I have a GSD from Czech lines. I am not sure how to correct her. I have beentold that if I mishandle her, she might become handler aggressive. What do you think?

Question

I am wondering if you can help me on a training issue?

    I have a GSD out of Czech working lines and am not sure what the best form of correction for her is. I am told you can mishandle these bloodlines and cause the dog to become handler aggressive and later be taken to the ground by the dog. I do not want to mishandle her and cause her to be handler aggressive, or her to be scared of me or her to continue doing what she is doing. I want a dog to want to be with me, want to work for me, feel safe around me, and a dog that respects and loves me.

    Here is the issue:

    She is 4 months old. Sometimes when I am walking around the house she suddenly thinks I am the prey item and grabs my calf with full mouth rather hard, or any other body part she can get at the time. I grab her calmly behind the ears in the loose skin to remove her from my calf so that I can walk. When I do this she jumps back at me and bites me wherever she can and most time she draws blood. If I am reading her right she thinks I am playing rougher and she is acting out of prey/play. I am told by a trainer that I should continue to hold her by the scruff and put her in her crate no matter how much she screams. Also I am told by the trainer to grab her muzzle and put her in her crate. I have tried this a couple of times and this does not seem to be the right thing for this pup, it seems to make matters worse. She seems to respond much better with the "That's Good" command as opposed to the harsher correction. What is the right thing to do with a pup like this at this stage of her life?

    Thank you in advance.

Accepted Answer

First I will tell you the people you have talked to on Czech lines need a lot more training themselves. What rubbish. You are always going to be exposed to people who offer advice on how to fix your dogs behavioral issues. The problem is that most of these people don’t have the experience to offer sound advice. I have a pre-written script I send people to make it easier to place some faith in my advice. It goes like this:

"Everyone has an opinion on how to train a dog – just ask you barber, your mailman and your neighbor”

The problem is very few people have the experience to back up their opinions. This results in a lot of bad information being passed out on how to deal with behavioral problems

Puppies play with litter mates with their mouths. When they move in with humans they need to learn that this is not appropriate. How you handle this determines a great deal in later life. Your job is to teach the dog that other things are more interesting prey items.

I recommend a couple of DVDs

Building Drive and Focus
How to Raise a Working Puppy
Basic Dog Obedience

You need the information in these DVDs to get off on the right foot.

I also recommend that you visit my web site and read a training article I recently wrote titled THE THEORY OF CORRECTIONS IN DOG TRAINING.

The reason I wrote this article was to help people understand how to motivate their dogs in training. Most people either use the wrong kind of correction or over correct dogs in training. I am not a fan of “force training” (although I most defiantly believe that every dog needs to go through a correction phase). By exploring corrections in training you will become a better dog trainer.

By the way in the DVD I just released called Dealing with Dominant and Aggressive Dogs, we demonstrate with several puppies exactly how to handle this kind of situation.

Good luck with your dog and be very careful about who you listen to – so far you have gotten stupid advise. In 45 years of owning and training GSD's and having bred over 350 litters I have never seen a female that was as dominant and aggressive as you describe in your email.