Obedience Q&As

My husband and I bought a German Shepherd pup at 4 1/2 months of age from a professional breeder with several past champions. We wanted to make sure we were purchasing a dog with a good pedigree and excellent temperament. The dog is now 11 months old and we are extremely disappointed and ready to give it back to the breeder. We don't know if it is our problem in training or the dog is the problem. The dog will obey my husband most of the time and will listen when he tells him to si...

I am hoping you can help me with a problem I am having with my female German Shepherd "Gracie." Gracie is now 14 month old, she knows the basic obedience commands, but refuses to obey on recall. The minute she hears the door she will try to bolt through the door and refuses to come back until she is ready. We will live in a rural community in Fairbanks, Alaska and so far this has not caused a problem, but it is extremely frustrating as well as posing a potential future problem. She does chase...

We live in a small town and I can't find anyone to train us, mostly my husband and I. Laney (1 year old part chow part Shepherd) has many annoying habits: constant licking or jumping up on us. She can never just sit or lay by us while we watch TV or talk. She also play bites my husband, but never me because I have been firmer in the past with her. Last, she is too smart for us, we can never get her to come or leave the room, go to bed, go outside... When we try she always lays down, rolls on ...

I want to train my lab to retrieve frisbees, tennis balls, etc. She loves retrieving, but also likes playing games of not giving it up to me when she returns. Would the forced retrieve video that you have be a good idea, or is it really intended for competition dogs? Bob

Should I take my dog to obedience classes or should I train it myself?

I have made almost every mistake possible buying a new puppy. Here is my story. I can hardly believe it's 3 a.m. and I've been reading all you have to say! Such a wealth of information! I can see many places that I have gone wrong. First, I didn't buy a Leerburg pup. I can clearly see that was the first mistake! In fact, I got Gatsby (sort of black & cream American) from a fairly respectable breeder... to our dismay we found that she had a heart defect (valve didn't close af...

My dog takes food off the table, cupboard and out of the garbage when we are not in the room. Can you help?

Could someone please guide me in the right direction to finding help with training an aggressive male German shepherd named "Storm?" He is 18 months old and a dear children?s pet but he has a terribly dangerous habit. We have two horses whom he loves to chase and nip at, (he will not respond to our calls when he is doing this and has recently been kicked twice). We are fearful he will be seriously hurt or killed if we cannot control this behavior. He is currently in a dog run but we would lik...

I was wondering if you are able to help with a few questions. My husband and I have had a German Shepherd for the past two years. His name is Sargent. We picked him out when he was six months old. He has gone to puppy training and adult training and passed very well. My husband was the one who took him, so he is much more well behaved for him then myself. He is very good and listens most of the time, except when it comes to children. When he sees them running and riding the bikes, he like...

Our 1 year old dog is obedience trained but we cannot keep him off the furniture. What can we do?

We have a male Rott that is ten months old, he has one annoying habit. When on the leash he will periodically bite at the leash and we have tried everything to try to break this habit, he seems to do it to get something going and then he gets feisty and argumentative. If you try to use force, it gets worse. The Alpha roll does not seem to get it. He is better with my wife, he really tries to get something going with me. Looking for help, we would like to break him from this and we do not ...

Mr. Frawley, Your training tapes seem to be aimed at large dogs. I have a very small dog. Would your methods work as well with smaller dogs and will I need to make adjustments for a small dog? Maddy

I have a show quality Cardigan Welsh Corgi and I do some clicker training. However, after watching one of your on-line videos I realized that you have a slightly different approach which I very much like. It definitely makes sense. Do you address teaching behaviors that are needed for the show ring on any of your videos? I plan to buy several; but, as a senior citizen finances are limited so I'd like to get the right one to start with. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. ...

Cindy, One of my friends just adopted a 1.5 year old deaf female doberman. He is interested in finding a trainer or training materials so he can learn how to best handle the disability. He says that she is easily startled and is very hesitant with too much attention. He has 3 other dogs and 2 young children. Of course I love and would recommend all the Leerburg/Michael Ellis training materials. I'm not sure if the dog is 100% deaf or not, but if it is, do you have any suggestions? ...

I have a 2-year-old neutered male sheltie (neutered shortly before his second birthday, a couple months ago). He has a lot of drive and he is impatient and does everything fast and "frantic." I have been training him in agility since he was 9 months old along with obedience, i.e. heeling, come front, sit, etc. He is smart and can do things with "half a brain" and will, if allowed, do things half assed. He has been marker trained. Once I finally realized that he was being sloppy (heeling ...

Hi Cindy, I've watched a few of the videos I've ordered from Leerburg recently. I'd like to say nice effort on your and Ed's part. I'm wondering if you can explain something as marker training is new to me. In the past I've always used "ok" as my release command. Using "yes" as a marker seems to be a little more motivational in terms of it's auditory presentation and I'm considering that. In your Basic Dog Obedience dvd Ed uses "ok" as a release. In the Michael Ellis DVDs, i...

Hi Cindy, After watching the obedience video, I have a question concerning "marking"... When training the dogs to an invisible fence boundary should I "mark" when they turn away from the flags upon hearing the audio signal and head to the "safe" part of the yard? Thanks in advance... Tom

Hi Cindy, Ed & Michael, We bought 4 DVDs from Leeburg: The Power of Training Dogs with Markers, The Power of Training Dogs with Food, The Power of Playing Tug with your Dog and Focused Heeling and we found them to be very informative. We have watched the first two DVDs and we have a few questions for you, which we hope you will be able to clarify for us. We use "Yes" to mark the behaviour and "Yes" to release the dog, as per your DVD. We have trained our dogs to do the touch comman...

Hi, I want to get the DVD on marker training, but I want to train my dog to the whistle. Would this DVD be helpful or have you got anything which you would recommend? Cheers, Leigh

Hello Cindy, I have watched the marker training video several times and there's something I'm not grasping. When you are marking something and the dog is getting it 8 out of the 10 times, as you start to add the command, do you hand signal first then try to say it. I see you hand signal on the video when teaching the look. For example training the look, once the dog understands, how would you go about getting the dog to do that with hand signals or saying the look command? I don't ...