It simply amazes me !! - Page 3

There are quite a few breeders in our general vicinity who are breeding working line litters. We have a training facility and the local DVG club meets here. We get quite a few visits from families with their brand new pup, who is already driving them crazy. We can generally predict which ones will not call back to pursue training, but will call us back in 6-8 months wanting to know if we or anyone we know wants to buy the dog. A few years ago a family with 5 young kids came out with their 12 week old pup from Czech lines named Max. They paid us to do the initial training, but it was very obvious they weren't doing any work at home between sessions. I have a good friend who is their next door neighbor who tells me the dog spends his entire day locked on the back porch barking incessantly and ocassionally escaping and leading the whole family on a merry chase into the pond.
Last week another family, very similar, came by. They had 4 kids under the age of 10 and a new WL pup. They hung out for awhile, watched some of our dogs work and stayed for the first 30 minutes of Schutzhund practice. When they left, my 14yo daughter said "Well, that will be another Max". And she's probably right on the money. It's pretty sad when a teenager can see it was a bad match.
I don't know if it's the breeding that has changed so much as the level of commitment and expectations of the average buyer. They see a trained, settled adult and say "I want that", but they don't want to invest the time or money into the early upbringing. The people around here have money and show up in their hummers or Escalades and just expect it to happen, but not interfere with the kids soccer or mom's tennis schedule or dad's golf game. Of course they don't want to buy a trained adult, because the kids want a puppy (which they get tired of in about 3 days). Well, I just ranted, whew, sorry .
Annette

I also believe a good part of the problem is the busy schedule so many families have.  Various friends and relatives with kids are on the go every night of the week to different activities. Both parents work.   A puppy would not get the time needed.  

Bocron,
I'd like to play devils advocate here....If this is such a problem,why do breeder(s) sell the pups to families then?  I still believe the initial purchase is more the breeders responsibility than new owner.  Knowledgeable breeders can see the train wreck waiting to happen as well and they still sell the puppy - is this irresponsible on the breeders part?  Breeders can't expect average families, and it's okay to be an average family, to have the skill sets like schh trainers.  Have you contacted those breeders and ask them why are they selling pups to families such as you explained?  If so, other than having cash, what was their criteria for choosing that pup for that family?   What questions were asked?  Any interview at all?

Gustav, I also see part of the problem being we don't train the dogs the way we used to.  Now we nurture and treat them like they are new age children and never teach them the word "no",,,,,,every thing is positive.  We use halties, shmalties and wallties and make a claw hand and go "schoo".  Also, we didn't have the internet, which in my opinion can be as much of a curse as it is a blessing.

You know, I don't put a lot of blame on the breeders as I do with the owners.  Many people get these dogs with no research and then want to come to messageboards and what not and ask for help AFTER the got his high energy pup in the house.

I don't want to hear about the person being novice and all.  At some point they need to accept the responsibility of doing their homework first before they get a pup.  You can blame breeders but where 1 will say no to a potential customer, another 2 will jsut say yes.  Hell people will lie and tell breeders anything just to get a pup so I wont hold them totally responsible.

Hell Jax (4 months) is my first GSD and I swear I spent a lot of time asking people TONS of questions before I got him and tons after. 

I now spend the money and work my dog 2x a week to keep him busy and if I could I would do it 3-4x a week.

Im sorry but I have no sympathy for these people that get these dogs and then bitch about them and refuse to pay the money to train and work them.  They deserve what they get.

Oh and Jenni......Jax & I do it sometimes....lol  I will eat dinner and watch tv while he tries to chew the very bottom of the sofa.  :)

 LOL, Ace.

Phil, yep. I tell them to go ahead and treat them that way if they plan on returning them to me in 12-18mos. They are inadvertently rewarded for bad behavior, and then when they behave in a very predictable manner for their upbringing, their discarded for being "too much." 

I'm not hard on a dog, IMHO, but I don't put up with crap. I let them be dogs, I let them screw around, I spoil them, but no way in hell would I feed a dog who dragged me down the street, nipped at me or my child, gave me the doggy finger when I told it to do something, etc. 

Everyone's so afraid of "breaking" them or "crushing their spirit." I tell people how to stop unwanted behavior; they say they'd feel guilty. I ask them then if they would feel less guilty if they had to give away or have the dog PTS for unwanted aggression. They're usually fairly quiet. They can also see that my dogs are hardly cowering in a corner and believe that a well-deserved, well-timed, fair correction is a necessity, and in reality, is MUCH more fair to the dog than treating like it's the second coming of Christ. 

The mismatch issue w/dogs and people is multi-faceted. 

One is responsibility and one is unreasonable expectation from Breeders and dog owners. One does everything he/she can to keep a dog or they return it to the breeder (usually ruined) Then I fix them, and put little ob on them, teach them to leave my cat alone and place them for about $ 500 to cover my cost. Nothing more, nothing less.

One can say, made money on the dog twice... yah right! So far i had only someone elsed dog's returned to me ( I recommended a breeder, go figure) Good dogs too... they are better off now (one of them I Canada running with horses and second one here being the best pet ever).

You never know, even after you screen a person that this household will be perfect untill the dog dies. Life happens, things happen. If the owner has a good home lined up, I am happy but I am not going to bitch that they screwed up even if they just simly failed at raising the dog properly. I ruined dogs myslef in some aspects, I had to give up dogs..... so why should I point fingers!

P

Turk, I agree with that and do place that half of the problem with the breeder. I guess that is what I was thinking my daughter had already picked up on and too bad the breeder didn't.  I bred Beaucerons for a while, and this is exactly the thing that phased me out, the people that would call and I would lecture them that a working dog, and a Beauceron especially was advanced dog ownership. A great deal of fun and reward which was only achieved through a great deal of time and work, learning and training. I turned down a number of people who would get a dog from another breeder and then there they'd be on the Beauceron list trashing the breeder, blaming the trainer, whatever. They would also learn what to say to the next breeder after talking to me, or the breeder before me, so I'm not totally blaming the breeder that did eventually sell them a pup. They learn the lingo and what to say to get the "best" pup in the litter, which is usually beyond their skill level. Then they expect the breeder to clean up their mess and post trash about them on every internet site they can find. My husband and I have bought dozens of dogs in the last 20+ years and have yet to return one to a breeder, we realize that it is a crap shoot, you do your research and buy the potential, it's not an assemly line product. Most have turned out pretty much as expected and when not, I'm sure we could have done better as trainers and we accept it.
Having said all that, I have seen pups at 10 weeks that I wouldn't have bought once I met them, but looked great on paper. But a novice buyer has no idea what they "should" be like and just think it's great that their 12 week old pup is already lunging at the end of the leash at strangers. See how protective he already is, WOW. I'm glad now that we don't breed GSDs, that we can help others who are buying and not have any conflict of interest since we are just advising.
Annette

Handling a GSD takes a certain skill set (aside from the basic puppy house training etc.).  If a family does not have that skill set it's your responsibility as a breeder to turn those folks away or at least develop a path to ownership for them.

I love the response that this  topic is getting, Phil, I agree with what you say about soft training > Halti, Flat collars, Harness, Martingale, these are not training tools for a German Shepherd.

A puppy I sold from my last litter now 14 months old, went to a small but dedicated family. They did all of the right things, Puppy school graduation went well and then at 6 months attended another training school and it all went to pieces we stayed in touch and I just thought that she was going through that rebellious period. The true problem was that it was a club that does NOT allow the use of check chains or hard corrections they were a gentle and treat oriented training club only.
This type of training club now seem to be in the majority these days, it's difficult to find a good club.
The training club was NOT helping these people gain control of their puppy it oly taught her that if no treat was on offer she could get away with murder!!!
My advise was to go out and buy a check chain of the correct size and I would meet with them and show them how to use it BUT they had to find another trainer which they did and now everyone is happy.