I have a complex 18-month male GSD (from Canada with working bloodlines). He is most attached shepherd I’ve ever owned – totally, intensely focused on me. So he has trained up beautifully obedience-wise. Tolerant but standoffish to strangers from the start, he’s proved an excellent watchdog and alert guardian on the city streets. This was natural – no training. So he seemed a perfect candidate for protection work. The plot thickens. He trembled as soon as the harness went on and generally locked up. After several weeks and a lot of encouragement, he went after the rag a little. The nerves improved, a little. The helper decided to shift to defense work, since his defense drive is great. Dog responded well, but this didn’t improve nerves. Status quo. He clearly doesn’t enjoy it like all the other dogs – just does it “for me.” His nervousness is not aggressive or snappish – just a trembling withdrawal. He couldn't care less about any other dog or person. Also, he’s gun shy. When the cap pistol goes off, it’s all over. This sound sensitivity extends to street. One other thing to note: when I am working with him in the park, mano-a-canine, he is a driven creature to behold. You would never guess he had a nervous bone in his body and wouldn’t drive through a brick wall to get the bad guy. My question is, has anybody seen such a confounding combination of assets and defects, is the nervousness remediable, can gunshyness be overcome, do I need a trainer to coax him into his true potential, more time, more patience, or should I just accept that I have a good companion who isn’t meant for formal protection/shutzhund training. Many thanks for any views.

Rip Pauley

Hi,

When a dog is nervous and gun shy, it is in his genetic make up and will probably be there for life. Also, if you want to train in some kind of bitework, you should start your dog in prey drive and not defense.......if your dog does not
have prey drive, I would not suggest doing bitework with him.

Rip, it might be the case that you have a couple of issues to work on -
1) gun shy - you don't say how far away the pistol is from your dog when it is fired - you may well have to move the pistol and the person firing it much further away until a distance is reached so that your dog is okay with it - when gradually and systematically reduce the distance over time - at least several training sessions - don't try to reduce the distance all in one session.
2)Your dog's nervousness in the training situation might be due to a lack of socialisation
-maybe the dog simply wasn't confident initially
because it wasn't used to engaging with other people in this type of situation. From what I have been told (I am no expert myself) you did the right thing by starting in prey (using the rag). - don't rush to put the dog into "defense"
This won't help its confidence - keep building prey but graduate from a rag, to a tug, when maybe a soft sleeve and so on - a dog can grip
a tug or sleeve and still be working primarily in prey rather than "defense". Over time your dog should become more confident with the training environment and engaging with the helper etc - once it's confident working in prey then maybe you can look
for the dog to channel into agression a little more whereby the dog will pay less attention to the sleeve/equipment and more towards the helper/trainer - don't rush though! You state in your post that your dog is only 18 months old - you still have heaps of time! your dog may not reach its peak ability to channel into agression
until it is maybe between 2 and 3 years old?? (others on this forum will be able to give you a better idea on when your dog will mature a little more - it may also depend on the bloodlines invloved..)
-Even when you are not training your dog in bite work I would keep socialising the dog as much as possible so that it learns to be confident in new surroundings with different people - regardless of whether it is being trained for bitework or not. Hope some of these thoughts help a little.

Regards;
Dave.