Hello all! Being new to the board I wanted to introduce myself and as a few questions that have been burning away while I waited for my membership here to become active.

My name is John, and I just became the owner of a 9m old GSD last Saturday. I've been pouring over the article by Ed (http://www.leerburg.com/groundwork.htm) on groundwork with your dog. Since I have never formally trained a dog I have found this to be helpful and fascinating!

I do have some questions, though, that were not addressed in that article or any others that I have read.

My dog has not been well trained or disciplined. I acquired him from a friend that could not handle him, nor had the room to give him what he felt he needed. I live in a rural setting so space is not a problem, and I'm working on educating myself so that training, although challenging, won't be a problem due to lack of knowledge.

I've ordered already, the basic obedience training video offered on this site, and eagerly look forward to receiving it. It may answer these questions I have today, but I'd greatly appreciate your input.

1) When walking (he has a prong collar) he will turn and snap at the leash, especially when he wants to pull ahead, and I refuse to let him. Is this something that happens to most dogs, and will he finally learn that he controls the amount of choking that he experiences, as long as I don't give in?

2) In my line of work, I am gone a week at a time at least once a month. How do you go about introducing the wife as an "alpha" to the dog? Is that possible? Is there an order of seniority within a pack? And if so, how is that order established?

3) Do you train a dog to sit calmly in his crate while you open the door and attach the leash? If so, how is this done? This dog of mine is so eager to get out that he wiggles, whines and pushes his nose against the door while I am in the proccess of opening it. When I do tell him to sit, he will do so for a moment, then he's up and wiggling.

4) When crate training, is he to stay there in the crate unless he's on a leash with me, or is it alright to allow him out on a longer leash when I'm not about?

Any advice is greatly appreciated! And I thank you in advance!

John

I dont know what anyone else would say about the second Alpha thing but the outlook in this house is..My husband is basically "The boss" our adult Dogs know this, but as he was training the dogs I myself did as well, that way both knew I had the authority as well as my husband, granted, they will listen to him over me , but they do what I say as well,Your wife will probably have to do the same thing I did, and do some of the commands, working with the dog etc in order for him to acknowledge her as one of the two bosses, as much as it would have been easier for the two here to just know I was their boss as well, unfortuantelly it doesnt work that way( DARN)..
As for the leash biting I'm honestly at a loss how to correct that, it may just be that the dog hasnt been on a leash alot, in which case he isnt used to it, as he learns its a necessary Evil he may stop snapping /biting the leash...
The crate traing ..we allow our Puppy out of the crate in the house, as long as we are in the room, otherwise he wants to chew on everything he sees, this also gives us a chance to work on him downing beside us etc he has however learned that after we let him outside to do his business he will go back to the crate unless we close the door on it which allows him to stay out, We basically just kept walking him to the crate once we let him back into the house to make sure he knew what he had to do, took about a week or so, but he is pretty good about it.

Just my two cents workth..not worth two cents but there it is anyway <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

My puppy did the leash bite at first, in her case she thought it was a new toy. I suggest having another toy ready to go and try to keep slack out of the lead. It takes a while. I've trained "Erika" to sit in her kennel or crate until I get a leash on her. All your questions on training are answered with Ed's puppy vids and basic obed vids. I highly recommend them. The "second alpha" question is covered in there as well I think. "Max" loves my wife but won't mind her almost at all because she won't get involved in training. My kids however are included when I train and I explain what's going on. I take my four year old son to SchuztHund with me and he helps me quite a bit with training.

Waiting for the dog to figure it out wont happen. No collar has ever trained a dog. The prong collar is just a tool for you to use to keep your dog focused on you. It sounds like your dog is walking you and your hoping the discomfort of the collar will discourage your dog from pulling. First of all your lead should never get pulled tight. As soon as your dog hits the end of the lead, give it a quick pop and change directions and dont waite for your dog. When your dog catches up to you praise it. You should continue to do lots of direction changes and praising your dog for being with you.This will keep your dog from doing its own thing and soon find it is more productive to pay attention to what you are doing and where you are going. This is not teaching heeling. This is teaching your dog to walk on a loose lead and stay with you.

My dog would pull on choke collars, prong collars, wouldn't understand food rewards or anything.... unless he was dragging his leash. He heeled perfectly if I dropped the leash and let him walk beside me. I got an e-collar and a harness with a 20ft flex lead, he was heeling wonderfully in a day, he proved to me that he KNEW what "heel" meant, he just chose to ignore it before. So armed with a pack of hotdogs and an e-collar I gave him a low level stim when he started walking ahead of me when I'd told him to heel, he'd wait for me to catch up, heel nicely, get a piece of hotdog. Now when I take him for walks he can go sniff at whatever he wants on the 20ft flex lead, when I say "heel" he comes running. I did the "change directions and pop the collar" thing, even a trainer I know spent time trying to do that, my dog didn't respond at all, before I knew chokers were bad for a dogs neck he'd prefer to choke himself pulling than heel nicely. The e-collar combined with lots of praise and hotdogs worked great for me.

As for the crate - my dog's always been allowed to roam around whatever room I'm in when I was home, only crated when I had to go out or went to bed (at 6 months he was trustworthy to be out of the crate at night too - with the exception of the time he pulled up and chewed up the carpet in the corner, and chewed up the doorframe.... I caught him in the act at 3am, yelled "NO!!" and crated him (ofcourse I also let him know that I still loved him), he never did it again), if I come home and he's in the crate, he gets so excited to see me that I feel it'd be unfair for me to make him sit and calm down, if anything I get him worked up a bit, then put him straight into drive when he's back out. I love the hyper happyness and jumping up to lick my face and running circles around me making whining sounds, ears back and a toy in his mouth. I don't think it's a problem for a dog being excited to leave his crate and be with his handler, the fact that he's happy to see me is worth more to me than having a dog that'll calmly sit when I come home.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you all for your responses!

David, I did as you said, and by the end of our walk this evening he was at my left side with slack in the leash most of the time. When he pulled ahead I would change direction and pop the leash. He came back very quickly, and every time he would, I would praise him.

Dana and Dennis, my wife and kids have been out of town for the week, but come home on Friday (in fact, I got the dog while they were out of town <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> ). I have been the only one working with him, but will be introducing him to the wife and kids, and then teaching them what I have learned so far. When the DVD arrives (next Tuesday) we will ALL sit down and watch it together.

Mike, I agree with you about the enthusiasm. He really is smart and knows the command, but he's still a very energetic puppy, too, even though he's so large. Because we are still fairly new to each other, I want that leash on him before he comes out of the crate, and it's difficult to do when he's squirming around so much. I don't know yet how difficult it would be to catch him should he get out without some kind of restraint. Maybe I'm off on my thinking. If I am, I'd appreciate a correction. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Anyway, thanks again for all your responses.

John