Hi I have a quick question. My 7 month old GSD has this habit with the cats. I have two of them and both are dog friendly. I keep her tethered to me almost all the time and she does better, the couple of times I didn't she will do a drive-by mauling where she runs by a cat and tramples him before moving right along when I tell her no.

She also has came inside from using the bathroom or playing outside and I'm standing there to hook the leash on and she's slipped by and chased them from one end of the house to the other knocking them around. This has only happened twice though. It won't be happening again either, both times I was distracted.

Anyway I use a prong for no pulling on walks and I've been keeping it on her while she's in the house, she no longer pulls to try and see what their doing but she fixates on them constantly. If she thinks one of them is in the other room, she will stare and stare and stare until she finally just goes to sleep.

If one comes into the room she will stare intensely for minutes at a time until she finally stands up and charges. I've given her light corrections with the prong but she will go right back to it. I've tried distracting her but nothing will get her attention away for more than a few seconds. I work with her every day with training commands and she has alot of prey drive, the only thing I've seen her fixate on so intensely besides the cats was her orbee ball. I reward her with it during training alot but the movement of a cat walking will pull her away from this too.

I've also noticed her try and stalk them if she is standing and sees one walking away she gets her head real low and starts moving towards them.

I have a dogtra 280 e-collar in the mail that I ordered early to get her used to just wearing for future training-would this be the answer to fixing this problem?

i have the same problem, also have an ecollar i ordered in the mail. my prob is with two yorkie dogs my 7 month old gsd wants to get ahold of but i keep them seperated

Hi Heather,

Sounds like you are on the right track. It is probably going to require a much stronger correction than you are giving though. Since redirecting isn't working I would correct her for looking at the cat. That kind of obsession can be really annoying and can easily escalate into something worse than staring.

The ecollar is a wonderful training tool and will be handy for the problem you are having. Ed's video "Electric Collar Training for Pet Owners" is really good if you have never used one before.

Sometimes it's hard getting these guys and their drives headed in the right direction!

Got interupted and neglected to add that a solid "leave it" (or whatever word you use) command is important and useful for this type of behavior.

My dog does the same thing with the neighbor cats. I say "leave it" with a firm tone, and at first had to use a big correction with the e-collar, but now we can walk pretty close to the cats and he'll start to get excited/ stare, I say leave it, and he relaxes back by my side. I also have done a lot of training at a distance from the cats, then getting closer. These cats are funny; they'll sit by the road and just stare at my dog, not acting threatened in the least by a 100lb shepherd. I've practiced walking up and down the road, passing the cats getting closer, always monitoring him and correcting when he started to look in their direction. It's worked wonders, but I think will always require vigilance.