Sammy88

What you should do is build up her confidence first, as the history of her is unknown due to being in a pound she may be stepping back due to a previous abusive owner who treated her harshly when not completing exactly what she was told to do, hence this reaction. The pound may not be the best environment to bring out these prey drives given there may be a number of animals there that she feels less dominant too possibly reducing her drive. Just Work on her, build her trust and confidence in you and the natural prey drive of the wonderful GSD will come through it may take a week or months just depending on the individual dog. colour and long/short hair will most likely not affect her drive. And try not to rush the process, believe in her.

My suggestion is not to let him off the lead at all, Some dogs no matter how good the recall is seem to become 'deaf' when water is involved. I had a Golden Retriever that did exactly that and he would have been happy to keep swimming and swimming, one time when he was younger he wouldn't come back in when we were at a lake, he'd come just out of arms reach and head out again untill eventually we had to jump in and get him. Especially if you have children to watch and look after at the same time, the last thing you need is to worry about banjo not coming back. Practice recalling and take him out prior to the whimpering, usually 5 minutes of swimming, then recall then out again is a good way to do things. I personally prefer to just swim/walk with my dogswaist height where they can't touch the bottom good exercise for them and me :p