Our GSD is just approaching 18 months and he has gone from a very well trained and obedient dog to being quite scatty. We currently do schzthund obedience with him and when he is in drive he is fine with distractions and he will obey all of our commands, however when he is not in drive i.e. when we are walking to the park he will pull and strain on the lead, no correction or command seems to work. what do you suggest?

Also he is now becoming quite embarrassing when walking past or near other dogs in the fact that his hackles will go up and he begins to bark and is desperate to get over to the other dog, especially the smaller dogs again is this an age thing as he has been so good in the past and has not really bothered with them, especially not in the frenzy that he goes into at the moment!

Rick,

The obedience to the park, is most likely an age thing. You have a young teen now and in a pack, now that he is no longer a baby, he would be trying to figure out where his new place should be; am I fit to lead or should I stay where I am currently ranked at? Stay the course, maintain your pack order and leadership position and it should pass with proper training and ground work. The dog's own temperament will determine how long this will take and the severity with which you will have approach certain situations.

The dog-dog thing is probably fear, a pre-emptive strike routine for self defense; but don't quote me! I have the same problem with mine and other dogs that are too close, but not all dogs are an issue for her. I can tell you what has given me some progress but I think you'd benefit more from some of the other trainers more knowledgable in aggression than me.

Use a top-grade prong collar to stop the forging & lunging -- keep one of Leerburg's dominant dog collars on him too, for back-up, just in case the prong pops open...

If his temperament is the type where prong corrections overstimulate your dog (making him wild, rather than submissive) then just use the dd collar alone instead -- Three of Ed Frawley's DVDs I highly recommend you get are:

http://www.leerburg.com/302.htm

http://www.leerburg.com/301.htm

http://www.leerburg.com/318.htm

OK I lost my last reply so here I go again,
RICKY,
At 18 months of age a dog is allowed to take a BH, SO forget the fact that it's a "phase " your dog is simply blowing you off.
My youngest is 1 year old, when I leave the house to walk him he HAS to fuss, look at me and not for a second look at a dog accross our way (if there is one).That is it ,no pulling of the leash, no disrespecting of me by showing aggression towards another dog, if your commands are secure you should have no problem! Reward as he complies to your commands.
I hear excuses all the time at our club, and it comes down to how secure really is your dog.If your dog can do a BH on a strange field he can hill on the side walk no matter who, what is on the road or at the park.You must work on your healing, and attention ,away from your schutzhund field.What you are describing is not a 18 month old phase it's called "your dog is blowing you off" if he knows how to heal and give attention, and knows his positioning, than you should be able to do it no matter where you are.I tell all of our members that get a new pup or young dog to do Schutzhund, take a socialization class or obedience class ,so that their dog can see and be around other dogs small or large.My opinion, being in the sport for almost over 6 years and have titled my own dogs that you need to work on your healing anywhere you can , pet stores ,on your side walk, in the park with bunch of people there (for distraction)
Simple, you have to ask your self how secure your dog is in his obedience.Just keep up your good work Rick, keep on it cause your dog is realizing where he can take advantage of you and he is doing so.
18 months! no excuses!
http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r77/cadogancna/

Yep I think your right there. If the dog can do his BH, then they must be stable enough by 18 months so can't put it down to age. I do use a prong collar on him and in the past a correction would stop the dog aggressive behaviour and get his attention back on to me but he still pulls on walks. He knows heel. If he pulls "No","Heel" if nothing correction which he will do for a few seconds then he starts pulling again. I know this is a problem I have created myself, as he knows that he can do this all the way on the walk but still get to where he knows he will go eventually. If I were to just walk back home and keep trying I would be doing this all day and have a very high drive dog with alot of energy running round the house

Ricky, the reason I recommended Ed's excellent Basic Obedience DVD http://www.leerburg.com/302.htm is because it covers a multitude of healing-related issues, including the fact that the handler must "correct to the level of obedience" -- This means, if you have a somewhat hard dog (one who'll take a fairly firm correction & soon go right back to misbehaving, because he's barely even phased by it) then your correction was NOT strong enough & you need to up its severity level until he respects your commands...

Believe me, that video is the best you can buy, so you won't be disappointed when you get it <:-)

Angelique,

I never meant to imply that this 18 mo. age was a phase of any sort, I have found this seems to be the magic number when dogs will try to push the envelope and if they get away with it the problems get worse, so I think you misunderstood me there. When I mentioned, "it should pass with proper training" your comments are more or less what I was referring to. I was hoping someone would chime in with a little more detailed advice.

So now I am wondering, at what point would you would you cease correcting for looking at another dog? Do you only do this when your dogs are exhibiting an aggressive reaction or if they were to even glance out of curiosity? How strong does the correction have to be.. strong enough to just interrupt the dog's attention or do you want to shut him right down? And mostly how do you apply these techniques without creating a worse fear response or avoidance in one's own dog when in proximity to another?

Bradley,I did not mean to say that you had said "going through a phase" I wrote that in case Ricky thought that.I hear that in our club often,someone will give an excuse of why their dog will not comply and always use the "phase bit" But I was not directing that to you personaly.Sorry if you thought that.
For me, I can tell you this.I have taught my dog 2 different healing.
Heal (in english) is simply heal with out attention, just walk beside me.And the reason I taught that, was because when I push my daughter in her stroller I don't want my dog ahead of me, or pulling us like a sled.
Fuss(german) is healing with attention at all times.For the sport.
SO when I walk my dog around the block just for walking sake I tell him to heal(english) and when I see a distraction coming my way I tell him to fuss , that way his attention is on me only.But like you asked me, if he breaks that and looks at the dog he gets a correction.Hard or not it all depends on the dog.My young male is hard headed but not dog aggressive at all, so I don't really have to correct him for any dog walking by cause he does not care.But let say he showed aggression towards another dog , I would most definetly give him a correction where I would get an apologie from him (if you know what I mean).I think if your dog goes into a drive that is hard to handle when you correct him (for anyhting) set him up next time and replay the problem.Maybe this time you back tie him and you also hold him on a leash and give him a good correction but step out of the way (in case he bites you) and keep correcting him until he submits to your demands.It's hard for me to write that out, I hope it made sense.I have never had a dog agreesive male that I realy had to deal with.I have my 3 year old male that will sometimes bite me when he goes into drive during obedience with the decoy in the picture but not for dog agression.
I hope this answers your question.I am very bad at writing an explanation.

One more thing,as far as how much of a glance you allow your dog to give is up to you, but remember if your dog blows you off the first time then give him a hard correction if he blows you off and really is fixated on the other dog change direction and make him fuss, give attention, put him on a platz .Then you can go back to the scene, see if he still looks over at the other dog , bring out his tug, or toy and see if he forgets about the other dog or the distractions.On the field dogs get so use to routines and the other dogs that come out .I like to work my dogs outside the field a lot.I always have a tug in my pocket, always .It helps when you get in a situation that you feel your dog might test you .I allow my dogs to look at other dogs , but not a stare.Like I said I feel that the degree of how much aggression the dog is showing for other dogs is how you determined the degree of correction.

Angelique, no worries, I didn't think you were finger pointing or anything I thought that maybe you had misunderstood what I was getting at with my reply to Rick. I guess, re-reading my comments that the idea made more sense in my head than in print. I want to try these techiniques but am a little weary of them. However, that being said I am probably doing something wrong. Previously she would stare and I knew that it was only a matter of the other dog closing the distance between them until she reacted and corrections would elevate the severity of her behavior. Or I would command her attention and correct her for ignoring (she knows the cue very well) and the correction would set her off. So I abondoned this approach. I realize this doesn't afford you much information and it is near impossible to gauge the training requirement or fault on my part without eyes on observation, but based on these short blurbs can you offer any suggestions?
PS.. The only excuse I make for my dog is that she has a faulty trainer!! Ha just kidding!