My wife and I are new to dogs and training:

My Brother-in-law just moved in to my house two weeks ago. I am living away from my wife/dog/house to do some government work for 9 months. I have already been gone for 4 months. I get to come home on the weekends and christmas. When my brother moved in my dog has had some problems.

The Dog is a male GSD. 15 months old. Name is Shadow

Problems in last two weeks.

1. When My wife or I put Shadow's prawg collar he is fine but, when we go to grab the training lesh he cowers away and hides behind the coach or anything.

2. He has been very interested in my b-in-law and will set in front of his bedroom door when he is in.

3. He has been trying to break out of his kennel and was succsefull on time. now he thinks he can get out when ever. I have reinforced his Kennel so he can't.

4. He has sneaked off a few times and has chowed up a few things (comb, stuffed animal etc.)

5. When my wife issues a command he might or might not do it. I have not seen or had this problem while I am around she tells me on the phone.

My wife does the obidence training everyday now that I am gone and he gets at least 2 30 min walks everyday.

I am very confused way he is acting up. What are my wife and I doing wrong?

Sounds like he is maturing and going through the teenage butthead stage. Like most teens, he is testing the limits. Keep up the training and this stage will pass.

He is probably associating the leash with geting corrected. You need to make that a positive association. It will take awhile to break that old connection of the leash and impending pain.

Most shepherds don't really reach emotional maturity until they are well over two years of age. So, you have a ways to go yet. At 15 months, he is becoming sexually mature, so he is starting to pay attention to those good smelling gals down the road.

Hope you enjoy Bo Pelini when he finally makes it down to Norman. He is going to be one of the great ones.

you're confused???? the dog is confused. the order of the pack has been totally re-arranged. he's not sure of his place or anyone elses. who is the pack leader? he may do a little challenging until the order becomes clear to him.

I don't see this dog as challenging - trying to get out of the kennel and chewing up some odds and ends...absolutely normal youngster behavior. The one that is absolutely NOT NOT NOT normal is being terrified of the leash. If the dog is avoiding the leash THAT strongly that he hides, he is also showing avoidance/fear in other situations that give clues to what he is really afraid of. For example, if he associates the leash with something terrible that happened on his walk, he'd be looking scared/nervous at some point on his walk where it occurred (like if there is one bully in the neighborhood that scares him,etc). Or if someone abused the dog with the leash without your knowledge (whipping the dog with it, for example) then he'd be showing strong submission/fear of that person also. If it's the obedience training, then he'd be showing strong reactions during the training - ears back, tail tucked, crouching, lip licking - that would tell you THAT was what he is afraid of. So where else are you seeing this type of nervous/fearful behavior?

I am not seeing it anywhere else. They funny thing is if I tell him "Lets go for a walk" he is happy to put the leash on. He loves his walks. But he is very affread if he thinks its time to train. Like I said this has only happened for two weeks. I have been training him with the prong collar since he turned 12 months old.

He loves his kennel. I only keep in locked in his kennel at night and maybe 4 hours in the day inbetween people being at work. When he is tired he goes to his kennel and rest.

Another thing that I failed to mention is when her brother moved in he moved into the guest bedroom. That is where the kennel was at! Now it is in the living room of the house.

So now his crate is in the middle of all the activity so he doesn't settle and nap as easily and wants to get out - nothing to worry about. If you have a quieter place to put it, great. If not, he'll get over it.

Ok, so the fear of the leash is due to his fear of impending training, you think? Since this behavior's new, only 2-wks duration, what have you or your wife been working on in the last two weeks, and specifically HOW have you been teaching him the exercises? We have to pinpoint what you/your wife are doing that has got him fearful.

My wife is doing most of the training now since I am not there. I will have a detailed conversation with her tonight to see if she has changed any of our training practices since I have left.

I know she got frustrated in training about 1 week ago because he was not doing well with some destraction training she was trying. I will ask more about what happened with that.

I am planning on building a kennel into the utility/Garage that will be out of the way of everyone.

Originally posted by John Lister:

My wife does the obidence training everyday now that I am gone and he gets at least 2 30 min walks everyday. ...

I know she got frustrated in training about 1 week ago because he was not doing well with some destraction training she was trying. Well, there is your problem! Is there a specific reason why a 15-mos dog needs to be trained EVERY day? And with a pinch collar? A for how long? What are you training him for? I bet when your wife gets frustrated she lays on that pinch collar pretty hard? Limit training to 2-3 times a week and make it motivational.

2 30-min WALKS a day are not enough to relieve the energy of a 15-mos-old pup. He needs to run. Have your wife get a ball or a kong on a rope and play fetch, tire him out--a tired dog is a happy dog.

Please,

We play with him with a ball several times a day.

Are training session are about 1 - 3 minutes long.

We also take him on 4 - 8 mile hikes on the weekends.

I don't think he stops going very much.

Someone please tell me why training for 1-3 minutes everyday is bad?

Everyday isn't a problem, I would consider the type of work you do more of a problem.


Use positive methods for a while and leave the prong off for a few weeks. If distractions are an issue, take a step back in training for a while and increase the value of rewards you use. . .then work back up to cranking his head off with the prong. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />


I would honestly try to get as far as possible using positive reinforcement in obedience training before going back to a correction phase. Then make sure that the corrections are fair, and use no more force than necessary. Your dog doesn't sound like a hard head so take it easy.