Lost and found. German Shepard Biddulph, stoke on trent
Discussion
Missed this thread first time round.
What a brilliant story. So pleased that it has ended well for all of you.
The cherry on the top for me was hearing the background story from the old owner, oh and that Nose!
Gsd's are surprisingly timid dogs for their size and breeding. They are also really really loyal to only a few selected people so that guy must have had very little to do with him to have accepted/ chosen you guys as the new owners.
Really lovely. Well done.
What a brilliant story. So pleased that it has ended well for all of you.
The cherry on the top for me was hearing the background story from the old owner, oh and that Nose!
Gsd's are surprisingly timid dogs for their size and breeding. They are also really really loyal to only a few selected people so that guy must have had very little to do with him to have accepted/ chosen you guys as the new owners.
Really lovely. Well done.
t Monday thanks OP.
Well good afternoon PH massive,
Thought i would give everyone who has paid an interest an update as we have had some major changes with diesel over the last few weeks.
its a bit of a long story so bare with me on this.
When we go out walking we use a varied selection of leads. Due to his terrible recall we don't let him of the lead. now as the wife wants him to have some freedom so she uses on of those extendy leads so he can trot around to his hearts content. i personally like him next to me and use a short lead. he is some times aggressive to other dogs. some he is fine with some he does not like. for some reason Akitas really boil his piss and we don't know why. so when we are out and we see another dog we make him sit. we do this for 2 reasons. 1 so it calms or try's to calm him down 2. he is easier to handle when sat. I can hold him but the wife struggles when he is essentially walking on his back legs to get to another dog. this is much easier to do with a short lead which is why i use this.
fast forward a few weeks and we had a incident. well the wife did. she was down her grandfathers and he was being an angel. door open and he just sat in the house while she decorated. she took him for a walk and went past the cows he did not bother about them. unfortunately going home was another story. when she turned the corner to go in the house he went for the cows. as he was on this extendy lead he had built up 26 ft of momentum. he has such an explosive burst of speed there was only going to be one outcome. i turned the corner to see the wife going from vertical to horizontal in a split second. it was such force that he pulled her over the hedge and she landed flat faced on the concrete. i ran up and picked her up and asked if she was ok. she had massive bruises on both knees, elbows, chest and stomach. the hedge is 5 foot and she went over it like superman. i then went after the dog. i took me 20 mins to catch him while he was rounding up these cows. when i finally managed to get hold of him he got a stern telling of (no hitting as i will explain in a bit). while i dragged him back all he wanted to do was get to these cows and nothing was going to stop him. when i got home and finished showering him i thought right its time for drastic measures.
we have been going to the puppy school as i call it every week for about a year now. To say he hasn't improved would be wrong. his first lesson he could only stand 2 mins with other dogs but now does the whole lesson. we have however, as previously described in the tread, got new dogs in the class that have issues. he training has faltered now and he hasn't progressed in the last 3 months. after much searching the internet i narrowed it down to 2 trainers, one in wales and one in Stafford. the chap in Stafford won as he is an ex police dog trainer and used to training shepherds. i did discuss this with my current trainer and she agreed that diesel has kinda gone back or faulted and this may be better for him. her only concern was that he may be harsh with him. i assured her that even if i paid and he was i wouldn't go back. diesel is my best pal and i want the best for him and i would never harm or allow others to harm him.
so this brings me on to my next bit Craig Flint or "The Dog Man" as he is know paid us a visit yesterday.
Predominantly its web based by which i mean he will visit and asses you, then open up various pages on his site to the best training method for your dog. you then follow the plan and call him for further training sessions. it may be biweekly or bimonthly depending on how your dog does. now its not cheap the first session cost me in excess of £200.
so this chap turned up yesterday for the first visit. he sat down and talked us through the different methods and how my dog thinks. now i know why he charges so much. by god does this chap know his dogs. one of his first questions was when i talked about the cow incident "did you hit your dog" i said no, i would never hit him its wrong and that would make me as bad as the previous owner. he openly admitted if i had done he would not be here.
after much talking and discussing we have found out the most effective method to teach him. i wont say the other methods are wrong or incorrect but for my dog the method he described is most beneficial to us and diesel. i don't want a robot dog but when i say sit i want him to sit and not move or more importantly react to another source such as a dog or cow. i want his recall to be come her now (once) and he does it with out question or hesitation. i want to be able to let him off so he can run around with out fear if incident.
I have to be honest i wish i had done this a year ago. i leaned more in one 3 hour visit yesterday than i have in 1 year of training school. his knowledge was unbelievable and i honestly i am in awe what he did with my dog only after the first session. as diesel has learned all his traits while he was a puppy albeit wrong ones he has to relearn them and that's the bit puppy school hasn't been very successful with.
we have do do lots of things new and the biggest and hardest part is not to think of him as a human. he is not very driven when training by food or toys. we we have to up the drive for food. he has taught us how to do this. effectively its a complete change for diesel but were only on day one and i can already see an improvement. once we learn the basics we are then going to learn to track. both me and the dog will have to learn this to be effective.
Sorry for war and peace but you all have been so nice and inquisitive in to how he is doing so i thought i would share this with you.
Regards
Hairy & Diesel.
Thought i would give everyone who has paid an interest an update as we have had some major changes with diesel over the last few weeks.
its a bit of a long story so bare with me on this.
When we go out walking we use a varied selection of leads. Due to his terrible recall we don't let him of the lead. now as the wife wants him to have some freedom so she uses on of those extendy leads so he can trot around to his hearts content. i personally like him next to me and use a short lead. he is some times aggressive to other dogs. some he is fine with some he does not like. for some reason Akitas really boil his piss and we don't know why. so when we are out and we see another dog we make him sit. we do this for 2 reasons. 1 so it calms or try's to calm him down 2. he is easier to handle when sat. I can hold him but the wife struggles when he is essentially walking on his back legs to get to another dog. this is much easier to do with a short lead which is why i use this.
fast forward a few weeks and we had a incident. well the wife did. she was down her grandfathers and he was being an angel. door open and he just sat in the house while she decorated. she took him for a walk and went past the cows he did not bother about them. unfortunately going home was another story. when she turned the corner to go in the house he went for the cows. as he was on this extendy lead he had built up 26 ft of momentum. he has such an explosive burst of speed there was only going to be one outcome. i turned the corner to see the wife going from vertical to horizontal in a split second. it was such force that he pulled her over the hedge and she landed flat faced on the concrete. i ran up and picked her up and asked if she was ok. she had massive bruises on both knees, elbows, chest and stomach. the hedge is 5 foot and she went over it like superman. i then went after the dog. i took me 20 mins to catch him while he was rounding up these cows. when i finally managed to get hold of him he got a stern telling of (no hitting as i will explain in a bit). while i dragged him back all he wanted to do was get to these cows and nothing was going to stop him. when i got home and finished showering him i thought right its time for drastic measures.
we have been going to the puppy school as i call it every week for about a year now. To say he hasn't improved would be wrong. his first lesson he could only stand 2 mins with other dogs but now does the whole lesson. we have however, as previously described in the tread, got new dogs in the class that have issues. he training has faltered now and he hasn't progressed in the last 3 months. after much searching the internet i narrowed it down to 2 trainers, one in wales and one in Stafford. the chap in Stafford won as he is an ex police dog trainer and used to training shepherds. i did discuss this with my current trainer and she agreed that diesel has kinda gone back or faulted and this may be better for him. her only concern was that he may be harsh with him. i assured her that even if i paid and he was i wouldn't go back. diesel is my best pal and i want the best for him and i would never harm or allow others to harm him.
so this brings me on to my next bit Craig Flint or "The Dog Man" as he is know paid us a visit yesterday.
Predominantly its web based by which i mean he will visit and asses you, then open up various pages on his site to the best training method for your dog. you then follow the plan and call him for further training sessions. it may be biweekly or bimonthly depending on how your dog does. now its not cheap the first session cost me in excess of £200.
so this chap turned up yesterday for the first visit. he sat down and talked us through the different methods and how my dog thinks. now i know why he charges so much. by god does this chap know his dogs. one of his first questions was when i talked about the cow incident "did you hit your dog" i said no, i would never hit him its wrong and that would make me as bad as the previous owner. he openly admitted if i had done he would not be here.
after much talking and discussing we have found out the most effective method to teach him. i wont say the other methods are wrong or incorrect but for my dog the method he described is most beneficial to us and diesel. i don't want a robot dog but when i say sit i want him to sit and not move or more importantly react to another source such as a dog or cow. i want his recall to be come her now (once) and he does it with out question or hesitation. i want to be able to let him off so he can run around with out fear if incident.
I have to be honest i wish i had done this a year ago. i leaned more in one 3 hour visit yesterday than i have in 1 year of training school. his knowledge was unbelievable and i honestly i am in awe what he did with my dog only after the first session. as diesel has learned all his traits while he was a puppy albeit wrong ones he has to relearn them and that's the bit puppy school hasn't been very successful with.
we have do do lots of things new and the biggest and hardest part is not to think of him as a human. he is not very driven when training by food or toys. we we have to up the drive for food. he has taught us how to do this. effectively its a complete change for diesel but were only on day one and i can already see an improvement. once we learn the basics we are then going to learn to track. both me and the dog will have to learn this to be effective.
Sorry for war and peace but you all have been so nice and inquisitive in to how he is doing so i thought i would share this with you.
Regards
Hairy & Diesel.
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