serious obedience training yet??? - Page 1

I have a female GSd that will be 6 months next week. She has so much energy that she is out of control sometimes. Would it be too soon to get some serious obedience training??

The correct answer would depend on what your goals are for the dog and what the dog is being trained for.  Ob is trained differently for sport dogs than for house pet dogs.  I would think that house pet non working dogs would benifit from a more subdued form of training than a sport dog. 
What do you mean by serious ob training?

I am sure that someone will disagree but this is what I think.

Actually, that was one of the best answers to that debate that has ever been posted on this forum.  Could not have been more correct.  Congratulations, you win the pedigreedatabase gift-pack.

 I do want to get her involved in some type of sport, maybe even Shutzhund or PPD if she continues to show the drive. At this point I would like to have full control over my dog in every situation. The training school I'm checking out this saturday has been training working dogs for over fifty years. I have checked out other schools in my area, and most of them don't focus on working dogs, or they seemed to be more of a social hour for the owners. I want my dog to be the most she can be. I will see where we get together. She is beautiful, loyal, and very smart, so we will see!!

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its never too young to start obed. training.  earlier the better in my book, lol!

I wouldn't do any type of major corrections until the dog was a year or older depending on mental maturity (some dogs are mature enough at 6 months to handle a correction,  but many are not).  But you can have fun and make little games out of it.  your dog will learn quickly,  especially if she doesn't think she is being trained :)  I'd start small,  do quick little 10-15 minute sessions,  make it a game,  and see how she does.  as she progresses and gets older, increase the time,  or do several 15 minute sessions thru-out the day.  make her work for everything, food, attention, even going outside.

what type of schedule is she on?  is she crated while you are at work?  does she have an outlet for her energy? 
also,  what is she being fed?  I ask about food cause I have heard that foods too high in fat and protein can cause the dog to have alot of excess energy ect.

Well then in that case you could have started a long time ago.  Keep training periods short whatever method you choose.  I think that the question that you need answered is what type of motivational training would most benifit your dog.  Some people like to use markers or tug toys.  Your dog being a young GSD my guess would be that treats would be best for now.  As protection training continues and her drives peak tug toys or a ball would be a good motivator for training.  My current dog is more motivated by tugs than hot dogs, so I use the tug toy.  Be careful of the "yank and crank" trainers.  People write whole books on this stuff it is difficult for me to give more info than this.  The topic of OB gets really deep, too much for typing.  I would say make sure you find a good trainer.  I have only known methods for pet type training untill I got my 1st competition dog.  Then I learned stuff like the attention heel and a few other things.  She is really high drive for a GSD in all drives she was a farm dog for her first 1.5 years, didnt even know here or sit.  I purchased her at 1.5 years old.  I say this to say you have waited awhile but it is not too late.


Robert 

I feed her Blue Buffalo Large Breed Puppy....................she's doing great on it. She is a lean 56 pounds at 5 1/2 months. She gets crated  for a few hours in the morning  and off and on throughout the rest of the day/evening. she's very involved with the family and stays most of the time in the house with