# 4mo old "talking back" and not listening



## Ahutto17 (Aug 7, 2017)

I was wondering what to do about my GSD (4mo old male) becoming aggressive toward me after I correct him. I am trying to work with him on not biting and/or going to the neighbors yard and not coming to me when I call for him. When he doesn't listen I try to correct him but when I do he just growls and barks at me like he is "talking back". The more I tell him no the more he barks and snaps at me? I'm not sure what to do at this point? I want to be able to correct him and have him listen to me but he seems to have other plans in mind. When working with him in training he will sit, stay, and come when there are treats involved but he will not listen when it comes to him going over to the neighbors. I end up having to go and physical bring him back home. My husband has stated he wonders if a shock collar would be effect. 
Any help with these problems would be greatly appreciated!
Ashley H.


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## thegooseman90 (Feb 24, 2017)

I think it's in your best interest to work with a trainer. If you can, find one that's works with lots of gsd or other working dogs. Nip this in the butt now before you have real problems.


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## tim_s_adams (Aug 9, 2017)

Puppies react this way because they are confused about what you want. You cannot correct a puppy, or dog, for that matter unless you have first TAUGHT them the correct behavior. You NEED to contact a trainer and learn how to teach your puppy. Trust me, if you don't, or if you resort to buying an e collar, this aggressive behavior WILL get worse.


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## Apex1 (May 19, 2017)

It is highly unlikely your puppy is aggressive. If you continue your current method of communication, I could see it later becoming an issue.

Your puppy is a land shark it's normal. Spend some hours reading this forum and Google training with treats and get a crate, if you don't have one learn how to crate train and get one. 

Stop correcting the dog for biting in the manner you are, it can be done without conflict, not always easy, lots of patience. You have several months ahead of you for biting and learning how to positively extinguish the behavior is key. What works can come in different forms, but takes time.

Keep him on leash. When outside engage him in play. Go to an empty field on a long line and play with the puppy. Give him an outlet for his energy. Puppies love to run. He gets biting give him a nap. 

Be exciting to him, he is close to an age where he will want to explore the world. Keep him on leash, play with him. 

He is probably barking at you because he is frustrated with you and has no other way tell you.

Shock collar is NOT going to help you with this. If you can get a good balanced trainer get on, it would be absolutely worth it. So many great books. Watch some you tube videos of Michael Ellis, using treats is great for training a young puppy, great age to get him playing with toys and redirecting the biting. HTH


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## wolfy dog (Aug 1, 2012)

How do you correct him for not coming? Once he comes you cannot punish him as he will learn to avoid you. Look at yourself from his perspective; how much fun are you for him? He comes from another planet and you both need to learn to understand each other.


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## eddie1976E (Nov 7, 2010)

Do lots of obedience training with him. There is no reason why a 4 month old should be able to walk off on his own and visit your neighbor. He should be on leash at all times while outside. Long line. Train, train and when you think you are done, train some more. At 4 months old, you should be his universe. He should not want anyone else. 

At that age, no one was allowed to give my dog treats but the family. No one was allowed to play with him but us. Very few people were allowed to pet him. He was not allowed to get excited as a result of interaction with people outside the immediate family. He was always on leash even on my property at that age. He also barked back at me when I said "no" to him or gave him a gentle correction (emphasis on gentle...could be a gentle nudge or tap). By then, he knew lots of commands and I just did obedience drills when he would talk back. He eventually stopped. 

You are heading down a path that could result in issues if you don't address this correctly now. There is alot of info out there. Start reading. Best case, find a good trainer familiar with the breed in your area. Your dog is not defective, he is being a 4 month old brat. How you handle it now will determine how he turns out as an adult. Good luck. Post in the training section, you may get more attention.


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## Ahutto17 (Aug 7, 2017)

He does go to other people but the neighbors have dogs that come in or yard and bark at him so he goes over there to try and play with them. 

And he is an outside dog. So I only had him on a leash when we would go for walks throughout the neighborhood. Other than that we built a fenced in area for him during the day that is attached to an outdoor kennel. Once my husband or myself gets home we let him out while we are outside. 

So do I need to keep him on a leash all the time? I've never done that with a dog. We live on large price of land so we have just let him stay in the back yard.


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## Evohog (Jul 18, 2017)

Get in touch with a trainer. 
Please don't take this as an insult but it would be good for the pup AND yourself.
Besides that, you can read up and watch videos. There's a lot of good info to be found on this forum and YouTube.
How do your neighbors dogs get in your yard? They don't belong there.
Yes, you should keep your dog on a leash, a long one if he's outside. Your pup likely doesn't understand what you want him to do when you call him to come and when you FINALLY get a hold of his color or scuff, you're likely upset with him and show that you are. So your pup is defending himself. Now, when you have him on a long leash, you can walk up to the end, tell your pup to come and gently pull in the leash. Your pup will have to come to you and after doing this for a while, he'll understand "come" means I have to go to my handler. Right now, "come" to your dog has the same meaning as "roof" or "door" or "window" or ... 
If you keep doing what you're doing "come" is going to be the signal for "get ready to bite". You don't want to be there.
Good luck. You can do this.


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## Ahutto17 (Aug 7, 2017)

Well our neighbors have 5 dogs and two of them stay outside not fenced in and roam the neighborhood. Thankfully though after their two blue lacy's got after our little guy they have started to build a fence. But it's taking them awhile so the other two dogs that roam are still left outside to do whatever they want. 

I have found a trainer that I am hoping can help us. I want to have a good relationship with my dog. He is already my kid that I can't wait to go home to and play with so I definitely do not want him to be scared of me. I really hope the training works out. 

Thank you everyone who has helped in giving such great advise and tips.


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## Castlemaid (Jun 29, 2006)

I'm glad you have found a trainer to work with. Your expectations for a four month old is not realistic. You can't correct for disobeying an order they don't understand, and pretty sure at this age, and the way you are dealing with his behaviour, he is just very confused about what you want, thus the angry reaction when you correct him, and he doesn't understand why you are acting this way. 

Normal for a puppy to be bitey, and only respond well to training when treats are involved. You need to keep the rewards coming, in terms of treats, praise, play, affection, at this stage, for a long time. The rewards are re-wiring his brain that listening to you, doing as you ask is something highly desirable. It will take time. 

Another thing you need to keep in mind is a four month old needs management more than discipline and obedience. You manage your pup so that he doesn't have the opportunity to practice behaviours you don't want. You manage him so he does what you want, always. You set him up for success by taking away the bad choices, and only having good choices, so he gets rewarded. Then he is a good pup, that learns only good things. Thus the leash, supervision, etc. 

Raising a puppy is a lot of work, but you want to start off on the right foot for long-term success - oh, and the biting, should be gone in a couple of months, after he is done teething. Have toys on hand and redirect his biting to a toy, not much more you can do about it for now.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

If you got this puppy at 8 weeks, then you have had him for 8 weeks? 

8 weeks of proper training should have an adult dog with a reliable recall. 8 weeks of proper training for a puppy of the age of your pup will net you a puppy who may or may not have the basics pretty well understood. Depends on the puppy. Training a baby like yours means, being patient, repeating -- but not too many times in a row, understanding that that he has the attention span of a flea. You have to have realistic expectations. 

Corrections, we are all hung up on corrections or lack of corrections. Your Positive Only people don't believe in correcting at all. But they aren't right either. The thing is, the correction is really dependent on the puppy, and too many people believe an untrained puppy is stubborn or defiant or defective, when they are actually confused, and do not want to do the wrong thing. And so the owner corrects a behavior he views as stubborn or defiant. The puppy becomes even more confused, and reluctant to do something for you because he is now not wanting to be corrected. 

Corrections themselves can amp some pups up because it is more like play than something to avoid. The same correction can shut other puppies down, because they are softer and don't want to do anything wrong. So you can see why we can't tell you, "Stop the games and and give the pup a proper correction" or "Your puppy is not coming to you because he is afraid of the correction." We cannot see this puppy, and we also cannot trust your evaluation of what the puppy is actually doing.

What we can see is that your expectations for a 16 week old puppy are out of line. Recall is a life-skill. A dog with good recall (COME) can be saved in a bad situation by the use and following of this command. And a dog without a good recall, can die because of it. So we want to get this one right.

When training recall, I NEVER use the term unless I have the ability to enforce it immediately. In the beginning, this means the dog is connected to a 6' leash. That can change to a long line. Being in a fenced field when the dog is doing the work on a line perfectly. NEVER EVER call the dog to you to punish him. NEVER punish COME. If you called the dog to COME and he did not, then you did the wrong thing. You were unable to enforce immediately, and did not realize the dog was not yet ready to do the command off-line. Punishment is inappropriate. You want the dog to come to you every single time. He will not if you punish him some of the time with that word. Make coming to you better than chopped liver. 

If you want your dog to listen to you every time, then stop repeating yourself. Giving commands that you cannot enforce immediately, teaches a dog to ignore your commands. This leads to you repeating your commands, which teaches a dog that he does not have to follow them. 

Training a puppy requires discipline. Discipline on YOUR part. You have to train and discipline yourself to build the language that your pup can understand. They are creatures of habit. They understand body language better than words, but use your words too. 

Rules: 
1. Do not give a command that you cannot immediately enforce.

2. Do not repeat commands, tell the dog 1 time, and then help him get into the proper position, then praise the proper position, Good SIT, Good Down. etc. 

3. Praise behavior you want, praise and treat in the beginning, then you can start to wean off the treats. You can temper praise to the circumstances and the performance. Use your voice as an instrument and tune it to your dog's temperament and drives. (a good trainer could help you with this.)

4. Realistic expectations. You have a baby here. You have to teach the dog first what is wanted, and then you have to practice it and get good at it. Then you have to perform it with distractions and in different places. Just because your dog knows how to lay down in your living room, does not mean he can do it on the sidewalk when you are talking to a lady with two dogs. 

5. Stay calm. If you lose control, the trust your dog has in you can be totally shattered. Dogs do not like instability . 

6. Do not repeat an exercise more than 3 times in a row. Try it once, get into position, praise, then again, and possibly again, then move on to something else.

7. Use the same body language or signs for the different exercises. A good trainer can help you with this. Because sometimes we do not realize that we do a certain thing with our body that our dog is cuing on, and a good trainer may be able to recognize it. 

8. Start and end all training sessions with something light, fun, that the dog will have success with. 

9. Keep training sessions short for puppies. 

10. Set your dog up for success and praise him for succeeding. If you find yourself correcting the dog more than 5% of your training, then re-evaluate your training and your expectations, go back a few steps. It is a marathon not a race. It is the journey not the goal.


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## tim_s_adams (Aug 9, 2017)

@seltzer +1 vote for making this message a sticky!

Think of all the typing time it would save!


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

tim_s_adams said:


> @seltzer +1 vote for making this message a sticky!
> 
> Think of all the typing time it would save!


Thank you. 

It might, but, I think a sticky should be set up with more intent and thought, like, maybe the it should just be the rules, and the rules would be ordered properly in the order of importance, and maybe some that I just forgot when I was typing it. 

Maybe a consolidated effort, training rules for pet GSD puppies, that we let everyone contribute to, and then choose the best 10-15, that are written simply and concisely, and someone can order them and make them a sticky. Then maybe it could be easy to read and no one would be over-whelmed by the amount of information.


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## tim_s_adams (Aug 9, 2017)

I'd be happy to start such a collaborative thread, or if you'd prefer to do it that's good...after all, it's based on your thoughts and material! But I really do think, and I'm saying this admittedly without having searched the archives about this, having a clear outline on how to teach a puppy would be really good to be able to point people to. It is a frequently asked question...my puppy hates me, now what?


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## tim_s_adams (Aug 9, 2017)

I apologize if my previous post seemed insensitive! Not my intention. It's just that this does occur frequently. Whether a person or family is unused to dogs in general, or GSDs specifically, doesn't matter, it happens a lot. And it's not that the people are at fault or to blame, especially with these darn GSDs LOL, they are smart enough to confound anyone! But having a well thought out set of training parameters (notice how I avoided the term rules LOL), that we all could point to would be helpful.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

I don't think your posts were insensitive at all. I agree that a concise, simple fundamental guidelines for starting off on the right foot, or getting onto the right foot in the area of bond-building/communicating/training your dog is a good idea. And if you want to take it and run with it that is awesome. 

I am more likely to blame the human side of the equation than the baby-puppy. I think we need to re-think our ideas about training. We need to go from crime/punishment, unwanted behavior/correction and move more toward the idea of training as learning to communicate with your dog. We communicate what we want the dog to do, and the dog communicates by doing it. It may be more of a two way street than that. In the process of learning to communicate what we want to our dog, we learn who the dog is, what he is trying to tell us, where he is uncomfortable, what he likes, what he is good at. 

When we shift the onus of training onto us, it becomes less about punishment/correction, and more about building a bond of trust, more about discipline on the human end of the lead, more about working with the dog in front of us, training him in the way that he should go. 

When we make training fun, by setting the dog up for success and praising him for it. Training sessions become fun for us too. Fun for the dog, fun for us, and the dog becomes eager to do more and more, and we become eager to go out and do it with the dog. We can manage behaviors we want to eliminate, until we start getting that communication bond right. Then, we need only say a little eh-eh! My garbage, or leave it, and our dogs knows and leaves it alone. 

Training is learning to communicate with your dog. It is not positive only, it isn't balanced (if balanced is correcting with training aids like prongs and e-collars), though it can be a method of communicating. I am not against correcting a dog, but training should be hugely light, fun, enjoyable for the dog and the human, and corrections should be a minor part of it. 

This is why I cannot take it and run with it. I get wordy, and passionate, and can't just stick with the facts or rules.


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## tim_s_adams (Aug 9, 2017)

I love that! But, unless you want to collaborate on a book, enough LOL. Just too much good advice for free. (Not really kidding on the book idea, let me known if you're at all interested!).

Training is usually 90%/10% human/animal respectively. When/if training is not going well, it's almost always always always on the trainer! I took my 7 month old puppy to the vet, a couple months back, and while the vet tech and I were talking my puppy started to chew on a table. I calmly said , no, that's not for you, in a conversational tone, and Nyx stopped right away. The vet tech made a huge deal about how well she responded, but honestly that's how we always communicate. When I hear of people's puppies being corrected for things they couldn't hope to know I cringe inside. I've never seen a reason to be mad at a puppy ever...and can't even picture such a scenario. Every puppy I've ever met just wants to please...

Which is why I thought some sort of "rules of engagement" would be so handy to have around as a sticky for us all to point to. And I've got to say, your list covered it! Not saying others couldn't maybe add some things, but it was very well stated and thorough! So, I will gladly run with the idea, starting with your "rules" list as a basis. It will be interesting to see what this very experienced group of GSD owners/lovers/trainers/breeders comes up with for a finished product!


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

tim_s_adams said:


> I love that! But, unless you want to collaborate on a book, enough LOL. Just too much good advice for free. (Not really kidding on the book idea, let me known if you're at all interested!).
> 
> Training is usually 90%/10% human/animal respectively. When/if training is not going well, it's almost always always always on the trainer! I took my 7 month old puppy to the vet, a couple months back, and while the vet tech and I were talking my puppy started to chew on a table. I calmly said , no, that's not for you, in a conversational tone, and Nyx stopped right away. The vet tech made a huge deal about how well she responded, but honestly that's how we always communicate. When I hear of people's puppies being corrected for things they couldn't hope to know I cringe inside. I've never seen a reason to be mad at a puppy ever...and can't even picture such a scenario. Every puppy I've ever met just wants to please...
> 
> Which is why I thought some sort of "rules of engagement" would be so handy to have around as a sticky for us all to point to. And I've got to say, your list covered it! Not saying others couldn't maybe add some things, but it was very well stated and thorough! So, I will gladly run with the idea, starting with your "rules" list as a basis. It will be interesting to see what this very experienced group of GSD owners/lovers/trainers/breeders comes up with for a finished product!


I would like to write a book. Or collaborate on a book. But people today, can barely be expected to read through a pamphlet. I am not saying they can't read. In fact, I think people are better educated that 15-20 years ago, more degrees out there anyway. But whether people are just so busy, or if they are just in the fast-food-mentality with everything, they do not want to read a step-by-step process, they would rather look at some dude on a u-tube. And this I think is unfortunate, because I think there is something to reading words on a page, and understanding the thought behind actions. 

I dunno. 

I bought a bunch of some gal trainer's small pamphlet type training your new puppy thing. I can't remember her name, but she is well known and I liked what she had to say, and I put them in the binders that I make up for my puppy buyers. I may be ready to make up my own pamplet for getting off on the right foot with your new puppy.

I also agree that you should be able to tell a dog to knock it off in a conversational tone and get an immediate positive response. We can do this when we have a relationship with our dog. Dogs do desire to please us, so building that kind of bond with this kind of dog, shouldn't be rocket science. I think we make it much harder than it has to be, and then the dogs suffer.


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## Lrd (Oct 15, 2020)

Ahutto17 said:


> I was wondering what to do about my GSD (4mo old male) becoming aggressive toward me after I correct him. I am trying to work with him on not biting and/or going to the neighbors yard and not coming to me when I call for him. When he doesn't listen I try to correct him but when I do he just growls and barks at me like he is "talking back". The more I tell him no the more he barks and snaps at me? I'm not sure what to do at this point? I want to be able to correct him and have him listen to me but he seems to have other plans in mind. When working with him in training he will sit, stay, and come when there are treats involved but he will not listen when it comes to him going over to the neighbors. I end up having to go and physical bring him back home. My husband has stated he wonders if a shock collar would be effect.
> Any help with these problems would be greatly appreciated!
> Ashley H.


It sounds like he's confused and if an animal is confused it will lash out and be careful not to over discipline a animal that is confused cuz you might get bit because they are not understanding and they will defend themselves not that they're wanting to hurt you but if they're afraid you're going to hurt them you will get bit I would say work with professional trainers do your homework watch videos in the meantime I would keep on a leash or a long training type leash I use a horse lunge line for my dogs to help them with recall so they can run farther and farther and explore things and then if I recall them or see that they're going to get in trouble I do have control still please if you can't get this under control talk to your veterinarian are contact professionals a lot of local shelters even have professional trainers they work with and can also help you don't lose control of this dog


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## Fodder (Oct 21, 2007)

hey @Lrd welcome to the forum!
i just wanted to point out that the last few posts you’ve made have been in threads that are several years old. in a lot of cases the member is no longer active.
often, when noticed, these threads are locked. just a heads up


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## dogma13 (Mar 8, 2014)

Very old thread.The OP has not returned.


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## WNGD (Jan 15, 2005)

Good advice given here though. Especially asking why a 16 week old puppy was given free rein in a fenceless back year with the neighbors dogs running the hood...


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