# Boring Period



## HMV (May 17, 2010)

My pup has now reached 5 months old, no point in doing any bite work because shes teething. Apart from sit and normal house manners I don't do any OB training till shes 9 month old. I take her tracking 3 times a week but with summer on its way finding a field with short grass is getting harder and harder. I will be glad when these new teeth are all there and life gets back to normal. Nothing worse than sitting in the club house watching everbody else.


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## Mrs.K (Jul 14, 2009)

Why do you wait for so long to start "Unterordnung"?

I take Indra (4 months old now) to the weekly puppy class at our Club and she already retreats perfectly and even sits straight in front of me. I teach her to look into my eyes and focus on me, she knows the basic commands, sitz, platz, steht and can heel a little bit already. 

You don't have to wait until they are 9 months old and if you go tracking so many times a week and have to take a break because you can't find a spot and than start with the Unterordnung.


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## ba1614 (Feb 17, 2010)

I am only curious, why at 5months you "..don't do any OB training till shes 9 month old"?


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## Mrs.K (Jul 14, 2009)

yeah, especially with obedience you can start early...


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## HMV (May 17, 2010)

I spend the first 9 months developing trieb. working with the ball and of course beißwurst (what is a beißwurst in English?) Bite sausage ha ha ha that doesn't sound right.

I find once the dog has a high desire for the ball with the willingness and keenness to work for it, it is a lot easier to train and the results come faster. I like her to be a puppy first and try to socialize her every opportunity i have.


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

You can work on perchwork training(rear end awareness) http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/pictures-pictures-pictures/123541-laos-perch-work-video.html and focus, recall type exercises.
Are there any large churches or university's nearby that you can track on their grounds?


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## ba1614 (Feb 17, 2010)

HMV said:


> I spend the first 9 months developing trieb. working with the ball and of course beißwurst (what is a beißwurst in English?) Bite sausage ha ha ha that doesn't sound right.
> 
> I find once the dog has a high desire for the ball with the willingness and keenness to work for it, it is a lot easier to train and the results come faster. I like her to be a puppy first and try to socialize her every opportunity i have.


Thank you


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## Jason L (Mar 20, 2009)

They are usually crazy for food at that age so I did our obedience with food at that age. Obedience is obedience ... besides it gave us something to do.


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## lhczth (Apr 5, 2000)

So much easier to be working an adult dog when starting a puppy. You don't feel left out. I mostly hate waiting for them to grow up so we can get serious in our training. I still track and do obedience, but often wait to do a lot of bitework with my young dogs until I feel they are mentally ready.


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## HMV (May 17, 2010)

I do bite work from day one, apart from the teething period when its too easy to give the dog a) damage to the new teeth, and b) pain that might hold her back from a clean bite in the future. She already barks when prevented from getting to the flirt as soon as the teeth are there we will move on to the pillow. She can retrieve the ball sit directly in front of my legs and let me remove the ball from her mouth ready for the dumbbells later and we have started to put gentle curves into trails. So it's not as though we aren't getting anywhere. It's just the way I personally prefer to train her.

I don't like doing OB when they are small I find it too easy for both myself and dog to make mistakes, I always think it takes a day to teach a dog a mistake and a month to get it out of them. I like the dog to know whose doing the commands and whose doing the listening when we start OB and non of this sloppy smoochy rubbish she gets now as a puppy..


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## holland (Jan 11, 2009)

I enjoyed doing obedience with Rorie when she was a pup still enjoy it I still do the sloopy smoochy stuff too


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## Andy-jr. (Mar 1, 2010)

*HMV- *I agree let the pup be a pup. I waited till Diesel was 7 months to start with the OB and that is still a little young. I did a ton of foundation work with him while I was waiting for the right time to start OB. Everyone that sees me with my dog tells me they can't believe how in-touch he is with me. I think foundation work is the key when training from a pup, make it fun for them while playing with something they love. Diesel will do anything for a ball.


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