John Lister Webboard User Reg: 11-12-2002
Posts: 189
Loc: VA, USA
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My wife and I are looking to get a new GSD puppy, we have owned one GSD in the past and loved the dog. I was reading the who can pet my dog policy and Ed talks about 1 trainer vs multiple handlers.. Can someone expand on this idea? does this mean if I train my wife can't.. this also means that she can't pet the dog unless I am there and tell the dog its okay.. Which is fine, but we both love to train and do activities with our dog.. So should we get two dogs one for each of us and train and handle them differently. Also if I am the leader how does the dog understand its rank with my wife if she is just a handler. I am very confused.. but I do want to do what's best.
steve strom Webboard User Reg: 03-17-2006
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I do all the formal obedience training with our dogs, but my wife and kids play with them and give them casual commands. I need our dogs to be able to live with my family as much as I want to train them for sport.
Two of my dogs really benefit from no strangers petting them. It just helped with their suspicious temperament. One is actually very friendly in spite of his sharp temperament and it helped him just learn to relax, not everything is a threat. The other one is mostly indifferent, and likes to just hang out and be indifferent.
If you guys are consistant and teach the dog what you want, it will respect your wife.
I agree that dogs will respect everyone in the pack if there is consistency. We make sure to give the same commands and use the marker, "yes". While delivery (voice quality, emphasis and additional gestures) may differ between my husband and I, the dog has it figured out. Even when my college daughters come home, they get her to do basic ob.
Of course, Maggie is a companion and not doing sport at this point. But she is pretty well behaved and still a work in progress.
My wife and I are following Frawley's and Ellis's training philosophy. The way we handle it is no one pets our dog except us. We both say "no" and "yes," we also follow through with training whether we are both there or not.
I train all of the new commands. Once he knows it fairly well, she will incorporate it into her sessions with him. It would work from both sides but she would rather me work through the issues.
So basically one person does all the initial groundwork, to limit, confusion, and the other watches the sessions so that there is consistency. Try to write down a lot of your key commands so that you don't have extra ones floating about.
This works wonderfully for us, but every situation is unique and this is just my opinion. On a side note, it might be a lot to handle raising two dogs at once. That's what I read anyways! Hope this helps.
I have to get Ed's advice on training my wife, if i ever told her not to pet my dogs she'd just laugh at me and do what she wants anyway, or throw a shoe at me .
I have 4 dogs, 3 really clear headed social dogs so i don't care who pets them, i really don't give it that much thought. I have 1 that doesn't like to be petted even by me, affection just doesn't mean anything to him, so I just tell people that he doesn't like to be touched and to ignore him.
John Lister Webboard User Reg: 11-12-2002
Posts: 189
Loc: VA, USA
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Hmm.. Okay.. I have not bought my new puppy yet so I am "Pre-Training" my wife and I.. One of the things we want to do is get a Therapy certification and a level 1 tracking cert. I plan on joining a GSD club in VA before I buy and start learning.. The hard part is finding people with the leerburg theories. My first dog I tried to use Ed's teaching the best I could, but it was my first dog so I missed up about 12000 times.. But he was a great dog that most people thought was top notch. One of the big problems I had with him was meeting new people.. he would bark etc.. After reading Ed's article I understand what I did wrong so I just want to make sure that I do the best I can.. Thanks everyone you have been very helpful.. I really like the idea of me training the "new" stuff and once that is done my wife can use that as long as it is the same..
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