Slow Maturing GSD - Page 3

OP....anyone that diagnoses your dog without seeing it in person....runaway from....plain and simple.

Trainers and helpers who talk and babble on about prey and defense are idiots and incompetent to train their own dogs much less yours. They can look at your dog all day long and still know nothing because they know nothing. These are the people with two prong collars and an electric collar on their dogs for "control". Stay away from them. Prey drives are many and complicated, defensive drives are many and complicated, competitive drives are many and complicated, hierarchy and social drives are many and complicated, and on and on. Think about all the things that motivate you either negatively or positively ... your dog has the same emotions of fear, desire, confidence and self doubt that must be controlled. Club trainers and helpers have formula and patterns that they think work well and fit all dogs, neither is true. What you see with club trainers and helpers are the only dogs they can train are the ones that fit their formula. They ruin a lot of dogs lives by pushing them too far and too fast without ever establishing the basics of the skills the dog needs. The handler and owner is going to train the dog and help him/her establish the necessary skills for life and sports .. the folks at the club are not. They believe that breeding and strong will replaces practice and preparation needed which is blatantly false. They evaluate a puppy at 6-8 months and think incorrectly they can judge if the dog "has it" whatever it is for them. Breeding and strong will layers over practice and preparation. If a batter wants to see if he can hit a 100 mph fast ball in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded then first that batter had better be able to hit a 100 mph fastball otherwise he will be watching from the stands. A lot of people join a "club" for whatever sport "they" want to compete in with their dog. The dog could care less about any sport they just want to be with their owner and handler doing fun activities and all of the titles and plastic trophies are for the humans.

As you have said there are many forms or combinations of Drives...but to explain to someone who doesn't understand the basics you have to explain them in basic terms...
There are many components to drives...but they are still the basic Drives...Everything still comes from those innate Drives...whether it be Food...or Play or Defending themselves...
As it was also said you can suggest things to do or to try but when it comes down to it you don't really know what or why your dog is or isn't doing something until you see or feel that dog in person...
Even if you have multiple trainers see your dog you most likely will still have multiple conclusions...Every trainer sees things differently and will have different ideas of how to go about correcting them...

~Bob~

How does a person make such statements about "club helpers" when they themselves haven't been to a club, or trained a dog in bite work in decades?

Maybe we should remember the intial question instead of bashing dog sport...

"Anyone have any experience with Czech males being slow to mature?"

You already answered your own question - his littermate is different, but both of them are "Czech males", and both have been "exposed to the same training". Dogs are individuals, not pedigrees. Some mature fast, some slow, some are outgoing, some are lazy, some are smart, fast learners, some are even dumb. It´s almost impossible to train two dogs similar ( different drives, different character, different "intelligence" and so on ).

"I have a 20 month old male who isn't responding to training as fast as his litter mate. He doesn't show any defense at all and shows a general lack of interest." -

whereas in your next post you write:

"He is kenneled outside and will bark aggressively at strangers passing by."

This either sounds like defense or at least territorial behavior. He doesn´t seem to be that uninterested in his surrounding. How does he behave in case a stranger doesn´t "pass by" but walks to his kennel?

"He bites the sleeve at the very end only, should I be concerned at this point."

This would concern me, because either he didn´t learn the technique properly ( maybe you wanted too much in a too short period of time ) or he feels uncomfortable with the helper. How does he interact with strangers at all?

"Socially he can be very independent, interacts with me on his terms."

What does this mean? ( interacts with me on his terms ) You are the leader, not your dog. Does he trust you 100% ?

"As a puppy he had lots of prey drive and would bark at the flirt pole, but seems to have lost interest."

Why did he loose interest? There must be a reason, normally it´s pretty easy to build up prey drive, and by then it´s pretty easy to teach grip and trust.

A lot of questions, impossible to "understand" this dog without knowing him.

After all I wouldn´t give up, sometimes another helper / different surrounding will help.
But you should be aware that not every dog is made for bitework. In that case it´s up to you to find some other venue for entertainment.

Just have fun
 

Have fun indeed but for the dog ... there are over 100 dog sports and they do not all focus on bite work as the be all and end all .. bite work is relative primarily to biting sports which are few and in decline. In reality biting is not very important for training or breeding dogs of any breed including the GSD. IPO is one dog sport that has many breeds participating with the GSD being second behind the MAL at the real IPO world championships hosted by the FCI . So don't let the idea that biting is what a GSD is for and about ... they were herding dogs and utility dogs .. many still are. Take the dog that you have and use the dogs talents and skill set to make something enjoyable to live, play, and if need be work with.

In this topic, I've read some sound advice and some advice, far left field. Par for the course I suppose.