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Women Out Standing In A Field
Why is Schutzhund a man’s sport?
My second husband was a K-9 officer, meaning he was a cop with a dog. Otto the German Shepherd went everywhere with him and was a certified police dog — meaning he would absolutely bite you on command — but he was mostly a big softy who excelled at public relations in the county courthouse. Think “Otto taking pretzel rod from small child’s hand” and making the front page of the newspaper.
My husband’s Schutzhund club was another story.
Shutzhund is German for “protection dog”. People forms clubs to practice and train their dogs, which are mostly German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois, although any dog can learn the sport. Standard Poodles are surprisingly great police dogs.
A big part of Schutzhund is tracking and obedience, which involves a lot of standing around in a field.
There was only one female member of my husband’s dog club and the guys harassed her mercilessly. Of course, not to her face. But behind her back they made the usual comments, with the added spice of calling her a slut because she had hepatitis C.
Coincidentally, I had hep C too. While I patiently waited for my husband to speak up and defend both of us, Hell froze over.
