Happy and Proud new D.S. Puppy owner in Utah

[ToryUtah]

My name is Tory. I am a land investor and realtor in Draper, Utah. I have a 9 year old male GSD named Jake who is a fantastic dog, but suffers from hip and eye problems that now prevent him from being as active as I would like.

My home is located at the base of a canyon that provides tons of hiking and mountain biking trails. I have been researching Mallinios and Dutch Shepherds for several years and decided a long time ago that one day I would get one. I am happy to report that I was recently able to adopt an 8 week old male Dutch Shepherd (now 12 weeks old) named Ace (Flying ACE). He is full of piss and vinegar which is what I love about him. Looking forward to helping him become the best he can possibly be which I know will be incredible. Looking forward to the journy.

Update: I have been working with Ace 2-3 times per day for short obedience sessions and fun play sessions. He is coming along incredibly well. He is very intuitive. He loves to play tug, has incredible food drive and chases anything that moves (My 9 year old GSD is holding still a lot). Luckily I work out of my home which is located at the base of a canyon so we have a lot of space. I have found a large boulder pile which he sees as a challenge and loves to climb it with me every time we pass.

I have him doing sit, stay, come, leave it, here, climb, fetch. All with hand signals and all of that is going great. I need more ideas for what to teach him as he seems to get a little bored with the same training each day though I have been doing them in exciting places so that has really helped.

I have been using the information from Micheal Ellis "the power of playing tug with your dog" and "the power of training your dog with food" All incredible information however not as specific as I would like as far as exactly what needs to be trained for sports like ring sports, obedience etc.

I am not sure what ultimately we will do. Maybe SAR, agility, doc diving, definatelyy frisbee, mountain biking, and a lot of fetching tennis balls. I really hope he gains a extreme drive for the ball, so much so that I can use it for a reward instead of food. As I mentioned his food drive is very high. The Michael Ellis training information has mentioned that as the puppy ages, his food drive will go down and be replaced with toy drive. Can anyone confirm that?

Please let me know what you can suggest for additional training. I also have several questions I would like to ask.

Following are some recent pictures over the last 3 weeks. Ace is growing fast.

http://www.selectpropertyforsale.com/pi ... lying-ace/

[Sugars Mom]

Welcome! Nice intro and great pics.

I agree that toy drive increases with age, but mine still has food drive as well (at 2 yrs).

Can't wait to hear more stories.

[Schlussdibusti]

Welcome!

What a great looking pup and great looking parents. Poor Jake has to content with the little devil. He is probably a big help keeping junior in check inside the house.

I like the Michael Ellis videos too and tried to train with the tug. The first challenge we had to overcome was the 'out'. Then I didn't get it that the dog wasn't suppose to focus on the toy but on me. The first 60 seconds on the training field under the scruteny of an excellent trainer (Schutzhund/IPO) pointed that out, showed us how to work on it and voila! Fuss, look at me, yes, toy, play, out, fuss.......

What I am trying to say is, find a good trainer in whatever sport you want to train in. No video will substitute a personal trainer.

I know they are a bundle of energy and if they can't release it, bad things will happen But I wouldn't do too much climbing and such at his young age. Swimming seems to be wearing them out the best and is low impact.

Just my

[Sugars Mom]

I know they are a bundle of energy and if they can't release it, bad things will happen But I wouldn't do too much climbing and such at his young age. Swimming seems to be wearing them out the best and is low impact.

Just my

Oh ya, I meant to mention that in my first post...I felt the same way about climbing as a puppy and was so impressed with how she handled leaping over and across the piled up driftwood at the beach, not to mention how much fun she had doing it...until at just about 6 months she broke her leg Must have got her leg stuck in between some logs and snapped it right in 2 at the growth plate. It was horrible, not to mention expensive and she still will limp on occasion to this day When I look back at it, I think why didn't I realize the danger of it, but I really didn't at the time. Niave new dog owner I was. Not telling you what to do, but sharing my story.

[LyonsFamily]

I thought DS were supposed to grow into their ears, those ears just keep getting larger on Ace.
I guess that's where he gets the "flying" from.

As far as treat vs. toy drive, I've had my boy for 7 months (he just turned 2, got him as a young adult) and he's always had toy and treat drive, but his ball drive has greatly increased since we've gotten him. He has a black kong ball, and will do anything for that. He prefers it over treats, and that's his only reward for agility training now. In the beginning, he didn't accept it as a reward, just as a play toy during fetch.

[TexasMedy]

He is very handsome. You should be proud.

[leih merigian]

Welcome, Tory and Ace and the Old Guy,

Sounds like you two have started on a great journey!

Definitely keep taking him to new places and doing little training sessions there.

At this young age, I'm working on establishing engagement and cementing the relationship, which goes on for a long while. And, while I start with all the obedience stuff and groundwork for agility, the biggest goal I have early on is to get a pup excited about learning, about being engaged with me. So, lots of stuff I work on at that age (and which you never actually take out of your repetorie) are very small things; nose touch (to the palm of your hand) for example, which evolves into an important building block over time (e.g., of course, you have your nose game, where you have your pup following your hand to bop it with his nose, but you can use this as the basis for teaching him to "nose" a small target, such as a stickey note, which you can then put on cabinet doors and such to teach him to "push" to close the doors).

Tricks of all kinds are a great thing to work on and a lot of fun, with the added bonus of having a dog who can entertain company, kids out in the world, etc (ham I am ). Stumped for ideas? Check out youtube...there are tons of tricks to learn about there, with people showing how to train them. Caveat: if there are several videos of the target behavior, watch them all, as some of these "trainers" have much better skills than others .

Catch a soft ball/toy

Look into K9 Nosework; if there are any classes in your area, take one! (google the term and you'll find the NACSW, the official association site, and tons of info there...)

Also, I'd recommend a few books:

Shaping Success, by Susan Garrett - Even if you're not interested in agility, this is a great source of tons of activities and behaviors you can teach puppies to prepare them for future work and training. I love most of her puppy games.

Fun and Games with Dogs, by Roy Hunter. Tons of fun things to teach your pup.

Fun Nosework with Dogs (title not totally accurate, sorry), same author...lots of ways to get started on scenting activities

Also, get one of those rubber feed bins Michael uses on his videos and teach your pup to go to it and stand with his front feet only on it (our cue for that is "step"), back feet only ("back feet" how original), and then all four feet (again so original, "all four!"). These are great things to shape, where you're not saying anything to your dog, just smiling a lot and rewarding progressive behaviors. Then, they're also a good foundation for other things; anytime you want your dog to put his front feet up on something, he can. He'll become aware of his back end/back feet with the back feet on the bin, and you can use all four to get him on your bathroom scale to weigh him at home, something I find comes in very handy.

Food and toy drives do develop over time. I was surprised at the lack of a natural retrieve my pup had, but within weeks, she was eager to play fetch and other toy games. Over time, retrieving became one of her favorite things, and is a daily activity. (You can work to build more food drive or toy drive, so just keep working on it. A good rule of thumb is use food when you're first teaching something, as it's calming, then you can transfer to a toy when their little brains don't have to be so calm to try to understand what you're asking for.)

Hope you find some of these ideas helpful to get you started...

[DakotaDutch]

Good looking pup !!

Also be very interested in the answer to your question for our new pup.

[ToryUtah]

Thanks for all of the replies and great suggestions Leih! I am definitely going to teach those feet positions and get those books.

I hate to do it, but I am considering changing my pups name. Would that be terrible? The name "Ace" is not working out too well for a few reasons.

#1 I say "Hey" a lot in a deep tone as kind of a "leave it/pay attention"
#2 My older dog is named Jake and he cant seem to tell the difference between his name and "Ace"
#3 For some reason the name does not seem "distinct" enough when I call it out as in a recal.
#4 Like Jake, I am getting them mixed up calling Jake when I mean to say Ace.

I have a list of names, I like "Rudy" which is much more distinct among a few others. What are your thoughts on the above? Would I be the worst owner in the world if I changed my pups name before it gets too late? Has anyone ever done such a thing?

Check out this video of my wife's rotten cat attacking my poor DS pup. He is soooo nice to her... at least this time he was. I think he was feeling lazy. Sometimes he really roughs her up, but she keeps coming back for more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Q-BQZovgk

[Raven]

All of my adopts had rough pasts (excluding one) and I changed the name of each one (except the one who didn't have a bad start in life). They adjusted quickly, as if they were as pleased as I was to bring a close to those old chapters in their lives. Two of the dogs were each two years old at the time I changed their names and it was like it had always been their names.

I can see where the Jake and Ace were getting confused. They hear the key sound--in this case, the long "a"--and they keyed in on that. Same thing can happen when you are training new commands/tricks/tasks/etc.

[Marjolein]

Welcome

[leih merigian]

I agree with Raven, you shouldn't have any trouble changing your pup's name.

I've had to modify cues I use with my current DS, since it sometimes becomes clear that she's having trouble distinguishing one sound from another.

(Hint: when you decide on a name, and Rudy is fine and nothing like Jake, start off at the very beginning...when he's looking at you, say his new name, mark/reward. Do it several times. Then wait for him to not be looking at you, but isn't very distracted...say the name, when he looks at you, mark/reward. Repeat ad nauseum )