Things to know as a new German Shepherd owner | Mistakes made by new owners

[Music] [Music] sorry g'day guys welcome to lucy's channel lucy layne the queen of belmain today we're going to talk about big mistakes made by newbie german shepherd owners and i probably made most of these myself so what we're going to do now i'm going to go through these mistakes a lot of these i've made myself and i'm going to give my either my own advice just agree or send you somewhere where you can get more information on that specific thing anyway guys i hope this video could help someone out there let's get started so biggest mistake number one i assumed my clothes would not get harmed during training of this magnificent beast well guys let me tell you that if you own anything black just throw it out right now from my personal experience uh my wife won't wear anything black in this house this dog hair gets all over it and you look like a mess when you walk down the street number two not buying two german shepherds now i don't think that's a mistake i think that's a blessing in disguise i think if you want to buy a second german shepherd wait until you're around you've had your german shepherd for around two years especially like if you're a newbie german shepherd owner this is not some magical number this is just my own personal advice just because the amount of work to do it properly is just it is so consuming i think two is just going to be too much pressure and you know a lot of people would probably just give up focus on the one you got for now get a second one later on number three letting him bark at the window now this could get really annoying especially if you live in a place like we do so we live in a city sydney and we will live very close to each other yes we're in a little house but you know our we've got we've got people walking past their house every five seconds and like our lounge room so close to the path that a stranger could literally reach through into our land room from the path if the window was open so i'm very lucky that lucy's not a barker in that respect she's only triggered if someone touches the latch on the gate and then that's good because i then have a warning of who's coming but if she was a constant barker that would get very old very quickly and you'd have to do some type of correctional training um to help manage that but keeping in mind these guys are natural barkers i did experience this with my parents german shepherd recently because we had to look after her as my parents went away for our little holiday and she's a complete opposite to lucy at absolutely everything you can't freaking sneeze without her barking so look that was an experience of having a very vocal german shepherd and just wanting to stand up on yeah on the desk to look out the window and bark at everything that walks past so that took some getting used to and look if i was to have her permanently would be doing some serious serious training just to form some boundaries on what is appropriate here and what's not but understand your pain contact a trainer i stopped training my gsd now i don't know why you would stop training in gst for all the newbie german shepherd owners out there owning a german shepherd is a lifelong commitment as you probably have cottoned on to but the training never stops either i'm sure yeah as they get older you can taper it down a little bit but these guys need to be mentally stimulated all the time so lucy is nearly three years old and we still do multiple little sessions a day now these can vary from day to day some days it's more some days it's less but lucy always gets some obedience work every day now it may be conducted when i'm feeding her or it may be conducted at the park playing ball with her with her favorite um ball because she's very toy driven um but the point is that lucy gets some type of mental stimulation every day not reinforcing good lead walking and correct methods of socialization yep good lead walking could be a pain in the ass when you get when the puppy gets a little bit older um when they're obviously 10 8 10 kilos whatever it's not going to be that much of a drama but they don't stay 10 kilos long before you know it 18 months has gone past they had 30 kilos 40 kilos good to go and getting dragged on the street is not nice for anyone so best thing i can best advice i'll give you for that is a no pull halti they work great no pull harnesses they also work great now if you want to go against the grain a little bit and utilize a really fantastic tool that has a bad wrap with some people is a prong collar i utilize a prong collar for summer lucy's training and it's a fantastic tool the reasons why there's a kind of there's people on one side of the fence and people on the other there's no middle ground with a prong collar um people who love them people hate them and the reason why they have developed such hate over the years i think uh bad people have been using this good tool for the wrong reasons and inflicting damage so essentially you can in in my mind you can you can inflict damage with any tool you can inflict a lot of damage with a flat collar so if you're going to use a prong collar do get the help of a dog trainer who understands a tool and you are good to go now socialization super important what we did with lucy when we first got her and i highly recommend you do with your new pup if you're a new german shepherd owner is get them socialized around kids um especially with like young kids boisterous kids and you know little boys and they're just loud and doing their thing um i recommend getting your dog socialized around lots of little puppies lots of little yappy dogs because they're always going to be yapping at them when they especially when they get older and bigger like lucy is now get them around big dogs take them to the park specific parks do some socializing in there be careful what parks you do go to because people do have some bad experiences in dog parks but find a good area and you know take your pup down to a good park working full time this is a bit of a controversial topic so with loose my wife and i we both run our businesses we have very busy people we both work probably more than full time and we still own a german shepherd now these guys do require a a lot of work initially but as they get older they do mellow out a little bit so you're going to have a lot more leniency but at the start with lucy yeah it was a lot of work we even had to have a personal dog walker to come in and break up her day just so she didn't destroy everything required training morning and night it was a very very very structured and busy routine so if you are working full-time don't be afraid to utilize dog walkers don't be afraid to get your family members in to try and help you with your pup make sure you put the work in before you go to work training and all that sort of good stuff and after you come home from work don't just come home veggie out now she'll be right mate i'll do it tomorrow that isn't the attitude you want you can have a german shepherd and work full-time because most people work full-time right it's just about prioritizing the time around your work schedule and make sure the time your dog gets a time that it requires and deserves so the next biggest mistake people have are taking their dogs to the dog park kind of contradicting to what i said before but this is someone's obviously someone's experience so there are experiences where people can have very bad times and traumatic experiences whilst taking their doctor dog parks this is generally from other people not having control of their dogs while they're off lead unfortunately this happens there's an example that happened just kind of recently in the last 12 months at one of the dog parks that we regularly go to with lucy and it is actually on the youtube channel here but at this pacific dog park a woman actually got mauled her and her german shepherd her german shepherd ended up getting put down from the injuries and the woman i think received 30 or 40 stitches it was pretty brutal and she was essentially they were attacked by a some type of mastiff pitbull mix thing and the owner of that dog then hightailed it out of there as this was all happening so they've obviously panicked and just ran and thought oh my god what do you even do like it's that's a terrible and extreme thing to have happen but it can happen take my advice from what i said before like do your research when you're looking for a dog park we got a lot of dog parks around sydney um there are lots of great and friendly and safe dog parks but just understand you're not 100 always safe so there's or there is always an element of risk to going to a dog park but at the same time there's always an element of risk when you hop into the car and you drive to the shops there's an element of risk where you can have an accident you know what i mean so like it's just doing everything to minimize the risks understand that you have control of your dog and if you know being observant of your surroundings and if there's something that you're a little bit funny about pop your dog on a lead get out of there now this is actually not one of these but this is a little compliment that lucy got for her channel for now we have made no mistakes and you are one of the people who helped me well thank you very much lucy poor well done you're a good girl you're showing people how it's done aren't ya um that means a lot to us thank you very much a lovely comment again guys we're not dog trainers we are just dog german shepherd enthusiasts and this channel is all you huff and a puffin this channel is all about just doing more with your dog that's what i want to portray just we just love doing with our german shepherd she's a part of our family so anyway i tell everyone she's my firstborn daughter the next one number 11 putting a harness on my german shepherd look again this is a bit of a sticky one and this is actually a mistake i made when lucy was about three months old yes there are harnesses and then there are no pull harnesses so there are hearts so what happened with us is one time i was taking lucy for a walk and she had a flat collar on and then a a woman came up to me and started i you not started yelling at me because i had a collar on lucy turns out she was some tree-hugging hippie and this was just a normal collar and i was like what is your problem anyway i thought am i doing the wrong thing i rushed out after getting verbally abused by some chick i went and got lucy a harness and like this will do the trick bang and it was a harness design to actually encourage pulling and i was like are you me i had no idea like what this thing was anyway i clipped her on and then i was getting dragged down the street and i thought the best way to compensate this was a bungee lead and then it was just we were a hot mess walking down the street lucy's pulling me we've got this pool harness and we've got this bungee league going and we just look like this abs we look like an absolute i digress but you may have put the wrong harness on him so just take your harness back or just write it off and go get a no pull harness if a harness is what you want to use get a no pull harness or get a no pull halty as i said before that will change your life that will help you and your dog get a good walking rhythm good walking routine and you should be good to go number 12 allowed my german shepherd to chase birds at the park now this is a funny one i can relate so i kind of did the same thing with lucy at the park i let her chase birds i thought it was a great idea for her to burn energy she still does it to this day but what i did so lucy has a crazy high prey drive for small animals and things like that but what i did was i essentially trained her to only do it on command and now we can walk through the park and there are days when i don't let her try chase the birds and she'll just walk at my heel and chill she won't even look at them but if i give her the command she will go and chase him look if i could have my time again i wouldn't have encouraged any bird chasing but i was lucky enough to be able to control that down the track with some correctional training but um look guys i think early on with the german shepherd pups don't encourage him to chase small animals and things biggest mistake i made was not getting my german shepherd as a puppy and we later on had a lot of issues with aggression now this can be a big thing i suppose if you were to get a rescue german shepherd now i'm not saying there's anything against rescue german shepherds i think getting a rescue german shepherd are great because there are a lot of german shepherds out there that need new homes i do know that there are some rescue agencies that can be a bit iffy in telling you all the correct information about their past so maybe just look into where you're going to get this german shepherd from to help prevent you know getting a german shepherd that's had a traumatic past you bring it home and it's just an absolute it's more than what you can handle especially if you've got kids and things around i have heard of things like that happening before so look best advice i can give here is if you're going to get a re-home german shepherd do diligence jump online do some research everything's on google these days and just put a little bit of work into it before you jump on and go make this commitment and it could be a bit more than you could be biting off a bit more than what you can chew alrighty the next one number 14 not teaching my dog recall early enough now this should be one of the first things that you teach your german shepherd or dog in that fact cat whatever it is maybe not cats but um definitely teach your dog recall before it goes off a lead or anything like that in a dog even if it's an offly dog park if you don't have recall down packs stays on a lead 100 so best thing to do start practicing at home literally you and a family member you stand at one end of the room a family member at the other end of the room and just have some treats and start calling the puppy over you don't even have to call it its name when you first get it just make some funny noises get us attention you get to come over when it comes over treat praise repeat then obviously as they succeed in that specific area make it a little bit harder maybe utilize two rooms three rooms opposite ends of the house and then maybe backyard and just do this for a first few weeks number 15 not knowing the susceptibility to hip dysplasia with german shepherds so german shepherds the biggest ham i think we all know it we've all heard it before the hind legs of these guys do give out eventually now that could happen to some german shepherds yes um happens to a lot of larger breed dogs as well and due to a lot of poor breeding and poor bloodlines and people backyard breeding there's a lot of different problems why this keeps happening but one thing i learned so when i was getting lucy i did all my research under the sun i made sure that i i pretty much canceled that all possibilities of getting hip dysplasia fingers crossed she has no hip dysplasia she's very genetically healthy but i did everything right but what i've failed to recognize is there is still no 100 guarantee that she won't experience some type of hip dysplasia arthritis when she's older so even if you so what i recommend i recommend you do all the research in the world and you make sure you get it from a reputable breeder all that good stuff they practice good breeding practices they have strong bloodlines but no matter how much research you do onto minimizing this that's all it is you're minimizing the risk of hip dysplasia if you buy your german shepherd from a backyard breeder you pretty much maximize that risk like it's probably bound to happen but if you got your german shepherd from a reputable breeder and you you're minimizing that risk you're not cancelling out that risk completely so even if you do all the right things you are still rolling the genetic dice and fingers crossed that you don't have to experience any hypnosis facial problems with your german shepherd pup telling my family that german shared his own that's hilarious i did the exact same thing to my wife boy did i get in trouble two weeks later didn't house train my german shepherd from day one look this could be a bit of a drama especially like manners boundaries all sorts of stuff going to the toilet outside all these things could play a big this could be just a complete nightmare to be honest so from day one i highly recommend get a trainer get a crate do your boundary training um utilize the crate to help you with toilet training and essentially that'll put you on the right path but this is vital house training from day one so training in general needs to start from the day you bring home your german chevy puppy number 20 didn't socialize my german ship probably because of covert 19. that's a doozy and that is not your fault um and that is no one's fault getting a german shepherd now places aren't open there's a lot of places where you can't socialize like socializing a dog you need to socialize it so look this is this is something that someone needs to come up with something to help with this so look guys i'm not sure what to do because i don't know where you live this is a problem um i'd say maybe put off getting a german shepherd for a while but covert's here to stay that things will probably never be the same again so this is something that needs to be addressed and right now i don't have even an answer for it all right number 21 is destroying the house destructive behavior yes this is a doozy so i experienced this myself so i put all this time and effort into house training lucy into boundary training all this good stuff she was a perfect little puppy to be to be honest she was a perfect inside puppy then one day i just turfed around into the backyard and guess what happened two hours out there on her own unaccompanied or and with unrestricted movement she redecorated the entire backyard for me and caused thousands of dollars worth of damage so i think the best way to manage this is essentially puppies shouldn't get any free reign and even if they're out in the backyard they should be supervised like you know when you have a little toddler or a little kid in a park you're not just going to put them in the park and leave them there they need to be supervised treat your puppy as a little kid a little baby even they need to be supervised with everything they do and when they do slip up you can correct them and address the situation all right 22 not getting a strong enough vacuum cleaner guilty over here i also told my wife that german shepherds don't shed so that's probably why we don't have a strong vacuum cleaner highly recommend a dyson and maybe 17 roombas so number 23 is not training frequently enough now this is a simple mistake that a lot of people can make and people's lives get busy and whatnot but what you can do is start utilizing the meal timings for training sessions so instead of giving your dog a free breakfast and a free dinner why don't you make your dog work for 10 minutes for that dinner and feed them by hand so every command you give them give them a little handful of kibbles or a piece of chicken or whatever it is they're reading and feed them that way make them earn their food then you've now given them two training sessions for the day number 24 is over socializing in dog parks look i think there's more problems with under socializing but if you're starting to think that you're over socializing your dog you maybe get behavioral issues or anything like that or i don't know things are going wrong maybe just step away from taking them to the dog park and maybe kind of start introducing more just like solo walks on lead around the town things like that there's always a solution to every problem that arises and if you're unsure of what's going on or whatever just literally contact the dog trainer get onto it asap underestimating the amount of energy mental stimulation and physical stimulation this german shepherd breed needs look i think a lot of people do do that and i think a lot of people love the idea of having a german shepherd but in reality maybe not the best idea guys this dog is a lifelong commitment just know that when you're getting into it it's like a marriage or it's like having kids um these guys need you know an hour and a half of exercise a day they need training these guys eat a lot of food these guys cost a lot of money everything about them is a lot a lot of time a lot of energy a lot of love a lot of everything don't get me wrong it is the most rewarding thing i think you'll ever endeavor on if you do go through with it but there's a lot of people that just don't have the time or the maybe a little bit more selfish and that's okay that is absolutely okay but just know guys when you get a german shepherd it is a lifelong commitment this is the last one guys being guilt-tripped into raw feeding by raw feeding extremists on social media i believe thou art the creator of goodness and nourishment and of sustenance holy which made my dog's allergies worse than ever guys i can completely relate to this so this kind of happened to us when lucy was a young pup we got kind of pressured into going to this raw feeding cult um and it ended up being quite a disaster for lucy because it turned out she had an intolerance to larger protein molecules which wasn't the best for her or the backyard so we essentially then got her onto a really high quality prescribed kibble made up of smaller protein molecules so it's easy for her to digest now ever since we got onto this we haven't had a problem ever again with any digestive problems now these little digestive issues are problems that germanship is going to have unfortunately it's almost a genetic trait but you know it is what it is so what i'm trying to say here guys is don't like don't get me wrong raw fitting is awesome and it it if it works for you good on you i'm happy for you didn't work for us and we all kind of made it feel like we're like monsters for not you know continuing with it um so the vet told me a really good piece of advice and there's no one right diet for dogs there are 10 different amazing diets you could have your dog on they can give them all the nutrients they need so as long as you're doing the best thing for your dog that's the best thing that you can do anyway guys i hope you enjoyed that video if you got belly away with this please hit the like button comment below subscribe if you're not and we'll see you in the next video can you get boggies you

Channel: Lucy the German Shepherd

Views: 475,311

Keywords: Things to know as a new German Shepherd owner | Mistakes made by new owners, german shepherd, things to know beofre getting a german, things to know before getting a german shepherd, 5 things to know before getting a german shepherd, German Shepherds and hip dysplasia, Socializing your German Shepherd, Boundary training your German Shepherd, Barking German Shepherds, owning a german shepherd, dog vlog, german shepherd facts

Id: ZGptqChFp2g

Length: 22min 58sec (1378 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 21 2021