My six month german shepherd doesn't listen?
She knows tricks, and she learns really fast actually. When we rescued her she had no training and we have been training her for a month now. The only problem is she listens with little or even no distractions. If the tv is on, she won't listen. If she sees a shadow on the wall, she won't listen. I know yelling at her won't help, so I am always patient with her. She will do anything if you have food, even with distractions, but I don't want to always have to use food just to tell her to sit. The problem isn't that she can't learn tricks, it's just she doesn't listen. Please help?
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You need to slowly (very slowly) increase the amount of distraction from level one to level two to level three and so on. Are you exercising her on a daily basis? 45+ minutes at least once a day will help.
I think the other problem is respect. She really doesn't respect you if she won't listen. You need to work on respect gaining exercises. This means:
- dog sleeps on floor
- dog doesn't share your furniture
- dog eats AFTER you eat and you don't share
- when you're eating dog is in a down position somewhere..if the dog moves you immediately get up say "No" and put the dog back in the position. She will fight you..you just have to stay calm and persistent. If you let her get away with it she wins and you're giving her power.
- dog leaves house AFTER you and enters AFTER you (this is very important..the leader always leads)
- mix her food with your bare hands (you want your scent on it..the leader provides food) and make her sit and wait before she can get it. The dog should look at you and wait for you to tell them its fine to eat before eating. (I can put my pup's food down and she'll stare at me, not the bowl, until I tell her she can have it, she's respecting the food and waiting until I say she can have it to eat).
etc...
You need to work on gaining respect. She trusts you she just has very little respect in your authority which is why she won't listen. Just changing the way you are with her will help. If she comes up and pushes her head against you or begs for attention ignore her. I know its hard but you're being the leader. The pack leader gives attention out on their time not on the dogs. When you want to pet her call her and make her sit, then pet. Once you've gained her respect you can be a little more lenient with some of the rules but if she starts acting up you have to become strict again. Keep working at it. Good luck :]
Training her for a month is great. Great Job, but...Your expecting to much at this point. She is not even old enough to be able to do a long sit/stay, down/stay unless you worked with her for a long period at a time. Usually, it's only the dog trainers who could devote their time to this type of work. Your right on yelling at her. Remember she is a puppy still. Continue the work you are doing. Expect success, but not in two months , three months, four months or even at a year old. But, continually working with her means that one day, you will have an outstanding dog
I have a puppy too. She is crazy! She is now just over 1 year old. But when she was younger she got very distracted too. After a while, she will settle. babies sometimes don't listen too because they don't really understand what your saying and are young. so its just because she's not exactly used to you yet, even if she knows tricks.
hope i helped.
Go into a room where there are no distractions. When you train your dog make sure you are training with one word per trick because if you keep switching words you can confuse your dog. praise your dog and give it treats in small amounts. If you buy a clicker you can click every time you're dog does a trick right, it helps. hope I helped you(: