How important are German commands?

[Ramon]

I've heard that some judges have a strong bias towards German commands in Shutzhund. How true is this? To me that's ridiculous. What set of commands a dog obeys has nothing to do with his suitability for breeding.

[Judi W]

Most judges are prejudiced towards a good performance. Some handlers are very comfortable with the German commands, others use them in a pretentious manner. Truly, the judge does not care and has many other things to evaluate.

I worked a couple of titled dogs that were almost straight off the plane. The owner wanted them to take their commands in English. It didn't really take long at all for the dogs to make the transition. They knew their work well and my tone of voice combined with body language and their training made the transition easy. It really is personal preference, but should be comfortable. I also watched a dog laugh at a handler when the handler got his commands mixed up trying to use an unfamiliar language. (a cautionary tale)

[WorkinDogz]

Ramon,

I've seen judges get annoyed when the German commands are BUTCHERED by Americans who think it's "vogue" to train in German.

You can speak the lingo; but the big deal comes with the TRAINING. That's what the judges care about.

My dogs are trained in both English and German. (One never knows when one will get a vacation and the dogs will be in boarding ;) )

[czechrott]

German commands are the most universal used, so judges like to hear them, to keep things consistant. Often times, the German commands are butchered on purpose, in an effort to get additional help for the dog. I'm pretty sure that the German recall command "Hier" is not 3 or 4 syllables long!

I use Czech commands [that I butcher], which I consider an extra help to the dog. The heeling command, "Ken-o-say" is 3 syllables long, which is more of a help than saying "Fuss" in German. I have competed in local, and National trials, and I have not been penalized for using them, or warned of it.

[German Vanegas]

Although, I understand the Judges' unwritten rule about German commands, "It sounds better", we all know that dogs respond to sounds and not to specific languages. So it doesn't matter if the dog is taught obedience-control commands in Russian, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, German, French, English, ect., it makes not difference to the dog. The dog will understand the commands by the tone and sounds he is taught to respond to. Now, imagine that you get a Shar-Pei and you would have to training him in Chinese!!! :D

[ April 09, 2001: Message edited by: German Vanegas ]

[Dei]

Call me silly, but my main reservation against training a dog in a language other than what I speak natively is that in a pressured situation, I'll tend to say what comes to mind and if my dog's careening down the road in pursuit of someone (God forbid!) and I say 'Come!' when he's looking for 'Heir!' that's precious time lost while I correct myself and say the right thing.

But perhaps I'm just being silly...

Dei.

[Parry4ever]

Dei, I can understand why you would feel that way. However, if you get used to responding or reacting to anyone (not just animals) in a certain way, that's usually the way you will react in a high stress situation. I am training my little girl in German. I am comfortable with the german language, having lived in Berlin for 5 and a half years. I must say that I was never fluent :( . Which is really sad considering the length of time I was there (wish I had it to do over again). I think I've forgotten more german than I ever learned. But when I started training Kiara in German, suddenly I found myself saying things in German that I didn't even realize I remembered (It's been 16 years since I even attempted German). Once I started saying the commands in German, habit kicked in and the other german words just came. I guess what I'm trying to say (in a long drawn out manner) is that if you do all the training in German, it becomes habit to command your dog in German. Kind of like a nick-name for a person. When I first met my husband I didn't call him "honey" or "sweetheart", now I don't even know if I remember his real name.LOL :D

[Dei]

I think you're proving my point -- you're training in German because you know the language and can think in it -- it's funny how you forget less of a language than you usually think. :) It makes sense for you to train in German in a way that it doesn't make sense for me to do so, because all I would know would be commands and the most-commonly-used terms (then again, learning German is something I do want to do sometime).

I can train a dog in languages other than English: French, Danish and Ga -- words in those languages are not just arbitarily chosen sounds, but definite meaningful words within a language I know. It's just that I know how much of a lag there can be between having to think of what you want to say, translate it to another language and say it versus being able to think in that language directly.

Then again, in a schutzhund trail, what's the worst that can happen? You get flustered and look silly? :) [of course, if you're an English-language-only policeman on the streets with a dog you've only trained in German and you get caught up in an emergency, the consequences could be a little less funny...but that's straying from the topic]

Dei, who is not attacking the practice so much as pointing out why she won't be jumping onto *that* particular bandwagon.

[WorkinDogz]

Czech..

Are you saying the recall command doesn't sound like "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere!" ??

Geez...and all this time..... ;)

[Judi W]

Let's see now, is that scored as two commands, or six??????? ;)

[WorkinDogz]

Depends on the Judge... LMAO :D

[Judi W]

Yep, if it's with a true German accent it's only 2 commands. If it's a stressed sounding American accent - 6 or more....... :D

[czechrott]

How about the Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuussssssss command?

As far as a English speaking only policeman using German commands, this should never cause a problem. If an emergency situation arises, then that handler should fall back on his K-9 training. If he/she cannot do this, then it's the training that's bad, not the commands.

[WorkinDogz]

Plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatz!

And that on the motion platz...the send away..whoa baby...you can carry that tune forever...LMAO :D :D

[German Vanegas]

And then you hear German nationals around the field (judges, competitors, spectators, etc.) saying something like:

Ich hoffe, daß ich als schlecht nicht ertone, wenn ich auf englisch spreche! :p

[ April 11, 2001: Message edited by: German Vanegas ]