Puppy handler aggression? - Page 1

I have a new puppy I brought home at 6 weeks. I checked her bloodlines on this website and I was glad to see that she has 154 Schutzhunds in her sire's family tree alone going back 8 generations. Through a grandmother she has American show lines with two champions. Her mother is a nice pet GSD. Inga is now 4 months and three weeks old. She has been taken around to different places for socialization to people and other animals. This is my first German Shepherd. My previous 9 dogs have all been soft and gentle sighthounds. I understand this is quite a different type of dog and requires a lot of exercise and training. She is a happy and playful puppy, loves to chase, find and bring back balls and swim for sticks. As her nerve is concerned, she was kicked by my milk cow, came right back to the cow very soon but was more respectful. We run her a mile or swim her twice a day before training. We are using the Don Sullivan method and his training collar,a sort of plastic prong collar. Because she was not paying good attention to the corrections and showing a little bit of what might be handler aggression, on his advice I have switched to a prong collar three weeks ago. That stopped the leash pulling instantly. She jumps up on platforms I point to, loads and unloads on command, jumps through hoops even off leash, sits, downs and stays even with distant hand commands, and she stays on a down for long periods of time (usually) with the handler out of sight. If she breaks a stay command she is returned to that spot and given a correction. Her training sessions last 15 or 20 minutes and she works for praise, not treats.

This is what she does sometimes- I want to know if this is a puppy thing she will outgrow? Or should it be squelched immediately. About 1/3 of the time when I give her the down command and point at the ground in front of her, she wrinkles her nose and makes a snarly face, and opens and closes her mouth in the direction of my hand. She does not snap or bite or 'come up the leash' at me or anything. When she does this I put the cloth muzzle on her, again on Don Sullivan's advice, and work her a while. Then I take it off. This snarly face concerns me. Is this the 154 schutzhunds? Am I doing something wrong? Is this normal for some puppies? Please advise.

Are you working with a trainer or doing this yourself?  I was blessed with great trainers, one with a masters in applied animal behavior from Purdue and who is one of my great friends.

I do use treats for my rewards as well as praise (learned this from two of my three trainers) and gradually phase out the number of treats and make it random, my dogs all still get treats (food, toys, etc) occasionally for good behavior, nothing wrong with it.  I also use a prong collar for corrections once the concept of the command is taught and firmly understood.  My female was not fond of down, but I was patient, and yes she would make a face and grumble, but I was patient and worked with treats to keep her in a down, gradually lengthening the time of the down and lengthening the time between treats, phasing out the treats until the end of the down.  I always used verbal praise and play reward at the end. 

To illustrate how flawless her down was (never used to reprimand her for grumbling or making a face, figured her way of a kids eye roll, as long as she obeyed, didn't care, ignored it, and she outgrew it) I had her in a down stay at the fire department (my ex and I were career firefighter/paramedics) while I went back out to the car to get something and when I came back in, she was whining and shaking but did not break her down.  She started to growl and make her face.  I asked what happened and one of the firefighters had been teasing her to get her to break her down with his chicken sandwich.  I gave her the release command and she took a flying leap and landed on the guy's chest knocking him and his recliner backwards, sat on his chest and ate his sandwich (I asked first what was in it, just meat and bread).  My point is that calmness, consistency, figuring out why she is doing what she is doing, adapting to her training needs, and remembering what you decide on as a consequence and how she will interpret it impacts your future training.  I always made it fun and they ALWAYS came through for me in the obedience department.  

I guess what is the Don Sullivan method? 

What kind of corrections are you giving when the reward is only praise?? Sounds like the dog is getting more pain than gain from training which leads to a dog that hates training. What do so called titles have to do with your puppy?? Most police, service, and other working dogs from 30 or more breeds have no IPO or other titles. Titles from relatives tells me or anyone else nothing about how the individual puppy will progress and what they need. How does titles from eight generation ancestors influence what you do as far as training your puppy?? Praise is a low value reward for most dogs .. more likely best used to reinforce and not as a reward. Most dogs will work for toys, play time, or food treats and not all of these are of equal value to the individual puppy. Sounds like the dog is fine but you need to improve your training skills if you expect a willing partner in training. Check out Michael Ellis ... he has excellent videos on training with food, balls and tugs on the Leerburg site. The snarling and complaining by the pup must stop immediately but if you don't give the puppy some reason to want to train then the dog will hate training.

http://leerburg.com/michaelellis.htm

Is the open and closing mouth more of a yawn or a bite? How much teeth is she showing? Is she making noises while she does this? Are there other dogs around? My guess is there is way too much compulsion at too early of an age, she might be protesting the unfairness or she might be giving you a display of submission and appeasement. Rather than stomping on a four month old puppy, maybe you should change the way you are training. The schutzhund titles don't represent aggression, you would have to post a pedigree and see if there might be dogs in the line that are handler aggressive. I doubt this is handler aggression. 

You loose a lot of good training opportunities by not using food and play during training, especially for a puppy. I agree with booboo about the Michael Ellis videos.

Research into how dogs learn has shown dogs will work for positive or motivational training not compulsion.  Compulsion training methods are outdated. Dog cognition is similar to humans with the same neurotransmitters and brain development as humans.  Dogs have right/left brain specialization like humans, dogs have dopamine the reward neurotransmitter, oxytocin the bonding neurotransmitter, etc.  They even recognize themselves in a mirror like humans do.  That said, what human will learn with compulsion rather than motivation. 

My first ever German Shepherd was started in obedience using compulsion methods (what did I know except it did not feel right).  I regret to this day I let that happen.  We switched over to motivational training for tracking and protection and it was amazing the difference in his outlook on training.  He did not look forward to training and was a master at trying my and the trainers' patience until I switched him to positive/motivational methods, his advanced and off leash obedience was so much better.  My other two were trained using positive/motivational methods and their obedience was always better than the first dog.  My pup is training the same as my last two and he, like the previous two, LOVES going to train.  Again, proper and correctly used positive/motivational methods are not just treats, hugs, and unicorns.  It is treats used correctly along with praise and toys.  It is the use of correction that is firm, fair, consistent, immediate, and just enough for the dog to learn.  Make it fun for your dog and you.  My one trainer told me to TAKE MY EGO OUT, it is not about me and no one is staring at you when your dog disobeys thinking "what a loser, for shame" so take a deep breath, get rid of the muzzle and have fun.

Mindhunt- we are on our own here out in the country. My dog does not even take treats well from my hand. She only eats from her bowl. I do not want to make her into a beggar. Yes the commands corrected for ar fully understood. Lavish verbal praise and play time is used for rewards. I will just ignore her faces from now on. Inga does stand up for herself, she does not wilt with corrections like my sight hounds would. Maybe her standing up for herself is her innate hardness. That is funny about the firefighter's sandwich. My Inga does down stay even among loose chickens. But once released, she instantly goes for the chickens. That is why she is tied to a nearby object for that one.

BBBB- Your question what do working titles have to do with it? Genetics. She works for praise, also ball chasing, play, belly rubs. I am not going down the road of becoming a treat machine. She gets fed out of her food bowl, thats it. I think that working dog titles tell a lot about a dog's mind, more so than a show dog who only had to prance around a show ring and assume a squatted position for pictures. They have even bred downhill top line dogs for show. Certainly my training skills are needed improvement! It is like with horses- you do not put a novice on a young horse. Thank you, I will check out the Leerburg site. She certainly does not hate training at this point.

Markobytes- She is showing fangs and everything. No there are no other dogs here. Sometimes she makes a little growl. Maybe she is protesting because of too much at this age. She does stand up for herself, I like that. I realize schutzhund does not stand for aggression, it stands for trainability and strength of character.

Her bloodlines- she is out of a nice pet bitch and by Guenther > Guenther's sire is Laso Von Funkenspiel, imported from Croatia. His great grandfather is VA1 Zamp Von Thermodos, 2006 Champion from Croatia. His dam is Destena's Sasha. Sasha is descended from Heidelberg champions Heidelberg Aldo V Ulla and Heidelberg Bently V Samantha. From these I have traced 154 Schutzhunds.

I changed my post since you saw it, I didn't think you were there or I wouldn't have done it. I was able to see the American showline in the pedigree, but I couldn't find Laso. Zamp was a German show dog. Half your pedigree is American showlines, the other half might be German showlines. I have a two year old that has Zamp in her pedigree.
There is something to be said about a dog working for only treats, but you are going to the other extreme. My two year old has to work for her food and I have fed some of my dogs exclusively out of my hand for a period of time. You might be missing out on a bonding experience. Food is a great way to imprint a puppy, you don't have to keep using it for the rest of the dog's life. This thread is going to get a lot of replies, there will be some knowledgeable people giving you their input. I would still tweek the way you are training to make it more fun for the dog, I would say I am not impressed with Don Sullivan's results.

Nurse Bishop, here is my little girl's smile.....

She does this when she is annoyed.  I know she would not be aggressive, however she has let me know when treating her wounds (she drags her back legs sometimes because of a lack of left hip socket and dysplastic right) that it hurts by grumbling and on occasion growling.  So many misunderstand growling and think it is aggression (not saying you do).  I think of it as a dog's way of saying "hey dense human, since you are not seeing what I am telling you, I have to resort to vocal." 

 

Your dog sounds like my Loki, he was self rewarding and didn't have a care about treats.  I had to use praise and play with toys to reward him. Eventually he got to the point he didn't even need those to know he did well.  He would do things because HE wanted to, not a mean bone in his body, he could critically think and my trainer told me he is the once in a lifetime dog to train because he is so far outside the standard.  I miss him tons.    He was the toughest and smartest dog I ever trained.  You will do fine, and if I can offer one thing, trust your gut and let your dog guide what methods you use.  I am not a Leerburg fan or an Ellis fan but I use what works for my dogs, I let them set the stage for what works and what doesn't and each is different.  You got this

Markobytes, I didn't see it either at first but there is Zamp vom Thermados through the distaff side. Scroll down to the bottom, look to the right. http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=719804-laso-vom-funken-spiel. You can see all the schutzhunds. Through the mother of the sire of my dog there are show lines. Not only does my Inga have a strong will and a good mind, she is also beautiful :) Yes, I think I need to make more fun for her. I notice today that I am not giving enough praise and play, but just going on to the next thing. I need to have more patience.

Mindhunt- what fine teeth she has. She looks like a grumpy old lady. I have know many such. It is OK, not everyone is a noble sufferer. I once had a horse like your Loki. I had her for 35 years and she lived to be 40. Such a one comes once in a lifetime and does not come again.