Posted on 01/17/2015 8:21:39 AM PST by lafroste
Hi all! I have a 5 month old puppy. He is (I was told) 1/2 German Shepard + 1/2 Rottweiler. He is also astonishingly intelligent, very easy to train, great memory. Anyway, he already knows sit, stay, come, lay, play dead, and fetch. On his 5 month birthday he weighed exactly 40 pounds. Here are my questions:
If he is 40 pounds at exactly five months, what will likely be his weight when fully grown?
I would like recommendations on what other commands would be useful? I am already planning to teach him to heel. He learns so quickly that I think I can load him up. Any help is appreciated. Thanks alot!
You’re right.... I’d also include hand signals and learn to use uncommon words specific to what you want the dog to do.
Some trainers use German, or French for their training commands.
Around 100#.
1. Your dog will weigh anywhere between 75-115 pounds. Better being on the lower end of the range, as hip dysplasia are issues with both breeds.
2. Avoid dry food that have wheat and corn.
3. Read about bloat, a serious condition that can strike quickly and cause death and thousands of dollars even if your dog lives. It happens in primarily large breeds.
3. He needs to sit, down, stay, come as basic commands. When misbehaving, learning the word “no” is extremely helpful.
He might look like Moose when he gets older (still available)or my old foster dog Ernie. Both are GS/Rottie mixes.
http://www.gsroc.org/2013/detail.gsr?id=3239
http://www.gsroc.org/2013/detail.gsr?id=1912 (lousy photos due to resizing)
Our greatly missed Golden Retriever, Prior Lake Jake, grew to 110 pounds at 16 months. The vet suggested weening him off the dog chow a bit.
He seemed to adjust to 95 pounds for the remainder of his all too short life.
I used to live next to where a PD trained police dogs.I watched them daytime and night time.
It was a little mock up town type set up and yes you are correct NO was used often and is a very important if not the best to drill into this guys head.
HERE come in handy too
If you can teach them to fetch you can teach them to put back.
Better than “leave it” — teach him that the default is that he doesn’t get to eat anything unless he is first told he can “take it.”
Then you never need to worry about “leave it” because he’ll do that automatically.
Beautiful
Rather than teaching new commands, I would work on increasing the steadiness and duration of obedience. Add distractions into the mix. All you really need to control a dog is sit, here and heel. You want the dog to stay? Tell him sit. The dog shouldn’t move. Once the dog is fully obedient, I’d train him to obey off leash starting with a long line.
However, if you think more commands are necessary to have a polite house animal - then I’d add “Wait”, “leave it” and “move” to his list.
If you walk outdoors with the dog on a leash I’d practice loose leash walking. The dog shouldn’t pull on the leash at all.
“give”, and a single syllable command word of your choice (make it an uncommon word) that means in no uncertain terms “STOP AND LAY DOWN NOW!”
A number of hand signal commands can be very useful as well. Things like sit, come, quarter (search), hold, to your left, to your right, back.
After about 3 months of age I’m opposed to treat training. Just your praise should be reward enough.
They just get bigger and bigger
http://worth1000.s3.amazonaws.com/submissions/9546000/9546020_39e3_1024x2000.jpg
I would say 80 to 90 range.
Crawl is a good one. There are many tricks for pure entertainment. Balance a treat on the nose. Speak is good for intimidating other people you don’t know. Find, or hide and seek, is good and can be useful if you have little ones. Fetch a beer is VERY useful. I was never able to train my dog to rack billiard balls though.
Looks like my ruby who just turned 3 months old.
Train him not to get hyper when visitors come over.
Get him comfortable on a leash and not dragging your body bouncing along on a rabbit chase.
Train him to climb into the car because you won’t be able to lift him when he’s any heavier. He also needs to learn to get into his carrier on his own. I’m not a believer in caging animals at night or when you’re out but he needs to not be afraid of a carrier if he needs one when traveling or going to places that require it.
If you’re bathing him in the bath tub or some other container that requires lifting him into, then he needs to learn to get in on his own if you don’t want to struggle with 100 lbs of resistance.
“Away” is good for when he’s being a bother.
They can also understand long worded commands like, “It’s bedtime. Lay down and go to sleep.”
As for food, sometimes monsters don’t eat much food at all. It all depends.
Loved the agility classes. My hope was to hope was to train either my GSD or Rottie for Schutzhund, but both developed hip/spine problems before we could get quite to that point.
The better behaved and under control a dog is, the happier both dog and owner are. Plus, I think a dog that behaves PERFECTLY to hand signals is way more intimidating than a dog out of control.
85 to 105 lbs.
The tone of your voice is as important as the words, my German Shepherd could understand what I was communicating by the look on my face when I looked directly at him, no audible sounds. Also use hand signals in conjunction with your commands.
Never let your dog question that you are alpha. My GS ignored my command once at about 11 months he was intent on following a scent trail when I commanded him to come here and stop, when he came about 45 seconds later I picked him up, lifted him over my head and threw him into a snow bank. He was utterly surprised I could do that (me too lol) and he never disobeyed again, he lived to please me. Loyalist, greatest dog ever!
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