Intuition in GSD's - Page 1

I wonder if any of you have had something similar happen to you. I won't be surprised to hear quite a few of you say 'yes'. (WARNING: Lassie-type moment ahead!) No, I didn't fall down a well, but I did fall into a nice big hole in the ground... I am training my GSD rescue to be a Hearing Ear service dog. He's got the alerting behaviours down pat, and we're working on public access training. Back in early March, we were at a large conference together, his first public event of this type. His behaviour was close to perfect, aside from the crotch-sniff and bum-sniff he subjected my room-mate to on one occasion. The first night of the conference, I was walking him along the street near the hotel late at night. As he was making no move to do his business, I decided to take him into a nearby small woods, hoping he'd lift his leg to the trees. I took one step off the sidewalk, and plunged into a fence post hole that had been hidden by the snow. It went right up past my knee, and as I fell, my other leg buckled underneath me. I found myself lying on my stomach, with both legs useless, and up to my elbows in soft snow. I couldn't get enought purchase with either hands or feet to get back up. The one good thing about the situation was that I had not hurt myself. As I was floundering around, trying to figure out just what to do, my dog heard the distressed noises I was making. He came over to me, and stood directly in front of me with his body pressed against me. He allowed me to lean on his back to pull myself out of the hole. People with a mobility handicap often train their service dogs to do exactly that. Here was my dog doing it with no training whatsoever. Sheer coincidence? Or part of the wonderful intuition/intelligence that has developed in this breed over the years?

I think it's really part of their intelligence/intuition. I have really bad knees and it will occassionally cause me to lose my balance. My 9yo White GSD Rescue thaught himself to brace me so that I don't fall. Then just last night the goofy 2yo rescue GSD that I've only been fostering for two weeks raced over to brace me when my knee buckled while I was playing ball with him. I have a friend that has a service dog (her 3 yo female gsd)for seizure alert. She found out she was having seizures because of her dog. She thought she was just getting older and forgetful but it turned out to be blackout seizures. Her dh noticed her dog acting strange and whineing and was taking to her about it when she had one of the blackouts (a bad one that lasted about 15 mins). Her doctor confirmed her seizures and her GSD has been alerting her every since (guick whine and a nudge to her right side). No training other than traditional obedience

Good dog. Sounds like you should expand his training to include other type of sevice work. I don't know your direct question though. A neighbor has sevice dogs for mobility problems. Hers often are not near as helpful as yours was. When our phone rings late we know it's probably her needing help getting out of something her dog isn't helping with.

Animules, but then I'd lose him as MY service dog! I'm about 95% deaf in the right ear, and the left ear's about 70% gone. He sure comes in handy when the alarm goes off in the morning, or someone knocks on the door! (I did have a bed shaker, but it broke. I hadn't really done much training on the alarm clock because of the shaker, but the morning it quit, Ranger was right in there with his paws up on the bed, nudging me awake!) I guess my question is twofold: 1) Has anyone had similar experiences of a dog performing a helpful behaviour it's never been trained for? 2)What causes the dog to do this? Instinct? Intelligence? Bonding to the owner? I've never had a dog that was so sensitive to my moods before. When I was burying my previous dog, which died 3 weeks after he came into my home, he stuck to me like glue, and licked the tears and sweat off my face when I stopped to rest. When I'm sick, he comes and checks me out every time I sneeze, for pete's sake! I couldn't have asked for a better dog, and he certainly has to be grateful to me for rescuing him from life on the end of an 8 ft. chain, with an owner who never interacted with him much beyond providing food and water. As I was getting ready to take him home, the former owner's parting instructions to me were: "If he gives you any trouble, show him a shovel!" Every dog owner on the lake was jumping for joy the day I adopted him, and they are also hoping his idiot owner never gets another dog.

I have one dog who is like that. Always helpful. Not really sure of why but I think it's instinct and intelligence. Even though he is very bonded to me, he did this behavior before he was bonded. Mine are all bonded but he is the only one that routinely assists me. He is much more in tune than the rest. So,yes, I have had a similar experience.

Sunsilver, What's enought? You know I have been waiting for this opportunity. What's that they say about pay back? Enjoy your dog, he sounds like he might be a diamond in the rought.

LOL! I had to go back and carefully reread my first post to figure out what you were talking about! Yup, a bit of a typo there... As for being a diamond in the rough, well I think he's starting to look pretty darn polished. Today he alerted me to my portable timer going off, a sound I've never trained him on. Yup, he's learning to generalize! I think he'd be ready for the public access test any day now. We just need to do a bit more work with ignoring other dogs. He still gets a bit too excited, especially if the other dog isn't well behaved, and starts lunging towards him.

Sun.. Definately instint and intuition on the animals part. We had a Czech female GSD that I was training for a Guide/Assistance dog for my daughter who is going blind. My daughter also suffers from "blackouts" due to severe migrains. When Specs (the dog) was only 8 mo. old, with no training what-so-ever..she alerted my daughter, then myself to one of her blackouts. My daughter was in the shower, with the dog laying on the floor just outside the bathroom. Specs started to try to get into the shower with my daughter. Almost nerviously pulling at the shower curtain, whinning, and then short, screaching barks. I was downstairs, and had no idea what was going on. Neither did my daughter, because we had never done any type of training for this with the dog. My daughter never felt the blackout coming, and suddenly hit the ground. Specs ran down the stairs to me, continuiously barking and pulling at my pants. She ran back up, stood at the top of the stairs, barking, then back down to get me again. I thought she had to go outside, so I grabbed her leash and said, "lets go"...she looked at me like I was stupid, came over, grabbed the end of the leash, and processed to pull me toward the stairs. It was then that I realized that something might be wrong. Again...this was only an 8 mo old puppy, with no training in doing this!!! :-) I strongly beleive that it was the bond that the two of them had, that even at such a young age, she knew her owner was in trouble! Specs died in the line of duty in May of 05, protecting Tiffany from an oncomming car! I say stick to your dog like glue. You obviously have a wonderful bond with this animal. But I don't understand why "expanding" his training would lose him as a SD for you? As long as the primary duties as fulfilled! :-)

I think instinct and intuition. My senior male Vishnu picks up when I have severe food reactions and I haven't realized it yet. First time he picked up on it he started whining and barking for my husband to come to me. It came on so suddenly I went into anaphalactic shock within 30 min. Later while trying to stay out of the hospital and spending 1-2 days a wk in the allergists office, he stayed by my side constantly. He will still come and stay near me on the times my allergies flare up severely and I can't breath properly. He's never had any training for this, he just does. He's been doing it for about 2 yrs now. Angela

ladywolf, wow, what an incredible story! (And what a sad ending...) Sometimes we just get really lucky when we choose a dog, eh? Re: losing Ranger if I gave him further training, I made an assumption, that if I did train him to help with mobility, I'd be doing it for someone else, as I am fully mobile. But I guess it wouldn't hurt. You never know, maybe there's another fence post hole out there with my name on it!