i posted recently about benji having an incident outside of the shops. well im pleased to say i dont take him with me any more.

i have been doing a lot of thinking as to what happened that day. and becasue i did not see what actually happend i cant be 100% what happened. that was intill i saw the lady who had the stick in person the other day.

she remembered me and came over to have a word. she said she was sorry to of upset benji. i went on to ask her what happened and she said that all she did was walk past him and she wasnt that close to him either.

she said he just went mad and through him self towards her and started to bark and snap. she said for a few seconds she just froze and then tried to sooth him saying its ok, but he was having none of it. so thats when the group of adults waiting to go in to work got involved. they asked what was wrong and the lady said that the dog had started for no reason. so they stayed with im intill i came out of the shop.

by which time i saw him cowering , and so assumed he was scared.

however on the way home from the shop we stopped at the park and he had a run, and he was fine.
since that day he has become very cocky. he has been more confident than usual with other dogs, his recall has gone up the creak. i will call him and he will look at me then carry on with what he is doing.

then the other day a man was walking past with a dog and he had a walking stick and benji was on the end of the lead snapping and barking to go after the man. i was very shocked and realised that this is what must of happened out side the shop.

benji is used to mops and brooms and the hoover he has seen them every day since he has been with me. and is not botherd by them. in fact he plays with the mop.

however the other day when i was hovvering he started to get nasty with the hoover becasue is was on.

i have started to put him on a long line when we go out becaseu of his recall. and he shows his discust by walkign to the end of it then pulling as hard as he can to try and pbviously pull me over.

he has never been a puller on the lead.

he has started to run at the cats and growl at them and the other night when the door went i opened it and he came runnign in from the kitchen towadrs the frount door growling becasue there was someone at the door.

he is still his usual nice self when its just me and bethany playing with him but again if there is a knock at the door he goes mad.

when i give him his feed now instead of eating it he stands back from it waiting for one of the cats to sniff it. he almost invites them over to it. then as soon as they get near he will run at it and growl.

this is his true naturwe coming through along with the testosterone?

a few peoel have warned me that becasue he had a shaky start to life he may be a hand full later in life.

i have no toruble contrillign him , but i am dissapopinted that he seems to have become this way.

even when he plays with dogs he has been round since 13 weeks, he has now started to challange them and become rougth.

any ideas?

just to add that he has been to the vets and they coudl nto find any thing wrong, and he isnt ovewr weight and is walked out 2 times a day.

So sorry to hear about Benji, I have been watching his progress as I have a GSD coming up for 5 months. I have noticed my ones posture changes a bit now when he sees other dogs, as you say looks a bit cocky, but so far he has been fine. am not qualified to give advice to you but I am sure someone will be along soon, who hopefully will be able to help. Good Luck!!!

Hi benjismum,

Try to relax a bit.  I know it seems like all these different things add up and they look like a 'character change' but I don't think they are.  I think most of them are normal doggy behaviours, especially for an adolescent GSD.

What you need to do is to look at each one of them in turn and make a plan for how to solve it.  There's no 'overall' thing you can do to solve all of these behaviours.

First - it sounds like, as I said in the other post, Benji is afraid of sticks.  Whether this is because someone hit him with one before you got him or because he was just undersocialised to them, we'll never know.  Did you read my post on the other thread?  About getting hold of some sticks and desensitising him to them?  Well, that's what I think the plan of action for the stick aggression is.  This is fear aggression, so theoretically if you can get rid of his fear you will get rid of his need to be aggressive to sticks!

The other things you mention:

"Being more confident with other dogs":  Not sure what you mean by that one - it sounds like a good thing to me, so far!

"His recall has gone up the creak. i will call him and he will look at me then carry on with what he is doing.":  What are you giving him when he recalls to you?  (In the past, when he did recall?)  I seem to remember, and please forgive me if I've remembered wrong here, but I seem to remember a post from you a while back, when you said that Benji used to have a good recall to you for praise etc.  But one time he saw another dog and then he was off, and wouldn't come back.  And you were worried about that.  I think I posted some recall suggestions there.  Have you been trying them? 

Let me just explain what happens for a lot, a lot of owners:  Owner gets the puppy at a young age.  The puppy at that age is insecure and not confident and sticks close to the owner and comes whenever the owner calls and praises the pup.  The owner thinks this means that the pup has a 'good' recall and doesn't bother to reward with food or toys.  The pup grows older and gets more confident and goes through adolescence.  He no longer thinks his world revolves around his owner and thinks that praise is too weak to come to you for.  You should be rewarding recalls with extremely delicious treats.  By that I mean - jerky, hotdog sausages, sardines, liver - whatever is the most delicious thing to your dog.  Praise isn't enough!! 

"he started to get nasty with the hoover becasue is was on" - No, not because it was on, but because he has been badly or undersocialised to it.  You must do the stick desensitisation exercise but with the hoover.  (Treats around the hoover, offer dog treats for sniffing hoover, turn hoover on, more treats around hoover, more treats for sniffing hoover.)

"he shows his discust by walkign to the end of it then pulling as hard as he can to try and pbviously pull me over." - No, dogs don't 'show disgust'.  He pulled into the lead because he's not used to having it on and being that far away from you.  Being on the end of a long line is not the same as being by your side on a lead, and a dog will pull on one and not the other.  Dogs don't generalise.  I suggest when he's on your long line you just ignore him and stand still.  Don't let him pull you.  He'll soon realise it's more interesting to explore the ground than just pull on the lead.

"he has started to run at the cats and growl at them and the other night when the door went i opened it and he came runnign in from the kitchen towadrs the frount door growling becasue there was someone at the door.":  Well, you've got a GSD.....  Dogs have prey drives, especially GSDs.  Usually if brought up with cats from when small they will be ok, but there will still be occasional moments when they might see the cats as prey again because of the context.  You can't really do anything about this, except give the cats somewhere to escape to away from the dog.  As for growling at the door - again, he is a GSD with strong guarding instincts and this is to be expected and there's not much you can do about that either. 

All that's happened is that your little pup has grown up....

what i mean with the sticks and the hoover is that he was never botherd with them, and at home i cam touch him with stick, hes had childrens toys , things that make a funny noise, balloones on long strings all sorts of things and he is fine with them all. on walks i can pick up big branches to move them out of the way from the buugy and he will just sit there.

the hoover never used to bother him i could hoover round him while he was asleep. but he has suddely became botherd with the,.

the cats he was introduced to at the age of 13 weeks the cats were 10 weeks. and up to now they have been very good friends. they even at times sleep together, they sit with each other and groom each other. if someone came to the door benji was intrested in who it was but he was never agressive about it.

and what i mean by being more confident round other dogs is that before he would run from strange doigs if they stared at him and he would quietly sit on the lead while strange dogs passed and i would praise him . but now he will growl and bark at strange dogs passing.

the recall did go a while back and i tried the treat method and i have been using it ever since. its suddenly that he has not been intrested.

he has also started to toilet out side somethign he never would do, and woudl actually hold it in to the point of crossing his legs.

all these little thigns have all started at once.

today since posting this moring i took him out again on the long lead and he was a lot better. and more relaxed about being on the lead. he also went to toilet out side which again is something new.

he does seem to have a strong hguarding instinct which is fine. i knwo GDS's are known for this. it was just that benji had suddenly gone from say boo and he jumps to being really bold.

which is in some ways good, but in others ways still a shock.