Aggression

She sounds more Insecure than aggressive.  Don't allow her off lead until she can behave on it. Make the chance to run about and play a reward not a disconnect from you.  Being a working dog she wants and needs your guidance more than her freedom to play.  Work her on heeling  patterns , walking slowly , fast increases and stopping with tons of praise as she learns to watch you and react in a positive manner. When she tries to play with her lead or your legs stop , become uninteresting by simply standing and ignoring her until she steps back and tries to figure out why you are not longer playing the game she "taught" you .  Sometimes it simply takes increasing the pace of your walk and many direction changes for her to learn to concentrate on you rather than her insecure feelings. And stop your walks when she acts up, just standing there until FIGURES out her behavior wasn't correct. You may feel silly standing there for a several minutes but it is better than reinforcing her bad habits.  I teach my pups to "Watch me". for show puppies it is essential , for companion puppies it is an asset She is still a big baby, I don't even allow my puppies to go to their new home before they are 10 weeks old, 

Thanks very much for getting back to be so quickly. i will follow all the advice you have given me and see how we get on. The breeder sold her to me when she was 8 weeks, maybe that was a bit too young? When my hand is near her face she nips me and boy are those young teeth sharp!! I'm learning along with her and i worry that my teachings are not adequate! Thanks again, i really appreciate your help.

I've been raising/training my first "by myself" dogs for a year now. I STILL feel inadequate. I firmly believe that as long as I love them and do my best, they'll continue to learn and be good dogs. =) So I'm sure you're doing just fine!

it sounds very much to me like this pup is trying to play and doesn't know how with a human.  This of course is the way that littermates play.....rough and with teeth.

At this age, yep, ALWAYS on lead.  GSD's are bred to be independent thinkers and your pup needs to know early that what you want her to do is top priority.  Plus, right now, the pup wants to be really close to you all the time, but as she gets a bit older, she'll try out her "wings"  and may well take off on you.  So right now, work on her leash manners extensively, but I personally don't work gsds off lead until they are a bit older.  Now would be a good time to introduce a longer line and get her used to having a little freedom and learning to always keep those ears tuned to you, but off lead should wait a bit.

Often less experienced pet parents make the mistake of just walking their pups and not engaging them, not interacting with them.  If people think I'm nuts when I'm working a pup, oh well.  Even now with very adult dogs, I'm constanting interacting with my kids.  This is a good thing for a couple reasons....first you are strenghtinh the bond between the two of you, and second, you are controlling the walk/behavior, without being a bully about it.  Guiding would be a more appropriate word I guess.  And, of course, a lot of interaction now sets the stage for really listening to you when you do start off lead training.

If your hands near the pups face cause nipping and biting, keep them away while on a walk.  Even tho you want the pup to be very used to being handled, if this action causes a negative response on walks, then don't do it.  Yep, you are in charge, but you are in charge of a very intelligent animal who was specifically bred to use that mind so the key is to use it together....guide her thinking in the right directions.

Hi Glenda

thanks for the advice, We seem to be going backwards my pup and I as regards training! We live near open fields as i have said, which is ideal for us, when she's off the lead she's ok for about ten minutes then thats when she starts nipping my heels and on one occasion the back of my leg, not bites but nips and as you know those teeth are sharp. I put her lead on her right away but she pulls so hard i thought my shoulder was going to dislocate. I feel I'm letting her down as we arn't making much progress! I talk to her all the time and i find her really intelligent but these walks are starting to be anything but fun. I need all the advice I can get!

Cheers

Pat

Probably the best thing you can do for both of you is to get her into a professional, positive reinforcement trainer.  Understand that the trainer isn't going to train your pup, s/he's going to train YOU how to train your pup.  This is a pretty critical time in her training....the longer she is allowed to pull and to nip, the more those behaviors are reinforced.  If something works, dogs are going to continue to do it.

One suggestion that may help is to turn into a tree when she pulls.  Do not budge.  Or, turn around and go the other direction.  YOU need to be in charge of the walks until she understands that all good things, including romps, come from you.  Once she reaches that point, you'll find that she doesn't need such strict structure because she's LEARNED to do what you ask for.

I've had a number of surgeries on my upper body...shoulders and neck....and simply don't have the upper body strength that I once had.  One of the things that worked for me in the early days of working with my shepherds, before I learned what I've learned, is to use a longer lead and loop it around my waist, run the clip through the "handle" so it isn't going anyplace, and use my body weight to my advantage.  Saves the shoulders at least, and gives you a bit more control.  When I've had litters in the house, I never was without a fanny pack and pockets full of toys.  And I worked with pups from a very young age so they would understand that while it might be ok to chew on your littermate, its NOT ok to chew on humans.  A sharp "eh!  no bite" followed by the immediate shoving a toy in the offending mouth with "THIS is what you can bite" and then praise for biting on it instead of me, seemed to have done the trick for us.

Every day that passes, your pup is going to get bigger and stronger and more headstrong, so you really need to get the walking thing under control now, while you still can without a lot of tools or physical damage to you.  My attitude towards walks for my dogs is that the walks are for them.  I'm not particular about who is in front, who decides which way to go, etc.  When we are walking in town, or amongst people, when I ask for a heel, I get it, but typically, it doesn't really matter to me.  BUT, my dogs are at the point where they do exactly what I ask, when I ask whether on or off lead.  Sunday when we had two of them out in the field we had gotten close to the woods, and suddenly three deer broke for the woods.....my kids wanted to give chase, but I called them off and they immediately froze.  Knowing that I have that kind of control allows me to be a bit more lax about who goes where and who decides the direction of the walk.

One of the biggest reasons that people surrender large breeds is a lack of training.  What's cute when they are little, isn't so cute when they grow up.  And, as you are learning, if it isn't fun to have a dog, a lot of people just "get rid of" them.  Training is absolutely critical when they are young, and it's a lot of work to get an adult dog who is obedient and well mannered, especially in a herding breed.

Shepherds are absolutely wonderful dogs, but getting htem to nice adults takes a lot of work.  Please find yourself a trainer.

A few thoughts...

8 weeks is not too young, no need to worry. 

This behavior sounds perfectly normal for a GSD   It's not aggression at all.  These dogs use their teeth for everything from eating to chasing/killing to playing.  The little puppies, this is just all they know about how to play.  They play with each other by chasing, tackling, wrestling, and biting.  Since we now need them to live in the human world and abide by our rules we need to re-teach how to play and what is appropriate.

For a really young puppy, plain ol' walks are pretty boring.  They don't know how to "heel" yet and are far too young for a lot of formal training in this area.  The little puppy does not see the point in just going for a slow (because to them the humans are slow!) walk forward.  When I have a little GSD puppy I walk it on a plain harness and always distract it as we go.  With Nikon I usually carried a long stick and he either carried it or chased the tip as I dragged it along.  I also used a small toy or just a scrap of rag on a string, just anything so that we were actually DOING something together and not just walking, plus the dog had something besides my skin and my pants to bite at and carry.

Right now I would not worry too much about the formal obedience.  What you need as the base for all of your training is a good bond with the dog.  You need ways of motivating and rewarding the dog (which at this age is more like redirecting/distracting the dog off your clothes!).  You need to play and interact together so the dog comes to trust you and desire to be with you and obey you.

OK, I'm going to disagree slightly here.  This pup is about 16 weeks and yes, she's still playing with her human the way she played with her littermates, but, her human is getting upset with her walking and severe pulling and that's one of the first steps to the shelter as far as I'm concerned.

You and I know Lies that gsd pups just aren't like other pups and that they require a lot of work to get them to where we want them to be.  You have a lot of really good suggestions, and while I wouldn't worry about a heel at this point either, I do think this gal needs the help of a trainer to teach HER how to teach her pup so that she doesn't get frustrated and just give up.  And that could be no more walks, which is bad enough, or surrendering the pup.

I'd never had shepherds before Thor and Sheba and stupidly thot that a dog was a dog.  They taught me some major lessons about that!  And one of the most important ones was the absolute value of early training.

Oh I definitely agree with getting a trainer.  Mostly I was addressing the "aggression" word, I don't think this is aggression or anything at all unusual for this type of dog in this situation.

For the pulling, maybe try an Easy Walk harness.  Nikon wore one around 5 months.

I guess we agree then!  Because agression is not the word I'd use either.

Thanks for all the advice. as I live in a small village there are no trainers available so I'm plodding on myself and hope to make some improovments along the way. I have changed the lead which indeed has helped the situation. I am just back from a walk across the fields now and as she was so well behaved and there were no distractions i let her off the lead to have a free run, right away she came up behind me and nipped my ankles, i told her NO then ignored her, she did the same again and tried to nip the calf of my leg, again I told her NO, put the lead back on and ignored her all the way home, dont know if I'm doing right or wrong??

Pat

Pat, the only suggestion I could make is to tell her what you WANT her to do (such as leave it) instead of what you don't want her to do, if that makes sense.  And NO is not really the word you want to use......it tends to become a catch all and she won't know exactly what it is that you are saying no to.

Altho it can be much the same, I find that a sharp EH quickly conveys that this is not something acceptable without overusing the NO word.

I know it can be quite frustrating without a trainer, but please feel free to email me, altho I'm NOT a trainer, I do have a ton of gsd experience.

 Patsy, there are free lessons at www.clickerlessons.com if you want to try clicker training.  Also, for adolescent dogs, I highly recommend getting a copy of Ian Dunbar's DVD on training adolescent dogs.  There are some exercises on that tape that can help immensely in getting your dog's energy and nippiness under control.  Try to avoid making noise or movements at her when she does that - she may interpret it as play.  "No" means nothing, it's just an interruptor.  You can use a well-timed "sit" cue instead, so that she will know you prefer "sit" to the unwanted behavior.

I'm curious what experience this dog has had playing off lead with other puppies.  Eight weeks is actually the right age for pups to leave their mums, but they generally develop their bite inhibition by playing with other puppies (many others, not just litter mates or same breed pups) when they are between 8-16 weeks of age. 

By the way, never turn your back on a herding dog;-)  That way, you can instruct "sit" or any other cue, but NOT be nipped from behind, which is how they communicate that they would like you to play the chase game or move;-)

As far as the age you brought her home, that is a hot discussion among any breeders right now.  We will not allow our Rhdoesians to seperate and go to their forever homes until they are 10 weeks minimum. It is a very important time in learning bite inhibition or mouthing while playing. Their siblings and Mother will teach them far more quickly than any inexperienced human can.  They will not tolerate a play bite that hurts with out a natural reaction that the dogs learns quickly. Many Breeders hate keeping pups the extra two weeks ( or more) as they are a ton of work and expense. Other breeders are afraid if they don't sell as soon as possible then they may be stuck without the owners. 

We plan ahead on every angle for our litters and get an average of 60+ applications per litter which I then sort thourgh until I find the folks who  best replicate the qualities I think are essential for a puppy owner.  And to date we have never double bred litters allowing me to spend as much time training as possible. Next year we are anticipating back to back litters for the very first time in 30 years of being in our breed.  We have a huge wait list and the folks are big fans of our Dogs and Breeding program. The moms-to-be are sisters. Since the smaller of the two did not take this year with an Artificial Insemination Breeding we have decided to double down and make sure that at least some of our puppy applicants finally get their long awaited pup.  (With Murphy's law ever in effect we may end up with 2 sucessful breedings  and that = a ton of work and sleepless nights).  Breeding is not an easy endeavor when done correctly. It is expensive,  exhausting and at times it feels never ending. But when done right there is tremendous satisfaction in the quality of your pups.