Protection Dog Profile – Axel

Aylwards | October 19, 2011

Jill & John have owned 5 Shepherds over the years, 3 of which have been trained at Aylwards in obedience and protection.

Axel is the 3rd German Shepherd they have trained at Aylwards.

Axel completed his basic obedience at ten months of age, and then embarked on protection training classes with Jill handling him when he was one year old. To date, Axel has been training in protection for 18 months.

From the first time Jill and John observed a full trained family protection dog in action during a demonstration at Aylwards, they decided to have their dogs trained to that level with Mike and his team.

German Shepherd Dog Obedience / Protection Training :: Teale Shapcott Photography

Axel leaping into attack. © Teale Shapcott & Aylwards

Jill and John believe that 3 shepherds they have trained in obedience and protection at Aylwards have gained so much more confidence within themselves when they transition from basic obedience training to protection training.

Axel during Protection Training. © Teale Shapcott & Aylwards

Jill recognizes each dog is different with their learning rates of key aspects of protection training. For Axel, holding his bite on the sleeve for the required period of time has been challenging. Regardless, Axel has accepted many of the advanced obedience aspects of protection training and he enjoys a great session of training every weekend at Aylwards.

Axel keeping an intruder away from Jill. © Teale Shapcott & Aylwards

Axel © Teale Shapcott & Aylwards

For Jill, the most challenging aspect of training Axel has been handling one of the most active German Shepherds she and her husband have owned.

To Jill’s credit, Axel is quite a big boy who can move rapidly during training, so good timing with commands are one of her focus points during training sessions.

Jill has found with both Axel and her previous dogs that the protection training has made her dogs better at obedience in every day situations, increasing both their maturity and confidence overall.

Axel relaxing at home..

Jill also highly recommends the Aylwards Protection Dog demonstrations that are held after Obedience Course graduation every 5 weeks. These demonstrations show that Protection training further develops your dogs obedience and does not make them fierce or aggressive.

After training three of her dogs at Aylwards, Jill has found one of the best aspects of the training is that Mike and his team work with her and guide her to train her own dog. 🙂 She and John are very proud of the Axels training achievements, his courage and the fact that Axel just loves coming to training every weekend too!