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most essential things to teach my GSD?

fritzy

fritzy

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my little boy fritz is so clever, hes 8 weeks and i’ve attempted teaching him simple things to see how he responds, and hes responded really well, within a couple days hes learnt a basic 4 or 5 commands (sit, spin, look etc.) but of course nothing mastered, but very impressive for such a young puppy

of course i need to teach him a strong recall and behavioural things, but besides those (and maybe tips including those) what should i keep in mind?

i live on enough land, hes a working line and i didnt have much in mind besides maybe a few protection tricks (no biting more defensive)
 
I just want to start by saying Fritz is super cute, and I am very jealous of not having been through the puppy stage with my GSD, he looks so adorable in the trolley! I haven't been a GSD owner for that long, just 3 months, and we adopted a girl who is 4.5 years old.

There are some things she knows and obviously some things she doesn't. I have no real opinion on protective training, it's not something we plan to do as our girl is not specifically for that, we just wanted to give her the best life possible. I also cannot envision it, with her being so clumsy and happy and bubbly.

She already knows real basics, "sit", "come", "Snowy" (her name), "no" and "this way". But there are things she clearly didn't get taught early and we are struggling to get her to have basic dog manners.

  • She was never socialised properly and now she can't be within 20m of another dog without going absolutely NUTS! (Redirection training with high value rewards seems to be gradually working.)
  • She never had an authoritative owner, so she is still getting used to doing as we say, she will often bark in refusal of commands. But ignoring her when she ignores us seems to do the trick, although this takes serious patience.
  • Some commands, she either doesn't know or doesn't want to know are "Down" and "Wait". This can be really frustrating, especially when meeting new/friendly humans, our natural instinct is to bend down and pet her, but her natural instinct is to jump up and headbutt you in the nose just as you are bending down to pet her. 🤕
She's a great girl, we are just getting to know her still, and each week she is seemingly more responsive to us.
Best of luck with the training, and from my point of view, if Snowy could be calmer around other dogs our lives would be SO MUCH SIMPLER!

Best of luck and welcome to GSDHQ! <3
 
Aside from the common basics, these are ones I train from day 1 or shortly thereafter:

- leave it (along with this I teach that they can't pick up anything off the floor that is not theirs (ie a toy) unless I give them the OK)
- reverse (This has a lot of practical value plus it teaches them to be concious of where their hind paws are. Dog are not naturally concious of their hind paw placement as they just follow where the front paws go.)
- emergency stop (stop immediately and then look at me for the next cue)
- impulse control (Doing this well teaches your dog to be neutral in highly distracting environments and helps with reactivity.)
- watch me (Make eye contact with me. Dogs learn visual cues easier than verbal cues, so I use a lot of visual cues and this lets the dog know to look at me for a cue or just to refocus their attention which can be calming.)
- come close (Sit next to my side or perpendicular in front of me, based on a visual cue of where I pat my legs, and plaster yourself to my legs. This is useful in crowded situations and also acts as a calming behavior.)
- too far (Just lets the dog know they have gotten too far away and to not go any further away. My dog is mostly off lead, so this is important for me.)
- I pair a visual cue with a behavior before adding a verbal cue. Many visual cues eventually get reduced to a very subtle cue that only involves moving a hand or fingers so that I can subtly direct them in close up work.
- Interacting with someone is always their choice and if they don't want to interact, they can walk away. I never force my dog into an interaction they don't want.
- When she barks as an alert, I've taught her she can stop once I've acknowledged it and said thank you. As long as I check on it and thank her, she'll quiet right down and just watch at the window.
- mental stimulation will wear him out more than physical exercise and mental stimulation is critical for GSDs
- Find some jobs for him to do. If you don't give a GSD a job(s), they'll start a business that you don't like. One of my favorite jobs to give mine is inspect all packages/bags before they come in the house. This is something most GSDs will want to do anyway, so may as well make it their job. Nose work, whether for fun or competition is another great one for them. While he is young, be thinking about what jobs you would like him to have and what he might be interested in doing.
- GSDs were bred to herd sheep by keeping them in a specific area. This means they are generally good at learning boundaries. Start teaching him the boundaries that you don't want him to go past so that when he gets older, he'll learn to stay within that area. It's easier if it's something well defined, like a tree line, but in any case needs to be something that has a reference point for the dog.
- In general, I give my dog choices whenever possible and let them have agency in decisions. For example, if I ask for a stay, she can stand, sit, or down. It's her choice which to choose because in some environments she may feel vulnerable in a down, but not in a sit. Or the surface she is on might make it uncomfortable to down or sit. As long as she stays within the radius of her body length, she chooses which position to use.

Lastly, never ever recall your dog and then correct them. If a correction is needed, you go to the dog. Every recall gets rewarded. When my dogs are young and still learning it, it's a reward and praise. Once the recall is solid, it's just praise at varying levels. The bigger the distraction they are recalled from, the bigger the party that gets thrown for coming. The quickest way to poison a recall is by calling your dog to you and then correcting them. Why would they want to come if there is any possibility of a negative outcome? I'm always surprised when I see someone do that and then wonder why their dog blows off the recall. Every recall should have a positive outcome for the dog. My friends joke that my dog is convinced I might die if she doesn't come as fast as possible when given a recall because when I call her, she pins her ears back and engages the afterburners to get to me as quickly as possible.

Many, many years ago when I started training GSDs for SAR work, I was told two things that served me well and became ingrained in my interactions with my dogs. I think these two are especially important with breeds like GSDs, Mals, Border Collies, and Dutchies.

1. Everything you do with your dog is training opportunity.
2. Whenever you are with your dog, one of you is training the other. You have to make the concious decision to be the one doing the training and not getting trained.

At this point in my life, these are so ingrained that they are built in to every interaction I have with any dog without me thinking about it. And with #2, there are times where my dog tries to train me on something and I like it, or it's something that makes them happy and doesn't affect anything else, so I let them train me. This gives them additional agency in life and leads to them offering more behaviors than I would get just through our routine training. Another practice that came out of my SAR training over the past 10 years that I've really embraced is No Attachment To Outcome (NATO) or colloquially, FAFO. I do a lot of training now where I don't care what the outcome is, I'm just trying things to see what happens. I'm not going to break my dog or her training, and it gets me a lot of data that I can use in the future. By not focusing on the outcome, it removes the weight of expectations and makes it more fun for both me and the dog. I am more quickly able to learn what works or doesn't work for this dog, how they like to learn, and what things they like to do that I can leverage for faster learning. Another thing I like to do is what I call "dog time". We go somewhere safe where the dog can be offleash, and she gets to do what she wants. I sit there quietly and observe, trying to see the world through her eyes. All interaction is dictated by her. Sometimes she'll do a quick check in where she wants a quick pet and a good girl before going on her way, other times she'll flop down and want lots of pets, scritches, and rubs for a bit. No interaction is forced and she is free to do as she pleases.

Hope this helps on your journey with your good boy.
 
wow, this was so incredibly detailed and very fun to read! i appreciate you telling me about the recall, ive tried to make it so i dont correct him much, more just reward everything he does correctly whether its small or big, but of course he needs correction sometimes
obviously ill have to wait to do some of these things, im trying to start as early as i can but i dont want to make any mistakes as this is my first time training a puppy!
overall i feel very informed, thank you!
 
Barrie said:
I just want to start by saying Fritz is super cute, and I am very jealous of not having been through the puppy stage with my GSD, he looks so adorable in the trolley! I haven't been a GSD owner for that long, just 3 months, and we adopted a girl who is 4.5 years old.

There are some things she knows and obviously some things she doesn't. I have no real opinion on protective training, it's not something we plan to do as our girl is not specifically for that, we just wanted to give her the best life possible. I also cannot envision it, with her being so clumsy and happy and bubbly.

She already knows real basics, "sit", "come", "Snowy" (her name), "no" and "this way". But there are things she clearly didn't get taught early and we are struggling to get her to have basic dog manners.

  • She was never socialised properly and now she can't be within 20m of another dog without going absolutely NUTS! (Redirection training with high value rewards seems to be gradually working.)
  • She never had an authoritative owner, so she is still getting used to doing as we say, she will often bark in refusal of commands. But ignoring her when she ignores us seems to do the trick, although this takes serious patience.
  • Some commands, she either doesn't know or doesn't want to know are "Down" and "Wait". This can be really frustrating, especially when meeting new/friendly humans, our natural instinct is to bend down and pet her, but her natural instinct is to jump up and headbutt you in the nose just as you are bending down to pet her. 🤕
She's a great girl, we are just getting to know her still, and each week she is seemingly more responsive to us.
Best of luck with the training, and from my point of view, if Snowy could be calmer around other dogs our lives would be SO MUCH SIMPLER!

Best of luck and welcome to GSDHQ! <3
Click to expand...

thank you so much for your input!
honestly im afraid for this puppy stage 😭 he is so cute but at the same time wish i could skip to when he isnt such a little trouble maker lol
ive taken him out a bunch over the time ive had him, overall he’s very behaved with humans but with other dogs he is very reactive as well!
it actually surprised me so much, as briefly meeting my parents dog and my other cats he didnt really have much of a reaction, he kinda ignored my parents dog (shes a pug, very nosey and annoying i think he was just like ‘leave me alone!’) and with my cats he was interested but not really reactive
me and my fiance went out for dinner with outdoor seating and i had him either on my lap or he slept on my feet. the seating is pretty close to a walkway with lots of people which i chose to get him used to it, and he did very well. a man and his pitbull of sorts walked by and Fritz stood up, stared at him for a bit and barked a decent amount, which surprised me because i havent heard him bark like that yet lol. the other dog was well behaved and basically just looked at him and walked away
luckily either he has some common sense for his size or just is well behaved, but he didnt try lunge at the dog or get closer, it was more like a protective bark
thank you for your tips and advice, ill be sure to keep it in mind!
 
fritzy said:
wow, this was so incredibly detailed and very fun to read! i appreciate you telling me about the recall, ive tried to make it so i dont correct him much, more just reward everything he does correctly whether its small or big, but of course he needs correction sometimes
obviously ill have to wait to do some of these things, im trying to start as early as i can but i dont want to make any mistakes as this is my first time training a puppy!
overall i feel very informed, thank you!
Click to expand...
Sometimes we have to correct our dogs, but we should never call them to us to do it. Always go to them or correct from a distance. This keeps the recall as solid as possible because it's always positive.
 
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