1 year old hesitating on almost all commands
 

I have a 1 year old male GSD that is hesitating when given most of his commands (sit, down, cage, etc). I know that he knows what these commands mean because most of the time he flinches like he's going to start but then he stops and just looks at me.

Additionally I get this feeling that he only does what I tell him to because he feels he has to not because he wants to. The reason I say this is because when he's on a leash he is listens first time about 75% and the rest of the time I'd say it's because he was focusing somewhere else. If he's not on the leash he will want to interact with me part of the time but for the most part he tries to keep at least 10 feet between us. If I reach out for him, even just to pet him he will try to dodge my hand, not like a dog that has been beat more like a running back trying to juke a defender.

Now...here comes what I think it is. I think that the person I used for a trainer screwed him and I up...that we got off on the wrong foot and everything she taught me has got me to this point now. The training we did was about 80% negative and 20% positive. She taught me to praise him when he did it right but use the pinch collar and give him a sharp correction when he didn't do it correctly.

I think that you can make training a lot more fun and improve the speed and accuracy of your obedience.

Granted, dogs do check out, and no one can be attentive all the time, but what you said about the training could be a cause of what you are seeing.

Why Does my Dog Ignore my Commands? took me forever but I found it!

So checking some clicker training out on the Karen Pryor site, some relationship based training stuff from Suzanne Clothier's site, if you like competing (or not) Denise Fenzi has a nice blog, Dr. Yin's stuff: http://drsophiayin.com/resources/dog_behavior/ checking out calming signals (going slow is one of them) Calming Signals Community just bits at a time to get back on track with your dog as a fun, fair leader. Thankfully they forgive us!

Jean, thank you that helped a lot. I read through some of that blog and thought a lot about the body language part of it. I honestly went in a room by myself and pretended like I was telling Murphy the down command and paid attention to what I did. I realized I'm leaning forward about 6" when I tell him down but lately I've been trying to stay more upright.

So as a test I worked with him for about 20 minutes giving him the down command both ways; 1. leaned forward about 6" and 2. Standing upright. When leaning forward he reacted correctly about 80% of the time on the first command. When standing upright he reacted correctly on the first command only about 40% of the time. Even when he did act correctly it's almost as if he's hesitating because he's unsure.

These creatures never cease to amaze me!

I don't think that's going to solve every issue I have right now but I do think it will help with some of it.

I think you've answered your question right here. Personally I think training how NOT to do something by correcting the dog for getting it wrong is much less productive than showing them how TO do something by rewarding them when they get it right. Further, all those corrections for getting it wrong have the potential fallout that you've been experiencing - instead of happy, enthusiastic compliance you end up with slow, reluctant compliance. With one way there's an incentive to keep trying, with the other the dog may just give up because it's not worth it.

Think of it this way - no matter what command you give your dog, there's just ONE correct response, yes? Sit always means sit and nothing but sit. Now how many things can you think of that your dog might do instead of sitting when cued to do so? I can think of a lot! When you look at it that way, doesn't correcting him for NOT sitting seem pretty inefficient? He's learning what sit isn't, but it could be a long process of elimination to figure out what sit IS. Contrast that with rewarding him for a sit - that gets the point across right away, doesn't it? And working for a potential reward instead of to avoid a potential correction is going to be more fun for both of you, and improve your relationship.

One small thing to keep in mind - if you use a correction (once you are sure the dog understands the command) to insure that the dog does what he/she is told to do in a proper manner and speed; it DOES NOT mean (as so many seem to think!) tha you do not also REWARD when the dog does it properly!

That is, using a correction when needed has has nothing to do with a reward (praise, treat, or toy, etc.) when the dog does it right!!!!

BTW, some of the most enthusiastic, willing and happy working dogs have been ScH dogs in my training org whose owners could easily be accused by some folks of being trainers who use "Harsh" methods!

The only caveat I want to give (I think the idea of more
positive and less neg is good) is that about this age, I
know quite a lot can hit what I call the teenage butthead
stage. They do grow out of it though. I think patience and
persistence are key.

Yeah. The Butthead stage was not fun at all. We got through the butthead stage by changing up his reward (food) to new and different foods; Liver treats went to pieces of boiled chicken or dried hot dogs. The minute his butt hit the ground, he got a piece of dried hotdog. After that, he'd slam his butt on the ground at the first command to see what treat he was going to get.

Nita hit her teenage stage this past month - she was ignoring Sabrina and making sure her Pez dispenser had to give her the down command 3 times with treats!

They have worked through this and she is now back to listening :)