Hi, I am a new member and have 2 German Shepherds. I recently read your article “Ground Work.” And other articles that I found very interesting and informative. It is a different approach on some counts of what I have been doing with my 2. But I do train with food rewards and praise to teach a command and once I know they learned it, I use corrective training with a prong and leash, along with praise for correct responses.

I have several issues with my dogs that I have become stumped on, and although I will not go into all of them in one post, I am currently looking for feedback on the one that brought me here, which I think will solve a lot of the issues I am having. As I have realized there is a lack of knowledge or ability in my training technique.

I have a neutered female GSD 14 months old, working line, high-energy drive, ball driven, confident, and independent, with good nerves. She had on-leash basic obedience training. And has been very well socialized with people and other dogs (I know you don’t agree with direct interaction with strange people or dogs, but until visiting your site I never heard of no direct interaction, but I do see the relevance).

My other dog is an intact male GSD 10 months old, high prey drive, and a strong food drive. He is a shy, laid back, sweet boy. That does really well with people, but is cautious with initial greetings, and stresses easily outside of the house. Because of terrible timing and personal reasons, he hasn’t had the training my female has had. But I have basic obedience trained him myself on-leash.

They get along really well. I have read your raising 2 puppies article as well and was absolutely horrified. I do hope how I’m going about it helps. When I got my male, my female was in obedience school during the day and when she returned home, they were kept separate most of the time, with small interactions occasionally. My female had bonded with me prior to getting my male and for the month she was going to school he bonded with my daughter and me. I train them separately and together, I also take time with each one to play with and do outings without the other. I also do not allow them to horseplay in the house. This type of interaction between them is only allowed in the back yard.

They are both crate trained, and both have been taught and know all the following commands. Sit, stay, down, heel, come, leave it, drop it, and go to your spot (crate). A few months back I started working on not letting them go through a door until they sit and are released, the same with getting food (fed in crates), water, and toys. Applying the NILIF method.

My problem, they don’t see me as their leader. Commands on-leash are followed the first time about 80%, and off-leash about 40%. After reading your articles I can clearly see I am not in charge. But I’m not really sure how to apply your technique to dogs I have been with since each of them was 10 weeks old. Should I approach it with the ground work article, as if I just got them? If so, do I incorporate the GW and training with them together as well as separately? Or do you have an article perhaps I over looked for 2 dogs and me becoming the leader of the pack?

I am also not sure how different I should handle my male because he is timid.

My main concern because of my lack of leadership is I’m worried about the likelihood of something terrible happening. I don’t want my dogs to be another dog attack/biting statistic or another dog hit by a car. They are great dogs! I love them and I want to provide them with a safe-long-healthy-balanced life.

Please help, your advice and suggestions are appreciated.

Your only lack of leadership with your dogs that shows in your post is your own attitude.

You do not mention any use of correction in training.

I believe a dog that is trained with only positive motivation becomes unruly and uncontrolled, and a dog that is trained with only negative motivation is reluctant to respond, and under a high level of stress. Neither of these offers a dog that is eager to obey, confident, controlled, attentive to and bonded to its owner.

I believe dog training must be a balance of positive and negative motivation, using a variety of training methods and equipment to communicate clearly to the dog what is expected, encourage desired behavior, discourage undesired behavior, and end dangerous behavior.

I think your problem sounds like high expectations for dogs that are young and not properly trained. 10 and 14 months old are just teenagers. To get off leash control you have to train for off leash control, which means they have to know that a correction is coming whether they feel the leash is there or not. That means in the house if you say sit and they blow you off, you need to crack down on them and show them you are serious. Being alpha doesn't apply only when a leash is on them. For off leash control you should try a long line/prong and set up situations that you can win. That might mean incorporating a second person to help give corrections. Before you can go off leash you have to work on distance training. All this is getting ahead of things, because before you can do anything off leash, you have to have them working at 100% ON leash. If they aren't working 100% on leash, it probably has to do with not getting the right level of correction. The correction has to be clear enough, and severe enough that it is a wake up call to them. This will get you the response you want and the alpha status. Before going off leash I would let them grow up alittle more and get really good with a leash and long line (distance).

just my 2 cents.

Annie V. in response to your post, I agree that there needs to be a balance to motivate my dogs. And you are right I didn’t include my correction training method. But I do correct my dogs for unruly and inappropriate behavior. As well as reward them for when they do listen or behave.

Training and interacting with my dogs is done with a lot of praise when they display appropriate and acceptable behavior and I will also give treats from time to time (even when they are not learning something new). When they don’t follow commands or if they display inappropriate behaviors they are corrected with a firm “no,” as well as when pronged and leashed they receive a physical correction and then the command is repeated, if they follow the command they are rewarded, when they don’t they are corrected again. If they are not leashed and ignore me, they are placed in a sit/stay or brought to their crates or I will prong and leash them. Depending on the severity of the bad behavior.

Why did you say “Your only lack of leadership with your dogs that shows in your post is your own attitude?” What attitude is that?

Dana W. in response to your post, it has become obvious to me that they don’t see I mean business and that’s why I posted here, because I am missing something in my training or my presence and I am trying to figure out what that is. And I agree with you, that off-leash isn’t what we are ready for. I don’t long line them often, because they don’t consistently obey a command on a 6’ leash. But I don’t think I’m asking too much of them, both these dogs have been training since they were 4 months old.

Thank you both for your responses.

My female responds better on the leash then my male does, because I think her school training gave her something, that maybe I’m lacking and that could be why my male doesn’t responds as well. How hard of a correction should I give them? And should I always have them leashed until they become consistent?

I don’t have aggression issues with my dogs. But my male is timid and I am concerned if I don’t have the leadership role he needs, his fears can turn into something ugly. And because my female is very confident and always eager to approach people this could also turn into something with a person that is fearful of dogs.

I always have certain little rules in my head for interacting with my dogs. One of this is: I never ask them to do anything I can't correct, but I also don't, as much as possible, ask them to do something I cannot properly praise. So each time I ask them to do a "down", they'll think, "Hmm, something nice is coming my way. Might as well obey it." If they *don't* obey, I get them to do what I wanted them to do in the first place, but I don't praise as much. So in fact they realize that when they do things on their own the sky's the limit on what I'd give them, but if they wait around for me to do it for them not a lot's gonna happen.

I also 'act' as a leader...I don't stress myself too much on thinking about things, just some basic common sense: I ask them to do something, they'll do it. I never ask them to do anything physically impossible or that will hurt them. I always take charge of situations (if we're out for a walk my pup would often seem to say, "Hey, look, I don't like that person, what shall we do?" and I always project the image of, "He's no threat, let's go." Once a stray pit bull appeared at the end of the straight heading straight for us, I stood really tall and glared at it, my pup was watching me as the pit made a wide circle around us). I let my dogs rush out of a door before me, because they know that ANYTHING that happens I allowed it to happen...in other words if I didn't want them rushing out of the door I'd tell them so before I opened it, and if they tried I pushed them back, and so on. Or if I was too late I'd call them and if they didn't come I'd physically come and get them. So they realize that they have freedom, because it's what I *want* to happen. You gotta project a certain sort of 'confidence' towards the dogs so they'll respect you as a leader, i.e. you're all powerful, you can control anything, anyone who messes with you gets crap, and they are safe and happy as long as they obey and follow you. My 4.5 month old has got this figured out. Last night he was chewing on a bone, I asked him to come up with me to my room, he took the bone and followed me. He's so gullible.

Now, 'speed' in obedience is a totally different thing in my view. You need a better motivator and your dog has to understand he gets the toy/food faster if he does a command faster, instead of corrections (at the learning phase anyway).

Hi Angie <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> It sounds like you are a good leader to me, just maybe too nice, which isn't totally a bad thing. I think giving them a speedy prong correction they would remember, (if they defy your commands) would work and probably shock the heck out of them <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> Also, I would consider taking the dogs out individually so that you can give your shy dog all of your attention to build his confidence up for new situations. I have a GSD mix that was on the fear aggressive side and I had to spend a lot of time with him to help him overcome his issues. I couldn't have helped him as well if I had another dog out with us.

Here's a link to some articles that may have the answers you are looking for http://www.leerburg.com/obeddirectory.htm

Good luck <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I tend to give different corrections as well as different praises. They get pronged if they lunge at cats or try to jump for food from the table. In obedience, if they don't obey (providing I'm doing everything correct, I always look at myself first), I withhold the reward and turn my back, a moment later I'll repeat the command and if they don't do it again or don't do it properly I'll guide them, and then just say a soft "Good", nothing exciting, and the food/toy is withheld (I always mark behaviour with "Good boy!"). Usually their next attempt is more successful. If it still is not, I'll take a step back because there's something wrong with the way I'm training the dog then. Sometimes if the offense isn't too great I don't bother to correct...i.e. chewing on an item (I just take the item from them), or I just put them in their place (i.e. the rushing out of door thing, I just put them back in).

I don't exactly know what this accomplishes (I'm not dog training expert), but it's always worked for me...don't have a dog yet who resents my whims, and they always seem eager to do what I ask them to do.

Kristin, what could you be doing wrong in OB that you look to yourself first? Maybe I am too strict? If I'm using a hand gesture that they haven't seen I'll give them a few times to get what I'm saying, then show them if they don't. Sit means sit though, I don't want to say it twice.

I've trained with no compulsion and compulsion without a prong, and a prong, and nothing beats the prong except maybe the E collar but I haven't worked myself up to that yet so I can't say. My gsd mix came with all kinds of fear issues so I used very little compulsion with him because he needed to gain confidence and I was scared physical compulsion would be detrimental to his progress. Well five years later I have a dog that knows how to work me and doesn't have the OB that my other two dogs have. In hindsight, I let him manipulate me and would never make that mistake again. I've found with the prong it only takes one or two good corrections for them to get it. There are some things I've found the prong doesn't work for, but for proofing OB, it's quick and easy if you want instant results, in my very limited and new experience with it.

I correct with a different level for different 'crimes.' Lunging at cats and table surfing would get one or two corrections strong enough so that I'd never see that behavior again. Since Angie said her dogs OB was at 80% on leash at their ages, it sounded to me the dogs knew how to work her and she wasn't giving a strong enough correction to get them to listen. Of course motivation should be used first but I presumed she was past that stage and it was time to go to plan B and speedily eliminate the problems.

The best answers are probably going to be in the articles on this site. I would also consider going back to square one and retraining them completely. I've done that before.

Well, if a dog isn't obeying I always figure out there's a reason for it...either I taught the exercise wrong, he doesn't understand it yet and needs more guidance, or he's in the presence of a distraction he's not ready to ignore yet. So instead of correcting I find the reason for the problem and solve it first. The only time I'd give a correction for not obeying is if the dog *knows* the command 100% fully for a few months already. Basically I give them as much success as possible, so they know what's right first before I teach them what's wrong. I'm not very dependant on the prong or leash. I like this type of training, it doesn't stress me or the dog as much, and my pup (whom I always refer to as a Mink head, physically and mentally) obeys pretty well off-leash. I haven't really started him on the leash yet.

Oh yeah, the reason I repeat the command (during the learning phase) is that I find correcting at this stage results in the dog resisting against you, so instead of learning anything he just sort of sulks. So I give him *one* chance to redeem himself, and if he doesn't I guide him again. It's faster if the dog sees what's right and remembers it as a FUN FUN event instead of avoiding what's wrong because he remembers it as a bad thing, if you can understand what I'm getting at. Eventually I give very little margin for error, but this is only once he's understood what a certain word means and can compare it to another word (i.e. he knows Sit and Down respectively and can differentiate between them).