Lauren,
Yes, he's a baby. A big baby who can pull my wife across the street, who could run out in front of a car. He was born Jan. 1, 2006.
I bought a package of training sessions from a professional trainer, an officer of the local Schutzhund club. She is the one who told me, when he was 6 months old, to get him to a 30 minute down stay. She had the expectation that he'd master it by the end of September. In her opinion, he wasn't too young for that. I specifically asked her. I'll put him down. He'll get up. I'll tell him "no", "down", and he'll just look at me. I get up to go to him and he immediately lays down, if he's wearing his prong collar and is on a leash. If he isn't wearing the prong, just the flat collar, I have to take the leash and give him a correction.
The trainer suggested the e-collar.
He understands "leave it", but sometimes doesn't mind. An example, I can tell him "leave it", he won't, I get up to move to him to give him a correction and he minds before I get to him. Just the act of getting up corrects him. I can put him in a down, put a treat on his paw, and tell him to "leave it", and he does until I release him. He understands the behaviors I want. I use treats and toys as rewards to teach him new stuff. I have not used the e-collar to teach him anything new. For example, I taught him "leave it" by putting a small treat in front of him, when he went for it I said "leave it", pulled him away and gave him another treat. Eventually he learned to leave something alone if I just said "leave it", no treat needed. Then I started adding leash pops if he didn't mind. But still from time to time he doesn't mind. So he has to be corrected.
For much of what you are commenting on, I am using the e-collar the same as a leash pop. I'm experimenting with it, learning to use it, enforcing commands he already knows, but isn't perfect on. A lot of this is my learning process with the collar.
Exercise. He gets a 30 minute walk with me every day. I'm not sure how far we walk. I'm 54 and have diabetes, so the walk is as much for me as it is for him. However far we get in 30 minutes, plus the distance to get home is how far we walk. For other exercise my family members and I take him into our back yard and play with the tug and throw a ball with him, several times a day depending on the weather. We got him in March of this year, and had an unusually dry spring, summer, and early fall. In November all that changed and we set a record for monthly rainfall and low temperatures. And this week we've had snow. So that has cut back on the backyard playing. We've been playing with him in the house, but that is limited as you can imagine. We only missed the walk one day, when the streets were just too icy.
For training, we take him into our fenced back yard, or into a field across the street, and work on heel, sit, down, that kind of thing. Recall gets done only in the back yard at this time, because it has a fence and with a long line he can't get far enough away that I can't get to the line. In the field across the street it is possible for him to get further away than the length of the long line, so we don't do recall over there at this time.
Since the weather has turned lousy we still go on our daily walk, but the playing and training outside has been cut back. What I have been doing indoors with the remote collar has been trying to use it like a leash pop as I learn to use the collar.
Outside, if he thinks I can't get to the end of his line, like when I have his 6' leash on him instead of the 20' line, he likes to turn training sessions into chase games. So if I call him, he'll just look at me, and when I walk over to get him, he'll play bow and then start running all over the place, trying to get me to chase him. He does this with the long line on too. I step on the long line, he delivers a self correction, and then comes to me and sits down in front of me. My biggest goal with the e-collar is to get him to sit, down, come, from a distance, say across the yard, reliably, without a line on him. I want to eventually be able to take him to the field across the street, or to the beach (the Ocean beach where we go from time to time has a huge off leash area)and be able to let him off leash but have him under control.
So, have I done obedience training without the e-collar? Yes.
Have I engaged a Schutzhund trainer? Yes. I bought a package of training sessions and the trainer worked with both me and the dog. She trained both of us.
Am I correcting him for things he doesn't understand? No.
Does he get exercise? Yes.
Does he get mental stimulation? Yes, but he provides me with more than he gets
Do I use a crate? Yes.
Do I use a baby gate? Yes.
You raise an issue I've struggled with: how much to expect from him at what age. The trainer I worked with thought I could expect a lot. I was skeptical, but I was amazed at how much she got out of him. He is the only dog in my neighborhood that walks on a loose leash (except when he is distracted by other dogs). All the other dogs are way out in front. People stop to talk to us and ask about him. He's sable, most people in my neighborhood have never seen a sable colored GSD, and so he attracts attention. We have him sit, down, shake, speak for them, and they express surprise at how well he does them. So I think, at least locally, we're getting more out of him than some of our neighbors get out of their dogs.
In other areas, though, I can see where maturity makes such a difference. I read the puppies book from the Monks of New Skete. They describe how they eat at the dining room table, and have young puppies lay at their feet, with a monk holding the leash down with his foot. Tried that with Hans, no way it would work. He was just to antsy. Until, suddenly, one day about two weeks ago ... at dinner time he lays down at the table and stays until we are finished eating. When we start to clear the table he stands up to see what is going on. Before that, we always had to crate him at dinner time. Now, we sit down for dinner and he ambles over and lays down.
At about the same time other changes took place. Before, if we couldn't keep eyes on him, he had to go into his crate. Now, if we are all too busy to keep an eye on him, we find that he finds some part of the house where he can keep an eye on every room one of us is in, and lays down there. I work out of a home office in my "living" room. As I type this, he is laying next to me. If someone was home in the family room, he'd go lay down in the dining room, which is between the two rooms. I think it is maturity.
So, I often wonder if I am doing the right things in his training, at the right time. The Schutzhund trainer I hired felt that at 6 months I should expect a lot from him. Other trainers I've talked to have said don't even try to train before six months. We taught him "sit", "come", "down", and "crate" before he was 11 weeks old, using treats and no corrections. One trainer told me he'd forget all that and I shouldn't even bother with anything other than teaching him the meaning of "no" before 6 months. My experience with him is that I can expect a lot from him at this age, and of all the people I've talked to, the Schutzhund trainer has been the closest to the mark.
Ed in his videos never, as far as I remember, comes out and states at what age you can do this or that with the dog, other than his advice on exercise to avoid joint problems. But the puppy video covered 8 weeks to 8 months, his basic obedience video looked like it had dogs as young as 6 months in it, and some of the dogs in his e-collar video were described as "young", and looked the same age or younger than my dog. So as best I can tell, you have to judge what you can or can't expect from each dog at a certain age on an individual basis.
I hope this all makes sense. Thank you for your comments. I think I've filled in the information you thought was missing.
Re: e-collar experience
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