Socialization Help Please! - Page 1

pet smart is not quality training!!!!!!!!!!!!! i really hope you are kidding with some of these questions.take hin to a club and have him evaluated or trained by a qualified person if you cant do it.

Hi Dre

Do you have any off leash dog parks there?  I take my 8 month and my 4 month old and a sheltie there were they meet and greet other dogs and people, they do really well and love it.  We go out into the lake were they can walk out until they have to swim.  You can try taking your dog to work with you, I take my two every day with me to work,  I work at a Veterinary hospital there they also get all the interaction that they need with other animals and people.  Also when you are walking your pup ask someone that you meet in they would take your pup just for a bit, hand that person the leash and walk a ways not far and see how that works, it might help or get your friends to help you do the same thing.  I hope this helps you some what.

use a long retrackable leash for the first while just incase you pup doesn't come back at the off leash park.
leashes I don't use now, good luck

Kathleen

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

no off leash dog parks. your dog WILL be attacked sooner or later - especially for a fearfull puppy as described.

how did your dog put his teeth on the person giving him a treat? Was he over excited about getting a treat or did he want to actually bit out of fear?
Was the treat given on the palm of the hand with the hand completely opened?

pet smart isn't the best, but if its all you have it will do.

make sure that you instruct anyone BEFORE you let them look at or treat you puppy.

try going to a busy shopping center - and stand 20 or 30 foot from the door. let him get used to people going back and forth and for the most part ignoring him. Once he's completely comfortable get 5 feet closer. WATCH your dog. He must be comfortable and showing no signs of fear or stress before getting closer. Eventually he will be able to stand comfortably within a few feet of the main entrance. Do not hurry him.

First, take a deep breath - everything will be okay.  He is young enough to socialize and learn to quiet/calm down.  If it is in his nature, he may never like strangers so much as tolerate them, and he may be prone to barking but he will eventually stop on command. 

Second, I advise against absolute rules of the road -- you must customize what you do as you go, doing what's best for you and your puppy,  based on subtle bits of evidence.  For some pups and some dog parks, the match is good, for some bad.  You must be vigilant in any case to be sure, as indicated above, that your pup isn't mauled or allowed to maul other dogs at the park. 

That said, you must develop a better eye for understanding what you are seeing.  The time at Petsmart may be okay, but that is not the best training you can get.  The biggest problem there is that they are not training gsd puppies, and you can't turn a gsd into a mini-poodle or a golden effectively.  You need someone more experienced with this breed.

Puppies use their teeth for all sorts of things -- including learning.  GSD puppies are especially mouthy.  Some people, myself included, let our puppies bite (we calmly disengage them and then channel them into biting a toy) without making a fuss about it.  We do not want our dog inhibited from expressing himself this way -- we only want it controlled.   DO NOT OVERREACT TO THE MOUTHINESS of your puppy, it is natural.  "Leach correction" sounds okay, but don't act stressed out or you will confuse and stress out the puppy. 

IMAGINE YOURSELF TO BE COMPLETELY CALM AND CONFIDENT and your puppy will learn this from you -- and his barking will decline.   This is what a bark means in a puppy: "Go away, come here!  Go away, come here!"  (I believe this was first articulated by Vicki Hearne, the Yale animal behaviorist.)  Pups are ambivalent.  They are babies but they are trying to grow up.  If they bark and you stay away, they are then curious and want you to play with them.  But if you then get close, sometimes they get intimated by the challenge of a big human in their face.   At eight weeks they bite almost instinctively, but at four months they know better and bite to assure themselves that they are safe.  If you react aggressively or you get stressed out, you reduce that confidence and it backfires.  WHAT YOUR PUPPY NEEDS TO LEARN IS THAT NO ONE IS A THREAT.  When people come over, everything works out.  If your puppy starts to bite (and at four months he is 40-50 pounds, so this is getting important) you need to CALMLY put an end to the biting without missing a beat.  Keep talking calmly and pry the pup off and hold him back.  Say NO calmly and forcefully.  Make him do a sit-stay for 15 seconds and have him watch your face.  Then pet him calmly and free him from the stay.  

If he is a wild barker, like a sheltie, you may need to hold his muzzle closed and tell him firmly to be quiet.  At home you do need to work on a quiet command -- which is best taught by FIRST teaching him to bark on command and THEN teaching him to be quiet on command.  Reward both!  He is not getting treats for barking OR being quiet -- he is getting treats for doing what you tell him.


As Sitasmom says, don't hurry him -- or yourself.  Given how much socialization and attention you are giving him, things will surely work out well.  
 
 

For god's sake, DO NOT TAKE HIM TO DOG PARKS!!!  Just as SitasMom described, is why we're having to "unlearn" our 15mo female's fear aggression.  She's never been attacked, per se, but she has been chased and scared by the large number of dogs that come up to say "hi".  Needless to say, she's never been taken there since, except for using the other dogs as avoidance training (while we're standing outside the fence, the other dogs come up to us barking, and her hackles go up and she freaks out.  We give her a LEAVE IT command with leash corrections, until she calms down and just looks the other way).  If you ever watch the dogs in a park like that, you can clearly see that a lot of them are NOT having a good time.  There is usually a dog or two that likes to dominate the others.  The owners, standing under the shade of a tree, pay no mind and think the dogs are playing.  Only socialize your dog with other puppies of the same age, and be sure it is in a controlled environment, not an off leash park where you can't get to your dog in a split second.

Start from far away, and slowly, SLOWLY work your way closer to where there is activity.  This can take up to an hour, and needs to be repeated as often as possible.  If he barks, correct him, give him a chance to chill, and only until he is more interested in sniffing the ground (not concerned with people across the street or wherever--not staring at anything in particular), is not "wuffing" under his breath, is breathing with his mouth open (closed-mouth breathing indicates tension and is an early warning sign for aggression escalation), and no hackles (if your boy does that at all). Do not let him stare at anything longer than a few seconds.  Divert his attention with a "Leave It".   Then move closer, and repeat.  Closer, repeat.  Keep an eye out for little kids, who don't know any better and think, "Oooh!  Doggie!", and come running towards you.  If anyone approaches, tell them you're working on his obedience and would appreciate if they would keep their distance.  If you take him to the store, see if one of the employees could help you with this.  He should learn the proper way to greet a stranger, and if you give the employee a heads-up and ask them to stand erect and not look at him at all, just let him sniff and sniff until his tail starts wagging and he's decided that the stranger is OK.  Then lots of love and cookies when he greets them nicely with no woofs.

We take all of ours out to an outdoor swap meet every week.  they meet lots of people and lots of dogs  - but we've done it since they were tiny pups.  .  All leashed at all times. 

Dogs use their teeth for everything. You need someone on site who understands dog behavior and body language to help you decide why the dog is using his teeth. It is very common for a dog, certainly a GSD, to hold someone’s wrist with their teeth. The dog is trying to say something. It may be he is uncomfortable with the person putting their hand too close to his head, but he could also be playing a game. Dogs love to bite. You can use this love of biting in your training. My dog prefers biting to treats. If his ball is in his mouth, he will ignor treats. But they need to be taught when and where to use their teeth. Personally, I would avoid any corrections, I would focus on education. I am hardly an expert, certainly there are many more knowledgeable people on this board, but I can tell you what worked with my GSDs. One was adopted as a young adult. She was very mouthy, but we assumed she was playing. She would race up and grab our arms with her teeth. She tore some clothing, and even nipped our son's ear, drawing blood (he was about 6). She acted like a herding dog, not a big surprise for the breed, but she needed to learn that we didn’t allow biting. We trained her out of this with a "no bite" command, but did not really correct, just redirected. We did not allow the nipping, but did not act as if she had done something terrible. Even now at 13, she will race past me and grab my arm, but she has learned to have a soft mouth, it is absolutely a game for her, a sign of affection. Later she developed a fear of other dogs, and while she could interact off lead in a very large field, dog parks were out of the question, she would salivate with anxiety. Part of this was due to a few dog fights she had. To reduce her anxiety, we brought her to the outside of the DP every day, let her walk around the fence, while I gave treats for heeling, and listening to me. I then got her to relax just next to the park, and sniff noses with other dogs through the fence. To this day, we do not allow her any physical contact with dogs other then our own. She is not too keen about strangers either. When we meet a stranger, I ask them to completely ignor the dog, act as if she is a stuffed animal, and interact only with me. I never allow anyone to touch her, especially her head. The dog will generally come by after a bit and say hello, give a sniff, but I let her make that choice. She does not bite strangers, but she is afraid if they try and touch her, so I do not allow it. She will take treats from anyone, but she is not always gentle, so I very rarely allow that either. I feel very strongly that if I had her as a pup, and socialized her all along, she would be far less fearful. I personally do not recommend DPs for GSDs, again, from my limited experience. Dogs get scared, they get bitten, your dog could bite another, and you could have legal issues. Most DPs are too confined, and too many people in DPs are clueless about dog behavior.

Part two of a very long post.....I still can't seem to make paragraphs, at least on my laptop, very irritating... For our younger pup, which we bought at about 10 weeks, I took him to the local playground every day for about 15 minutes, we sat outside the park, and children who wanted to pet him, and were calm (and whose parents agreed) were allowed to gently touch the dog. But I did this since he was 3 months old. Now as an adult, I allow children to touch him if he is on leash, and if the child is quiet. No jumping or shouting kids, no contact in elevators. When he was mouthy as a pup, we redirected (gave him something else to chew) and did not correct. We were not raising a working dog, and so expected very good bite inhibition. Now when we play drive and focus games, he snaps his teeth very close to my hands as he tries for the ball, but almost never connects, and when he does, it is not a real bite, just a scratch. A real bite from this dog would puncture my hand. The only time I corrected him as a pup was when he growled at me over a bone. I gave him a mild scruffing, took the bone, and we played I give you the bone, I take the bone several times until he understood that I controlled bone access, then I let him chew in peace. .......................... I urge you to continue what you are doing, spend a lot of time socializing the dog when he is young, it is a very important time in his life. I think it is great to take him places, and have him meet strangers, since that is an issue with him, but I would not force any interactions between him and the other people. Get him to the point where he is always calm when strangers approach, then introduce touching later. You may be rushing things with him, but I worry that a leash correction for a fear response (if that is what it is) may just make him more fearful.

Sounds like you are doing a good job and your pup is progressing well.

Puppies are going to be mouthy and unless he was actually trying to hurt someone, which is very doubtful, I would distract him rather than correct at this age.

My pup is 7 mo. old, lives in the house and has very good manners. He has yet to hear the word no or to receive a harsh correction of any kind. It is just as easy to "direct" rather than "correct" a young dog.

Regardless of the quality of traing at Petsmart, any activity at a young age is beneficial to the development of your pup. You want him first to be calm and confident in any situation. This comes not only from genetics but also from exposing him to many different situations and challenges. Serious trainining can come later.

I would never allow my dogs to be around other dogs off leash.  

Rik