Hi I am a new member and the owner of two german shepherds one is 16 months and he ignores the down command at home until he has been told at least twice he understands the command because he does it first time at obedience training

hi i am a new member and the owner of two german shepherds one is 16 months and he ignores the down command at home until he has been told at least twice he understands the command because he does it first time at obedience training
Give him an incentive or something !

That is interesting. Perhaps the instructor has been teaching him that he, not you are the leader. Stand up straight, make eye contact with him, and give him the command. Do not repeat the command. Just quietly stand there holding eye contact. First one to look away loses. He should break eye contact and then comply. When he does, praise him and give him a treat if you are using a treat. Your class could be over using treats. Being told down should be all the incentive he needs. Pay attention to how you are doing things at class, tone of voice, and do the same thing at home.

Dogs see all the people and dogs in the household as a pack with each having their own rank in the pack and a top dog. Life is much easier if the 2 legged pack members outrank the 4 legged ones. You can learn to play the role of top dog by reading some books or going to a good obedience class. A good obedience class or book is about you being top dog, not about rewarding standard commands with a treat. Start at Raising Your Dog with the Monks of New Skete (http://www.dogsbestfriend.com/) For more on being top dog, see Establishing and Keeping Alpha Position, Letting your dog know you are the boss (http://www.dogbreedinfo.com./topdogrules.htm)

I agree with Labman.Shephards need to know who is the pack leader.You must be very diligent with the training at home as well as in obedience class.They will test you. A gentle correction after the first command I find best. I never give a command twice .I have a nine year old shepard that I have never used treats to train just commands snd praise. The book Labman suggests is great.

Hi! I've been doing some training classes myself, and one thing that the instructor emphasizes is that dogs are very good discriminators, and very bad generalizers. So, if you tell your dog to "Sit" in the kitchen, when you are on the rug, in front of the sink, holding his food dish, he may do that perfectly. But "Sit" in the living room, by the television, without the food dish, is an entirely different set of circumstances. And it takes a lot of repetition and changes before the dog gets that the important part is the "sit" and not the location or the person saying the command. So your dog may be perfectly capable of doing the command at the trainer's, because that is where he learned it. So keep working with him until he learns that it means the same thing where ever he hears it.

(Real life example: My dog totally ignored the cat's food when it was in the computer room, with only one sharp correction the first time she went towards it. After four months, I moved the food to the spare bedroom. The first day it was in there, she licked the bowls clean. New room, new rules!)

''So, if you tell your dog to "Sit" in the kitchen, when you are on the rug, in front of the sink, holding his food dish, he may do that perfectly. But "Sit" in the living room, by the television, without the food dish, is an entirely different set of circumstances.''

I have some real problems with that statement. With all the reading and training I have had, with well qualified people, I don't remember ever hearing any thing like that. It doesn't fit with my experience either. A dog trained to sit or any other command should obey wherever it is and regardless of what ever distraction.

When I urge people to obedience train their dogs, I also emphasize they need a good book or trainer. I have a list of good books in my sticky although many of them aren't the basic book to start dog training, https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/dogs/information-articles-our-dogs-expert-labman-53153.html#post251804

Many of the dog training courses are very poor. Time after time I see questions here or elsewhere where somebody's dog is still totally out of control after going through an obedience class. I must admit a lack of experience with adult training classes. Although my youngest child is almost 30, my puppies still go to 4-H where I see excellent leaders that teach the kids in proper obedience. I have gone to the state fair dog show many times and seen all the dogs doing well in a strange, highly distracting environment.

As for the cat food in the bedroom, that could be more a lack of supervision. No means not when I am looking.

''So, if you tell your dog to "Sit" in the kitchen, when you are on the rug, in front of the sink, holding his food dish, he may do that perfectly. But "Sit" in the living room, by the television, without the food dish, is an entirely different set of circumstances.''

I have some real problems with that statement. With all the reading and training I have had, with well qualified people, I don't remember ever hearing any thing like that. It doesn't fit with my experience either. A dog trained to sit or any other command should obey wherever it is and regardless of what ever distraction.

This is true. However, and maybe I wasn't clear about this, training a dog to sit in one location doesn't mean that it is trained to sit. But, if you have only trained your dog in the living room, say, and then ask it to sit out at the park, the dog isn't being stubborn or spiteful when it doesn't do it. It just hasn't learned that "sit" means sit no matter where it is. Humans, on the other hand, are excellent generalizers and really bad discriminators, so we get frustrated when the dog doesn't generalize a command from one location to another, or from one person to another. The solution, of course, is to work on a command in several different spots and with different distractions around, until the dog is actually trained to understand that the important thing is the word "sit", and not all the other things. Too many people think that just because the dog will do the command reliably in one situation, it's trained, and thus they don't bother to proof the command and get upset when the dog disobeys.


As for the cat food in the bedroom, that could be more a lack of supervision. No means not when I am looking.

No... the dog had just as much of a chance to get the cat food in the computer room, since it was left open during the day when I wasn't at home. Since I've gated off the spare bedroom as the cats' "safe room", I haven't bothered to try and convince her to leave the food alone there.