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OK, it's a well known fact that most humans, about 57 percent love pets, according to 27,000 online consumers surveyed by gfk in 22 countries, and about 90 percent of the pet lovers prefer a dog as company. Here, I'm going to give a brief run down on how to take care of and train some popular and common dog breeds. I guess most common breeds are the Rottweiler, the German Shepard and the Pitbull. I'll be talking about these for now. Let's start!
First, let's talk about the German Shepard (aka GSD, Alsatian) -
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Now dogs generally, can start training between 7 to 8 weeks of age. By this time they should have developed to an extent where they can easily adapt to the environment. The few steps to training your GSD are below:
1)Begin your training at an early age, around 8 weeks:
If you start with a puppy, you have a better opportunity at shaping and developing it's relationship skills. If you happen to get an older GSD, no problem, it can still be trained. It's good to teach it to relate with people (your friends and constant visitors) early because they are very over protective.
2)Start to gently handle their paws, ears, tails etc:
This dog is usually a big and strong breed and you'd want to prepare it for future grooming and vetinary visits which would require procedure. If it is not used to these touches and objects it will make the procedure difficult.
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3)Start to train your puppy with basic commands:
You'll need to teach them to sit, stay and heel in case of any violence. Your puppy will not understand commands immediately, be patient. I'll recommend you use something it likes to entice it during a training, like a bone.
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4)Use food treats and praises to reinforce your command:
Every obedient person has his rewards which will make them want to be more obedient. To motivate your dog, once it obeys a command, it will love to do it again if rewarded the first time.
5)Prevent food bowl aggression:
Pet your puppy while eating. If it stops eating and growls, you have to deal with its aggressive response immediately. It could be dangerous.
How - Teach your dog that people are not threat to its meal by adding food to the food bowl while eating. It will make it expect good things when someone is coming close to its meals.
6)Address food aggression:
Now this is done by removing the food bowl and feeding the dog by hand. The puppy will need to earn it's feed by obeying a command like a simple "sit!". Once the puppy is confident with people around it's meals, you can continue the hand feed process but with the food bowl present. Make the food bowl not be a big deal. Gradually increase the amount of food in the bowl so that it will know that coming close to the bowl means a good turn of events and not something to guard. You can add high value food treats like chicken breasts to make it reassured. And if you notice any danger, stop! Call a professional trainer.
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7)Use feeding time as training time:
Let the dog earn it's meals.
8)Stop the treats:
After your puppy has mastered a command, reduce and gradually stop the treats. That doesn't mean you should stop the rewards but I guess you don't want a dog that only performs for food!
9)Do not create fear in your puppy
10)You can go ahead and enrol your puppy in a basic puppy-obedience class.
Always give the dog time to relax, probably to play or to drink water. It's meant to be happy around you. Treats shouldn't be to avoid having a greedy dog in your hands but it should be what it likes and different from its regular meals. You can as well use devices for it's training, mostly to build hearing, like a Clicker or a Whistle. Don't take too much time in training, at least 20 minutes also. You should learn about dog training on your own, learn about the unique attributes of the GSD breed and talk to other trainees and owners of GSDs to know more about them. You can watch a video on YouTube to learn more:
