Certain kind of handler?

[Heather & Madison]

Madison is 15 weeks old now and I really think when it comes to training her so far we (Madison and I) have come on leaps and bounds. Socialising is coming along nicely and she is brilliant off leash and recall at least 75% of the time so far!!
Still being a puppy it's expected that she gets distracted easily but we keep at it.

Out on our before bed walk tonight we met a gentleman with a lovely golden lab, Madison and the lab had a great time chasing each other whilst my husband and I chatted with the man. He was nice but was quite opinionated about gsd's and when my husband said all Madison's training was down to me the man came out with 'no disrespect but it takes a certain kind of person to handle a GSD!'

I'm not sure exactly how to take that - what does that mean do you think? - am I being over-sensitive?


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[mego]

It could be because you're female. Tons of people think all gsds are "police dogs that bite people and are extremely hard to control" - at least in my area.

If you come across as really friendly or gentle people will assume your dog will be bossing you around when they're larger. I'm a gentle person, pretty quiet, 5'4" woman..I sometimes get looks like I am crazy when I tell them I have a gsd because they don't expect me to be a firm handler, they expect me to be overly sensitive and forgiving for my dog's misbehavior.

I wouldnt think much of it, for all you know, that guy hard a hard time training his lab and is jealous that your gsd is so well behaved at this age and it made him feel worse to find out a woman is a better handler. You never know!

[Sunflowers]

Bah-- I would shrug it off.

People have preconceptions about GSDs.

My own mom said this was not a dog for me, and that he should be handled by a man

[Heather & Madison]

I think you're both absolutely right, thank you for your support :-)


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