Puppy help - shuts down with collar or harness on - Page 1

I apologize asking this question but we have had our puppy for about a week and he is showing high energy, high drive, etc. when he is in house or yard without a collar on. When we put collar on for a walk, etc. he absolutely shuts down, won't move, and he avoids us. He won't take a treat and he acts scared. I tried a harness and that was no better. He had his first training session last night at the club, and he shut down as well with the collar on (I made sure he went hungry but he wouldn't even go to the trainer for steak or hot dogs), so the trainer brought out another puppy with him and he then started playing, fighting, taking food, etc. This is my third german shepherd but I have never had one absolutely shut down like this with a collar on. My thought is to just put his collar on and leave it on so he gets used to it. I took him to the vet for his shots yesterday, and I left his collar on and he shut down so much I was worried he was having a reaction or something. He is on K9 kravings raw and always eats it like it is going out of style, but he won't even come close to it with a collar on as he acts like he is going to get shocked or something if he goes near the food. To make sure it was his collar and not a reaction to shots, I took the collar off as an experiment and he turned back into the crazy little devil. I put it back on, he shut down again, but this time I gave him a fresh meaty bone from the butcher to occupy him. He wouldn't even take it for about 10 minutes, but now he is chewing it. Anyone experience this before?

Thanks,
Chris

The puppy has a negative association with the collar. A good way to introduce a collar is to open it up fully, place it on your arm in a closed position, and feed the puppy treats from that arm. Do this until the puppy is comfortable, then start placing the collar over his head as you feed, say collar on. After a while the puppy will have a positive association with the collar. The same goes with the leash, let the puppy drag it around. Dogs have an opposition reflex that you can exploit in future training, but it works against you if the puppy fights the leash. You want to create a relationship of trust with your dog. Grabbing the puppy and forcing a collar and leash while at the same time placing him in an unfamiliar environment will give him a negative association. You want to exploit his need for you by having him follow you around, he should be looking for you, not you chasing after him. Try walking him without you holding on to the leash, pick the leash up occasionally, but don't pull the pup. He is a baby now and he needs you for safety, when he approaches the teenager stage he won't need you, exploit the time while you can to imprint proper behaviours in your pup. Recall games are great at this age.

Put the collar or harness on and leave it whenever you are around to supervise him.

Don't bother with the leash until he is used to the other clothes.

To bad his breeder did not get him used to wearing these when he was young, then it would not be a problem for you now.

How old?? Sounds like something traumatic has happened with a collar on ... like you said ecollar abuse or hanging by the collar and choking ... it will probably never go away completely
. Try just doing good things when the collar is used. Food, play, going somewhere fun. My pups always got excited when I put on their collar because they knew something fun was about to happen. They didn't wear a collar except when fun was about to start and it came off when we finished. A loose fitting harness might work better with a collar shy dog.

He is 12 weeks. My previous shepherds always knew collar on meant fun (car rides, walks, training) as well. And yes, if he sees me coming with the collar he runs away and wants nothing to do with it. I will try putting it on my arm and feeding him and see how that works. Thanks for the advice.

Either something totally traumatic happened in case of collar/puppy ( not necessarily a "fault" of the breeder, we simply don´t know ) or your pup is overly sensible.

Your initial thought "My thought is to just put his collar on and leave it on so he gets used to it." sounds good to me.
I´d buy another regular collar ( just to be on the safe side ) and leave it on the pup during day and night for several days. Any normal pup will "forget" the collar sooner or later; meanwhile I´d play around its neck once in while, not conspicuously, but just alongside, every day a littllebit more, until you are able to remove/replace the collar without problems.

There should be fast improvement, otherwise you need to question if it´s just the collar or if there are any temperament problems.

Good luck! Puppies are always exciting, and as far as I know, there was no "perfect" dog born yet.

As Susie said..."There's No Perfect Puppy/Dog"...So every puppy/dog has a problem with something...You just have to learn to help them thru it...
I like the idea of having a collar on your hand and just feed your puppy out of that hand...To begin breaking down the problem...Don't try slipping the collar on right away...give it awhile...
Something else you can do that might help is to play with your puppy and have something like a rag or piece of rope or something to play with and sorta toss it onto his back a little just give him the feel of something on his back/neck/head...then slowly add a little more pressure from it...then begin to change the object to a collar and just play around with it and toss it onto his back/neck/head...
You can even have a piece of rope or whatever and tie a couple small toys of the ends of it...to play with him with...
Just don't give up and it'll work...just give him time...and keep playing with him...

~Bob~

As an update, we have been working on the collar issue and playing with him, giving treats, etc. My wife came home and didn't believe me and she saw him just playing and tearing up a cardboard box. I put the collar on him and he immediately went and laid down. I took the collar off and he went back at the box. She played with him with the collar and put it on him and then she was going into another room and she called him and he wouldn't move. I took the collar off, she called him and he took off running to her. Really odd. To add to the issues, I had him evaluated last night and tonight by a national handler and a handler/judge who competes on the US team. My puppy would not go near either of them (or another lady who was present) either night. Tonight we worked without the collar to see if that was the issue but he just kept running back to the car. They said it was fear/nerves. He did finally go on the field and he did some work, but as he was halfway to the field if another dog barked he would run back to the car (safety zone). I crated him for a while, and later they worked another young dog so I put him on a leash to watch and I ended up having to carry him out there as he just wouldn't move. He was okay sitting with me but he never got excited watching the other dogs. He didn't seem scared, he just didn't seem to care. After they watched how he never got excited (along with the nerve issue) they thought my chances at IPO were very low. Very depressed tonight.

How long have you had the puppy? I tell people to give the dog 2 weeks to a month to acclimate to their new life. Even old dogs that had a loving and communicative relationship with their previous humans will eventually accept and love a new human but it may take a month for them to let go of their previous life. If your puppy had a painful and traumatic experience with other humans you may be able to replace that experience with a good one given time and reinforcement. Dogs get homesick for a long time after making a transition to a new life.

@css33 -   I have no real advice or positive encouragement to add but wanted to let you know that i do feel for your situation and hope that it begins to turn around for you. But I don’t know if I would feel defeated just yet, time can do wonders in some cases