Starting Your Airedale Puppy In Protection...

[Alisa]

I actually got a $300 discount for signing up Zander while he is still a puppy (4 months). The trainers have experience with Airedales and said that it is much easier to start young pups in protection early and that they can teach twice as much in half a time.

[Alisa]

We only had one class so far - tomorrow is the second. Last week they worked on what I think is called "prey drive" - pretty much the same as that pup in the movie above, exept Zander was not as ferocious - it was almost 8pm at night and Zander was tired after spending the whole day playing with Argo. So I was instructed to continue w/ball play and some other search exercises and separate him from the old dog on the training days. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

[southern]

thanks Curt

[southern]

ps most of Dixies have that prey drive in them. Several are being taught and used for protection

[southern]

Hey Curt, what a kuddos?

[Alisa]

Not sure it would actually qualify as a Club or even Venue... As I mentioned to Alex earlier - this training group is conducted by the owner of a DPS licensed K9 Security company that provides patrol K-9/ handler and explosives detection/handler teams to government agencies and private industry. They were the first company in Arizona to apply a non-aversive training program to the training of patrol dogs.
Trisha - the owner and her other trainer Uschi (she is from Austria) train their pups along with the group. Apparently the handlers need to learn from other dogs and handlers just as much as from their own dogs, hence the need for a "training group". They only have 1 group going at any time and the number of dogs is limited, so we were very pleased when they accepted Zander

[alex]

Alisa,

Hows new puppy?
Any pictures?

[Alisa]

I am still recovering from the trip - will post pics shortly.
Zeena is still very small - she sleeps, wakes up, feeds, pees/poops, plays a little with a tennis ball and tag rag and 15 minutes later is back asleep. But Yuri swears she is the most intelligent dog on earth - naturally!

[Alisa]

I had some pictures posted earlier under Puppy bitework pictures for both Zander and Zeena and don't have anything more recent, we take the camera with us regularly, but once there keep forgetting every time.

[Alisa]

OK, let all get it straight:

There are 3 Airedales total in this protection class.
1. Zander - 6.5mo Southern's Dixie/Iron Mike pup owned/handled by Alisa/Sasha
2. Zeena - 3mo Don's Gunner/Southern's Ginger pup, owned/handled by Alisa/Yuri
3. Troy - also 3mo - Zeena's litter-mate, owned and handled by our friend Fuad, also from Russia

I posted his pics from last week because 1) he is also Airedale and 2) by the time Zeena's chomping started it got so dark and they moved so fast, that I really didn't get any decent shots.

Here's one of Zeena chomping on the trainer- see how dark and blurry?

[Alisa]

curt said:

Three Airedale puppies doing Protection. ..
Hey!! That has to be a US Record!! ;D

I don't know about the US but in THIS Protection Class Airedale Terrier is definately the dominating breed:

2 GSD's
2 Pitbulls
1 Malinois
1 Boxer
1 Rotweiler
3 ~!!! Airedales!!!~

[southern]

Airedales rule