I have been trying to soak up as much info as possible from this web site over the past few weeks and I have bought the 8 weeks to 8 months video but I still have some questions. I have trained dogs before but they were Labs used for duck hunting. Well my wife wanted a German shepherd because she felt it would make her feel safer when I am out of town. I didn’t really do the proper research before buying a puppy so now I’m trying to decide what direction to take this dog. Right now she is 4 months old. I got her at 3 months. When I first got her she was very shy. She would hide behind me when she would encounter new things and she would run from me and not come when coaxed. She was the last one in her litter and had no socialization at all before I got her. In the past month her confidence has grown. She is no longer afraid of me or my family and no longer runs from us and almost always comes when called. I have been working a lot on sit, lay, come and heel. She has excellent prey drive and loves the ball on a string. She is still suspicious on new people. She does not like people she does not know petting her. I know most people who want PPD’s do not allow this but she was so shy I thought it necessary at first anyway. She is still a nervous dog. Sometimes when she sees an unfamiliar person, dog, or our neighbors pot bellied pig she barks with the hair on her back standing up but if challenged she immediately retreats. My goal for this dog is a PPD but with her weak nerves I do not know if this will be possible. Should I continue with bite training for puppies or should I just try to train her to bark and stop there. I have also considered taking her into tracking. She seems to have a good nose and keeps it to the ground a lot. I really love training dogs so I do not mind investing time. Also one more question. At what age do you normally start correcting the dog for general obedience issues such as sit, stay heel and lay?

Gene,
At this age it's always hard to tell what you really have for a dog, although glaring nerve issues can usually be spotted.
Since you're asking about a future PPD, what you first need to decide is what the actual role of the dog is going to be. If you're looking for an "alert barker", your girl could probably work out with what she's showing you. If you're looking for a hard-core PPD that will readily engage a bad guy, then it sounds as though she's not going to be the type of dog that you need.
Time will tell, and it's very hard to really tell you without seeing the dog. You seem to be aware of her weak points, and that realistic attitude is nice to hear from an owner.
Good luck!

Don't know much about PPD training OR puppies, but drive training and tracking do a lot to build a dog's confidence. Some dogs that have high prey drive can take a bit more stress when working in that drive than if they are in a social drive (in relation to socialization).

So I can't advise about the PPD training, I will say to use the prey drive, in all avenues of her life. I have a dog who would not interact with the enviornment at all; the way I got her over her fears of, say an object on the ground during an evening walk (and she was afraid of all of them), was to turn it into a prey object. Now she pounces on all manner of stuff, and has started her beginning bitework with the helper at the club.

Lack of socialization can be crippling for some dogs, I know it was for mine. Generally speaking, tho, dogs who exibit avoidance behaviours to stimuli that is not strongly advesive are not the best dogs for PP. It can be done, but I imagine the methods are so brutal that a love of dogs is contrary to it.

As far as general obedience issues, it depends upon your goal. Your dog is too young at this point for corrections. Work on foundation work, esp focusing on you (this will help you with her residual fear issues), and drive work.

Correction work depends on the maturity and hardness of the dog, and on your goals.

It sounds like I will just have to wait and see how she matures. Do you guys think I should get the bite training for puppies video and start taking her through those steps. I guess my question is will it hurt anything if i do the bite training (pery drive) part of training but do not ever do the defensive and fight drive part of it if I don't think she has what it takes when she is more mature.

Just doing prey drive exercises can be good to increase her overall confidence and activity, but if she is to be a pet more than a working dog, you will have to figure out a way to "shut off" her drive. With a pet, you want to supress (or atleast not stimulate) her drives so the dog will be a better pack member. When you bring out her drives, you are also stimulating her dominance/confidence and energy so you might want to think about it before you have a energetic, confident prey driven monster chasing your family around the house, biting and tugging at everything that moves unless she is in her crate or back yard. If you are confident you can create definite, consistent structure and rules to her life to be the pack leader, ob & crate train her, and consistently give her an outlet for activity- I'd say go for it. Plus it would give you a better feel of if she can progress to the rest of the protection training.

You can never do too much socialization. When my 2 yr old was 3-4 month puppy I did the whole list (I can send you a copy) and then realized we needed to repeat alot of it again when he was 6 and 9mths old. I found the more often I took him out and to different places the more confident he was to new surroundings. Then I started doing our simple obedience on different fields, looking for as many different situations as possible. I often trained in an area near a soccer game/practice where there was lots of activity and made sure the toys I was using for training were special enough to Remus that I had his attention on me.
Are you a member of a sch club now? Usually the foundation training for bite work is done in prey drive. That was our experience with the Twin Peaks Sch Club. The police officer we had doing our helper work was excellent at reading the dogs and didn't put any dog into defense work until they were ready for that stage, and not without the proper foundation training in place already.
My experience with 'turning off' the drive work is that we don't play in the house anymore. We used to. Now all the training (high drive work) is outside and he is crated for a few mins after every training session. This advice was given to me by a 20+yr sch trainer who has seen the benefit of this quiet time in his dogs. Now that the routine is established Remus expects to go in his crate as soon as we come in from training, even when it is only in the back yard.
So life in the house is calm and quite (easy for us since we have no small children, only 1 cat)

Good point, you two. I have had just about enough of motivational retreives of the underwear, tug work on my pajama leg at 5am, body slams at the computer, and long focused stares that bore holes in my head, and the instant I make the fraction of a move toward her, bam, body slam again. I won't even go into the 'drape and snap' technique at all...

I'm not training her, she is training me. Ya gotta love it... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

And that's good advice for Gene; find a good club, read watch and train the dog you have. There is so much to learn about training dogs, and 100 ways to do it, sometimes it takes time to get a feel for the way that feels best for your own training style, and that of your dog. Work her, to the best of your ability and knowledge, socialize, and then get a pro's opinion later on to decide if you want to continue to train in PPD disipline.

Generally, working a dog in prey drive is not going to do any damage, because prey drive is a comfortable drive for the dog to be in. It is defensive drive that will show the weak nerved dogs. Either they get all hackly form an offensive threat (bluff), or they run away (avoidance). The nice thing about prey is that you can put the foundation work yourself, and learn lots about the art of foundation building (which is most important), and all of this knowledge can then transfer to the next dog, if she doesn't work out. Sometimes it is as much art to know what not to do with a particular dog, as it is to know what to do.

Good luck!

I just wanted to thank everyone who responded. I am going to just keep going through the prey drive excercises and see where it goes when she is more mature. Again thanks.

Gene,
Keep a few things in mind. You mentined PP with this puppy, if you all of it's training from here on out is Prey, you will have a true sport dog. A true sport dog WILL NOT protect you in real situations, that is where some schutzhund goers loose touch with reality. Plus, the dog will only be able to go so far in sport without any defensive drive. So to sum it up, if a PP dog is what you want you CANNOT do all prey work, and if your dog can't handle working outside of prey drive, you will have to look at getting another dog to accomplish your stated goal of PP. Best of Luck to you

Are you saying she shouldnt be doing the bite work in prey drive with a 4 month old puppy?