Amax-1
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Posts posted by Amax-1
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It's best to expose a puppy to as many new experiences as possible, but most importantly remove the pup from anything creating fear...pushing a puppy through things causing fear is the main component of socialisation that does more harm than good. Puppy schools are notorious for that when not run properly......free for all's where dominant pups are frightening weaker pups is a good recipe for dog aggression in maturity.......if the pup is having fun great.....if the pup is apprehensive or going into flight, don't push it, the puppy in their own time will gain confidence. People gushing over a puppy too much causes handler focus problems down the track....dogs that want to run to everyone for a pat and play with great enthusiasm. Socialisation albeit is a good thing, it's more directed towards pups with temperament and nerve deficiencies to help suppress poor behaviour in adulthood. Pups of genetic quality in temperament and nerve don't need much socialisation to result in well adjusted adults.
Contrary to popular belief, poor behaviour said to be resultant from insufficient socialisation is actually a temperament/nerve defect in the dogs genetics.....socialisation helps mask the defects :)
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I think we're very suggestible to the narrative, particularly when we're only shown edited footage.
Exactly..
I don't particularly like the way he does things but he obviously is reasonably successful at what he does and has great promotion.
I would never try to do what he does if confronted by a dog that wasn't happy to see me..
I am also surprised we don't hear more about people trying his techniques and getting hurt.
It's not hard through aversives for a weak dog reacting out of insecurity to fear the handler and avoid correction and seemingly appear fixed. When dealing with harder dogs reacting from social aggression, Cesar often gets bitten.....there are a few videos I have seen cut short as the dog comes back at him......the next shot of the dog is laying on the ground and Cesar stroking it.....possibly coming out of a choke out more than likely. There was one with a Wolf X GSD where the camera stopped filming just as he began to hang the dog up.....what they do is hang the dog up until it passes out from lack of air.....something they wouldn't show on camera......it was on old school fix for handler aggression in the Koehler/Most/Monks of New Skete training era which incorporated alpha rolls and the like.
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It was changed and brought more into line with the GSDCA requirements (though not the same) a few years ago
http://www.ankc.org.au/News.aspx?id=279
The GSDCA requirements differ in that you can't score more than 3 in any one area, or more than 8 on each side.
Thanks for the link, much appreciated
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It's interesting to read all of your comments regarding this, however - do not believe everything you read in the papers. My husband (the victim) did at no time attempt to pat the dog in question. He was walking on a public nature path when approached by a running dog. In surprise at seeing the dog, he muttered "Hello puppy!" at which point the dog lunged at his arm. The dog's handler was not in sight at this point, and caught up quickly - but the damage had already been done. He was simply a person walking in a public place who was attacked by a police dog. There was no attempt to pat or interact with the dog in any way. The police have issued the press release, as no-one from the media have spoken to my husband. He required 2.5hrs of surgery to repair the damage done to his arm and remained in hospital for 3 days. He does not hold the dog responsible for the incident (we are dog lovers & owners ourselves), but is now extremely disappointed with the police for their attempt to "cover their butts" by implying that the attack was in some way his fault. I wish to make no further comment, except to say that we are currently seeking legal advice before making a formal response to this slanderous claim.
I hope you go after them, and win a shitload of compensation, not just retraction for the lies they tell........... That is all.
Best wishes to you and your husband.
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It's interesting to read all of your comments regarding this, however - do not believe everything you read in the papers. My husband (the victim) did at no time attempt to pat the dog in question. He was walking on a public nature path when approached by a running dog. In surprise at seeing the dog, he muttered "Hello puppy!" at which point the dog lunged at his arm. The dog's handler was not in sight at this point, and caught up quickly - but the damage had already been done. He was simply a person walking in a public place who was attacked by a police dog. There was no attempt to pat or interact with the dog in any way. The police have issued the press release, as no-one from the media have spoken to my husband. He required 2.5hrs of surgery to repair the damage done to his arm and remained in hospital for 3 days. He does not hold the dog responsible for the incident (we are dog lovers & owners ourselves), but is now extremely disappointed with the police for their attempt to "cover their butts" by implying that the attack was in some way his fault. I wish to make no further comment, except to say that we are currently seeking legal advice before making a formal response to this slanderous claim.
Wow!!!, please pass our healing thoughts to your husband Kaz and thanks for your post. :)
I was envisaging a cover up, a reason the handler gave for why the dog bit an innocent person......my thoughts is the handler dropped the leash and the let the dog go in an apprehension command......the dog then would nail anyone who appeared.......it may have also been the first time the handler was able to release the dog so in a bit of cowboy style "yee harrr' get him boy, the dog's ramped for a bite....sees Kaz's husband and dog thinks "we are on, that's my target" and the dog will take the bite like any other training scenario it's done 100 times before with a decoy and hidden sleeve......hence the "arm bite".
Geez, that's bad handling of the dog from sheer incompetence on the handler's part in the circumstances.....the handler would know damn well the dog will bite anyone in that scenario from training alone and I would say in the truth of the matter, the handler has made several breaches of handling protocol that the department needs to be accountable for. The handler MUST be able to abort an apprehension, and to do this, the handler MUST have sight of the dog, in fact the handler should have pulled the dog back in against the leash to heighten drive to hunt, not let him run free ahead and out of sight.....just stupid stuff and I am saddened by the ordeal Kaz's poor husband had to endure
Having said that.....the dog may not have bitten a child simply because the dog works to training scenarios where kids are not used a decoys, so a little person is not something the dog has ever been trained to target for a bite, but may bite a child depending on the dog and the drive, still a very dangerous scenario as seen from the injury Kaz's husband received, the dog bites with exceptional force causing severe injury to unprotected limbs. The biting force felt even through a sleeve is more than anyone would imagine, the jaws of a GSD presents incredible clamping force when trained to bite and grip with maximum strength.
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I did some training with a young Belgian Malinois not long ago who the owner said was a registered parent litter purchased from a pet shop
I asked to see the papers and what the puppy owner showed me was a photocopy of the parents council reg, the bitch was a Malinois and the sire a Dutch Shepherd........parents owned by two different people and addresses in the same council area. What alerted me to something strange is the owner saying the pup's litter mate in the pet shop was a brindle colour.......not in a Malinois litter will there be brindle coloured pups?......this pup looked like a Malinois by colouring.The puppy owner was oblivious to council reg not meaning ANKC registration as we think of in a "registered litter", neither did he notice that the sire was recorded as a Dutchie not a Malinois, but more to the point, how was the pet shop's style promoting this litter as a registered litter of Malinois then producing council reg confirming the litter was a X breed? The owner suggested that the Dutchie sire may have been a Malinois imported from Holland.......he was still convinced what the pet shop told him and provided was right although it was too stupid for words in reality
The pup was nice with good working drives and temperament......nothing wrong with the pup at all but the rest was a bit on the nose in the registration and sale process
, or was the pet shop that stupid they didn't know themselves what a "registered" litter means? -
A couple of threads talking about papers and registration has prompted me to ask this question that recently popped up in conversation:
Someone told me through Dogs NSW referring to GSD breedings, that providing parents have been hip and elbow scored, the progeny is registerable, doesn't matter what the scores are as long as they have been x-rayed and scored, meaning a dog with high scores for example a 18-24 hip and 4-4 elbow are acceptable parentage for puppy registration? I had the impression that anything exceeding a 12-12 hip and 2-2 elbow was rejected by the registry as an unhealthy parent and pups to such dogs of high score couldn't be registered?
Someone called Dogs Vic a couple of years ago to check if one of my males was scored (dog was still registered in Vic at that stage), they told them he was scored but wouldn't announce the scores?
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Pet puppies were sold without papers prior to the introduction of the limit registry. Maybe the breeder is an older breeder and doesn't agree with the limit registry. They are the only ones that know why they are doing it. But apart from the fact they are breaking a ANKC rule I don't think it automatically makes them a bad breeder.
I think they would have to be pretty old - in the eastern states its been at least 20 years. They sign a COE and agree to abide by that - register all puppies.
Umm I am 47yo and when I was a breeder there was no limit registry.
I remember a pup I purchased in 1982 from an imported sire litter.....this was a top dollar litter back then and the pups were $250 papered or $200 without papers. There was no limited reg, it was either papered or not and the buyer had the choice as reflected by price. I know of a couple of (old school)breeders who still do this and after the pups are sold, they main reg only the pups people want papers for so they may paper 3 out of the 6 pups born and they don't issue limited reg papers at all. Perhaps not in compliance with the code, but they do it at the request of the buyer. I think it's more that the buyers will ask if non papered provides a discounted price as papers are not of importance to those particular buyers. I guess when talking papered pups costing between $1500/$2000, it's a lot of money and if they can get the pup a bit cheaper, some will go with a non papered option.
Is that a bad thing??.......I would certainly recommend a non papered option from a quality litter over a BYB litter if someone asked me what they should buy
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A lot of people are scared of GSD's and having owned and worked with the breed for many years, I try to project good control and restraint over my dogs for people who are scared or feeling uneasy to be able to relax a bit. If walking call the dog back into heel position when passing people......sitting in the vets, have the dog sitting with hold of the leash at the collar if someone comes in and looks apprehensive. I think being a breed enthusiast you tend to demonstrate that a good GSD is a well behaved dog that shouldn't illicit fear in a public place. Breeds with aggression history are scary to many people and I think the owners of such breeds have a public obligation to project control and calmness in the breed to reduce fear.
I have had a few people say they are scared of GSD's and with a good stable dog, let them pat my dogs and you can see the fear displace which is quite good in those circumstances.
I remember my wife having a great game with this dog one day, she was letting the dog lick her face and giving him a good rub and cuddle and she asked the owner what breed he was.....the owner said he's a Pit Bull
He was a friendly dog who loved people so from a fear perspective of Pit Bull's my wife had this interaction with a good Pit Bull changed her breed outlook. :) -
But if you invite someone onto your property, eg have some mates over for a barbecue and your dog attacks one of them and they want to have your dogs declared dangerous or PTS - they can ask council to do that. Same if your dog attacks a policeman on your property.
In our jurisdiction if a dog is impeding police entry, the ranger is called to remove the dog, It's only in a life threatening situation or a high profile apprehension that police could deal with an aggressive dog on someone's property. If police do enter property when knowing there is an aggressive dog present and get bitten, the property owner isn't held accountable if protocol is breached to call the ranger. It's a different story of course if someone sets a dog onto police in attendance.
Great result in this case, excellent
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A friend of ours got backed into a corner with a bitch on limited reg that the breeder agreed to upgrade to mains when she passed hip and elbow scores. They had her x-rayed and she scored well, breeder was happy and was supposed to be organising the mains upgrade and said to go ahead with their planned mating. The bitch conceived had 7 pups then the bitches breeder changed his mind and wouldn't upgrade to mains. Problem was, nothing was in writing and consequently our friends ended up with an excellent litter of pups that couldn't be registered.
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I had a look at a working line GSD a lady had up for rehoming who had failed the Bark Busters training regime and aside from some special food they sold this lady which was complete nonsense in relation to solving the dog's behaviour, what they work on in training with yelling BAHH and throwing chains at the dog are behaviour interrupters which is ok but when the behaviour is interrupted, they don't provide the next step......so you yell BAHH and throw a chain at the dogs feet and the dog stops what he/she's doing, then you need to apply an alternate behaviour at the interruption, but their regime stops at the interrupter
That can't work unless the chain throwing is aversive enough and the dog behaves to avoid the aversion.....may work on very soft dogs, or the dog is offered an alternate behaviour when the chain throwing interrupts the unwanted behaviour. It's about as successful as screaming "shut up" from the back door when the dog is barking on the back fence :laugh:
This GSD was a young dog and a nutcase on leash and the lady couldn't walk it......she couldn't get the dog out the front door ramped up in excitement of going for a walk, he would pull her off her feet (she was a small woman about 50kgs) and yelling BAHH and throwing chains at him ramped him up higher!!.
Ok....so does he like balls.....yep loves chasing and retrieving balls....well go and get his ball and we will see if he behaves for a ball reward. Sure enough within 20 minutes we had him calm for ball reward.......BB could have done that too if they had half a clue
The dog had great toy and food focus and after a couple of basic lessons, the lady gained control and kept her dog
It's pretty sad when she thought she got the experts in and her dog was untrainable to the point she had no pleasure from the dog and considered rehoming him?
There may be some trainers in Bark Busters are good, but from what I experience, trainer is assigned by suburb.From my understanding, they MUST train in the BB method, so anyone experienced at dog training wouldn't take on such a franchise so I guess most franchisees would begin with little previous training knowledge to run with it?
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What Cesar does with reactive dogs is air block them with his slip leash.......if you watch carefully when he walks a previously reactive dog that settles with him instantly, he's choking the dog out discretely so the dog is more interested in breathing than reacting then the dog tends to avoid the correction whilst Cesar is handling the dog.......it's not magical whispering and is basically the same process William Koehler used with reactive dogs done more discretely.
Most of his training techniques are based on the old school of Koehler and the Monks of New Skete in a re-engineered version. I suspect the PSSSTT noise is associated off camera with a poke in the neck......in some dogs you can see the dog flinch to the PSSSST noise and pull it's head back and for that to happen before the camera rolls, the dog has been probably poked hard in the neck area to associate the sound with an aversive stimulus and consequently go into avoidance.
What assists him greatly is a lack of fear and extreme confidence handling dogs which refers to as leadership where he projects the body language and along with aversives so the dogs fear him more...in a nutshell with Cesar, the dogs are ultimately behaving through correction avoidance which can be seen in their dull persona whilst he is handling and training them.
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I know of quite a few instances where officers have been bitten by a police dog after an offender has been apprehended. I know of instances where the handler has been bitten. Both dogs and handlers are still working so the repercussions aren't all that dire for either one. They are DOGS not MACHINES.
Yes, many an officer at the scene has been bitten by a dog especially in the old days when mostly defence driven dogs were used trained in defence......they were pretty aggressive and if you got in their way the dog would often choose the closest person to apprehend and may not always be the bad guy. They are much better now days with improved training techniques allowed the use of more stable dogs. Handler aggression used to be caused by correction based training methods where some dogs in the height of fight won't take harsh corrections thinking that the handler is challenging them. Reward based training has dramatically reduced handler aggression issues from where they used to be in the old training methods.
Some dogs in tracking are driven to track for a bite so good for apprehension of offenders, but not so good in search and rescue where the handler must be extra vigilant in maintaining control in tracking scenario.
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I don't think you can really blame the victim here. The handler was out of sight and it probably didn't even occur to the person who got bitten, in the few seconds between the dog rounding the corner and patting it, that the dog was working and shouldn't be patted. Surely the onus here is on a trained police dog to not bite members of the public unless it's in the line of duty.
ETA: What if it was a kid that was standing around the corner and tried to pat the dog? I imagine the dog would have had the same response and that just isn't good enough.
If the dog was on the offenders trail, it should have ignored the stranger (wrong scent), so it was probably on a random search for anyone and could have been possibly been dragging the long line and was some way in front of the handler. It was the handlers fault the man was bitten as he/she didn't have proper control of the dog in a public place where innocent people can suddenly appear. Police dogs are trained to bite with as much force as the dog can muster and to hang on.......so the poor man bitten is no wonder he was hospitalised by the injury.
The handler will be on the mat for this error of judgement and won't be taken lightly internally.
I wonder if you have any concept of a working line of dog in full drive to carry out an order by its handler?The dog was on a long lead. That is allowed ( at this point) in terms of what the dog was doing.
We do not know much more about the age of the dog, its time in the field.
Might it need refining of its training? Possibily.
Without having more info of all the facts, i would not offer more thoughts.
To certified as a police dog, it has to be able to abort an apprehension on command off leash and do it reliably, they will all abort as a priority training exercise to safeguard the innocent but having said that, if the handler looses sight of the dog as in this instance, biting an innocent person can happen.
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A police dog was tracking on a long lead searching for an offender when the dog turned a corner where a civilian man was present and tried to pat the dog. The dog bit the man on the arm and hospitalised him the report concludes.
The handler will have some explaining and some lengthy paperwork to complete for why the dog was in a position to bite a member of the public
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I would not expect a good trainer to advise a client to tie their pup to the clothes line because he was behaving like a normal untrained pup.
What actually constitutes a 'behaviourist' in NSW? Does a behaviourist need to have a degree, such as a Veterinary Behaviourists have to promote themselves as a behaviourist in NSW? I may need to stand corrected but I thought the term was limited to Veterinary Behaviourists.
eta: I'm of the impression that this pup is not being trained privately and that the 'behaviourist' was attempting to eliminate bad pup behaviour rather than one on one training of the pup.
I'm also of the opinion that private training is the way to go rather than taking dogs to obedience classes at dog clubs.
A Vet behaviourist is the only formal qualification which extends to all animals not specifically dogs. Anyone can call themselves a dog behaviourist and "qualified" generally means they have attended a training scheme like the NDTF course and the like. Vet behaviourists can also prescribe drugs for behavioural issues.
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The way you're going on about GSD's and the training of the breed anyone would think they are so much more complicated and difficult to understand and train that they must be different species. You're doing the breed no favours.
Ok, perhaps investigate some young GSD's for rehoming that people can't handle.....many operational and service dogs have been sourced in this way and still are, they are working dogs and most that exhibit pet behaviour through selective breeding have limited working drive, they merely look like GSD's, but some have retained workability and the characters of these dogs are vastly different and MUST be trained for pet suitability otherwise they can get out of control quickly from adolescence.
Very few GSD's are good working prospectsCorrect, and if an inexperienced owner gets a GSD who has working drive then the training of the dog becomes more of a necessity to train suitably to attain the pet behaviours one is seeking.
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BC, years ago we used to contain drive with a choke chain and hard corrections on the pretence that the dog must fear the handler. As training systems evolved, it was realised that drive, the thing most frustrating that a dog exhibits and is hard to control can be used to train behaviours with great success. Drive in a dog is easy to train handler focus which gives off leash control as the dog is always in tune with the handler from all the fun rewards the handler provides for the right behaviours.
Driven dogs in the old days are the ones we used to chase off leash and the most unreliable as they would take off given the opportunity, like 20 years later the same driven dogs off leash are the one's when trained in drive and handler focus that will come with great exuberance to a here command, with an intensity "you called me, what are we doing, lets go" and using the drive Stella has to your advantage will over time overcome her reactivity towards other dogs.
Stella has real working dog traits from her description which can come along in show lines just not as often as in working lines.....one of my best GSD's was a show line black and tan......his brother was a complete dud as a working dog and was placed in a pet home, being of a given working breed, an individual dog can inherit the strongest working traits of their ancestry.
Work on the handler focus with Stella and fun rewards for the right behaviour......she sounds like a great dog with heaps of potential albeit driven dogs are a bit of handful in the learning process, but with time and patience they produce some great results in control and obedience. :)
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Hi Mal1
Some of the stuff the dog does at home sounds good. My friend did train the dog some at home. Originally the dog was darting inside any chance it got but I showed her a simple way to stop this. All good , dog sitting and waiting to be invited.
Dog is outside but allowed on enclosed patio at night.
Sent her the link to the Triangle of temptation and she says she followed this. Not sure but dog seems OK in this behaviour. She taught him to give a toy on command. He sits etc for treats.
I thought all was good and dog seemed to be keen as it showed some control. Recently she started playing with balls and somehow this caused a problem. Even thou she said he was giving them up and waiting for her to tell him to get the ball?
The dog was always a bit mouthy and I thought this had stopped. But apparently the dog was pulling on her clothing. If she was leaving the dog to stop play it would leap and grab her clothes.
Not good.
Since the behaviourist has been if the dog plays up she has been tying him up to the clothesline for a timeout. The dog seems resigned to this, settles down and goes to tied up .
Will talk to her soon and see how she is going.
I know her problems are a bit more complicated hence the behaviourist but I thought if she could walk the dog, control the dog and get it out seeing the world, the dog would improve. Wouldn't it improve the relationship?
Thanks.
I like the sound of this young dog and none of the behaviours are bad, they are normal for a GSD with good drives to exhibit all of this type of behaviour and is the reason without experience it's not recommended for people to own working dogs as pets unless they are dedicated in their training, but first and foremost, they need advice from a trainer who knows how to train the right behaviours into a young working dog as they can be a handful to manage in adolescence especially if it's a working line GSD and the same applies with working Malinois and even working Border Collies and Kelpies can exhibit some unruly behaviour from high drive traits.
The dog was always a bit mouthy and I thought this had stopped. But apparently the dog was pulling on her clothing. If she was leaving the dog to stop play it would leap and grab her clothes.Not good.
That's actually excellent as the dog will be very adaptable to training in drive.......funny thing is, these behaviours frowned upon in a pet are what you want to see in a good working dog prospect :laugh:
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I know nothing will change your mind Amax but a prong collar is not the ONLY way to train a GSD. Yes, they have breed specific traits but they are still dogs and the science of behaviour still applies. Plenty of GSDs can be trained with a head collar or a flat collar or whatever tool.
Anyway, skip, as I said, you're doing a great thing, hopefully you can convince your friend to seek another opinion, but also remember, it's her responsibility ultimately, not yours :)
A training to tool MUST have the ability to switch on and off to use as a training tool otherwise it's a management tool. The dog ultimately needs to feel nothing when the tool is switched off and feel pressure when it's on to either interrupt or extinguish a behaviour. A simple neck collar is bad enough for a dog to become collar wise meaning that the dog behaves with the collar on and with the collar off reverts back to it's default behaviour when a neck collar is used incorrectly......harnesses and head collars are worse again as their fitment is obvious and often aversive to the dog before a leash is attached to it. We need to be mindful that Halti's and the like were designed by people with making money as their priority not presenting a worthy dog training tool.
Science of dog behaviour applies to the behaviour the dog exhibits, that is for example, it's of little training value to treat a behaviour as fearful when in fact the behaviour is a dominant form of social aggression as in a GSD can be a breed specific trait yet the behaviour can appear the same as a dog exhibiting fear reactivity with symptoms of lunging etc. The majority of breeds don't have traits of social aggression at all and many GSD's don't either, but some do dependant on how the genetics came together in the particular dog.
Many good operational and service GSD's have been scoured from people's pets who can't handle them despite behaviourist and training routines that have failed because the behaviourist/trainers had no breed trait knowledge to administer the correct path of rehabilitating specific behaviours.
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A GSD is a working dog that can exhibit certain breed traits and for the best results you MUST seek out a trainer with GSD breed experience with the knowledge to assess the dog's behaviour correctly otherwise they will mess it up. If anyone is suggesting head collars and harnesses as training tools for a GSD, they are inexperienced at training GSD's is a good assumption. If the dog is genetically defence driven or over sharp, or it displays any form of social aggression which can occur in the breed, they can't be trained out on the wrong behaviour assessment from someone who has never encountered or trained a sharp defence driven working dog. It's essential that behavioural issues with GSD's are correctly assessed for the right course of training to be applied :)
This may make me very unpopular, but for equipment I find prong collars much easier to use and more effective than check chains.A prong collar is the evolution of a check chain, a great tool and a much safer tool than a check chain with far less likelihood to injure a dog on a prong collar even used incorrectly than potential injury from check chain mis-use, yet a check chain can be purchased anywhere and by anyone and be mis-used as anyone sees fit, hardly a sensible concept
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Amax-1, Yes I use to think Sonny, my male was fast till I got Stella. I'm afraid he just eats Stella's dust :laugh:
Then you can relate to how tired I am by the end of the day. Stella takes every bit of energy I have, then some.
Any hint's as to how to manage her would be greatly appreciated :laugh: How did you manage to get his concerntration long enough to train him. I have issues with that at times.
He was mad on toys, balls and tugs to the point if he saw you with one and hid it from him, he would throw himself at you to get it, and if you turned your back on him, he would jump up and you would cop his snout in the back of the head, he was a nutcase in drive :laugh:
We controlled him with toys initially and made him perform commands for release for reward and because he was so intense for toy reward. we were able to gain handler focus above all else over time. He was too over the top to certify as a service dog and went to a sporting home in New Zealand.
Stella is so food driven its ridiculous. It is like she is following my hands with her eyes constantly. So while she is very obedient, she wont hold say a down/ stay. She bounces straight back up. She is in such a hurry to get a reward. ATM we are going OK with heeling but as soon as I move my bait hand away she pops infront of me & sits, thinking she can have anther treat. She is very fast & extremely bright. I know its me not doing something right. Always got to think outside the square with her.If she won't hold a down stay, when she gets up, tell her NOOOOOO, then back her up to where she was laying and do it again and back away from her, then move in towards her and have a release word like, ok or yes which means she can get up and take the treat. Keep practicing that and moving further away each time before you go back to her for release and reward. Don't reward her for breaking command, make her do it again and get it right before she gets a reward. It takes time in small steps but if you tell her NOOOOOOOO, like a drawn out NO and take her back to do the exercise again, she will learn when she got it wrong also and getting it wrong means no reward.
With focused heeling, put her in the heel position at your side and stand still with a treat in your hand and hold it high on your chest below you neck where she will look up at you for the treat. When she gives you eye contact release her for the treat, so you are rewarding eye contact. Keep practicing that until she holds eye contact for 15 or 20 seconds reliably stationary, then command heal or we use the German word for heel "fuss" pronounced "foos" which seems to have an impact on dogs they respond to...so whilst she has held eye contact you command "fuss" and start walking......she will follow with eye contact in a competition heel, then release and reward her with a treat. I prefer to teach eye contact first then transition it to walking at heel as two separate exercises other wise when you try to incorporate the eye contact and walking in the one exercise and the dog has a lot of drive, they break easily and start jumping at you for the reward. When they have learned the eye contact part first in a stationary position, walking while maintaining the eye contact seems a more natural transition and they don't seem to break the heel as easily in training. I like the sound of Stella's drive BC, I think you will do well with her and correct the unwanted behaviour as the good drive in a dog provides more to work with training the right behaviour :)
Actually, the couple of working Border Collies I was impressed with their sheep work were pretty aggressive, if strangers went near the handler's truck they would get cranky same if the sheep played up they nip them, the dogs wouldn't take any nonsense. They were strong assertive dogs with heaps of drive, not like the show line Borders that people have as pets, the working line sheep dogs were quite different in character.
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Also she is attending training and has seen a behaviourist recently
Please advise your friend to seek a trainer who is breed experienced with GSD's, that is if you get a sparky male cocky and dominant, there are specific training requirements for young dogs exhibiting that type of behaviour. It's easily fixed, but not with head collars. Is he perhaps a working line GSD?
Dog Attacks While Being Trained By Cesar Milan
in In The News
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I am not a believer of dog whisperers and calm energy BS and watching some of his shows you can see exactly what he is doing to gain the desired behaviour, but it's cleverly done on camera to appear something that it's not. I laugh when out of the goodness of his heart uses "his" leash which is a slip leash......that is he can't apply an air block discretely with fixed collar and standard leash that the owner had on the dog :laugh: