Some of you might remember I took in another dog, 3 1/2 yr old gsd, recently neutered, 7/8 weeks ago, named him Hogan. He was a kennel dog who had never been in a house and had zero training. He has fit in fairly well with my other shepherds, some issues with my young male, but it keeps getting better.
I crate trained him which went extremely well. Very calm and submissive in the crate. He has finally gotten to the point of laying at your feet when out instead of bouncing off the walls. I can leave him out of the crate unattended, he stays off the counters now and out of the garbage. He is a very nice dog. Very playful, high energy, pretty mouthy yet, but a very nice dog and he is coming along very well to fit into the family.
I did start agility with him last week.
My problem is attention. I don't think he had ever gone anywhere before outside his previous yard or kennel. Everything is more exciting than me. In my home he is right there with me. He will sit, down, and look at me. But to walk him he is taking me for a walk. I walk him on a prong and have given a correction to make him yelp, but I still can't get him to walk along side of me. He wants to smell everything everywhere. Now do I let him smell everything everywhere since apparently he hasn't smelled anything before and that maybe he will get used to all these new smells? Or do I have to walk around and correct the heck out of him to make him pay attention to me?
Same problem at class. I'm probably starting him too soon, but it is a very basic foundation class and I was hoping some extra exposure would help us. Class is outdoors and there are a lot of smells and dog smells. The other dogs are pretty exciting to him, not so much the people. My trainer/friend says I'm not exciting enough yet over everything else, and I haven't had him very long.
I'm probably expecting too much too soon. He has done so well otherwise. I'm just not his universe outside the house.
He is a great dog, I don't want to do anything to ruin him. I'm just a little confused on how to handle him. My young male is sooooo soft I have to be careful, and Hogan is the opposite end of the spectrum.
pic of Hogan

Maybe try doing everything in smaller steps. Add distractions and show him the same rules apply before correcting. But when you add distractions, add in very small increments. Like one person walking past in a familiar area. Have you taught any sort of "watch me" command? This would be a good one to do, and work up to where he associates "heel" with "heel watch me". If you get the response at home, great! time to make it challenging! Just make sure it's not more challenging than he is ready for.
You might also try a lot of exercise/play to tire him out before trying OB work. If he's gotten a chance to run off some steam before having to pay attention, you may find he has mroe attention to give you...

He does know the watch command, I use 'look at me', although it is very short look. I try to keep the sessions short, but I have not done the exercise first. I will try that, I don't know why I haven't, I guess I was thinking backwards thinking he would be too tired to pay attention. But last night at class, it was the last 5-10 min of the class, when he was finally wore out that he sat down at my feet and finally looked me in the eye. So I will try that.
I have the fairgrounds behind me that is fenced in that I play frisbee with my dogs in, I will wear him out in there first and try the ob and try to walk on leash.
I was worried I was expecting too much too soon, and wasn't sure if I was doing something seriously wrong.
Thanks I'll try exercising him first, seems like a simple solution, so hopefully that will help us.

sometimes you have to alter things a bit to make it work. It just sounds to me like your boy is just over the top when you are working. If he gets a chance to blow a little steam off, it may help him out. Also try increasing the amount of time you do the "look at me", then try adding the command while heeling. Just keep in mind that when you add it to heeling, you need to go back to showing him what you want until you are confident he understands what is expected.

Over the top is a good way to put it! I'm going to take him out now and give it a try, will let you know how it works. Thanks much.

Hi Sue,

I defiantely agree with going the alternate route and tiring him out before taking him on his walks. I did that with Tucker and it worked wonders. Also, make sure the prong is sitting and placed correctly on your dog. It sounds a bit to me like it might not be sitting correctly on the dog if you gave it a hard enough correction to make him yelp, but it didn't seem to phase him. Just my opinion though.

If the dog is more relaxed inside, you can do OB (walking correctly on lead) in the house to help focus his attention on you. Then gradually take it outside to the yard and work on it there then progress to the OUTSIDE WORLD! lol.

I just sounds like he has too much going on in his head all at once on the walks to concentrate. Tucker was the same way when i first got him. He was used to only having as far as a chain would allow him to go, so having everything open up to him like it did on walks was very overpowering. But the tiring him out before we walked program worked wonders!

Good luck!

Just an update. I do believe I have the prong correctly placed, as in the pictures, snug high on the neck, other than I wasn't on the dead ring, but I am now. The exercising did help, not directly after, but after a half hour to an hour after he got to unwind. I'm still having a hard time keeping his interest in commands, or wanting to learn, but there is an improvement.
I am marker training him, but added the clicker hoping it would mark the behavior better and he seems to grasp that a little better than just marking with a 'yes'.
I do keep the sessions short to try and make it short and fun.
I also backed way up in what was expected of him. More crate time. Increased the tethering also. Decreased affection. I think I gave too much freedom too soon, and was expecting way too much.
I've only had him a couple months and a dog that has never had to do anything for anyone ever, now has rules. I just thought he should look forward to training by now, but he seems indifferent to it. My other dogs love to train and look forward to it, it's hard not to compare and think I'm doing something wrong.
So I will keep taking it slow for a while and I know it will finally click one day.
I had also received the pack structure dvd and dominant dog dvd. So far I seem to be at least heading in the right direction, other than I am a bit lax and need to tighten things up a bit. I am not finished with the dvd quite yet. It won't play on either of my dvd players so I can only watch on my computer in the office. Haven't started the 2nd dvd, I ordered it worried I may have a problem between Hogan and Zuke. I make sure to crate when the areas arise where I know there could be a problem. Food in particular.
My last major area is I can see we will need an e collar and dvd. I had a problem Sunday which could have turned really ugly. We were playing fetch as usual in the fenced in fairgrounds and he was distracted. He had been doing fantastic before that day in bringing it back almost to my feet and was really showing some good play drive. But he wasn't into it and was getting side tracked. The last throw he went after he got to it and got distracted and started wandering. Called him and he blew me off, tried throwing his frisbee still blew me off. Found an escape point in the fence I didn't know was there and was out. Thankfully I was able to holler out to hubby who was able to grab him. I don't know if Hogan got whiff of him in the air and that was the distraction or not, but a big, big wake up call. It was nice to be able to let him really stretch his legs out full stride to wear him out. So we are back to the 50' line. We had an accident with it a couple weeks ago. He was always leaving from my left side to fetch and I threw and for some reason he went behind me and left me on my right. Not being very smooth I misjudged jumping over the line and it wrapped around my ankle and my 90# dog dropped me like a ragdoll. Stopped him in his tracks, I unwrapped my foot and he continued after the frisbee while I'm about in tears in throbbing pain. Couldn't walk for a couple days and next time I took him out again I removed the long line.
So we won't make that mistake again. We will stay on a line, I will be more careful and work recall, work recall, and work recall, and get an e collar and learn how to use it.