# What to expect from a 5-6mo pup?



## rcgardner (Aug 12, 2015)

I adopted a GSD pup from a young couple that had an accidental litter, the male is AKC registered and had some working grandparents. The female was CKC registered with no lineage information

A little info about our pup, Keagan:

Keagan has been with us since 8wks, he is 5 months and a couple weeks old now. He house trained, other than accidents because of my wife or my lack of attention at times, within two weeks of being him home. 

He is crated at night, until he wakes up for his 2:00am bathroom call and then we have recently begun to allow him to roam the house until we wake up around 7:00. He does not and has not chewed or damaged anything or have any accidents during this time. Most surprising to me was that he has not bothered the Christmas tree or stockings, and basically ignored there existance all day.

He learned sit, lay, stay, and recall so far. But consistency is lacking. I began and continue to train with treats intermittent with praise and the occasional use of a clicker. His consistency improves once I have his attention, but is still lacking. And I cannot tell if the treats are the sole motivation behind the improvement in focus and consistency or not. 

Inside our home where he began his training his consistency is MUCH better than outside where distractions exist. I've attempted to train more and more outside but it's almost impossible due to his high energy and apparent ADHD lol. I can't get him to focus enough to even complete name recalls if toys are involved and if the neighbors dogs are barking I might as well not exist!

Ultimately I feel like I must not be doing something right if his consistency is such an issue, and I KNOW that the outside issues are major. (The outside distractions are something I am working very hard on) But I feel like I might also just have to high of expectations. Should I expect his to sit, stay, lay, etc immediately upon command every time at 5 months? 

So.... What should I be expecting from a 5/6 month old pup?


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

I know a dog trainer and breeder who allows his puppies to be puppies until ten months old. Then he puts a prong collar on them and teaches them obedience within a week or two. 

His dogs are all nice dogs, he has good control on all of them, and can let strangers come up and pet them. His adults have good obedience skills. 

It isn't the way I like to go, but it works for him.

I think that some of us do make youngsters do too much too soon -- expect too much out of them. It depends on the pup really. My line would be whether or not the dog was having fun in training and if training was fun for me as well. If we aren't having a good time, then I need to do something different.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

What to expect really depends on a variety of factors, including your knowledge and experience of dog training (is this your first dog, or have you been training dogs for years?), how long you've been training him (did you start right away at 8 weeks old?), and with what level of consistency (brief daily sessions?). 

Halo graduated from her second 6 week class a few days before she turned 6 months old. I posted this thread about her last night of Puppy 2 class: http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/braggs/108565-huuuuge-halo-bragg-long-sorry.html

We got her at 10 weeks old and I began training her immediately, so she already had 3 weeks of daily training when she started her first class. She is our 5th GSD and I'd taken multiple classes with other dogs, so I taught her everything I'd learned from those prior classes. I wouldn't expect anything near this from someone who hasn't put that kind of time and effort in, or who hasn't had much if any prior dog training experience.

I would also expect that outdoors around a lot of distractions would be much more challenging than indoors with few distractions so you need to lower your expectations. Do you keep him on leash when you're training outdoors? 

Since in order to teach him anything you need to first have his attention, working on focus is really important. With Halo I wore my treat bag all the time, and any time she looked at me I marked it (either with the clicker or verbally - "yes!"), and gave her a treat. This is called "capturing" behaviors, because you're not giving an actual cue, you're just waiting for the dog to offer something up spontaneously. The more I rewarded her for attention, the more she started looking at me. Moving the treat away from the dog so he has to chase it makes the game more interesting, plus it reinforces that being near you is good.


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## rcgardner (Aug 12, 2015)

I grew up with GSDs but was never the primary trainer, so I have some basic knowledge of training but am not a professional or extremely experienced. I try to work with him two or three times a week for an hr or so each time, with my job I work irregular hours so sometimes it's hard to get more than two sessions a week. My wife is supposed to be working with him as well but I don't think she does!

We did start working with him within the first few weeks (after he acclimated to the new environment) with sit, lay, recall. Stay has been more recent... A month or so ago. Working on leave it now. 

We have a moderately sized fenced in yard so I typically do not have him on leash inside the fence when training, but perhaps that's what I should start with.

I have attempted to train the look at me command and do a simple praise/treat with eye contact but I'm not consistent enough with the praise/treat to make the connection I'm sure. I need to work on this!

My expectations really center around his ability to consistently preform a sit, stay, lay, leave it on the first command. If I can get that down with 100% certainty I'll be extremely happy! 

Ultimately I want to get him involved in agility and/or SAR work. I know that if I can get the off-leash basics down to a T, that when he is older more advanced commands and work can be done with a certain level of trust.


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## Castlemaid (Jun 29, 2006)

It would be pretty amazing to get 100% reliability in a young pup like yours! I think your are doing fantastic so far, and you need to relax your expectations a bit - puppies have short attention spans, and reliability will come as your pup matures into an adult. One hour of training is much, much, much too much! He is probably stressed by such a long training session (even though you are doing it in a positive rewarding way - it is still too much), and his hyper energy and lack of focus is a symptom of that stress. 

Much better to cut his training sessions to 15 minutes or so, two or three sessions a week is not bad, though a bit more would be better if you could manage it - even throwing in a five minute session in the middle of play or a walk will help, increase focus in distracting environments, and help establish consistency amid environmental changes. 

Simplify your training goals, and move forward one step at a time. You want your puppy to focus outside when the neighbour's dog is barking? Start by getting his focus on you with a lot of exciting play and lots of rapid-fire-treats coming from you, then ask for ONE sit, hold it for five seconds, and release and reward! Get your puppy in the house quick before his focus drifts back to the barking dog - as an example of how to overcome the distractions. Get him excited about going outside and playing with YOU so his default interest is playing with Dad!! Puppies shouldn't even know that they are being trained - they should believe that all the training is part of the best, funnest games ever! 

If he is ball crazy, he may focus and work better for a ball or other toy - try using play with a ball to see how he overcomes distractions. Get a ball on a string and get him catching and tugging, then ask him to sit (when you have the ball), and reward him immediately for his sit but throwing the ball for him or getting him into a wild game of tug. 

Just some suggestions that may help -


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

^What Lucia said! I can understand how an hour at a time can be difficult, but as she pointed out, puppies have a short attention span anyway. I was taking hour long classes once a week, but out at home training sessions were much shorter. If you can manage 5-15 minutes a day, that would be great, maybe with a longer session of up to a half hour a couple times per week. With really short training sessions you might even be able to do more than one a day. 

Her advice about making training fun and mixing play into training is really good too - if you're not having fun, he's not either, so keep it upbeat and fast paced, and use balls and/or tugs as rewards as well.


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## rcgardner (Aug 12, 2015)

Really appreciate the advice! 

I should have qualified that expectation with a "by the time he is around a year to year and a half." Which I know might still be a challenge...

I will definately try to work with him more often at shorter intervals that would help me out more as well!


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## suejoh (Apr 13, 2015)

I have a 7 month old dog and I had the same problem as you when out walking. We live by the New Forest so she runs loose there but on a long line trailing. I had taught her to look at me - not on command but the treats in the hand which she gets when she looks at me. I use "Yes" as a marker. This was good at home. 
Anyway I too was worried that she did not give me attention out so I started to mark when she looked at me (loud "Yes") and lovely yummy reward (sausage or chicken or sometimes a cat food sachet). This means she checks back in constantly and has to come back to me for her reward. I know if there is a dog or the dreaded deer that I have no chance so I grab the long line and dont let her go. My other dogs took until about 9 months before I could stop using a long line even if there were deer about so I am not the best trainer and she may take longer as she has high chase drive.
Best of luck


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## destroy (Dec 21, 2015)

*nice*

I think you are doing pretty good progress for your dog age. All i can recommend is to have 10x1min session instead of 1x10min session. Add new commands very slowly to your daily routine.


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## pyratemom (Jan 10, 2011)

I think you have a good start. Remember to train each command in several different places the pup knows sit means sit no matter where you are and down means down no matter where you are, etc. Using several locations to train the same command cements the meaning of the command and will help the attention. I use a clicker to train eye attention as it marks the behavior so exactly so I use click and treat. I also use the clicker to train the "place" command. Several short sessions are better than long ones as puppies lose the attention and don't learn as much. Good luck. Keep training, it is worth it.


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