Schutzhund

Although this might look potentially deadly, or at least painful, this is actually the "protection" part of Schutzhund, along with obedience and tracking.  The challenge is that the dog must, on command (which is all in German) run up to a potential assailant and bark ferociously at them.  If the person continues to try to advance, the owner can give the dog at the command to put teeth on the person.  Dogs who are being trained for this learn to only bite the arm that has all the protective gear on it.  Still, the protection guy had a lot of padding all over  which seems smart.  Although you cant' see it in this shot, Mario (his name), kept a very calm demeanor throughout and watched the dogs closely the entire time to read any shifts in temper.

The dog in this image is a female doberman who isn't cropped or docked (unusual in America).  I personally think dobies are prettier in their natural state, but the AKC still has cropping and docking as a breed standard.  I didn't get a chance to ask the owner why she left the female "intact", especially since she also had a male who had been docked and cropped.  

There were six dogs - 4 Shepards and 2 dobermans - all of them perfectly trained and just beautiful.  I ended up taking 1500 shots and have whittled it down to about 400 - obviously, I need to get it to less than 100 so that will be a job for tomorrow.

Today was just a practice trial for the dogs, as well as for me.  Not ideal shooting conditions for dark colored dogs since it was all under full midday sun.  Still, I found some places that gave me better angles which will come in handy next weekend when I shoot the event.  I can also look at the images that came out the best today and see what my settings looked like.  I was playing a lot with exposure comp to try to offset the harsh light.  Guess I should be glad there were not any black and white dogs!  The solid black Shepards were extremely hard to get right.  

Anyway, lots of fun and took up most of the day.  I was up and down off the ground at least 100 times, in addition to trotting around to different parts of the field for better shots.  My back is screaming at me right now so I've popped an ibuprofen.  

Hubs got the primer coat on his race car today and stacked some more of our recently delivered firewood.  I think I had the better day, if I'm being honest!  

Keto brownie again tonight - they are surprisingly good!  Probably a result of all the butter.

xo
Debbi