Dear Schutzhund Enthusiast!

Have you wondered if there was another area of competition where you could expand and showcase your working dog’s skills? IPO-R (competitive rescue-dog trials) might just be of interest! IPO-R trials require high level obedience (with testing routines very similar to Schutzhund obedience), coupled with precision control dexterity and a search specialty. Specialities include:

• Wilderness area search where the dog is sent into specific areas by the handler to locate “lost victims”
• Rubble search where the dog must located buried victims hidden under piles of debris
• Tracking search where the K9 team first find the start of an FH level type track, follow the track-layers course over 1000-2000 paces and ultimately locate the “victim” at the end of the trail
• Avalanche where the dog must locate buried victims hidden deep in the snow

If these specialities sound intriguing to you, then you might be interested in joining us for a seminar offered by Search Dog Organization of North America (SDONA). SDONA will be holding a series of three Training Seminars featuring

Brigitte Versterre (NL) in:

• Indianapolis, Indiana, April 20-22,
• Ruckersville, VA from April 27-29 and in
• Bozeman, MT from May 4-6

Brigitte has been involved in dog training for over 20 years and involved in IRO testing for nearly a decade. She is experienced in tracking, area, rubble and avalanche search. She has won the Austrian (2006, 2007), Dutch (2007, 2008) and German (2008) championships in area search, and was the 2007 World Champion. She moved her dog Chica into rubble search competition and won the Dutch championship in rubble search (2008). In 2010, she placed 4th in the German championship for rubble search, and 14th in the 2010 World Championship. She was recently in 1st place at the Wurttembergische Championship in Germany (A level, Area search) with her 2-year-old Malinois, Indy. Shortly after that, she obtained the B-level Area with Indy. Brigitte will be participating in and will be a secretary for an IRO trial in March which will be one of the first opportunities to test under the revised 2012 standards under three different judges. She will bring this experience to her seminars with SDONA.

Please visit our site at http://www.sdona.org/about/ for additional information about what we do and how you can participate. Specific seminar information can be found at http://www.sdona.org/training-events/. I have attached a flyer for our seminars. Please feel free to pass this information along to anyone else you think might be interested.