Janene

I love Cats, and have always been a cat person over a dog person (Don't shoot me lol) but my son was born severly allergic to cats so I had to rehome my two pedigree Ragdolls and Bengal - it was a very low point in my life, as at one point I had this gorgeous newborn that I had tried for 5 years for and did a very stressful IVF run. On the other I was losing my 3 furchildren that had been my own comfort during the years of infertlity and darkness. I tried for months to find a balance between them and isolated baby away from cats and vice versa but to no avail. His breathing worsened and we knew we could not have them both living together in harmony. I found fantastic homes for them via the help of a local rescue organisation and feel comforted that the two ragdolls (brothers from the same litter) went to a new home together. Still breaks my heart talking about it. Our Shepherd is the new family addition to fill in the gap of an animalless household. I hope one day my son's allergies weaken enough that he can tolerate a cat as I would love another one day - not at the expense of his health though. Our little Sasha is a big enough handful for now

Thank you, I will read that link I started the waiting for her dinner training last night. My god anyone would have thought I was murdering her. The yelping and screaming was unbelievable. Talk about a spoilt little Miss. Altough after about 10 mins of carrying on a right tantrum, she finally worked out that sitting calmly got her the food. I fed her half, and then proceeded to put the other half in the bowl and did it again - this time it was only about 3 mins of carrying on before she realised that if she was calm and quiet and sat on command she got the food.

Thank you. Yeah the whole waiting for her meal thing isn't going as well as I'd like. I do try to make her wait, she sits on command but as soon as I begin to lower the food she is so adament on lunging at it. Often she spills the kibble everywhere trying to dive into her bowl almost knocking it from my hands. It's highly frustrating but I'm working at it daily. The other day I was with her for almost 20 mins trying to get her to sit and stay while I lowered her food. I was determined not to let her lunge so I just kept repeating it over and over thinking she'll get it soon enough lol - Yeah I was wrong! Lol. Usually I hold her back while I lower the food just to avoid a big spillage....So that is definately something I need to work at. I was thinking of asking my husband to hold her on a leash, so she can't lunge forward and repeating the sit and stay commands....A good idea?

Title says it all really. With Sasha's training sessions she's progressing quite well. But each time I offer her the treat she "snatches" it for lack of a better work, which often results in her nipping me (sometimes quite roughly). I've tried holding the treat at the very tip to keep my fingers back (which seems to make it worse) - What does kind of work is concealing the treat in my hand and holding a fist, and then repeating "gently" while she's sitting and offering the treat very slowly from my hand, she nuzzles in and takes it - which creates less of a "lunge" so to speak and doesn't cause as much damage. I have tried throwing the treat beside her instead of giving it to her, but this just confuses her and she runs in circles and gets all worked up trying to find the treat. So advice would be greatly appreciated please Thanks. (btw, Sasha is about 12 weeks old)

I agree with persephone. Our GSD is a pup also, but if we continued to let her stay inside until she was say 6 months old and then decided ok now you're going outside - this would be worse than trying to slowly adjust her to ouside now. It worked great with our girl and she's happy and content to play outside on her own.

Our GSD was exactly the same. I found crating her inside and putting her out during the day just confused her...she wasn't sure why she was allowed in at times and not others. We have an external laundry so we moved her bedding out there and put her out there to sleep...The door was still closed so she felt secure and we left a piece of our clothing with her for our scent. The first night we left a baby monitor in there (Just call us paranoid fur parents lol) and she did great, cried for about 5 mins - not hysterically but on and off and then we heard nothing all night...just the occasional scuttering around when she left her bed. She now does great outdoors. We started off like you, putting her outside for intervals and letting her cry...and not letting her in until she was calm and quiet....we'd go out and offer her a treat first then let her in. We extended it by 30 mins every other day and now she's fine. When you go out to her don't get all excited and playful, give it a few mins of ignoring her, just busy yourself outside - don't make it a big thing, so she doesn't feel overwhelmed, let her calm before you start to play, and lots of praise and treats - This is what has worked for us.

Aww thank you, well that makes me feel better lol. At this stage we're keeping our 15 month old and our GSD seperated unless we are there supervising as Sasha is just too excited and jumps/nips him which causes a stressful screaming match that stresses them both out. So until she's calmer we are just keeping it that way. I'm sure in time they are going to be the very best of friends....We are also adjusting Sasha to being outside without us there. We have completely puppy proofed the yard and gardens and she loves being outside, but gets very upset if we come back in without her. We aim to have her outside during the day with internal access to our laundry with her bed of a night....With the aid of a new comfy bed, chew toys and kongs full of treats she spent the whole afternoon outside yesterday without fuss. A couple of little whining fits but none of the hysterical yelping that usually follows us leaving her sight. So we are pretty pleased with ourselves. She's also been out all morning and is happy now to play on the back verendah and run down the back yard chasing a visiting bird or two. She loves her new bed, we just put her familiar blanket in it for her with her teddy and she took to it straight away. lots of treats helped I'm sure.

I have to admit, I raised a few eyebrows at some of the suggestions/advice. It does contain a lot of good information though. But I gathered information from a number of sources, and took the best, most useful bits from each. I wouldn't know that many people to socialise puppy with! And with a lot of reported Parvo cases in our town I'm reluctant to have any old Joe Bloke touching my Pup. I have a good friend who currently has a pup at the Vets on an IV with a "touch and go" scenario with a pup with suspected Parvo - so that is a little too close to home to try to expose my pup before he's second vaccination later this month....

And Another.

Thank you We're very smitten with her. She's going well. Sitting on command now We are going to try to get her use to the leash next, so she won't freak out when we use it to take her to Puppy Pre School. Is it true that a Raw Egg helps keep their coat shiny? How often should we give it to her? And should we mix it with raw meat? This is her favourite thing to play with...It's a rope perch for our Indian Ring Necks' cage...It's too crowded in their for it to fit so Sasha has taken a liking to it lol.

Thank you everyone. She is improving slowly We spend a lot of time distracting her when she's out playing with us. She loves her toys so it makes it easy.

Here she is again. She decided to bring over my Husbands nice Colorado flip flops while we were in our living room last night. We quickly replaced it with a new toy we bought her yesterday. She was content to give up the shoe shortly after this photo. Excuse the "flash eyes" - as much as they rave about the new iphone 4S camera, indoors of a night with an energetic puppy doesn't sit well with the new fancy lense on my phone. Also - we had our first "discussion" (for lack of a better word) about our breed choice with a neighbour over the weekend. I found myself defending our decision to buy a GSD with a young son. I find the lack of education on dog breeds surprising in my community. It seems "big dog = Dangerous Dog" around children, without taking anything into consideration such as handling, breeding, and training. I got quite annoyed as what appeared to be accusations of putting my child in danger with such a breed. We looked over many breeds before making our choice and the GSD was what appealed to our needs and active lifestyle. We are not a family that sits on the sofa and watch TV daily, and Sasha will be part of our family and not just an animal that sits outside and whines for company all day (I worded it more politely than that, but it touched a nerve with her as she has a dog that does that). Ok, well my vent is over. Just wanted to speak my mind on that. I'm quite reserved in person so I didn't quite say all that I was thinking with the neighbour in question lol.

Oh wow, she is stunning

Thank you Her name is Sasha. I have downloaded that books also luvs so I will read through it tonight. We got her from a breeder a few hours away in the hunter valley area. The ride home was so precious as she slept on my lap most of the way. Her large confinement area (our main bathroom) seems to be a relaxing place for her, she loves to sleep on the cool tiles. Her small confiement area is a large crate that sits in our bedroom beside the bed. She's still adjusting to this one but she settles pretty quickly once we're in the room. So far so good on the toilet training, she has gone in the main bathroom, but so far we've managed to stop all but one accident in the rest of the house, the one mishap was completely my fault, I delayed getting her outside after a nap due to running to answer the phone. So I slapped my wrist for that, not hers lol. I will take on all the nipping advice. So far I do the yelp thing, and she lets go...but soon as I start to walk she's at me again. I know it's a matter of patience - we have plenty, don't worry We're also using play time to teach her the "let go" command. We play and she loves to play on those rope tug toys, and when we are ready we stop and hold the toy still and say "let go" and wait...she took a while first few times, now soon as I say it she lets go instantly and waits, knowing that I'll start to play again in a few seconds....It's worked so well so far Another Question I have, What are some healthy but irresistable puppy treats? She's not fussed on smacko's....so far I've been cutting up BBQ and Steamed chicken breast as treats (which she goes nuts for) - but is that ok to give her daily?

I'm sorry, she is a female. I've always owned male pets, so I'm still getting use to calling her "she". I'll edit my above post. She has a Teddy, we bought her one for when she arrived home with us.