Metalann

I play with my 15 week old GSD on and off through the day, plus she also plays with our other two grown up dogs a lot during the day. I make sure she has time outs alone, as do the grown up dogs who can get tired of having her on them all the time as she is a bottomless pit of energy.

Yah, we never thought it would be so difficult to name our female GSD pup!! But finally we found it! "Raven"! 8)

Thank you very much! I will get right on it. Any pointers are heartily welcome! I'll be the first to admit I am clueless and I am quite ready to be told "do's" and "dont's". It's also very true that she does not have the attention span for 15 minutes training sessions, but I read it somewhere and new to this as I am I thought it was "right". I have now realized it doesn't work, and have started sneaking in "training" now and then without her even realizing she is being trained. It was actually what I was doing in the beginning with the "sit" and I didn't even realize it myself. She got the "sit" fast too! So Im back to that. I use "no" firmly mostly when she chews on things she is not supposed to, and then give her one of her toys. Scruff thingy is over with. Never worked the few times I did it. I will try to keep hand in mouth and yelp, it's whats been working the best so far. She's got a collection of toys and always a rawhide at paws reach at all times. Again, thank you and I am grateful for all the help I can get.

So I have just gotten my first puppy. Yup, way over due I know! :lol: Not long ago I moved in with my soon to be husband and his two older female muts, that really haven't had any formal training, they sorta just "know" the ways of things. I'll get back to that in a little while. My puppy is a 14 week old GSD female called Raven. She is quite a handful. And complex. Upon picking her up from the breeder, she lay like an angel on my lap all the way home, only understandably throwing up a few times. She did not seem overly nervous, no barking or jumping around. Just cautiously aware and quite cuddly. It was love at first sight. Now she has been a part of our family for 3 weeks and have warmed up to us. Some things still seem to be going like a breeze, she hardly barks, she won't whine too much when she is put in her crate (although she would like to stay out) and she is fairly easy to handle except from when it's bath time. She seems highly intelligent and alert aswell. She is however quite mouthy, always nipping and snapping for our hands, pant legs and ankles (never really hard though, she seem to know how much pressure to put into the "bites") and after several loud and consist NO's, and she still doesn't listen I usually give her a scruff rattling. I read that you are supposed to do it hard enough so that they whimper or else they will consider it play, but the problem is that my GSD really won't whimper at all! She is either a hard head or I am not doing it right... I don't dare pull her scruff any harder, and she still just looks at me with her eyes drawn back. Also tried holding her mouth shut saying NO, but nope, nothing. She just start to frantically wiggle till I lose control of her. She has never growled or snapped at me in a real aggressive manner, but I don't want her to think we are leaniant on any kind of biting or snapping towards and on humans and stuff other than her toys. So I tried to do the yelping real loud followed by a consist NO when she nips at my hands, and that seems to work the best so far...only problem is she doesn't nip for a few hours maybe, but then we are right back to square one.... I still think she [i]knows[/i] that what she is doing is wrong, she just chooses not to listen. Same with the come command. She just do not want to listen most of the time. We have already taught her to sit, stay, not eat her food or any treat we give her without an "ok". At least inside this works. She even figured out how to open up the bedroom door using the sock we have nailed to it. Why won't she obey the come command? We have tried everything from changing the commands from "come" to "here" and "Raven", always making sure it was never an unpleasant thing to come to us, always treats or lots of petting. Still she chooses to ignore us calling her even if she sees me dangle her favourite treat. She would rather sit in the grass eating dirt. A snap on the leash does nothing. 2 out of 4 times she will start bashing around trying to get the leash off, or she will try to insistantly pull to where she wants to go or last but not least she just plumps down and puts her chin on the ground like she is pouting ignoring us. When she occasionally does come, we praise praise praise. There is nothing making her not wanting to come. We have practiced this in the house without the other dogs, and outside in the yard where there are some more distractions. It doesn't seem to make much of a difference, she comes when she feels like it and just simply ignores us rest of the time. So what do I do? I feel like this is one of the most important things she must learn, and learn FAST, that when she is called she should come IMMEDIATELY. Do I punish her when she doesn't come after the millionth time of luring her in? Do I march over there and pick her up and place her where she was supposed to go and make her stay there? All the stuff I read says "do that and do that" but it doesn't say what to do if your pup just simply ignores you and won't listen, or sinks to the floor scratching fleas. She starts to yawn and I know I have failed making the 15 minute daily "training session" fun... Another thing is my soon to be husband who have had dogs all his life. He has never "trained" any of them, all of them have been found or he has rescued them from people trying to get rid of them. His philosophy is that they will "get" the rules as we go along. Both muts begs, bark and jump, but they are not and have not been in any way agressive. They know the sit command but only because that involves food. If they see there is no food-reward in store, they wont sit. Especially the oldest one also tries her very best to get out the door before we can get her porch-leash on so she can run away roaming the neighbourhood, not coming back unless she gets hungry or the pound calls. So I am finding it kinda hard trying to teach Raven being obedient while right next to her the two other dogs do as they please....Can this work out at all? All 3 dogs go along nicely and are already pals, but is it possible to train her to do the exact opposite as her older "sisters"? My only glimmer of hope here is that I think I have made her understand that there will be no petting unless she sits, and I ignore her when she jumps. But the other two get showered in kisses when they jump up to greet my fiance. My fiance find putting Raven in her crate in the bedroom mean, and calls me the party pooper everytime I correct her. Even though I always praise when she gives up what I corrected in the first place, and replaces it with the correct behaviour being it the right toy to chew on or guiding her to her foodbowl. Don't get me wrong, he does correct her at times. I on the other hand is consistant with telling her no. Especially cause you have to tell her no like 10 times before she does not go back to the same activity. I don't let her chew something one time, and then yell the next. Only reason he is agreeing putting her in the crate now is because he is tired of scooping poop. Im not all thumbs up for my fiance's "free-spirit" approach to raising Raven. In my opinion it is our responsibility to train Raven considering she is a GSD and will be a big dog. None of my fiance's dogs have been really big powerful dogs like GSD's. I don't have any plans for her to be a working dog or enter her in shows, but I really want to be at a point where I am sure I have full control of her and be comfortable being responsible for such a large dog. In my mind that will make the relationship between Raven and us better. I am starting to think though that I really don't know what I am doing. That it can end in disaster. Heck, I used to be deathly afraid of dogs and here I am with a GSD... I try to hide my (fewer and fewer) little jerks when she does something unexpected, but in the back of my mind I kinda always think she is gonna bite.... In retrospect maybe the choice of dog was a poor decision. Me flinching in the beginning would most likely have happened no matter what kinda dog. I wanted a dog, my fiance wanted a "real" dog, a GSD. And then there is me being more clueless than a fly in a vacuum cleaner... :( Done is done, I am totally in love with her and could never give her up now. I wish there was some kinda obedience class I could enroll us in and get help, or have someone come show me and at least guide me some, but I have checked and the closest I could find was over 2 hours away. And here's the kicker, even after all this, Raven prefers my fiance. Yup. :-? Everytime if she has a choice between the two of us, it's always him. Is there some sorta golden middle road we can take here with Raven? You know where he will feel like we are giving her some space and allowing her to be a puppy and I feel like we are making progress in training....? For like I said I have never had a dog in my life, and he has for as long as he can remember. Maybe he is right, more right than me and I need to back down a notch? Long post. Just the frantic ramblings of a first-timer. :-? Edit: Reading through this I realize that it all sounds very chaotic and that I sound pissy towards my fiance. We have had fights over this pup. Man, I can feel my hair turning grey as I type this. I am so confused, I can't even imagine what Raven feels like..... :agrue: The more I read, the more confused I get. Some say "do this" and then again others go "NEVER do that". Bottom line is I am afraid I will totally mess up this dog. Any dog.