Is there a dog trainer in the house?

[DIBBS]

Well it's been a while since I had a puppy. A week ago I picked up a 2 yr old German Shepherd male, 110 pound bundle of freaking energy. He knows the basic commands, sit, down, stay, come, fetch, but I am having some issues with getting him to stay.

He appears to be extremely affectionate, but plays rough with our 45 lb dog. In addition when I get home from work he will nip at my hands and ankles, but is super excited to see me. He will chase and fetch a ball till he's exhausted. If I work with him heeling beside me as we walk after a good fetch session, he does a little better with the pulling on the leash, but still a long ways to go. I've been at this for about a week, so perhaps my expectations are maybe a little much for this early in the game? Thanks for any thoughts/tips/links/ or suggestions. (Perhaps I just need a few weeks/months/another year of additional work , love, and patience for King Solomon. Also does anyone have experience with a gentle leader collar or harness, or something similar?


and p

 

[Ravenworks]

No No No is a good word.
The biggest thing is to be consistent with everything.
They do get bored easy and need lots of exercise.
To stop the biting and rough housing of the other dog,you need to become the Alpha of the pack.

 

[hlee]

2 years old is pretty old to be teaching basic commands. We started sit and stay with our puppy last week. She turned 10 weeks old today. Your dog has had essentially 2 years to learn how to not stay. Start easy. Be consistent.

Leash the dog. Be slow and deliberate. Put the dog at sit. Give the stay command. Hold him there with the leash. Repeat stay while slowly walking back. Reinforce with an outstretched “stop” hand. Slowly release the pressure while giving the command at each step. If he falters, don’t reprimand. Start from step 1. Short sessions, 5 minutes? Pay attention to your dogs attention span. Do something else when he gets bored. Be patient, it will take a few days. Eventually, you should be able to walk out of his view and he’ll stay. But, be patient. At 2 years, he’ll be stubborn.

 

[TheGerman]

Spirit Animal ACTIVATE!

@bogeybrown

 

[BG94591]

Be consistent. Start off with short distances Ie half the leash length. Have him sit, reward him. Tell him to stay, as you take a step or two backwards while facing him. Tell him good, and step to him and give him a treat. Continue this and then instead of 2 steps, make it 3-4. If he decides to to move on his own, correct him and place him back in the same spot and start over again. When you are done with his training lesson, give him a free command like “yes” and play tug with him. But he only gets the move when you tell him to. As far as the nipping goes, my Mal will do it occasionally and I’ll grab hold of his collar and give him a firm “NO”. Consistency is key.

 

[Sieg]

They all speak training collar, I've been using them over ten years along with good solid fundamental training methods learned from previous hands on experience at a local training school. My dogs love their collars and don't know what it's like to be on a leash or need to be.

The collars I use (Sport Dog) have a vibrate, 1/10th second shock, and 6 second continuous shock mode. Sport Dog's training video included with the collar is very good at training the human handler and acclimating the dog properly to the levels of stimulation.

I very seldom have to use either shock mode, just the vibrate. When you are working with verbal commands and have the collar on the dog you can easily reinforce your commands if needed. Dog's do not like to get shocked and they learn fast to avoid that type of stimulation. The key is consistency. Verbal command issued with one short vibrate input, another verbal if needed with two long vibrate inputs, if a third verbal is needed it is reinforced with a 1/10th second shock, if a fourth verbal is needed it is reinforced with a continuous shock.

I have a 140 Great Dane and I only weigh 28lbs more than him, reality is I couldn't stop him with a leash if he was motivated. With the collar it's no problem, he'll immediately go vertical if shocked. My wife wouldn't have a chance.

My collars have 3 power levels and the controller can adjust each level 1-8 and a range of .75 miles. Before I put it on my dog, I used the collar on myself placed on the inside of my forearm set on low, med, and high power using levels 1-8 on the controller, except on high..... I only made it to level 6.

My dogs can't wait to get their collars on morning and evening because they know their going out on patrol or some other journey.

 

[acudaowner]

never fear they will have you well trained soon enough .

 

[Sieg]

never fear they will have you well trained soon enough .

As long as they know you're the Alpha all is good. Especially with breeds over 90lbs!

 

[oneshot86]

Spirit Animal ACTIVATE!

@bogeybrown

ill text him yo

 

[Maggot]

My wolves do whatever I tell them to...as long as thats what they want to do.

Stay is not in their vocabulary.

 

[hlee]

2 years old is pretty old to be teaching basic commands. We started sit and stay with our puppy last week. She turned 10 weeks old today. Your dog has had essentially 2 years to learn how to not stay. Start easy. Be consistent.

Leash the dog. Be slow and deliberate. Put the dog at sit. Give the stay command. Hold him there with the leash. Repeat stay while slowly walking back. Reinforce with an outstretched “stop” hand. Slowly release the pressure while giving the command at each step. If he falters, don’t reprimand. Start from step 1. Short sessions, 5 minutes? Pay attention to your dogs attention span. Do something else when he gets bored. Be patient, it will take a few days. Eventually, you should be able to walk out of his view and he’ll stay. But, be patient. At 2 years, he’ll be stubborn.

When you get him to stay and can walk off a bit, he will want to come to you. That is his nature. When you see that he is about to break, don’t give the stay command, give the come command. That way, he has done 2 things correctly. You really don’t want to reprimand a dog for coming to you, unless you want to have to chase him around...

 

[BLKWLFK9]

So what is it exactly youre wanting to work on? Heeling? Stay command? Nipping?

Im a former police K9 trainer. I'd be happy to help.

 

[THEIS]

Hi,

@BLKWLFK9 can probably provide you with more of the minute details that you will need to use with the utmost consistency but the best thing I was ever told when I was dealing with K9s for a living was to never ever change more than one "D" at a time:

Distance
Duration
Distraction

Especially with "Stay" commands.....only change 1 at a time.

Sincerely,
Theis

 

[DIBBS]

@BLKWLFK9 I will pm you after work this afternoon. Sincerely appreciate the offer for assistance, and all others who replied. I am attempting to get the dog in a position where it follows commands to a T, and is safe to be around my grandchildren, and I can walk without a leash and it ignores distractions.

 

[bogeybrown]

@TheGerman , Bat Signal received via @oneshot86 .

@DIBBS , Don't worry about him being too old to learn. Unless you ended up with a true reject of a GSD he's more than capable of picking up what you want. He's simply had 2years where you weren't in his world and weren't important to him. Training starts with rapport and once he's learned that you're the most important thing in his life the pieces will come together.

Get with @BLKWLFK9 via PM . If you hit the point where another perspective may help then hit me up.

Congrats on the pup, you will never have a relationship with a dog like the one you can have with a GSD.

 

[_Windrider_]

There is a guy in Kentucky named Stonnie Dennis (look at his YouTube). Awesome trainer. He has done my last 3 dogs.

 

[femadog]

Well it's been a while since I had a puppy. A week ago I picked up a 2 yr old German Shepherd male, 110 pound bundle of freaking energy. He knows the basic commands, sit, down, stay, come, fetch, but I am having some issues with getting him to stay.

He appears to be extremely affectionate, but plays rough with our 45 lb dog. In addition when I get home from work he will nip at my hands and ankles, but is super excited to see me. He will chase and fetch a ball till he's exhausted. If I work with him heeling beside me as we walk after a good fetch session, he does a little better with the pulling on the leash, but still a long ways to go. I've been at this for about a week, so perhaps my expectations are maybe a little much for this early in the game? Thanks for any thoughts/tips/links/ or suggestions. (Perhaps I just need a few weeks/months/another year of additional work , love, and patience for King Solomon. Also does anyone have experience with a gentle leader collar or harness, or something similar?


and pView attachment 7153562View attachment 7153564

I train search dogs for FEMA so I can offer some help if you need it. I have a Belgium Malinois that required a lot of learning on my part after years of training Labs. Just my opinion but no, no,no on the gentle leader. I used a pinch collar at first but eventuality was able to do most of his training using the clicker. The difference between the commands he learned with the clicker versus the pinch collar are night and day. If you go pinch, make sure it is fitted properly. Most folks have them too loose, thinking it is better for the dog but it can actually be worse since it will rest in the wrong place, low on the neck.

Don’t worry about the age. A lot of working dogs start their job specific training at 2 years old in order to give their skeletal system a chance to mature.

FYI you have a working breed which means they do best when they have a job, whether it’s simple games of hide and seek or competition of some type. Also the nipping is normal for a herding breed but needs to nipped in the bud. It can lead to nipping small children that they perceive as needing to be herded.

PM me if you have specific questions. Beautiful dog.

 

[Crang]

Ive had my share of GSDs and Rots although my current is a mix of the 2. For nipping, I always grab their snout the instant they do it- no delay. Squeeze it shut just hard enough they give a little whine and say no. No need to be rough. Thats it.

Despite some advice on here dont say 'No No No'. Only give a command once and use your eyes and body language (lean in) to enforce it. Giving commands repeatedly teaches them to ignore them the first time.

For stay I always use a high value treat. Get them to stay with it just out of reach and you close enough to physically stop them. Give the release command "OK" or whatever you use and then they get it. Then do it again put the treat distance gets further and you get further. Duration of stay gets longer as well until eventually they stay as long as you make them. Thats it!

I dont know if you have ever read any of the books by the Monks of New Skete, but they are well regarded and specialize in GSDs. Every time I get a new puppy Ill reread them for a refresher.

Gorgeous dog BTW-