2016 Desert Dog K9 Trials

[Coyotesfan97]

The Desert Dog K9 Trials will be this weekend April 16th and 17 from 9AM to 3PM at the Goodyear Ball Park if anyone happens to be in the Phoenix area. The last I heard about 50 teams are competing. My dog and I are competing again.

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[Coyotesfan97]

Me and my dog in 2015

[LittleLebowski]

IN. My jealousy over CoyotesFan97's job and his dog Lotus continues to fester.

[LSP552]

Good luck! I love the all business look of your partner.

[Coyotesfan97]

My dog during the Tough Dog competition. We won a trophy in obedience and tactical challenge.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160419/66ae8c4d15565bd40d46d4f1dedd2a0e.jpg


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[Dagga Boy]

Great picture. Brings back a lot of memories from our first Malanois (phenomenal dog....I backed the handler on over 30 bites and hundreds of searches). I went from agitating with just a sleeve with our Shutzen 4 GSD's to a full suit and a stick with the Mal.

[DiscipulusArmorum]

Very impressive dog. I bet the footage from that gopro is really something.

Out of curiosity, what qualities/abilities do the judges "judge" in the tactical challenge category? I've never seen one of these competitions so I'm pretty ignorant.

[LSP552]

Congratulations to you and your partner! Now give him a thug bite reward..:D

[45dotACP]

My dog during the Tough Dog competition. We won a trophy in obedience and tactical challenge.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160419/66ae8c4d15565bd40d46d4f1dedd2a0e.jpg


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Whoa! No wonder guys surrender to a K9 before a gun...

Wouldn't want to be on your partner's bad side.

[Drang]

This looks neater than Dock Dogs!

[Coyotesfan97]

Very impressive dog. I bet the footage from that gopro is really something.

Out of curiosity, what qualities/abilities do the judges "judge" in the tactical challenge category? I've never seen one of these competitions so I'm pretty ignorant.

I haven't seen it yet but I'm looking forward to it.

[Coyotesfan97]

Very impressive dog. I bet the footage from that gopro is really something.

Out of curiosity, what qualities/abilities do the judges "judge" in the tactical challenge category? I've never seen one of these competitions so I'm pretty ignorant.

It had three events in it. They'll judge you and your dog. they judge how he engages the decoy, does he let go and return to you when he's commanded to, does he go through or under things to bite the decoy. We had to deploy on a decoy hiding under a Penske truck and through the passenger door of a van to bite a decoy standing in the driver door vee. Does he heel with you and doesn't break to re bite a decoy. There's a lot they look at but that's some of the major points from this year.

[Dagga Boy]

It takes a ton of work for handlers to "clean" their dogs for this type of competition and to be good at it. We had one at my old agency that was one of the best dogs in the country at the time. Most of our dogs were getting a ton of activity and were way to dirty as street dogs to do well in competition. I would imagine Coyotesfan97 has the same issues many of our guys did. It was hard getting their dogs disciplined enough to come off of bites when they were super busy on the street and getting lots of bites and apprehensions. Meanwhile.....we had guys in our training group that worked for places with much lower activity, highly restrictive K9 policies, and rarely (if ever) got street bites. We had guys who would get more bites in a weekend than some of these guys got in a career. Many of those dogs did well in competition and were great at guard and barks and remote control verbal releases.....ours....not so much.

[Coyotesfan97]

Nyeti speaks the truth. If you have a hard street dog it's a lot of work to prepare for a trial. You pretty much have to put them under your thumb for a month or two to get ready for a trial. Lots of obedience and bite work emphasizing the verbal out. My current dog is a great street dog and a decent trial dog. My previous Mal was a hell of a street dog but not much of a trial dog. I competed one time with him and swore never again. He liked to bite a lot more than he liked to let go.

Some agencies have a dog or two that are their trial dogs. Super sporty dogs that they travel around competing in various trials and don't do a lot of street work. They win a lot of trophies competing against street dogs.

Soft GSDs usually do very well in trial competitions. They're smart and they're not that driven. When you watch a trial you can easily tell the difference between Shepherds and Malinois.