Help With Young Gsd

[aussielover]

Just after some advice for training an 8 month old GSD female spayed.

Gets along great with my dog, but is often too over the top and my dog is too tolerant and instead of telling her off comes to me for help and I usually have to put her in her crate or lock her in my room to give her some space from the other dog.

Is hard to motivate for training, doesn't seem interested in toys, food, praise or pats. The only thing she finds highly rewarding is playing with my dog, which isn't really practical.

Unfortunately I don't have much control over her food or toys, if she were mine I would not feed her from a bowl (training only) and remove free access to toys.

I thought GSDs were meant to be easy to train and have high prey drives and like tugging etc but this dog definitely doesn't have high (or even any?) food or prey drive at this stage. Not interested in tugging, although is marginally better when tugging with my dog (gives up easily). Really not interested in food and will sometimes spit it out (even tasty treats like cabanossi or chicken)

I would like to be able to walk the dogs together but she isn't good on lead and is fearful of new dogs and people.

I'd also like to take her to obedience/agility classes with my dog but don't think I could cope with the 2 dogs- she isn't crate trained and would likely rip our soft crate to shreds! I don't think it would be worth it whilst she is so unmotivated at this point anyway.

Any tips for motivating her during training much appreciated.

[SkySoaringMagpie]

You're in Sydney, so I think probably the best you could do is book a session with K9Pro. We can give some advice, but I suspect paying for a lesson with him will save a lot of drama very quickly - www.k9pro.com.au

FWIW, I have Salukis and no interest in his business, so I'm not spruiking for him. It sounds as if your housemate's GSD has a few things that are tricky to sort out unless you are experienced tho', and so I think you need someone who understands working dogs to eyeball her and come up with a plan. The fact that she doesn't appear motivated by you or by food, and is also fearful, is something for the experts.

Edited April 6, 2013 by SkySoaringMagpie

[aussielover]

You're in Sydney, so I think probably the best you could do is book a session with K9Pro. We can give some advice, but I suspect paying for a lesson with him will save a lot of drama very quickly - www.k9pro.com.au

FWIW, I have Salukis and no interest in his business, so I'm not spruiking for him. It sounds as if your housemate's GSD has a few things that are tricky to sort out unless you are experienced tho', and so I think you need someone who understands working dogs to eyeball her and come up with a plan. The fact that she doesn't appear motivated by you or by food, and is also fearful, is something for the experts.

Yes thanks, I agree, if she were my dog this is what I would be doing. I've been to see Steve with my lab and he is great.

Unfortunately her owners aren't really interested in taking her to obedience/training classes let alone a behaviourist. They see her fear of going for walks and dogs, people etc as sooky and cute.

I think a lot of the change/training has to come from them but I want to do what I can.

I'm also in Wollongong now, not sydney but perhaps a phone consult would be ok.

Thanks for the suggestion

[lovemesideways]

I would try her out on a flirt pole :)

[Kavik]

My GSD doesn't have a lot of prey drive either. Has some food drive, but is overall much lower drive in general than my Kelpies, he is MUCH harder to motivate for training and I found this tricky and rather frustrating. He does however have higher pack drive in that he likes pats and praise as rewards and will work for those.

If this was my dog my first priority would be to build up something they could use as a reward.

They could check out Michael Ellis, he has some free videos up on YouTube and to buy from Leerburg. That might give them some ideas on how to make their rewards more exciting/interesting.

[Nekhbet]

The dog is too unsocialised, it's probably partly genetic as well.

Problem is it's not your dog. Lead the horse to water, it's their dog and their responsibility to train it. You can put in all the effort you want but if the owners wont change it's wasted in the long term.