My 6 month GSD was sent to an outside trainer. Now it never minds. I train it an hour a day and it still has problems. What can I do?

Question

Let me start off by saying that I'm glad with the way you handle some of the questions, sometimes you're very blunt and that's needed to make sure even the clueless get it. You seem very knowledgeable in your field. Now to my story.

    I have a 6 month old GSD male. we got him when he was 8 weeks and did a good job of socializing him with people and other dogs. He would run up the stairs, play in the pond being out house, sit, lay, walk with us off leash on the golf course staying near even with other people walking, and would come when we called him.

    We sent him to a kennel while we were out of town for a month this summer, and had him trained for on and off leash healing. I now think this was a waste of time and money and that I could have gotten better results from my own training and by purchasing every training video you sell, and still would've spent less money. They were also supposed to break a digging habit, and jumping on doors. Since he came back earlier this week, he's not obeying the commands like the trainer had perfected and he's jumping on windows and doors, he does bad things he used to not do like barking at other dogs and getting distracted. I've been working him about an hour a day and he's almost obeying all the commands, but he's very sloppy and highly distracted by other people and especially other dogs. I'm only giving him partial praise if he does something partially correct, and none if it's just bad. He acts like he doesn't understand although he knows what I want him to do, I figure this is just him trying to out-smart me and make me give up on him and give him his way.

    Should I start using treats more often along with praise for following commands correctly, and should I give the treats with my mouth so that he's looking at my face? He doesn't look at me at all when I work him, usually just stares at the ground. I would like for him to keep his head up and to look alert and professional. I'm also wondering why he doesn't go up the stairs anymore and why he's afraid of water now, he used to love water. Should I just work with him more and let him know to trust me by carrying him around the pool on a float gradually? And should I drag him up the stairs to get him used to them again?

    My condensed questions:

        Will constant working and correcting fix these problems?
Will giving treats from the mouth fix the attention problem?
        What command should I give to hush him from barking at other dogs, and what If I want him to bark sometimes?
        Are my theories on reacquainting him with water and stairs the right idea?

    I'm probably answering my own questions, but anything you can say will help drive it through my brain.

    Ron
Texas

    P.S. I strongly feel that the reason some dogs eat their poop is from lack of proper nutrition. Mostly certain minerals. It's the same theory behind why some children eat dirt. They aren't getting enough of the minerals they need from their diets, and what they need is in dirt. All the minerals in the human body can be found in most dirt.

Accepted Answer

Well you have made a number of mistakes:

Sending the dog out to be trained by someone else is NEVER a good idea. This is even worse that it was done at such a young age. Outside trainers invariably use too much force because they do not have the time to use correct motivation to train a dog. The result is a screwed up dog that will only mind this trainer and not the handler.

Working a 6 month old puppy for 1 hour a day is really nuts. This is going to make the dog neurotic. Training should be in 2 to 3 minute intervals 3 or 4 times a day (at most).

It sounds to me like there is a lot of correction going on with this pup. I think you have a lot to learn about obedience training – young dogs are not to be corrected that much.

Yes you need to go back and use food to motivate the dog.

If you would like to learn more about the principles of obedience training a dog, read the description for my Basic Dog Obedience video. You will probably find that you have not had the full picture on the steps of training a dog must go through before it can be considered fully trained. You can also read why I am not a fan of taking an untrained dog to obedience classes.