The very popular long haired German shepherd puppies are loyal, protective, energetic, intelligent, and athletic. All these traits make it easy to train a long-haired German shepherd puppy.
It is better to start the training of your long-haired German shepherd when it is still a puppy because it allows molding the personality of the puppy from an early stage and helps in developing a relationship easily.
Start by handling the puppy’s paws, ear, tail, etc. gently. This prepares the dog for future grooming, such as the trimming of nails, cleaning of ears, and other grooming procedures. These grooming procedures can be very tough to do on a full-grown long-haired German shepherd if training in their puppy stage is not provided.
To make your German shepherd follow your commands, you need to be patient and start with the basic commands such as sit, stay, handshake, and heel. The puppy will not respond to your every command immediately, so you need to train the dog continuously.
To motivate your long-haired German shepherd, you can provide rewards to the dog. The reward can be in the form of food or games. In the process of training the dogs that people are not a threat to the food bowl, you can gently pet the dog while they are eating and add food in their bowl while they are eating. Adding the food in the puppy’s bowl makes the puppy associate good things with people near the food bowl.
You should address the food aggression by removing the food bowl and feeding the dog by hand. Food should be offered only when the dog follows the command correctly. To make the puppy realize that having you around the bowl means good things, and the bowl does not need to be guarded. You can start by removing the food bowl and feeding the dog by hand. You can drop some food as a reward in the bowl but continue the hand feeding. You can also place the empty bowl nearby and feed the dog by hand. To make the dog feel that you bring the goodness to the bowl, you can add treats like chicken to the bowl. Gradually you can start adding the food to the bowl, and you can sit or stand beside the puppy while it eats.
When you are sure that the puppy is fine with having you around the bowl, you can start training the dog while feeding it. You can ask the dog to sit before having the food, or gives other commands like looking at you, etc. When the given command has been properly followed, you can feed the dog.
After sometime, when the dog masters a command, you can gradually stop giving the food as a reward and make the dog follow the command even without the food as a reward. Train the dog to respond to various commands by only praising them. Food should be offered as a reward only when the dogs give an outstanding performance.
It is always better to have a positive environment while training your dog. It is a bad practice to yell at your pets, so if you ever feel that your patience is wearing out, you can take a break and resume only when you feel good about the training.
The puppy needs to understand that only one family member who has done the training work is not the only one to be obeyed, and the rest of the family members’ command should also be followed. After the dog has understood the basic training, the rest of the family can also participate in formal training. After the puppy is eight to ten weeks old, it should start getting its vaccine and can be enrolled in a puppy preschool.