My one male GSD is about 1 year old. He is a very well tempered socialised dog with no fear, aggresion or dominance problems.We are good buddies and he respects me as the leader of the household. I spend time with him each day playing with his toy, teaching him to retrieve it and other off-lead excercises we learn at the club. He does all of this pretty well at home but when I get to the club he is another animal. He's not interested in his toy at all. He just wants to
sniff the ground, play with other dogs or lie
down next to me. I cant get him interested in his toy there no matter what I do.
I am sure most of you seasoned dog handlers have had this behaviour in some of your dogs
but since I am still quite a novice I appreciate any advise. Obviously I would like to have my dog enjoy any learning activities rather than be forced but if a harsher approach is going to be the only answer then
so be it.

Sounds like the dog may have a nerve problem. If he's relaxed and playful on familiar territory, it may not be that he lacks drive so much as lacks good nerves. Sniffing around on the ground and lying down next to you are signals that's he's going into *avoidance* mode.
Harsh handling now will only make things worse. You may want to try some motivational obed, to build his confidence as well as limit his play when he's not on the field to try to bring his drive up.

Ooops, I missed the part about wanting to play w/other dogs. I'd take that as a very good sign, then. Have you been putting too much obed/pressure on him and causing him to shut down?

This dog is not fully trained, meaning he has not been through the "distraction" phase of training. He needs to mind under any circumstance. Ed speaks at great length on this subject on the site and on his training tapes.

Good catch Joy

Good post Chuck if the problem was obedience. But it was not said that he did not listen only that the distraction was more interesting than the ball. Canis Lupus is this correct?

I have to admit I am spoiled in that my last three dogs were Leerburg dogs. Drive is the least of my problems. My first Leerburg dog Rabiat attacked me for the ball knocking me over and swallowed it whole. My wife at the time had to resuscitate him. I would move as far away from the distraction as possible then slowly introduce it. Try other prey items as well. Need more to go on to expand on this comment.

Your probably right Vince. I'm probably reading more into the title of his post("Obedient only in familiar territory")than into what the exact situation is. I agree more info is needed to get to the root of the problem here.

Thanks for the profound interest and helpfullness so far guys (and gals)!
He is definately not a nervous dog. On the contrary, he is quite outgoing and social
with a weakness for female dogs. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
Firstly, let me give some background on the club I train at. Their basic philosophy is that balls (tennisballs ect. not the bodyparts <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> ) is tabboo. The only prey articles we are
allowed to use are things that are "dead" when
they are dropped and something with weight such as a dumbell stick. Once a dog shows sufficient intererst in the article at the club venue and has a basic fetch he is sent up to obedience class provided he as at least 9 months old.
I think my dog has good prey instinct. It is evident in the way he plays with my cat. He is always chasing him and playfully biting him. I dont think prey drive is the problem.
At home he is interested in the article but it
takes some encouragement to set him off and
get him into full drive and he is also gets distracted relatively easy. He has a nice calm grip on the article and will play with it but I do not see the zeal that some other dogs have. I like the idea of introducing distractions progressively and build him up from there.
I experimented last night using food. I will
order him to fetch and if he brings it back he gets a biscuit so that he understands that fetching has rewards. It seemed to work quite
well and I'll try it later today again.

*Nervous* is not a synonym for *weak nerved*. Not all dogs w/thin nerves are hi strung, nervous dogs.
IF he genuninely wants to play w/other dogs on the field, that would suggest he's not feeling overly stressed. But, if he wants to sniff the ground and lie down next to you, that isn't consistent w/feeling confident.
The rest of your post, I'm not following. Hopefully someone else will figure it out.

I was taking my dog to competition obedience classes since he was a puppy. We strictly used the motivational method and I had the same problem with him only focusing on other dogs and not wanting to pay attention. The book I read stated not to correct your dog for this, but to reward every time he looks at you. That's what I did. Every time he looked at me, he got a piece of hot dog. But to be honest, this resolved on his own once he got to be 18 months. Part of it is still being a puppy. Males mature slowly, and some lines mature more slowly than others. I bet as he gets older he will naturally stop paying attention to everything else. Mine completely ignores other dogs and distratctions. I guess it depends what you are planning on doing with your dog. If you are planning on competing in obedience of any sort, I would not force or punish him as this will just cause him to dislike going to the club. Try rewarding him when he pays attention to you or his toy and also give him some more time to mature.

Very good Chuck. I did not catch that.

Joy:

Not being from the US there is probably a language barrier here. Nervous to you and what he means could be quite different. Lord knows I’m born and raised in Brooklyn NY and I have trouble with English. I took French for 3 years and I still only know how to say hello and can I use the bathroom.

Ed is coming out with a drive building video. I would keep my eye out for it any week now.