Some info on the DDR Deutsche Mesiterschaft .......
They used one tracking judge and two for obedience and protection, these 2 scores were averaged. Tracking was done the first day. The second day, the first 6 dogs did obedience, the blinds were set up, and the same 6 did protection. This was repeated until all dogs were done. The DDR track was one hour old, 1300 meters with five corners, one being acute. It included three articles and one cross track.

In obedience, heeling was done at a walk and then again at a run. The dogs did sit, down and stand stays out of motion, with gunfire on the recall, on the long down, and just as they picked up the dumbbell on the flat. An extra exercise had the dog in a down stay, the handler moved 10 meters away and called the dog. The dog had to *crawl* on his belly to the handler. A six foot straight scaling wall was used, not an A frame. Interestingly, it was to be switched to an A frame in 1990, but there was no 1990 DDR Deutsche Mesiterschaft. On the send away, the handler was out of sight for one minute, then returned, used a hand signal for the recall and gunfire was used as dog returned to the handler.

The dogs searched 11 blinds. The first time down the field and through the blinds, there was no helper, but the dog must search all the way, then turn around and search them all again until finding the helper. The dog did a hold and bark and escorted the helper to the judge with no escape or bite work. Then the dogs did a full field attack on the fleeing helper. The bite was done with the helper running away, so the dogs were trained to bite high, above the elbow, hence the grips with the front teeth. The helpers wore just the sleeve. The handler could tell the helper which arm to wear the sleeve on. During ALL of the bite work, the handler was off the field. All he did was send the dog and leave. The dog had to out on his own, without a command, within one minute, then stay with the helper for another minute before the handler would come to pick up the dog. Next the helper put the dog in a down stay, walked to the middle of the field, faced the dog, then left the field. After one minute the helper did an attack in which the dog got two stick hits, one before it bit, the other after. The dog had one minute to out and then had to stay with the helper.