For whatever reason, there has been a sudden interest in German Shepherds lately. I’m getting a lot of searches about GSD that are sending people to my blog. Some of the searches are: mouthy dog, overly mouthy dog, excited German shepherd, crazy German shepherd, what to do when having German Shepherd puppies…etc.
So let me put all of you who are searching for these topics at ease: there is nothing you can do! Ok, maybe that didn’t put you at ease.
Maybe this will…German Shepherds are some of the smartest dogs, so…if they have a problem with their training, it’s probably a human problem. Now, I know that may seem harsh to some people. It’s really the truth. I’ve watched too much Dog Whisperer and Cesar Millan retraining the humans.
With Razi, for example, we’ve done various things to train her. She knows a sit, a down, and can stay. Does she always do it? No. She’s about a year and a half old now…so in human terms, she’s equivalent to a crazy teenager who wants to date that boy you don’t like because you don’t trust him and wants to wear those clothes you don’t approve of…and knows all this too. See…she looks sweet (but don’t let that fool you).
Who’s fault is it? My husband’s! Fine, fine. It’s both of us.
Some of her rambunctious behavior could be solved with a 30 minute walk once or twice a day. Yeah, we play fetch with her…but that only gets her excited. It does wear her out, but it teaches her to be keyed up.
The mouthiness? Ok, not all her fault. My husband would play with her paws when she was a puppy. She would be standing up, and he’d swipe at them and try and get her off balance. Probably a bad habit. We’ve tried to solve some of that by petting her on her chest. Petting a dog on the top of the head causes them to look up, usually with an open mouth. If you reach under the chin and go for the chest, they put their head down (which is more submissive) and close their mouth. That has worked a little bit.
One thing we did right is crate train her. I thought it was cruel to put a dog in a small crate for hours, but I don’t think it is now. We fed all her meals in there for the first month so she would associate good things with the crate.The first couple nights she howled in her crate for about 30 minutes and cried. But…you just have to let them cry through it. They get tired. Now she’s at the point where we say ‘crate,’ and she heads right for it. When I get dressed to go to work in the morning…she’s in her crate already. A crate is like a den…they feel safe. My mother in-law’s dog (also a German Shepherd…we had him for about 3 months) went right for his crate when he heard fireworks on July 4th. So, crate training is good for both human and dog!
Also, if you’re crate training a dog…I think it’s easier to housebreak them as well. Dogs really really don’t like to go in the crate if they can help it.
Anyway…those are my few dog tips. I’m not an expert though!
2 Comments
September 3, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I was searching for dog crates that would fit in a Honda Civic and your site came up.. Funny thing is I hadn’t typed in German Shepherd at all… but that’s what it’s for…
November 2, 2008 at 2:54 pm
In regards to being mouthy, what we used for our shepherd is shouting “ouch” and “yelp” everythime he tried to mouth us. As a puppy he had a hard mouth, frequently leaving marks on my hands and arms. We got hm from a rescue group as a five month old puppy that was severely beaten and left for dead.
Also ditto on the crate comments. He knows to go into his crate when he sees us getting ready for work in the morning. Though he does have companionship from the other two dogs that we have during the time we are gone.
He will still mouth us but its rare and very soft now. He’s a great dog, fairly well adjusted and calm (except when a tennis ball might be around).