I am new to the forum and have been *lurking* for a couple days and am quite impressed.

My sister gave me a male GSD at 8 weeks old named Apollo (now 4 months old) and I have a zillion questions. (sorry if I sound like a dummy...)

My trainer started me on a prong collar with him 2 weeks ago. When I correct him, sometimes he "air snaps" at me and lets out a protest yelp/growl, although he does what he is told after that.

Is the prong going to create bad behavior? He is a mouthy pain in the butt. I can yell ouch until my brains fall out -it does no good. Giving treats or a toy does not stop the biting. Correction on the prong is the only thing that stops it.

Is there such a thing as over correcting using the prong? (personally I feel badly about using it - I am sure he senses it...)

What is a "hard" dog? How and when can you tell if you have one?

He is not people aggressive at all. My trainer brings one or more of her dogs here every week to dog socialize him and he was great with other dogs, until last week. My neighbor's black lab stuck his head through the fence and nipped Apollo on the nose. Now every dog he sees his hair stands up and he barks and growls like a maniac. What to do?

Apollo is pretty good with down stay. He is now completely house trained and he hangs out with me in my office most of the day and is pretty mellow and only needs a few corrections. Mostly when my 15 year old is in ear shot. As soon as he hears her voice, down stay goes out the window and he want to be near my daughter. He will whine, cry, scoot across the floor to get to her. He will be licking her and wanting to play with her, then the biting kicks in -she leaves and it takes me a while to bring him back to Earth. Is it normal for a dog to be fixated on one member of the family like this?

I realize that he is a work breed so I walk him twice a day, BRISKLY. After the evening walk, we play two tennis ball fetch or Frisbee in the yard (we live on a 1.25 fenced acre so he RUNS!), then we go for a swim in the swimming pool to try to tire him out.

After his dinner, he seems to kick up into high gear - he's crazy pounding on the fence in his pen and if we let him out he is running around crazy excited. Any ideas why this happens only in the evening? (I wish I had his energy!)

It seems like he realizes when he has the prong on or off. I usually leave the prong and short lead on while around the house, but take it off when we are in the yard so he doesn't hurt himself when we are playing. When the prong and lead is off, "Apollo Come!" doesn't work. If the prong and 20 ft lead is on in the yard, the come command works just fine. Are they that smart to know the difference?

My trainer is off on a 2 week vacation or I would be asking her all of these crazy things.

I have been looking at all of the products and advice on this site and all I can say is that it is the best site I have seen yet. Any suggestions on which videos or equipment to get would be greatly appreciated. Any replies to my silly questions are also appreciated. <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Hi Diana, I personally don't use prong collars on 4 month old puppies, but then, I rarely do any correcting on the little ones. What are your goals in training? Are you training for any particular sport? Why is your trainer using a pinch collar on a baby? Is your dog from working lines? Rather than correct him when he is mouthy, can you redirect him to a toy? It sounds like you may be overcorrecting him if he is yelping & growling at you.

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Hi Diana, I personally don't use prong collars on 4 month old puppies, but then, I rarely do any correcting on the little ones. What are your goals in training? Are you training for any particular sport? Why is your trainer using a pinch collar on a baby? Is your dog from working lines? Rather than correct him when he is mouthy, can you redirect him to a toy? It sounds like you may be overcorrecting him if he is yelping & growling at you.

He isn't the size of a baby. HE IS HUGE! The medium prong collar is starting to get tight on him.

I hired the trainer right after I brought him home. She has been training dogs for 25 years (obedience, police and attack) She rescued my sister's male and female and trained them before my sister got them. They are 3 and 4 years old and wonderful dogs.

We started the training Apollo on a flat collar - that was a joke. Then we moved him to a "humane" choke - a choke collar that has a stopper on it before it chokes. He did well for a few weeks on that and then wanted to go back to doing what he pleased.

The biggest problem we had was when we corrected him - even just telling him NO, he would go into overdrive, snapping away, biting ankles, biting pants legs, attacking the cat, mounting my other dog and my daughter whenever we tried to get him to do something he wasn't interested in doing.

His behaviour has been great since we instituted the prong. I barely have to correct him anymore (except when Bree enters within earshot.) When I do correct him is when he air snaps. I can at least have him in my office now, the cat can walk by - he leaves it alone, (the cat actually snuck up behind him and played with his tail!) he has stopped mounting my other dog.

Believe me, I hated the thought of using it, but I guess this is why I am paying a professional. I am going by what she advises because I have no experience with a large dog. My other dog is a pug mix and is as docile as can be.

I just want obedience training and to be able to handle him when he becomes a 125 pound animal (like his father). We tried treats and toys to no avail for the biting - the prong is the only thing that has worked so far.

I don't believe in correcting puppies, I corrected my GSD too hard as a pup under advice from someone who I now think was a complete moron and regret it every day. Let a puppy be a puppy and develop their personality, then work them on a prong at 8-10+ months old. Puppies bite, just like human babies bite, it'll go away eventually, just redirect the pup onto other things. Don't yell at the puppy either, it does no good, it just desensitizes the pup to your voice in the long run. Rather than letting your frustration escalate to where your puppy is driving you crazy, learn to use the crate to control your sanity and keep both you and the puppy happy. A puppy is happier sitting in his crate for a few hours than he is being yelled at for doing things "wrong" that he doesn't quite understand yet. If your puppy starts chewing on your hand then put the pup in the crate or give the pup a toy they can chew on.

I cannot emphasize enough how much I am against prongs on puppies, they might be big, but they don't yet have much understanding till they are 5 or 6 months old, you should be bonding and establishing a trusting happy relationship with your puppy so they want to be around you and come to you. So my best advice to you is put the prong collar away for another 4 months, keep the puppy on a leash in the house if they keep getting into stuff he's not supposed to, and in the crate when you can't leash him. If he's OK off the leash then don't let the puppy out of your sight, that's when stuff gets destroyed. With maturity comes calmness and understanding. Just teach the dog the meaning of sit, down, come etc using food or toys as positive reward, don't worry about pulling on a leash, then when they are older and you start using a prong collar then you will at least be 100% sure the dog understands what they are being asked to do rather than unfairly correcting them for something they don't fully understand.

i don't know - maybe you've already tried it, but how does he respond to praise, play and food treats? if you can use these things to reward him for being correct, it might eliminate the need for correction almost entirely. also please understand that "correction" assumes that puppy knows what is expected of him. if he does not know/understand what is expected then correction only causes confusion and lays the groundwork for a host of problems in the training ahead. good luck with him and put the prong away for a few months. <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thanks all for the input. I will discuss this with my trainer when she returns. <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Hey Diana;
You asked about a hard dog. The way I've learned to tell is how does the dog respond to a correction. Does he squat when simply given a stern look or does it take some amount of force? When you give a leash correction does the dog cry out and cower or does it have little effect? I believe I have a very hard dog. He's quite agressive and a level-10 correction on a prong (given when he becomes agressive) will stop him most times but sometimes he'll turn and keep growling. I used the dominant dog collar as shown from Ed's video and it only makes him fight. I don't use it anymore. I now use an e-collar although they are not recommended for pups. This seems to be the safest way to control him although it does have drawbacks as well.

As for the biting. I don't believe allowing him to outgrow this behavior is a smart thing to do. When my dog was young I would give him lots of things to chew but not me. When playing with him if he started biting me I'd sternly tell him no and if he did not stop, grab his tongue. He'd try and pull his tongue back in and I'd keep it for a few seconds. When I let go he'd lick my hand, I'd give him luvins and we'd keep playing or just chill for awhile. He has never been mouthy. I was also told by a behaviorist to re-direct but that did not work however; all dogs are different so that's not to say it won't for your dog.

Good luck, until dogs learn to talk we'll never fully understand them.

DZ

"HE IS HUGE!"
This pup is 4 months old, many owners aspire for there dogs to be big. My largest male Tequilla, is a 125 lb sable, he is an incredible working dog, hard and indifferent. My vets have always promoted under feeding and under exercising in the first year. As for constantly escalating in your use of spike collars on a four month old, well I have to little say, other than I hope your pup turns into the dog you dreamed of.

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"HE IS HUGE!"
This pup is 4 months old, ...... As for constantly escalating in your use of spike collars on a four month old, well I have to little say, other than I hope your pup turns into the dog you dreamed of.

I have more to say (of course <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />. As Scott points out, this pup is 4 months old! The size is not the age.

Size doesn't indicate age or maturity any more than age indicates level of training. I'd try very hard not to mix up his appearance with his actual age, and I'd listen to my instincts that tell me if he's yelping, then I am overcorrecting.

If he did OK for a few weeks and then regressed ......... well, the odds are that his trainer slacked off..... maybe thinking "OK, whew, that's done!" <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I'm with Mike, Scott, and the other posters on this one. Maybe the trainer is also confusing size with maturity........?

This DVD might save you a lot of time and trouble: http://www.leerburg.com/302.htm

JMO!

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