TRAINING YOUR GSD
The first weeks:
Excerpt taken from http://www.germanshepherddog.com/
"Puppy hood is the most critical period for the development of the characteristics you want to encourage. A puppy learns from its experiences, so you want to provide only positive ones. It should be provided with opportunity to explore and investigate new situations and new people, but always in a non-threatening way. Remember that your goal is to build confidence in the young animal. Your aim is not to dominate or oppress the young pup. Exposure to different environments is crucial to the general education of the dog and also to assure it that the world is a safe place. If something appears to make the dog unsure, give it the opportunity to investigate it slowly, but do not force the issue.
It is imperative to avoid situations where your dog would be dominated by another, older or stronger dog, or by another puppy. You also want to avoid having to discipline or correct your puppy and thus dampen its spirit or damage its self-confidence. You can do this by never leaving the pup in a situation where it can cause damage to your valuables or find itself in a dangerous predicament...
Acceptable manners at home and in the car and "play" training, like learning to sit for a food reward, with no corrections involved, is advisable. Real obedience work can begin once the puppy is more mature. It is better to leave for later formal obedience training with a young dog. The character of the puppy is not sufficiently strong to withstand the stress that may be involved in obedience training."
Prepare for Your New Puppy
http://www.k9web.com/dog-faqs/new-puppy.html
Other good sites to prepare for pup:
Establish a teacher-learner relationship http://placervillevet.com/puppy_care_and_training.htm
Important Pointers for New Puppy Owners http://www.perfectpaws.com/pup1.html
Housetraining Your Young Puppy http://www.perfectpaws.com/pup3.html
Tricks:
A very fun website with video clips to help you teach
your pup fun tricks, for kids of all ages!:
http://www.loveyourdog.com/tricks.html
Ears
The average age for ears to stand is 3 months, but can vary from
5 weeks to 8 months, even 1 year.
Teething at 4 months can cause the pup's ears to go back down again, not to
worry, they will come back up again!
But if for some reason, they are not up at 5 months, you can start thinking
about possibly taping them at 5 1/2 - 6mths.
Here you can find how to do it:
http://www.4gsd.net/earsup.html
http://www.total-german-shepherd.com/GermanShepherdeartaping.html
http://leerburg.com/tapingears.htm
Obedience training
1. Learning phase,
training only with rewards and no corrections, can be done before 6 mths old
2.Correction phase, can start once the pup knows what is expected of him, after
6 mths old
I highly recommend the following Obedience video to everyone,
even if you do not plan on competing with your dog.
This will help you if you have trouble with your dog pulling on the leash on
walks,
and once you learn how to teach your dog correctly, he/she will learn many
tricks very quickly!
http://www.leerburg.com/302.htm
Behavior training:
One of the most important commands that you can teach your dog is a "Settle" command.
Good for "Tasmanian devils" and shy dogs, and
all dogs in between!
http://www.grcco.org/teaching_your_dog_to_settle.htm
Herding: