Hi Hunter,
That was a great demo huh?
What was shown today is called the sport of Schutzhund. It was developed originally in Germany to test the working ability of the GSD. It is also used to test the dog for potential breeding stock.
Schutzhund (dog sport in German) combines 3 main disciplines..ie. tracking, obedience and protection. From this, you can see it is a very demanding sport which also brings immense satisfication to get a true working dog that excels in it. Typical breeds participating in this sport are the GSD, Dobermans, Belgian Malinois, Rottweilers, Giant Schnauzers to name a few. Almost all are large breeds for the protection factor.
Schutzhund like obedience comes in three levels of increasing difficulty. These are Schutzhund 1,2 and 3. You must pass the lower levels before progressing on to the next level. I read that in Germany, to register a GSD for breeding, the dog must pass at least Schutzhund 1 level.
For a quick overview, check out this site -
http://www.dvgamerica.com/whatis.html For more details, check this site -
http://www.k9web.com/...ties/schutzhund.html Hope this info helps.
Rdgs Arthur