Poll of dog owners - Page 1

Just for the sake of a new topic people may be inclined to post on... Tell me what you have, working or show and how you raise your pups. Do your dogs live in the house or kennel, or both? What have your dogs accoplished raised this way? What are the reasons you do it this way?

I have a show line, 2 rescues and a working line. I raise pups in the garage and house for the first 3 months, maybe less depending on climate. I bring dogs in on my terms, when I am ready for them and all of my attention is focused on them. I havn't shown or worked any of my dogs until late last year so basicly they were raised as pets. I raise my working line pup differently. He is very pack oriented so I have had issues with him being away from me. Harder to do when he was small and I wanted to be with him as well. Finally had to cut the cord and throw him in a kennel and basiclly ignore him unless it was feeding or working time. If he saw me, he would throw a fit, so it was best I stay out of sight. We now have a routine and he is fine as long as I spend a few minutes with just him, at least twice a day. I do this to keep my dogs well behaved and out of trouble, ie eating furniture, digging my flowers, chewing the hose, or anything else they would be busted for. Also my dogs never get dominant twords me when they are brought up this way. No dogs on the furniture and we eat before them yadda yadda. Dogs are fun to cuddle with but large working adult dogs shouldn't be put on our level of living and status. They are not children they are still animals, as much as we love them. Also depends on the dog and their teperament how much line we give inside and for cuddles.

Good thread, 4pack. I hope you get some response from GSD owners and breeders. I'm interested in hearing what they have to say too. I wouldn't dare tell Blitz he's not a child, he might murder me in my sleep LOL.

We have 15 workingline. We raise them in house for 4-5 months. Crating them at night. No pups/dogs in bed or on furniture.Intruduced to a variety of toys.Pups are introduced to kennels asap for short periods. We have heated buildings with 5x10 concrete runs and a dog door with access always to inside area 3x4 with a stall mat. Pups are introduced to adult dogs around 4-5 months. And moved into a kennel by 6 months. They seem to adjust well.All dogs/pups taken out EVERY day for excersise. Either play ball or hikes. We have 40 acres with pond and creek.No clubs in our area for schutzhund training. We do have agility equipment.Dogs turn out well rounded with plenty of drive. Are very obedient and are always trained to walk on leash.

We have 13 dogs total right now, plus 3 pups one is sold and leaving this weekend 2 have already left. We have a nice blend of Working/SV Showline dogs. All are allowed in the house, Intact adult males are kept seperate so allowed in at different times. Females in season are kept kenneled (hopefully no more mistakes will occur so long as daughter leaves them kenneled) Dogs are allowed to be members of the family, are allowed on couches, and to sleep in beds if they choose. sometimes it's crowded but oh well !! Pups are in the house till 3wks of age, then move out the back door into the stall then eventually we open the stall my bedroom window adjoins this backyarded area. Pups are allowed in house in evenings for couple hours a night for "play time" They are exposed to different surfaces this way, as Outside they have Concrete, Shavings, and grass, indoors carpet, lanoliam, and couch materials. LOL. Benefits of allowing them to interact as family members, I think they build confidence, I have never had a fight, and all of our females run together, typically with the young males and maybe one of the adult males at one time, NEVER a fight, I think this could be that they are happy with they're "place" and feel no need to "move up in ranks". I could be absolutely wrong, but there's my theory am stickin to it :-) My reasons... My husband is sure I'm insain, But then he is guilty too, Seriously we love them, we love the attention they give us and we love to give that attention back to them, We enjoy the comfort of being "surrounded" by 3 to 9 GSD's in a single evening. The kids enjoy the security at night too. Great Post, This could be alot of fun learning about each other.

We have two males, an American bred 4 year old and 16 month old West-German Show-line. Both are obedience trained, live in the house as family. 2 acres fenced in for outside activities, agility and ball chasing, and obedience work. 40 acres for hiking and tracking work. Now in the market for a female pup, of West-German Herding blood-lines. Had German Shepherds for 40 years since K-9 handler in the Military.

I have several dogs but only one German Shepherd. My recent dogs I start them out by crating them when I'm not paying attention to them, and keeping them seperate from the other dogs for a few weeks. I take advantage of this time by bonding with the pup really closely. I let him sleep in the crate; I sleep on the floor in the same room beside the crate in a sleeping bag. Sometimes I also let him out to sleep beside me. I teach pup basic communication skills--basic commands, markers, his name, and more importantly, how to learn. I teach him to rely on my voice and not be guided by hand signals or body motions. This really helps him learn to pay attention to what I *say*, rather than what I do, which makes for fast teaching down the road. I play with the pup as well to introduce biting and prey basics, although I may cut down on this in the future if the pup doesn't show much prey at first as it puts too much pressure on both of us. I teach the puppy foostep tracking as well. One mistake I made with this last group is I was too scared to let them outside too long and introduce them to small levels of stress to teach them how to cope; my next pup will be taught to problem solve weird obstacles and reduce the stress of that through obedience. I don't baby him much, but interact with him a lot to basically hone him so that he learns to work for me and earn my affection that way. He stays with me all the time when I'm at home, attached to my waist or leg on a leash. Eventually I introduce him to the other dogs, but while he's young I don't allow playtime with them. I teach him, as I've taught the other dogs, that my rules alone stand, so that there's no fighting between them going on while I'm there. Nobody dominates anybody except me. All the adult dogs are free in the house most of the time if I'm there; if I'm not there, they're seperated and/or crated. When I need the dog to train I usually kennel them for a few hours to a day so they don't waste energy doing other things and they're focused and excited for the work to come. End result--I have dogs I never really have trouble communicating with, dogs that have no dominance problems towards me even if I don't exactly obey rules like letting me go across a door first or not letting them sleep beside me, dogs that trust and *know* me, and dogs that enjoy working. Drawbacks--dogs that may be too dependent on me as a handler and would have problems transferring to another handler, dogs that are a little too rowdy for other people's tastes (as I don't formally teach manners), and dogs that initially tend to go a little nuts if I leave them behind. It's not a perfect system and I'm doing little changes here and there as I go along, but it does seem to produce dogs I like to live with. :)

Thanks for a decent thread 4pack. We have 3 house dogs that eat in crates only. Other than that they are free to roam in the house. Large fenced yard for them. 1 old Am. line, 1 7yr. Hi-line bich Sch 2 Cdx, and 3yr. old working Sch 3 bitch(mine). We will get 1 high line bitch (wifes) and 1 working male this year. They are crated or put in a dog run until about 12 months or have shown that they can control themselves in a non destuctive manner. Then they will be giving adult privileges. A freind was having a heated discussion at the worlds several years ago about having "house dogs". He thought he was right having just won our nationals so he walked overto Ernsts owner and asked him if his dog was a house dog. His reply was of course how could it be otherwise.

I have 4 dogs in my house with wife and 2 boys. My wife has 2 weiner dogs that sleep with us at night and I have my sons 3 year old Am.line male that will be leaving with him this spring.I also have a West German showline female that stays in the house .I do have Kennels in the fenced in large yard that we use in the summer or if we have pups.(heated). I have a W. German 3 year old male that stays with my Father and his Wife and another showline female that I keep with my Mother.When the Am. line male leaves with my son I will be looking to purchase a solid black female as I have always wanted a solid black. All dogs get along good and are a joy to have around.I take turns taking the Shepherds to work with me as they love all the attention they get. Dave

Nice post everyone, shinokami very detailed and answered everything to a T. Blitzen...shhhh we won't tell Blitz, at least you can handle the dog hair on the couch. I'm not willing to go that far.