More puppy problems. :) My German Sherpherd puppy is very smart. However, sometimes he refuses to lay down. He knows the command and will do it for a treat. Most of the time he'll do it without a treat. When he gets too rowdy I ask him to lay down and he just turns his head and totally ignores me. A trainer told me to show him I mean it. I have flipped him over on his back, but it doesn't work, and I don't want to hurt him. What do you do when he defies the command.

Eek at 'flipped him over on his back'. Easy way to get bitten though....

You don't need to show him you mean it. You need to make him love, trust and respect you so that he wants to do as you ask him. Dogs work ont he basis of 'what's in it for me', so if he's clever, adn there's nothing in it for him, why bother?

I would probably just rarely ask him to do it without a treat for now, or keep treats in your hand, but don't give him one every third (or random) time. That way, he will think he MIGHT get a treat if he goes down. Then take it from there.

Thanks. I hate to flip him over but that was the advice I was given. It's seems very mean. I'll try to keep treats with me at all times.

You have Alpha rolled a young puppy ???????

He's only 3 1/2 months or so isn't he ? & you expect total obedience ? Gosh, have you had a GSD or similar before ?

Not even my BCs obey everytime at this age, they will sit & go down, but not everytime. I wouldn't expect it at this age.

You need to train him & not use the training to punish him when he is misbehaving.

I don't expect him to obey all the time. But I don't like him turning his head away. I also don't use commands (or anything else) as punishment. Just ways to distract him.

Puppies get distracted. They do look away, there is always something exciting going on. Pups are defiant, they test the boundaries. You need to show him you are someone he can trust, not that he has to do what you say or suffer the consequences. It's like saying to your child 'Will you go to the shop and buy me some teabags please, and I'll give you £2' or 'Will you go to the shop and get some teabags for me please, if you don't, I'll smash your face in'. Either way, you're likely to get your teabags, but which way would you prefer?

Alpha rolling is never acceptable. It will be absolutely terrifying for your pup, as the ONLY time a dog would do it in the wild is when they were about to kill. Your pup must have been terrified.

I really think you need to get another trainer, or you really risk your pup retaliating at some point. At absolute best, he will be scared of you.

Turning his head away isn't neccesarily defiance, dogs turn their head/eyes away to avoid a challenge/challenging you ;)  It could be that you are coming across on these occasions as too strong and intimidating? - especially to a pup ;) 

>But I don't like him turning his head away.

Turning the head away is also an extreme form of appeasement. When under stress a dog will often look away in order to placate the animal or person which is causing the unhappiness. Often just looking away is enough, but to actually turn the head is making it as obvious as it can that the animal is being submissive.

To his mind it's probably more fun being rowdy than lying down.  Expecting a bit much too soon IMO; the trick is to make it more interesting and rewarding to obey than not as far as he's concerned.  I wouldn't ask him to lie down in the middle of his rowdiness at this point, that's boring to him and he can be trained to do it later.  It also sounds as though he's associating it with ignore/look away. 

Call him, get his attention and reward him by giving him something interesting to do to use that energy, play a game, seek is one I play often with mine.  If you can't get his attention, start by trying when he's not so occupied and build on that. 

Have patience and be the most interesting and fun person to have around.  Build a bond with your pup, be spontaneous and forget the Alpha rolls, they don't work; find a new trainer would be a good idea too.

Puppy hood is a fantastic time, enjoy it, we don't get it back.

PS, hard work and a full time job bringing up pups together, makes training so much harder.

Hi Blue Feather.

Just a few questions.

Do you have any other dogs that live with you?

Does he have a designated bed to lie on such as a vet bed etc? Somewhere he will relax and be able to sleep.

When you ask him to lie down are you using lots of words or are you just saying "lie" or "lie down"

How many times are you repeating before you show him what you want him to do.

Also when he doesnt do what you have asked of him, do you have a calm voice or is your voice slightly raised with a bit of frustration evident?

I have always had GSDs and they can sometimes be stubborn expecially if there is something else distracting them. But they can be very loyal and extremely obedient and it is a case of gentle persuasion and being consistant in training, giving plenty of praise so they want to please you of their own accord. Training doesnt require doing an alpha roll or increasing tone of voice. Sometimes dogs will look away and pretend to ignore if they are a bit stressed thus avoiding eye contact.

I would be quite wary of a trainer telling you to flip a puppy onto their back as you are then commanding that they do as you tell them through fear and this isnt the best way forward. Obedience comes through the dogs love and respect of you and hence wanting to please you.

First things first, I would ensure that your pup has a bed in an area of the room that he is comfortable with. And if he is needing a bit of time out then I would tell him "bed". If he doesnt understand walk over to the bed  and call him to you and pat his bed, telling him "bed"  When he steps onto his bed, give him fuss and tell him good boy and a treat. You will need to repeat this being consistand and it wont take long before your pup has an understanding of what you are asking of him. He will understand that this is where he needs to relax. Patience and lots of repetition and plenty of praise are the key.

If he doesnt do as you want, tell him no and then coax him to where you want him to be. It may need a few bribes with treats but you will get there in the end.

With my female GSD when I trained her to lie. I had trained her to sit first of all. When she was fully conversant with the sit command, then I taught her to lie. Its important not to bring too many commands in at once as your pup will get confused otherwise. So its best to teach them one thing at a time, until they are really good at doing what you have asked of them. When I trained her to lie I would tap the floor gently with the palm of my hand repeating the word lie. If you show your pup you have a treat, he will do lots of things he will think is right for the treat initially. ie he may sit, may give you his paw, bark etc..but when he lies, ensure you give him lots of fuss and of course his treat so he will then start to word associate with the action he has performed.

As a young pup he will have lots of energy and will need plenty of mental stimulation and of course lots of fuss to bond with you. My dogs love playing with their Kongs. You can fill it with healthy treats and they will play happily with it for ages finding ways to get the treat out.

I hope the above advice has helped. If i can help any further just let me know. And meanwhile enjoy your pup and have lots of fun as this is part of the bonding process.  xxx

TBH asking a puppy to lie down or do ANY command when he's being  "rowdy"  is setting him up to fail.

Dogs do not, as a rule, disobey out of awkwardness or defiance.  If he doesn't obey you it is because  A) He hasn't understood or B) He is distracted.

Just because a dog understands, say, the word  "sit"  when you are in the living room, it does not follow that he will understand it in the garden. You need to train in ALL kinds of places and situations, working up from mild to strong distraction, before you can consider the behaviour  "proofed"....

For instance - my BCX puppy learned  "sit"  in the kitchen. When I asked her to do the same thing in the garden, she looked at me as if she didn't understand a word I said. So we went back to luring the behaviour for a day or so, until she performed "sit"  in the garden as quickly as she did in the kitchen. Then when we were out walking on the field, I asked her to sit and she sat, but hesitantly.... so we lured a couple of times.  When I asked her to sit in my friend's indoor riding arena, she sat immediately, even though she hadn't sat there before - because she had learned that  sit means sit, no matter where we are, or what surface she is on.  So it isn't as if you have to do things in every single location in the world for it to be reliable - you just have to do enough so that they understand that the word, not the location, matters.

Similarly, with a young pup, there is no point asking for a behaviour when you are fairly sure it is going to fail, such as when they are  lively or rowdy.  Just won't happen and you are teaching your dog to ignore you. Of course, EVENTUALLY the dog will have all his commands so ingrained that he will react to you no matter where he is or how lively he is, but until then, work up GRADUALLY :)

I have a strong minded golden, a gorgeous boy and when he was a puppy he could be naughty, he still has a few off days now.  But I have learned that when he gets scolded or we sound grumpy he tends to retaliate, gets grumpy back and ignores our commands.  However, if we speak to him nicely and tell him not to do something he listens and does exactly what we want. 

Your puppy needs to learn to trust you and you being grumpy with him won't help that.  It is a fine line between showing him who he can trust and respect and who he can ignore.

>When he gets too rowdy I ask him to lay down and he just turns his head and totally ignores me.

Read this link about calming signals by Turid Rugaas (scroll down to the part about turning away).

Better still, print it out and give it to your trainer to read too!

As you have gathered playing the Alpha roll to a pup does not go down well, it is a lazy option which can have very bad consequences, your voice, facial expressions and body language show your authority and is all you need to show you are the master, if that does not control a pup then an Alpha roll certainly wont make your roll any stronger, just encourage a pup who does not obey to push the boundaries even further, progressing to a bite or to give you a good telling off.

Praise and reward works great with most pups, most as already said will obey commands because they wish to please you, however, I do know some pups can be very rebellious, (my brothers oldest GSD in particular was) and need a stronger hand than others, this is when you bring in segregation, a strong willed voice, consistancy, whistles or clickers I highly recommend to help control your pup/dog, go and get a book on the subject it will help immensly.

When he gets too rowdy I ask him to lay down and he just turns his head and totally ignores me.

It is difficult when not there to witness exactly what you mean by this, but if a pup were rowdy, (excitable, overly noisy?) asking it to lay down IMO would be the wrong command altogether.

If he is excitable then pop him in segregation to calm down, if he is noisy, then the commands Shush! or Quite! are more appropriate, it is hard for a pup if full of energy and adrenalin to have to lay down, infact near on impossible, you need to let him calm down first, which is probably why he does not listen, or get your command in before he really gets going, probably why he only does the command when doing it for fun and a treat.

Just be consistant and calm, if he has a strong will, be stronger, repeat your commands until he does it, but make sure the commands are appropriate for the situation. ;-) He will soon learn that he can not always have his own way.

Alpha rolling isn't the answer :-) 

I wouldn't expect a pup to do everything I wanted it to in an instant, and believe me, I have experience of GSD's.

Treats are fine (if you're not happy using something else, use part of the pups meals as treats) stand in front of pup, put him or her in a sit - by holding treat just above the head......lower your hand to the floor, slowly..... so pups nose and front legs follow, whilst saying 'Down' (or whatever word you want to use) it works.  You could then start doing that without treats and just give a fuss.  Try it when the pup is calm though - it's much more difficult trying to get a puppy who is full of beans to do what you want him/her to do!
I haven't explained this very well - it's late and I should be in bed :-D

Best of luck - get rid of the trainer ;-)

How old is the pup?  I may have missed it, if it's already been mentioned.

That's fine if you want them to learn to go down from a sit :)

A better way to teach the down  (especially if you might need an  "emergency"  down) is to have the dog in a stand and a treat in your closed fist. Place the treat hand on the floor, between the dog's front paws. It will sniff and probably paw at the hand. Don't give up the treat, but possibly open your hand a TEENY bit so that the dog can smell the treat - basically enough to keep the dog's interest.  Eventually the dog will lie down by folding sort of back and down, with his whole body going down at the same time if you see what I mean, rather than back end then front end ... the SECOND it does, open your hand so that it can eat the treat.  Repeat until the dog realises that the way to open your hand is to lie down. Then you can start putting a word to it. After a while, gradually, aiming your hand down and between the legs while saying  "down"  will have the same effect and you can turn it into a hand signal rather than a lure.... gradually standing straighter, fading out the hand signal and replacing with just the command  :)

A clicker helps teach this really easily  :)

My GSD is 5 yrs old & still sometimes doesn't obey me immediately, especially if we are training for obedience. He knows what I mean, but does things sometimes after a second or 2 (or even 10 on a bad day) delay! Having said that we won an obedience competition at my local club which was judged by a policeman. I was chuffed to bits & very surprised, but Zak was having a 'good' day, while many of the others competing, were not! Now, when I train for agility, Zak obeys me immediately, I put this down to him finding this much more fun & fast & exciting, he finds obedience sooooooooo boring! He watches me all the time too while agility training, perhaps it's me who doesn't make the obedience training fun enough. Your puppy is very young, Zak was very easily distracted until he was about 3yrs old.