Training for my German Shepherd - Page 4

I hate to see a good discussion die; So....to continue, In my opinion a dog that bonds with you too quickly (1 day to 1 month) is a weak dog. Why? because it needs to bond with you, people are no different.

A bond between handler & K9 is built on trust and compatibility with each other, not neediness or weakness.

Give it some thought

kim , the big organizations in europe that buy and train dogs for army and police worldwide , all test new dogs the moment they see them , give them strange handler and decoy , on a strange location , ant test hard
only after  that they decide if they buy the dog or not
you think they are being unfair to these new dogs

ive bought dutch shepherds for a foreign company , now these dogs need to adjust , but usually not more then a few days , than they are fine , but if a german shepherd needs that much time I still say its a lemon

not being sure what the OP got the dog for and what the seller promised the dog would be , but thats another discussion

now when it comes to pressuring the dog in obedience by the new owner thats a different thing than responding to a stranger , that will take more than a day , so to speak

Duke- back in the day the Czech Army would test a dog by tying it up at night in a field, 3 guys would approach it and fire AK47s over the dogs head, if it backed down it was a wash out.

Depending on what you want, PPD/PSD, Schutzhund or Security Dog a hard or soft test will be your deciding factor.

We have some dogs that are Soldiers and would never be sold as PPD's, they go to recognized Law Enforcement Agencies.

You bring up a good point and maybe this is where all of our conflicting opinions arise.

JMO, "Time to Adjust" and "Bonding Time" are two different subjects.

As I said earlier , when we get a new import in, it stays in a kennel for the first week and gets ignored. Food, water shelter, no work & no commands. Give it time to adjust and crave some attention.

Then it is a little at a time, depending on the dog and it's strength, dogs are individuals. Some can be pushed right away, some can't.

This is just what we do and it works for us

Kim

Kim, this isn't an issue of bonding with the owner. It is in the dog itself. If I pick up a dog from the airport and let him out of the crate to go to the bathroom (washroom for you Canadiens), I don't expect it to be bonded to me, but I also don't expect it to be scared of everything either. This dog is running and hiding when people approach the property. That has nothing to do with bonding. Like I said before. If the dog was indifferent, that would be a different story. This is about the dog.