German shepherds are quite likely the brightest breed going overall, so you have ample experience working with a dog that learns quickly.
I always try to keep in mind that I am amortizing the purchase price of a dog over roughly a dozen years of companionship as an owner; you usually get what you pay for by-and-large. I think Mike Stewart's Wildrose Training program is quite good, particularly his focus on not getting "wed" to use of a training collar. His use of circle memory training via a tennis ball is a very worthwhile marking exercise, too, getting a dog to focus on falls as well as navigate through briefy memorized cover to a fall. If you belong to or know of a pheasant preserve that does tower shoots, volunteering to run your dog to retreive between release cycles will get you a lot of bird work and shot/steadiness training in a short interval, once he or she is steady. My current two dogs are out of Craighorn Bracken lines.
I put together a training outline with a guy who used to post on this site that I met through a mutual carving friend who carved with his group when he was in his aneshtesia residency at Dartmouth. He, too, had just purchased a Wildrose dog. I think his name was Steve Garvey, if my memory serves me well. If I can find that outline on my old notebook, I'll post it here to cut and paste for reference. Mostly it is just a reference document for skills assessment purposes that itemizes things like working a dog across terrain obstacles, roads, various habitat complexes, etc. Dogs learn primarily by associating a behavior with a mental "picture" of their surroundings; the value of mixing-up a skill like a land-water-land retreive in a variety of locations to ingrain the behavior in the dog's memory. Stewart folds-in a focused approach to taking basic skills a retreiver should articulate and then practicing these in a variety of circumstances to keep the dog functional as well as biddable. Usually, when a dog get's confused during a skill drill,it's generally because you failed to extend the progression properly. Kane is eight now. He sometimes decides he can't hear or see a command. I park him with the whistle and walk briskly up to him, squat down and make direct eye contact (by this time his body posture indicates he just got caught stealling a car.) and state clearly and loudly; What did I say? When he decides he woud rather eat deer poop, rather than respond to "leave it' tossing-in a "what did I say?" with conviction let's him know that the hammer is about to fall. I don't know whether Milner touches on this or not, but when a pup is cutting teeth and again at 12 weeks and six months they can "decide" to test your satus as alpha wolf. In these instances when you know the dog has heard your command and they remain stoic and motionless, it's time to focus on giving the command once and then waiting the dog out until they obey, followed by heaping the praise on when they successfully comply...labs are major "suckers" for praise and affection, both very effective training tools. One other thing I have come to know is pretty consistent with British-line labrador retrievers, they seldom whine or act-up, part of their breeding program. When my dogs have to go outside they will walk over and heal to the point of leaning-in on my leg. Kane will head-butt me repeatedly and stare eye-to-eye to let me know it is time to grab my coat for a trip outside. I am well trained, too!
I always try to keep in mind that I am amortizing the purchase price of a dog over roughly a dozen years of companionship as an owner; you usually get what you pay for by-and-large. I think Mike Stewart's Wildrose Training program is quite good, particularly his focus on not getting "wed" to use of a training collar. His use of circle memory training via a tennis ball is a very worthwhile marking exercise, too, getting a dog to focus on falls as well as navigate through briefy memorized cover to a fall. If you belong to or know of a pheasant preserve that does tower shoots, volunteering to run your dog to retreive between release cycles will get you a lot of bird work and shot/steadiness training in a short interval, once he or she is steady. My current two dogs are out of Craighorn Bracken lines.
I put together a training outline with a guy who used to post on this site that I met through a mutual carving friend who carved with his group when he was in his aneshtesia residency at Dartmouth. He, too, had just purchased a Wildrose dog. I think his name was Steve Garvey, if my memory serves me well. If I can find that outline on my old notebook, I'll post it here to cut and paste for reference. Mostly it is just a reference document for skills assessment purposes that itemizes things like working a dog across terrain obstacles, roads, various habitat complexes, etc. Dogs learn primarily by associating a behavior with a mental "picture" of their surroundings; the value of mixing-up a skill like a land-water-land retreive in a variety of locations to ingrain the behavior in the dog's memory. Stewart folds-in a focused approach to taking basic skills a retreiver should articulate and then practicing these in a variety of circumstances to keep the dog functional as well as biddable. Usually, when a dog get's confused during a skill drill,it's generally because you failed to extend the progression properly. Kane is eight now. He sometimes decides he can't hear or see a command. I park him with the whistle and walk briskly up to him, squat down and make direct eye contact (by this time his body posture indicates he just got caught stealling a car.) and state clearly and loudly; What did I say? When he decides he woud rather eat deer poop, rather than respond to "leave it' tossing-in a "what did I say?" with conviction let's him know that the hammer is about to fall. I don't know whether Milner touches on this or not, but when a pup is cutting teeth and again at 12 weeks and six months they can "decide" to test your satus as alpha wolf. In these instances when you know the dog has heard your command and they remain stoic and motionless, it's time to focus on giving the command once and then waiting the dog out until they obey, followed by heaping the praise on when they successfully comply...labs are major "suckers" for praise and affection, both very effective training tools. One other thing I have come to know is pretty consistent with British-line labrador retrievers, they seldom whine or act-up, part of their breeding program. When my dogs have to go outside they will walk over and heal to the point of leaning-in on my leg. Kane will head-butt me repeatedly and stare eye-to-eye to let me know it is time to grab my coat for a trip outside. I am well trained, too!
