German shepherds are a highly driven dog, with strong working prey-drives that are bred in working blood-lines. This is why they are known for being great police dogs, and military working dogs.
German Shepherd Training Tips:
Most people think white German shepherds are a flake, but that is not always true.
With my 30 years of experience, I have trained some amazing white German shepherds.
In this article, you’ll learn why the heel command is so powerful for our dogs.
Have you ever seen a dog that wants to chase anything that moves, like cars, and bicycles, and squirrel, that’s the prey-drives coming out in our dogs? This is natural instincts which are bred in all dogs, and how they survive in natural habitat.
As dog owners, we need to be proactive so these behaviors don’t develop in our dog.
Today, I want to introduce you to Greg. Greg has a beautiful white German Shepherd named Roland. Roland is just a one-year-old puppy. Greg contacted me for training because he loves taking his dog to the dog park.
Greg has been bringing his dog to the dog park since his dog was six months old. As his dog got older, he started to see that Roland was picking up some bad habits. This is common when your dog starts to mature.
He came across other dog owners who had no training at all with their dogs. (Very common). We all see this every day.
Roland started to pull on the leash when they got to the dog park. He just got too excited when he saw other dogs, where he’s pulling became so bad, that he felt like he was going to pull Greg arm out of socket.
Roland is not aggressive to other dogs, he just wanted to play. This is common with dogs when you take them to the park for socializing with other dogs.
They know where they are. It’s time to play!!
Greg was frustrated because his other German Shepherds never had any problems like this. Greg needed to learn that Roland was a high prey-drive puppy. When you have a high prey-driven dog, you need to learn how to be a great leader.
These are the two commands, you should teach your dog first. WHY,
- Heel command builds trust and respect for having a well-trained dog, you can take anywhere you go without breaking away from you on-leash, and off-leash.
2. Release Command lets your dog know when they are in training, and when they are out of training, and keeps proper communication.
In this video, you’ll see why it’s important for our dogs to learn these commands.
Greg’s first lesson,
Learning how to teach the Heel command, off-leash without his dog breaking away from the heel position.
Why we all need to teach our dog, they never go away from us, until we give them a release command.
In just three weeks of training, Roland is ready for off-leash. Greg has done an awesome job with his dog. I taught him how to solve this problem by spending 30 minutes a day training in the morning, and 30 minutes in the evening.
You can do the same with your dog.
Conclusion:
Now, three weeks later Greg will need to teach his dog that the rules apply the same everywhere they go. There’s no doubt Greg will keep up his training with Roland.
I have to be honest with you, this is one of the best temperament white German Shepherd, I’ve ever worked with. This puppy loves to train. He’s an awesome dog.
If you haven’t seen-Sandy lesson with her German Shepherd puppy, on-leash heeling, and building attention, I recommend you check it out. You’ll see a puppy just learning.
I hope you got some great value out of this article and video. Please let me know in the comments. Are you struggling with this behavior with your dog? If yes, now you have the information you need to help you solve this behavior.
Enjoy, Talk soon!