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Giving Pup Job

2K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  jeanmarie 
#1 ·
I've read multiple times that GSDs enjoy having jobs to do.

My question is, how early should we be assigning them jobs? Also, what are easy jobs to start with. Our pup is 14 weeks old, extremely active and very smart - although, insanely headstrong and stubborn.
 

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#2 ·
I would say at this age, the "job" is training sessions. Start with mini sessions and build up. Now most of this work is yours to become a good trainer. But you can start teaching scent work if you ever think you will go into nose work, or any tricks really... you can teach retrieve, etc. Also teach her games of engagement with you... like tug games. The job is what you ask the dog to do. Another way to think of it is that these dogs tend to excel at mentally stimulating actives... using their brains.
 
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#3 ·
We do already have her in training sessions and she seems to love it. I'm hoping we start getting into newer tricks though because so far the trainer has taught us things we previously already work on at home.

We are still struggling with potty training so maybe we can make it more fun for her somehow.
 
#5 ·
Here are a couple of jobs we did when Jack was about that age:

1. The basics of "Find it". Learning the word, and teaching him to find hidden treats in a 10'x10' area (basically one room).
2. Names of objects. Teaching him to differentiate between a ball and a rope. Which involved leading him over to the object, dropping a treat on the object, then saying the name of the object. We repeated this until he started looking down at the object without needing a treat first, then we moved further away so he had to walk over and sniff the object. Later, we taught him "Get the [object]".
 
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