I brought home a tiny, skinny, sad little puppy from the pound and it turns out he's a Dutch shepherd. He's about 6 months old now and is almost impossible to handle at times. My last dog was a kelpie so I'm familiar with high intelligence working dogs but I've never seen anything like this before. Anyone have any advice?
There is only one way to settle this, anon. Set up a fight to the death. Man vs dog. You vs dutch shepard. GL to you both
Dutchies are known to be difficult destructive neurotic dogs even more so than malinois, if you plan on keeping the dog you need to get training with a rigid program, and do extensive environmental socialization while it's still a cute forgivable puppy, if you let the dog get away with bad behavior now you're going to have an impossible time for years to come until the dog gets old and naturally chills out with lower energy levels.
get a frisbee and wear him out. a tired dog is a happy dog. use treats for good stuff, little shocks on electric collar for negative stuff (vibration works too) not to cause harm just to indicate that whatever its doing is wrong. but only use it if they have had their excercise first
Mental exercise is more exhausting for dogs, and playing fetch can active a heightened stress "chase mode" in dogs, which is counterproductive to tiring a dog out. Still good exercise tho.
If you don't want working dog, don't own one.
Work
Why is there a pitbull in with working dogs? Dogfighting isn't a job.
>dog fighting
Fighting another member of the same species is the ultimate and most basic test.
Also
Farm work (working cattle)
https://streamable.com/a2lbej
Working (as catch dog) - same dog as in first video
https://streamable.com/miva56
Farm work (catch dog)
https://streamable.com/qni61y
Hunting catch dogs
https://streamable.com/zym061
Hunting catch dogs
https://streamable.com/k9ggxj
Guard dog
https://streamable.com/9cdj7w
Just training
https://streamable.com/6ndng3
>Fighting another member of the same species is the ultimate and most basic test.
Remember when a whole thread was spent blowing you the fuck out?
>Pit fights aren't natural or basic. They are set up by humans for entertainment and are relatively complex with rules for conduct, winning, and losing other than "alive" and "dead". Set them loose. You will find that the "game" dogs tend to be dismembered and eaten by the animals that live life more intelligently.
>they pull the losing dog out because all the dogs do is hold on to each other and thrash around and the wounds are minor. If they were wolves they would be at each other's throats. They then reuse the dog after trying to increase its bloodlust by forcing it to kill stolen pets until it finally gets the first bite in.
>but a pitbull did this once...,
No farmer with money on the line uses anything but a herding dog. No pitbulls. Catch dogs also aren't working dogs, they were outmoded by guns. Gun dogs are the only working hunting dogs anymore. Do you know why? Because guns are the better way to hunt. Hunting without making full use of a gun isn't work. And pitbulls make shitty guard dogs. Everyone with a valuable client uses literally anything else.
So again, pitbulls aren't working dogs. You can finangle one into working a little, or make up a special job just for it, but not one upstanding, sensible man on earth is better off with a SHITbull.
Besides:
Half those dogs aren't American Pit Bull Terriers and some of them aren't even pitbulls by ANY definition, I see straight up mastiffs in there.
russia lost the war in Ukraine.
>someone got a pitbull to do something once
looks like the actual herding dog is doing most of the work
look at these huskies herding just as well as the pitbull by ambling around.
being a shitty herder is easy, being a real working dog is hard.
I'm pretty sure a husky even guarded property once, useless as they are, but it was just a shitty aggressive one that would have attacked anyone but its owner.
>My last dog was a kelpie so I'm familiar with high intelligence working dogs but I've never seen anything like this before. Anyone have any advice?
You met many old dutch farmers? Guy is eating your food and not paying anything in return. Mostly what you should do is shoot him and then go back to the pound to see if there's another free one there
these shitty dogs are basically brainless, all they want to do is be told what to do.
Clearly not or OP wouldn't have a problem
OPs problem is the dog is going more than 5 seconds without being told what to do unless he was told to stay in his cage
Well that could have been one approach to get the thing out a few times a day and get it to follow around closely on a rope until by this stage it probably wouldn't dare do much else and then build him up to the task you had in mind.. but it doesn't sound like that was the case.
Did you also have your kelpie from a puppy?
6mo is puppy teenage phase and they are notoriously hard to handle here. They settle in later but it takes about 2 years for dogs to fully mature, calm down and become sensible. Use consistency and positive reinforcement and love, build a frienship and TRUST and you'll have a 13/10 dog. It will need a daily outlet though. For training, husbandry, dos and don'ts and general ideas on how to play/train with these dogs go to: https://youtube.com/@lklencho
>They settle in later but it takes about 2 years for dogs to fully mature, calm down and become sensible
Doesn't happen by magic though. I mean maturity comes with age. But. Two years of being a fuckwit and digging tunnels in the backyard all day and you will have an expert at doing exactly those things, with all the enthusiasm you might expect
Lot of dogs ears fall off at 6 months or so. Still young as fuck. Just persist with training. Be firm and consistent. Can you catch him? If not tie a rope on the guy and start with that
what's impossible to handle? he just won't listen to commands and can't be trained or is he destroying everything?
Yes. He's hyper active most of the time so it's really hard to get him to focus during training and if I don't watch him all the time he becomes destructive. That's not unheard of for a puppy but what worries me is that everything I've read indicates that if I can't get him under control this breed has the potential to become dangerous and unpredictable.
Give him a job to do. If you can get him to fetch make the game more complex by hiding the toy under stuff and inside/under boxes etc.
What are you wanting to train him to do? Anything in particular or just not to be a menace? Like what is your idea of training? Just asking him to sit on the floor or stick his paw out and shit? Just saying because even if just not being a menace is the goal (I mean you didn't even realize what kind of breed you were getting) to have a "job" in his mind will give him something to focus on, not be bored and turn to destruction etc as an outlet. As I understand these are more of a generalist when it comes to sheparding in the past they aren't so focused on necessarily working closely together with the shepherd to shift stock over tricky terrain like a collie where most of my experience is but more of an all around farm dog that might also work as a guardian of stock or a living fence, a property guard, just an all around handy guy to have around.. you could probably train him to do all kinds of things. Are you in a spot where you have to leave him at home during the day and go off to work somewhere else?