I have a 11 month old GSD that was neutered at 7 months I believe.I say I believe because the guy whom I got him from said he had this at 7 months, it could of been sooner for all I know.Any way I wanted to ask at what age do gsd's go through the so called teenage stage and how long does this last for? Would him being neutered have any bareing on this? He seems to be a dominant personality and seems to be more defiant every day. I take Zane to training once a week and train him every day for 2 hours.
Any answers would be greatfuly recieved

Geri

Wow training for two hours per day? Is that solid two hours or do you do it in 5 - 10 minute intervals?  I train mine twice a day for 10 minutes each time, practising recall, sit, stay, come, down etc.  Then we finish off each time with play. What do you do? They are 6 months and 16 months old. Don't know about the 'teenage' stage, mine always seem to be 'at that stage' :D

Dee

IME dogs who appear defiant either don't understand or are not motivated enough ;)
Dogs trained with some methods can learn to switch off because they don't look forward to training.
Also, if your training class is one  with lots of stressed dogs, it's not a good place to be. Dogs work best in happy stress free atmospheres.
Dogs do test boundaries etc, but that can be solved with training and learning a bit about canine behaviour. If the dog was with someone else for the first months of its life, it may also have learnt some bad habits and how to get his own way etc, but that's just how dogs are. It's up to us to work with the dog and train for what we want...I agree, training for 2 hours seems a very long time.... I take it you mean you take him out and train on and off for 2 hours, as I would do if I did trials training; not that you literally train him for that long?!

Can you give more details on his behaviour, how you try to solve problems, how you train, etc? How do you motivate Zane? :)

Lindsay
x

Hiya Geri

I too have an 11 mth old male gsd so i am very sympathetic to what you are going through as we are going through the same stage with Alfie. What works with him when he is being disobediant is time out as no amount of telling him off seems to bother him so when he plays up i put him in another room behind baby gate for 5 mins at a time and this seems to be working.

When you say he is being dominant, what is he doing? Is he challenging you or is he just trying it on? As for the neutering we had Alfie done at 8 months and haven't really noticed a change in him in that way, the only obvious difference is that he is now much calmer around other dogs.

2 hours per day? how do you do it, feel like a really bad mummy now!! :-)