted almost at random by judges in an inherently more political process.
We need a restart, a revision of the program undoing the nonsense of the last thirty years, old style Schutzhund brought up to date with more truly demanding exercises to recognize and reward inherently better dogs and training. In particular we need tracking or other olfactory exercises that reflect the realities of contemporary service, are more than rote obedience routines. Protection needs more exercises, randomness in the order, serious, unpredictable distractions when engaging the decoy, a call off on the long bite to show real control. In short, we need working dog programs by and for serious working dog people, including comprehensive police trainer input, not all of this nonsense being spewed out by clueless bureaucrats in a show dog monolith. And we need to call it what it is, Schutzhund.
Forty years ago the conformation Siegers and the winners of the BSP (Bundessiegerprufung, the annual Schutzhund Championship) had significant commonality in their pedigrees; were essentially part of one breed. Today not so much, the split between show and work is far past the point of no return. Many of us can recall this breed as virile, robust and unified; with little significant competition on the world working stage, as rugged, vigorous and durable as IBM, Bell Telephone and General Motors. But in hard reality the German Shepherd is not immune to the fate of so many other once worthy breeds; a serious change in course, a firm working oriented hand on the tiller, is necessary for preservation.
There is a notable exception to this unhappy degenerative trend: the Malinois, the short coated variety of the Belgian Shepherd. Why is this? The answer to this question is the key to the devolution of Schutzhund and the consequences seen over time in those breeds which arose under its influence.
Formalized in 1891, a decade before von Stephanitz began his stud book, throughout most of the twentieth century the Malinois was a stealth breed flying well below the international radar, with little visibility beyond obscure training and trial fields of the Low Countries— Flemish Belgium and the Netherlands — and later France. When formal police patrol began in Ghent, Belgium in 1900 this Malinois was there, and when the first police programs began in the United States prior to WW I it was with imported short coated Belgian Shepherds. Even on French Ring fields this Malinois was unknown prior to the later 1950s. When SRSH, the Belgian FCI affiliated national organization, began to interfere and push a show dog agenda these stalwart Flemish advocates broke free to form the NVBK in 1963.
Throughout the early decades of the century these Belgian people lived under enormously difficult economic, political and social circumstances, greatly hindering the evolution and growth of the Malinois among many other facets of national life. The existential causative factor is not especially difficult to discern, this fragile community endured at the epicenter of two devastating world wars commencing with Belgium in German cross hairs; twice suffered confiscation and eradication under brutal German and then Nazi occupation. The miracle is not that the breed emerged from Flemish Belgium as an increasingly predominant police and military dog, the miracle is that it survived at all.
But there was a glimmer of a silver lining, for they endured hardship, persevered in their KNPV and Belgian Ring venues in a cultural environment essentially free of malignant conformation hobbyist influence and pressure to compromise for popularity in the general population. The stage was set for a long delayed emergence on the world canine scene.
There was a new beginning in the later 1950s, an emergence of economic prosperity and long term European peace and stability. The sixties was a transformative decade, seeing the establishment of an independent stand-alone club, the NVBK. Leon Destailleur, a culturally French Belgian, would almost single handedly introduce the Malinois on French ring fields, revolutionizing the character of the sport, causing the leg bite to predominate over the arm bite and eventually marginalizing the German Shepherd.
As the 1960s commenced Schutzhund was primarily a German game, but gradually, at the instigation of local German Shepherd enthusiasts, similar national venues with their own organizations and names were established in neighboring nations. In time an international program, IPO, began under FCI auspices. Eventually all of these programs, including the German Schutzhund venue under SV control, were folded into the IPO, rendering it the exclusive, global international venue. Unity may sometimes be a good thing, but here the price was much too high, for the last vestiges of real power and control fell irrevocably into the hands of conformation oriented politicians and bureaucrats.
As these Schutzhund venues took root in neighboring nations the opportunity for international competition— and perhaps a desire for foreign recognition, popularity and export sales— drew in a few Malinois participants. There were, and still remain, some cultural clashes and political problems. Schutzhund and IPO in Europe, as opposed to America, are generally open only to dogs with FCI recognized registration, a problem when most of the best working Malinois were of often non registered KNPV lines or not recognized NVBK lines. The trickle expanded, and by the 1990s there was increasing participation in the Netherlands, Belgium and even France. Germans such as Peter Engel (not related) began serious working line breeding and training programs, based largely on Belgian NVBK stock.
Why do we see the Malinois in ascendance as the German Shepherd ebbs? I deeply respect and admire both of these noble breeds, and the generations of breeders and trainers whose persistence and courage has enabled their preservation. Competition among these advocates is a good thing, acts against any tendency to become stagnant or slack.
This is neither a simple nor trivial question, which arises out of a century of convoluted history. But it is the existential question, demanding an answer in order to see the way forward. The lesson of history is that the stronger the national conformation oriented breed clubs, FCI or AKC affiliated, IPO oriented, the greater the tendency to debasement. The Malinois, with historical roots in non FCI entities, the KNPV and NVBK since 1963, with very little show breeder influence, has prospered. Popularity and success among the public and in the conformation ring historically have gone hand in hand with debasement, decline and often eventual extinction as serious working breeds. The emasculation of the Schutzhund trial, both formally in the modification of the rules and in the emergence of judges expected and willing to routinely pass unworthy SV show dogs, is a direct causative factor.
The evolution of the police and military breeds and service in twentieth century Europe is as convoluted and complex as the political conflicts and wars in which it occurred, and drawing broad general conclusions as to trends, outcomes, cause and effect needs to be done with great deliberation and care. But over the first decade of the twenty first century the Malinois, evolving in the suit sports of the Low Countries, with very little conformation show influence, is emerging as the predominant police and military breed, while the other breeds, particularly the German, those that suffered through the devolution of Schutzhund into the IPO of today and have been under the yoke of the FCI show dog establishment, have been in serious decline.
Clearly this is cause and effect, which is why making the Schutzhund trial, created by von Stephanitz and his associates, into a game primarily focused on style and obedience, is inherently wrong from the point of view of the preservation of serious police level working dogs. The IPO trial is under the control of the conformation oriented FCI establishment, people involved in pets, play dogs and grotesque conformation shows, with zero interest in or concern for working structure and character. Even the vaunted Utility Dog Commission has no power, can only suggest. (And only an elite central group consisting of Jansen, Gunther Diegel and two or three others are really in the loop, often acting with the rest of the committee uninvolved until presented with a more or less accomplished fact.)
Where will it end? In Germany the SV has seen puppy registrations drop to but a third of late twentieth century numbers. AKC registration numbers, not published since 2011, would project to as few as 15000 annually, far below the popularity in the last century. The Malinois more and more predominates in police and military service.
The purebred dog in general and our protective heritage breeds in particular are in crisis with popularity, respect and annual registrations seriously in decline worldwide. The foundation of our heritage has from the beginning been the working trial, and the intrinsic flaws of the IPO program are the root of our problematic situation of today. The fundamental failure of IPO is that the focus is on the handler, often with a dog he has not trained, with the dog more and more relegated to the role of sports equipment. We have gotten our collective heads screwed on backwards; not only have we lost focus on the real purpose—a breeding certification trial—it is not even really a sport, not conducted in a sportsmanlike way, for when people show up with dogs selected and trained by others seeking notoriety and prominence, to stand on a podium and wave a cup, it is only a game.
Orginizations and Conflicts
Legacy Lost, the Other Breeds
The Americans
Style and Opinion Sports
Has Sport Subverted the Trial?
How We Play the Game
Commercialization of Schutzhund
The Mother State