“It’s amazing how fast this puppy grasps what he’s being taught”
Training your German shepherd is the most important thing you can do. From the day you bring your puppy home, teaching your dog how to become an obedient dog is important for their future well-being.
Since German shepherds are so smart and powerful, they need guidance, leadership, and socialization. They must learn how to greet people, behave in strange places, and what is expected of them at home.
Basic training isn’t optional with German Shepherds, it’s a necessity. If you have any doubt about this, look at how many shelters and rescues are filled with untrained dogs who have ended up there through no fault of their own.
You can train your German shepherd yourself or you can hire a trainer. There are many good trainers out there such as Duke Ferguson of Unleashed Potential, who has created this great video to help German shepherd owners.
In this eight-minute segment, he teaches you how to get your dog to pay attention to you; What Duke Ferguson calls, Mastering the Art of Attention. In it, he shares the week-long transformation of a 17-week-old German shepherd puppy named Diesel.
Diesel went into training a typical distracted and curious German shepherd puppy. He was interested in anything and everything going on around him and it was impossible to get his attention.
Try as Duke might, Diesel is just not interested in paying attention. He would rather sniff, explore, and go wherever he pleases. Also, he never looks to his handler for direction and doesn’t respond to his name. This must change so Diesel can be kept safe and grow up to be a confident, well-behaved German shepherd.
You’ll need to watch the entire video but Duke’s method includes, “food, toys, and affection equal motivation,” so he begins using the ball to direct Diesel’s focus. With this method, soon Diesel is looking to Duke for direction and watches him for cues.
Since Diesel is so smart, it doesn’t take long to build on these skills and incorporate basic training. All the while, Diesel is learning new commands, is being challenged to build his confidence, but also having fun while learning to pay attention.
Teaching a dog how to pay attention to you is foundational because, without that, it’s impossible to train them. This is the first step in teaching them to look at you for direction and learn their basic commands such as heel, leave it, down, no, come, etc.
We hope you enjoyed this helpful video. It’s amazing to watch how much this young puppy can learn in such a short time. The sky is truly the limit with these dogs when an investment of time is made into their training. As always, please feel free to share.