Bringing A New Pup Home - Page 3

Dawulf,

socialize the living life out of the dog : surfaces, stairs with mesh bottoms, hights, crowded spaces, busses, traines, airports, sounds, teach the dog to use back legs at soon as you figure out how to, let him/her have toys that you can tug with. Expose the puppy to nasty smells and dogs and horses, cows if possible, children, cats and trafic.... SOCIALIZE, it will teach you tons about your puppy and your ability to read the dog. The OB will be just a cherry on the cake.
I have seen nice dog that were undersocialized. OB can be taught, confidence no matter how much is inhereted must be build from the very beginning.

Good luck

GSD I have a dumb question I'm sure I'm missing something, you did say teach it to use back legs? Mine tend to use them all on their own pretty hard to walk with just the front legs.. I do know you probably ment something different but had to ask.

Hunger4Justice - Will do for the focus. I've never taught a dog that before so that'll be interesting. Do you use a command to get them to focus, or should they just always be staring you down? We don't have a fence, so walks will be inevitable and I don't want to confuse the poor dog.

Well, I have no doubt that puppy will be sleeping with me eventually, but when I'm not home she'll either be lose in my room or in her kennel, so she'll need to be used to it at least. :)

 GSDPACK - Most definantly! I feel that may have been something that lead to the downfall of my old dog - she was the biggest sweetheart, but very protective unless I told her someone was OK. Another thing though - how do you get that balance? A friendly dog, yet one that isn't rushing up to everyone she sees wanting pets? One that you can trust if some little kid escapes his parents and races over, wrapping his hands around your dogs neck for a hug? When you take your dog to, say, Petsmart, for socializing, are you training focus heeling and such? When people ask if they can pet her, do you make the dog sit first? Like I said, I'm wanting the dog for protection at my job, but I don't want an overly friendly or aggresive dog either.

Yes, that confused me a bit too... do you mean jumping or what? :P

Dawulf..ok I see how I was not making sense.

You know how you have dogs that never seen steeper stairs, they kinda do up with the front legs and stretch the back ones but never use them until you teach them how? That is a perfect example of a dog that has not been taught to use back legs.
What I meant by teaching them how to use back legs it to make them use the legs in very uncomfortable situations. Like having a surefooted horse... The one that you can take on the rockiest trial and he/she will be very sure and accurate about walking well and with confidence.
So I do beams, yes I will put a 8 week old on a 6 foot tall beam and of course teach them to use latter (carefully and patiently). I always start slow and easy, build their confidence. Take them on ice (eh I have an access to an ice ring sometimes so I take my 6 weeks old to have some fun on ice (play, tug and so on) I place a blanket where they can take a break but if a puppy wont leave the blanket.. I know to keep watching for other "issues"

I am hard on my puppies, hard when it comes to environmental issues. If my dog is scared of wet slippery floors in bite work.. that is a no go for me.

Another thing you can do is take the puppy through like a puppy obstacle course. Get small tires and place them on the ground like for the football players and see how the puppy works its way through them. Some dogs need two to ten tries and then are good and very confident. You can use children's playgrounds and such.


Balance: socialization, explanation as what is expected and proper training and exposure!!!! Of course you have to start with a good dog to begin with.

I dislike all my dogs until they are about 2 years of age. Then I can actually say. I love my dog. They settle and KNOW EXACTLY what I expect from them. My females are very sweet, they love kids and want to play. My male as he got older, he tolerates them, even has some favorite kids but new people and children must be introduced properly. So I don't just take him to pet smart and crank on him when he simply doesn't want to be smothered. I keep an eye on him and I know how to read my dog like a book, he tells me exactly how he feels about certain situation. I then have to be fair and remove him from the environment that can cause problems. He loves to play and I had my friend's little girl whack him with a stick and her boy chases him around and he tolerates it. However, he is a dog, an alfa male in his head and I have to make sure I can see that he has had enough!
Learn to read your dog, be fair and remove them from crappy situations. Oh and never let them alone..NEVER

I use ladders to teach them to use their back legs w/good coordination.

Also, I don't think it's being "hard" on them to not tolerate environmental issues. I think not tolerating environmental issues is absolutely necessary if you're considering breeding the dog. I hear about this slippery floor thing, but I truly have only ever seen a couple dogs have an issue w/it. Is it really that common?

Re: looking/focus

LOL, you don't have them stare you down...it is the intense interest that comes with knowing everything good comes from you...the focus you want on the fuss.  If you teach it from the start it becomes second nature.  I do say look, but at first it is when they are looking and reward and eventually they will get it.  You can also play games like standing with treats in both hands, arms extended.  They will, at first, look at the hands with the treats, but as soon as they look at you in the eye, you give a reward randomly so they never know what hand.  Soon they will look at you automatically.  Same with throwing a ball, wait until they look in your eyes, so they know the reward, the ball comes from YOU.  Steve1 and Alphapup, two very knowledgeable people do this with their pups from the first day. 

and, can't help it, I love them from day one....love the puppy breath and everything about them.  

Oh, and I never make them focus all the time on walks, but do periodically reward a look while walking, yes. 

Yes it is more common than people think: when you combine stresfull situation like defence work on sliperry floors it could be pretty hard on the dog. Dark room in a corner somewhere away from the handler, spit watter into dog's face, make is unstable for the dog and put pressure on the dog when there is no handler support and the dog has weak leg support since it is slippery, all those things are very hard on dogs.

But then, some people dont find it important to teach this to the dogs, I am fine with that. Focuse on IPO and all the aspects of it is more important than jumping into the pool of watter to take a bite. I get that... no need for that.
Oh and surefooted dogs look better in heeling, they know the back legs, the positioning of them and the turns look much better. I know I struggle with the turns and having them swing the butt.. I failed to show them properly how I want them to use the legs so I do run around instead the flip..however I am so going to get it this time around... LOL

I meant working on slippery floors, not just walking.

Come to think of it, I do remember a jackass of a "trainer" trying to pressure Caleb enough that he would back down when he was young. He was about 15mos. old, maybe a hair younger, and this guy flanked him HARD totaly out of the blue. He was bitten. He seemed to get annoyed (he had been trying to sell me a dog of his instead)  and said he bit only because he was defensive and wouldn't stand up under pressure, so he dragged him onto a slippery white floor and put him in a corner and then tried to flank him again...wasn't happening, LOL. Enough reminiscing...

At any rate, I am really surprised (not really, I guess....more dismayed) that so many dogs slip through the cracks with these kind of issues and are bred. People just HAVE to start doing more to really discover the true makeup of their dogs' temperament before breeding. Many things can be overcome and are environmental in nature as opposed to genetic, but still...how a dog does or doesn't get through something tells you a lot as well. How people can be so dismissive of certain thresholds baffles me. I want to know where my dogs' weaknesses are to build them up as much as possible. I don't understand the mentality that these things don't matter just because they're not in a position to show them often, especially during pure sport work. I guess I just think I'd rather not find out my dog has an issue I wasn't aware of when I'm in a critical situation.

Sorry to derail a little...

You said you don't want an overly friendly dog or an overly protective dog.  What you want is a confidant dog.  I socialize the tar out of my dogs.  You will find as your dog gets bigger it is quite amusing when you walk them adults will not ask to pet your dog but children will come running up to pet your puppy!! Yes I make my dogs sit when anyone pets them me included if they come running up to me and they don't sit, I walk away.  Mine all know to come up and sit and there will be some ear rubbing etc in it for you.  At this point you aren't doing alot of the protection work.  When you do your dog will know the difference between someone who is aggressive and someone that is passive.  If you are using the dog as a detterent in your car that's not a problem when it gets older, it will bark if someone gets too close to "his" car.  Even the dogs we put on the street for police depts are very social dogs.  Lucas my male is a big boy and he is the friendliest, goofiest dog I know until told otherwise or if you think it's a good idea to act aggressive towards me. So at the momment just worry about socializing your dog and having fun while at the same time working some training in.  And for your sanity do NOT leave a gsd puppy in your room not in a crate while you go to work!!! It will have a ball but you won't be soo amused when you get back!! Hunger for Justice had great housebreaking advice.  You can always tell when someone has hit their dog for going in the house and then they call you and say I can't housebreak it, I take it out and it won't go, comes in goes in another room and goes.  Well all you taught your dog was that it is not OK to go to the bathroom in front of you.  I take mine out on schedule but if it starts to go I just use the ahh ahh sound when we go out I say take a break and repeat it if the pup gets distracted when it goes I throw it a party! Then when it is housebroke you can take it out and say take a break your dog will instantly go! I just use take a break because if I'm on a search it sounds funny to tell my boy to go pottie. LOL