When to start?

[Hali'smom]

I am becoming a member of a local Schutzhund club that will start young pups obedience training and work until they are proper age to start other training. What age do you all usually start? Is 15 weeks too young...surely not?!? Who uses what for training? Petsmart? Do you train at home? Just wanting some input!

[Dobs4ever]

Hali' mom - now is the time to start training. So you are doing good to get started. Can your breeder help you. Did they do Schutzhund??? If so they should be a good resource. If you don't know anything about Schutzhund then your breeder should be key - Schutzhund was designed for the GS and you have to be very carefull about getting a trainer who does not know how to work with Dobermans. They can ruin a good dog. Where do you live - N _S _ E OR W area??

[Hali'smom]

I am South. In GA. My breeder is in FL and she used a Sch trainer from GA for Hali's mom so she hooked me up with him. We know a good bit about Sch and the other sprts. When I was 17 I worked for a guy named Dietmar Schellenburg. You guys should look him up. I am not even sure if the old guy is still alive!! Lol! He is judge and author and trainer from German and he is resposible for bringing Sch to USA. He had some awesome GSDs!! He was a hella trainer. He liked my old girl I had back then and encouraged me to work her, but I regret I never had time and then stupid ex-husband made me quit job. THEN I find out what I really had there as a job and regretted the hell out of it ever since and that's been almost 17 years ago!!

[Dobs4ever]

No person is worth loosing a dog over. Let the person GO!! My husband always tells everyone that he is not fed until after the dogs have been taken care of. He says he is low man on the totem pole. Good thing he takes it in good spirits.

[Hali'smom]

Agreed! That's why that one was good ridance all those years ago! My new husband of 7 years (and he bought me Hali for our 7th wedding anniversary recently!) is the best!! He loves the dogs, and understands my love and caring of them. He never questions what I do. He just listens and agrees.
Hey, Dobs, I was looking at your website! Nice! Nice to know you do the horse thing too. I used to do novice Barrel racing when I was young. Love the horses, but after a crushed ankle and broken hand, wrist and fingers, I try to just pet them now.

[Dobs4ever]

OUCH!! Did you get hurt riding???? or car crash?? That was serious injuries. Glad you are past it now.

[Hali'smom]

Neither! The crushed ankle was from assisting while a philly Paint got shod for the first time. She reared and because some idiot (!!) decided to do it in the driveway I lost my footing and went backwards with her and she did the typical turn into me and stomped on my ankle turning my foot sideways!
The other incident happened 5 years before that. Again, a Paint, walking him to pasture (he was a rescue- I worked with Eguine Rescue League) and a bunny spooked him (summer schedule for turn out) and he reared and my hand just somehow got rapped in the lead. Tore my rotators cuff, broken wrist, hand and finger. Had to have a few pins...I lived.
And I still love Paints!

[Big Dogs]

Ouch you girls are brutal on us guys!LOL Although there are times my wife has told me she has to do something with the boys before me! But most of the time she is waiting on me to finish with the dogs. Dobs you are right on with a Sch trainer that knows dobes versus a GSD they are harder to find because Dobes take more time but I personally think you end up with a better dog. We just finished re-training a 3yr old dobe that a Sch trainer that works mostly with GSD and Malinos trained. He was unreliable and scarred his owner which makes for a bad situation. We will end up keeping him for another couple of weeks so that his owner can be trained to work with him the right way and build up there confidence in each other. A couple of things I always ask people are why do you want your dog to be SCh trained and if your going to look at a trainer to do it ask them if there is a difference in training a GSD versus a Dobe and if they say there isn't any walk away.

[Sue J]

I feel really stupid asking but knowing absolutely nothing about Sch training, I've always heard there is a huge difference but what are some of the major key differences between training GSD and dobes? I've never owned, nor wanted, a GSD so I'm not familiar with them in any aspect.

[Hali'smom]

Sue, IMO it is how the dogs react, their nerves and even their bite. There are more differences than one might think- Apples and oranges!!

[Big Dogs]

Sue a couple of things are Dobermans tend to be defense aggressive which means they like to guard what is theirs and you have to work with them slowly to increase there range away from the handler and what they are guarding while still keeping there prey drive intact. Shepard's since they are a herding dog naturally want to work at greater distances away from there handler. Doesn't mean they are better it just takes longer to bring this out of a Dobe. Dobe's have that terrier tenacity that a shepard usually develops at a slower rate. They are both great dogs when trained properly but you have to know the differences between the two to train them correctly and unfortunately allot of trainers don't want to invest the extra time or will force them through which makes them unreliable. Another problem is some breeders are breeding out that terrier side of dobes which gives them there prey drive which I think Dobes4ever would agree with which I for one am happy she does not fall into that category. Hali'smom is also right about the way the two of them bite and even the way they attack is different there's allot of little things that makes them different but if you really want to see a difference between the two watch a Sch competition with two dogs of the same level compete as my old instructor used to say there is no competition. I also think he was about as unbiased as me!LOL

[Hali'smom]

Ok, I feel like a big goober for saying this, but I am so proud!! Hali and I do a little training session every day. Today she showed me that in 3 days she now knows what sit means and stand!! Today she did them with one word command and without having to be lured or coaxed!! Hey- she's only 15 weeks old ...and I've only had her 1 week! I'm proud!! Naw, really she seems like she is an eager worker and I can't wait to go to our first training class together Thursday night. My husband will take pics and I will post!!

[Sue J]

Hey Hali that's great! You should be proud of her. Thanks to you & Big Dogs for responding to my question.

[Big Dogs]

Hali'smom spoken like a true mom congratulations I love to hear people working with there dogs.