My 10 month old GSD drags me when I try to walk her. She barks and sniffs the ground constantly. The previous owner trained her in S&R. How do I stop this behavior?

Question

Hi Ed and Cindy,

I adopted a female GSD (then 6 months old) from another family a few months ago. She is now 10 months old. Her previous family trained her in search and rescue at a very young age, and I think they did this without even training her in basic obedience. When we got her, she was practically pulling my arms out of the sockets during walks and sniffing the ground the entire time. They also taught her to "speak" when she wants something, and now she is constantly whining and yelping for everything and anything and barks at every little noise.

We finally got her to stop going full speed ahead on walks, but I do have to correct her when she starts getting ahead of me. I am taking her to beginner obedience classes...and she is just horrible. I know it is not her fault and I am the only one to blame. I work with her at home, and she does just fine. But once we are at class, all she does is sniff and want to track around and watch the other dogs. No matter how much I try to get her attention, she just does not pay attention to me. Even with food and toys.

So my questions are:

1.  How do I get her to stop this "search and rescue" behavior when it is uncalled for?  Do I just keep giving her corrections?

2.  How do I stop her from constantly being so vocal, loud, whiny, and barky??  Again, just a matter of correction?

3.  How do I get her to pay attention to my commands when we are not at home?  It's like she's completely deaf!  Should I just work with her at home until I know she is okay to go to classes (distraction phase)?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks so very much,
Janis

Accepted Answer

The behavior your young dog is displaying has nothing to do with Search & Rescue, it’s normal dog behavior when someone takes the leash that they do not perceive as their leader. My dogs are very well trained, but if you tried to walk them they would drag you like you were water skiing behind them. They don’t follow directions from people who are not their leaders and many dogs are this way. Basically it’s a lack of respect.

I’d get this dog out of a group class situation until you get the walking on leash perfect with no distraction and you get the vocalizing under control. She doesn’t pay attention to you for a number of reasons 1) she doesn’t have to 2) everything else is much more interesting and 3) you are asking too much of her at this point in her training.

I’ll make a few recommendations on how to get her to want to work with YOU, and engage with YOU. Until this happens further training will have to be correction based and for a dog this young, I’d try another way first. You can always go to corrections later.

Read this article on marker training first.

The Power of Training Dogs with Markers

The Power of Training Dogs with Food

These will give you the foundation for any future training you want to do.

You can watch our free streaming video to see some examples of marker training and to hear the Michael Ellis lectures, I can’t recommend them enough.

Learn to use the search function (located in the left hand corner of every page on our website) Simply type in your search terms or key words and you will be directed to articles, question & answers, free streaming videos and posts on our forum.

I hope this helps.

Cindy