Puppy behavior - Page 1

Hey everyone.

I have an 8-month old male GSD (profile picture). He's 25% Czech, 75% American. Ever since he was a young pup, he has always wanted to be with me and interacting with me. Not constantly, but generally.

We recently got another GSD pup, female, 50% DDR & 50% Czech. She's much more active than our male (of course), and although she likes to be around me and my family members, she doesn't want to directly interact with us so much. She's content to follow us around and then find something to play with by herself, or get her bone and go lay down by herself.

Should I be concerned about this? What would you recommend to help her want to interact with me and my family more?

Thanks in advance.

Do focus exercises. For example, while you walk her, wait for her to check in (look at you), and give her your "yes" command and a treat letting her know you like her looking at you. Do not give her any commands to look at you. Just wait for her to naturally check in. She will do it eventually.

You can start somewhere with mild distractions and eventually build up to a place with extreme distractions. You'll see that at some point the more distractions there are, the harder her focus will be on you.

What you don't want is to be the person who limits her fun. If you're the boring person holding her leash and holding her back from all the other interesting things in the world (sights and scents, people and dogs that are more lively than you are), she'll focus on you less.

Make sure you're more interesting than those other things in the world. Eventually, you'll have a dog that focuses on you no matter what's around. (My dog is this way. Totally tunes out everything else when I'm around, very intense focus.)

How long have you had your new puppy?

The pack drive and order is at play. With the status quo you have harmony. You just wonder if you are the top dog.

Reliya, thanks for the advice on the focus exercises. I'll increase those, and keep working on being the most interesting man in the world to her!

Beetree, I've had her 2 weeks; she's just 10 weeks tomorrow. Could you tell me more about the pack drive you mentioned?

She's still a baby. I wouldn't be too concerned right now.

As the two dogs grow, they will work out their relationship boundaries. The individual time and training such as suggested by Reliy, that you give to each dog will ensure that your bonding will become the most important relationship (human/dog pack). Without that, they will rely on their own relationship (dog pack) between each other to be the most important one.

I guess ( ! ) the problem is the relationship between the 2 dogs.

Are they hanging around ( even in case of kennel to kennel/ crate to crate ) ?
Do you walk them together? Most people do this, saves a lot of time
Are they playing with each other? We, the humans, tend to think they "need" to do so ( and we are lazy )

Your first dog was a singleton, he bonded to you; your current pup may be oriented towards the other dog, not towards you, the handler.
I don´t like to raise 2 dogs together, simply because of this problem.

On the other hand there are independant dogs, who don´t feel the need to bond with humans that much....

Thanks to the good DVD's by Leerburg on raising puppies and pack behavior, we've been very strict on the dogs interaction with each other. They are separate almost all the time, and I only let them interact with each other when I'm there (or my wife) and they're both on leashes (or I'm holding the pup). So although our younger female pup (Dasha) really loves our older boy (Bruno), I'm hoping that the limited exposure they get to each other will allow Dasha to bond tightly to us first and not get "doggy" with Bruno. I also train them separately, and since Dasha is so small walking them together is not an option right now.

Oh, well, that is sad for me to hear. It really isn't the natural way. All the concern with no contact just makes them incapable of living naturally with other dogs. I am a believer that the human/dog pack and the dog/dog pack can do just fine, with the right mindset to be guiding the journey.

Such strictness really tells the story of the dog's purpose to be one dimensional. 

I've raised two dogs together and let them interact with one another. It is difficult to get their attention, because I'm boring and I know it, but isn't not impossible.

It's important to build a relationship with them individually and together. I think I saw someone say they purposefully train their dogs in front of one another (crated?) to let the dog know "hey, I'm the most important, I have everything you want and need."

Then again, they are your dogs, and you know what's best. There are an infinite number of roads that lead to the same result, so you have the final say on which road to take.

Moderation in everything is the key here; it is not unnatural for dogs in one home to be kept apart frequently, for the benefit of bonding with their human handler and family, but it is unnatural to maintain that to the extreme that the dogs almost never get to socialise with each other. Always remember that dogs descend from wolves (or from wolves via feral dogs) - and they are a 'pack animal'. Much better to be the Leader of the pack if you have a concept of what that pack is ... and it ain't 3 bored dogs sat by themselves in 3 separate kennels or crates or even rooms / yards.