GSD v. Akita

Hi All,

This is a general question but about my dogs specifically.

I own 3 GSDs - ranging from 8 months - 10 years. The oldest has had no formal training although he's very obedient. his age hasn't slowed him down at all and he's as loopy as the younger dogs.

I also own a 14 motnh old (almost) GSDxAkita bitch, Ellie. She's had a fair amount of formal training and I've continued this at home, as with Zane (18 months) and now with Yiannis (8 months) and Seto (10 years).

For as long as I can remember, whilst growing up we always had GSDs and Akitas. Usually rescue dogs but some from breeders an some KC registered. This made no difference as far as I can remember to their training in any way, particularly obedience.

What I do remember for sure is that the Akitas were not so much harder to train but were definitely more independent and stubborn. I would take them for walkswith my parents and on my own once they decided I was old enough and other than 2 Akitas, ALL of the others had to stay on lead because of poor recall.

All of the GSDs we had were very quick on the uptake when we tried to teach them anything, whether it was a silly trick like rolling over or playing dead, or whether it was formal obedience or agility training.

In my opinion, the AKitas were just as intelligent, maybe moreso. After all, if somebody next to you drops something you'll bend to pick it up for them. It's the normal thing to do. They drop it a second time, you'll think about it. A third time, you leave them to pick it up themselves.

I was wondering, from those of you who've had experience of raising and/or training Akitas - are they generally harder to train? More stubborn? etc.

I know that for training Ellie I had to make the rewards far higher in value than for the 3 boys and when she's being stubborn we (Oscar and I) say she's having an Akita day - based on previous experience.

I was wondering if any else felt the same?

To a certain extent, it makes training her more of a challenge and more interesting - albeit a lot more difficult too.

For the trick training challenge over the past couple of weeks, Ellie's picked up what I'm asking of her very quickly. but again, ionce she's done it a couple of times, she doesn't see the point in practising!

Laura xx

not the same breeds, but when I moved from a GSD to rotties I found them diff to train, not harder just diff,

having had rotties for a long time now, I find them easier to train, but I find they dont do repetition as well as gsd's so rather than train one exercise three times in a row, I will do a bit of healwork, then something else then something else then back to the start, you can still do the same amount of training, you just have to mix it up a bit more,
I find the clicker a great way of breaking up training so they dont get bored.

Thanks Shona.

I've found ellie is far more receptive to what I'masking if I do mix things up and also if I don't expect her to continue for too long either.

I use a clicker for Yiannis and Zane took to it like a duck to water so Iuse it for him sometimes as well now. ellie on the other hand jsut thinks it's something to try to get out of my hand to chew up!
The look on her face is a picture though when she hears it.

Laura xx

the worst thing about my dogs that dont really do repetiton well is, if your having problems training an exercise, you cant go over and over it to solve the problems,
thats where niffty thinking comes in handy, in that case I break the exercise down into tiny bits, literally step by step, by doing that, you can mix up parts of the exercise so its not repetitive and iron out any small problems, if you know what I mean.

eg: If I were having a problem with straight present in recall, {this is where training becomes self contradictory} but rather than train the whole exercise, I would call the dog up, then keep stepping back and calling the dog in untill hes straight...now I know some will be thinking thats repetition but to the dog its not, its something diff, as repetiton would be calling him up, sending him to heal and doing the whole exercise over and over...
if the dog always came into slightly to my left hand side because they were antisipating going to heal, I would prob take heal out of the exercise, And I would train heal from both sides, ie: heal and back from the right hand side.

HI,

I know what you mean.

Zane went through a phase even after having perfect recall of presenting a littel to the right hand side. So I would leave my right foot slightly out and as he came in, he' self correct. I did have to move my foot back in at the right time though otherwise he'd end up too far to the left at times.

I tend to try to break everything down for them anyway. This way I can mix and match different things so they don't get too bored with any one exercise.

After the way Zane performed at the display today, I don't think I have anything to worry about re my training methods although I don't see how revamping or making certain changes at times wouldn't be to my advantage and the dogs' advantage.

They're always making progress, Ellie included. It's just frustrating when I know they know what I'm asking of them and they don't perform.

Laura xx

thats where working on motivation to train comes in / and further distractions while training comes in, depending on why/where/when they do that,