too late for german commands?

[zena521]

hello i have a 7 month old female GSD. ive been using the typical english commands since she was 8 weeks (sit, stay, no). shes 7 months now...just wondering if it is too late to teach her all german commands??

[zyppi]

nope... but will probably always respond to engish tool

[kaitrinn7]

Not at all, she'll just know more Throw in hand signals too and then she'll be real versatile!

Of the things our pup is learning he knows all in German, all in hand signals, and a couple in English. With my limited (very limited) knowledge of this breed so far (and learning as fast as I can, lol), it seems like they could probably learn 10 languages and it wouldn't be too difficult, sooooooo smart!

[vomonyxhaus]

Nope....are you using hand signals?
Mine have learned Czech,German and French (have a client who wants his pup trained in French.....) HULK has picked up the French

[Castlemaid]

Not at all. I started out my adult rescue with all english commands. then I joined our Schutzhund club when she was 2, and introduced all german commands.

LOL, she picked up Platz when a club member was throwing the ball for a group of dogs for play. He held the ball up, said Platz, all the dogs platzed, Keeta looked around, saw all the dogs in the down position, and threw herself down to the ground, waiting for the ball to be thrown and the release command. After that, she just knew what platz was!

Just start over again with the german commands and food rewards. I also had a friend who started using the english/german commands as in down/platz, and then over time dropped the "down" and just used platz, and her dog "got it".

[Samba]

i don't add the german until the behaviors are very good anyway.

[Ruthie]

In my experience, no.

When we got our GSD, we started him on German commands. Our mutt, Moose, was trained with English. Moose picked up the German commands quickly because we do NILIF. So, if I am giving out cookies then I tell Bison to platz and Moose to down. Moose got to the point that he would just down when I told Bison to Platz even before Bison did. This is when I realized that he had figured it out.

If you are going to switch the word you use, start by saying the English word first, then the German word. Example: "Down Platz" then when she does it right reinforce only with German "Good Platz". Slowly phase out the English as she catches on.

[Chicagocanine]

No it's not too late. Bianca was trained in German and I got her when she was 4.5 years old and it has been very simple to teach her some English commands in addition to the German so now if I forget to say "Platz!" and I say "Down!" instead she will lay down. She also knows hand signals.

[Fodder]

in addition to english, Gia was taught hand signals @ 2 and italian at 5.

if there's no urgent need to teach german, i'd wait a little while, just so you have something new and exciting to stimulate her mind once you run out of ideas, tricks, games, etc...

[GSDElsa]

My husband is Bosnian and we've been adding that to Elsa's commands. Only have a couple so far...we kind of just started the English and then went "why aren't wen trying Bosnian?" Probably because I get flustered and mess it up and usually add German accents since that was my first second language! All my "Z"s in Bosnian are pronounced with a "tsh".