Thread: germanshepherds.com: Give your dog a Job!

This is something that needs to be learned in stages. How old is your dog?

Jobs that my dogs have had: Pulling a wagon either with a person in it, or helping with yard work. (I load up the wagon with leaves, grass clippings, branches ect... and the dog hauls the wagon to the "dumping spot". Picking up dropped laundry. Finding/fetching the remote. Delivering tools and/or notes/mail or packaged food (like chips, candy bars, ect...)to someone else in the house. Carrying in the mail from the mail box. (Mail box...

i think training and exercise are what every dog needs whether it's a mix breed or pure bred. i think with training, socializing and spending time with your dog gets rid of a lot of those behavior problems. training, socializing, exercise and spending time with your dog is going to make a good dog. my dog doesn't have a certain job assigned to him but there's things he does that could be considered a job. my dog will take the...

GREAT thread, Ruq!! I also disagree that pet GSDs wouldn't be interested in having tasks to do. Even the laziest, most couch-spud-y GSD has a craving, an urge, to be needed. They crave a sense of HELPING. Think perhaps not? Give your GSD a job! A task to do regularly.. and watch the change in the dog's attitude. My showline dog who has passed away, was quieter about this than my workingline dog is, but ohhhh.. how clear it is when...

Renji brings in the newspaper as his regular task. Other than that, we just do a lot of training so I guess his other task is to be my "practice dog." I train him to do a bunch of different things and he gives me feedback when things work or don't work. He's also our alert system. He takes his job as alarm system WAY too seriously, though.

The paint can idea is neat! I've seen something similar using bricks, so the dog had to find where the item was hidden in the bricks. I do a lot of little games with my girls. With Khana, who doesn't naturally retrieve or tug (typical chow) I've really worked on fun games to teach her to take things in her mouth. One of our games is "beat the puppy with the sock" .. *L* .. when I go to put my socks on, I chant...

 Originally Posted By: Amaruq Angela's dogs are from the lines that worked on Hogan's Heroes so they learned about about escaping for the greater good. I keep waiting to find the spoon their using as shovels, lol.

I think it depends on how you do it.At this point what I do with Athena is play but if she were to do training and we were actually finding people it would be work.In the dogs head it is probably all play as long as they are happy to do it.

Squirrel patrol. None should ever ever be in our backyard. They need to be flushed out several times a day.

Aloha, all. any ideas on mental tasks that last a long time. Something that occupies 1/2 to one hour at a time without any human intervention. Frank