I have a 10 month old GSD, a lazy pitbull, and four kids. This is our first puppy, but our third GSD. Pita (the puppy) goes everywhere with the kids an i. We spend a ton of time at parks and sports but have suddenly enountered an embarassing problem.

My 4 year old twins have become more independent. Now when we go to the park they ride their bikes on the track in front of us, or at football practice they play behind the field with all the other little girls (about 25ft away). Pita can not stand this.
She SCREAMS bloody murder as soon as the girls get a little bit away from us. She doesn't pull on the leash or jump around, if we're sitting at the field she sits and screams, if we're walking she walks and screams. It is the most bizzare thing because she doesn't act agitated besides the screaming, she'll stop and get a drink or lay down etc... then look at the girls and start screaming again. I can't take screaming mimi out in public like this, people are looking at me like i beat her!
I know i caused this problem by taking Pita with when we started teaching the girls to ride by running behind them to keep them steady and NOT letting them get too far away, but now i don't know how to fix it and it's unfair to leave her home over something i did to her.
Thanks for your time, Liz.

HI Elizabeth,

Welcome to the forum! Yeah - twins who are becoming a bit more independent! THAT has got to feel good!

This shouldn't be too hard to fix, imho. Have you done any reading on Marker Training? If not do so, and use that method to train/reward her for doing something else. (I'd also begin training at home while you get this under control, then take it "public" as an "adding distractions" phase".

If your GSD is motivated by toys - you can use her favorite toy as the reward or yummy treats, preferably something which she only gets while training.

You could start with training the "touch" - super easy and I use if often to distract Falcon from something I DON'T want him doing. You can also teach the "quiet" command but I find giving them something fun to do often works better rather than just a "negative" command.

I would read up on marker training and let us know if you have any questions! Again, welcome to the forum!

Edited by Barbara Schuler (08/16/2010 02:42 PM)
Edit reason: typo

Sounds like a fairly typical puppy temper tantrum to me


Have you done anything so far to try to curb this behavior?

Also have you given and followed the girls when she has started screaming?

We have done a ton of marker training with Pita and she's been really receptive to it, i don't know why it didn't occur to me to try that with the screaming...

As of now, when she screams and we're walking behind the girls we stop and don't go again until Pita is quiet (which is only a second because when we stop while walking she gives me undivided attention), but this isn't working because as soon as we start going she starts screaming. I can only do this for so long because i really can't let the girls get too far ahead, so they have to stop and wait but Pita and i never "catch up" because i'm not into giving whiny kids/dogs/husbands what they want.

Football i'm just at a loss, i can quiet her on command, but only for a moment and by the time we leave three hours later i'm frazzled and Pita is beside herself with joy to have all the kids in the car in one spot. (Hey, look, i screamed all football and i got them all in one spot!)

I don't know if it helps, but Pita has no problems if WE walk away from the kids, we can run to the car for that forgotten item without a peep. And she does not do this to my older boys, but she and i have also never chased them like lunatics on bikes.

I'm going to bring along the treat bag and hotdogs tonight, i't would be awesome if markers would fix this. I have never in my life heard a dog scream like this, the first time she did it i stopped and checked her all over for injuries!

Marker training sounds like a good place to start. Just make sure you count to 3 before marking for quiet. I have run into the problem of teaching them to scream then quiet, rather than just rewarding the quiet.

Ok, so i am the big idiot, i had the girls run around the track during football practice so i could work with Pita because she doesn't do it at home at all and for 15 mins we stopped, got quiet, marked, and started walking. Then my hubby showed up and Pita became Ms. Perfect. So she KNOWS she shouldn't be freaking out, she just does it to me!

I think, from how it went before my hubby showed up, that Pita and i are going to have to work on this a lot, not just the screaming but how she views me as compared to my hubby. Tomorrow we're going to do bikes at the park so i'll give it another go

We made real progress today until one of the girls fell and scraped her knee. As soon as she started to cry Pita went wonky. Screamed her head off, and of course i wasn't in a position to stop her. So after two laps of blissful walking silence we're back at square one.

At least now i know we can walk quietly, i was getting really discouraged for a bit. Thanks so much for the advice!

 Quote: Elizabeth Stoudt

Then my hubby showed up and Pita became Ms. Perfect. So she KNOWS she shouldn't be freaking out, she just does it to me!

Hi Elizabeth,
I too had the screaming banshee in similar situations as you describe. I always felt it was a confidence issue. Lack of confidence in himself to control the situation; which he shouldn't have had to worry about, if he had confidence in me as a leader. The comment about your husband makes me think it may be the same for Pita.

I used marker training to address the screaming and also went back to practicing NILIF and paid more attention to not only how consistant I was with Thor but with my kids too because one thing I have found to be true is my dog does not accept wishy washy in his leader. Not saying that you are; but I may have been guilty of sitting on the bench and calling repeatedly that it was time to go instead of getting up and gathering the troops and going.

I'd bet i slip into wishy washy pretty quickly anytime after 6pm, i'm usually pretty fried by then and i wouldn't doubt that Pita notices that things break down, making me just another clown at this circus, lol. I hadn't thought of it until now, but it makes sense. I can work on that.

 Quote: Elizabeth Stoudt

I'd bet i slip into wishy washy pretty quickly anytime after 6pm,

I know I do!! Other than a walk, nothing much happens around here after about 7 pm. We hurry to get homework done as soon as we walk in the door, then I feed everyone and maybe throw a load of clothes in. Anything after that is pretty much half hearted and frazzled!