How to Train a German Shepherd for Police Work

Hello, I would begin how you would with any dog preparing for future work with people. Pup needs excellent social skills so they grow up confident, adaptable, and understands what's normal human behavior and isn't. Later pup will be taught things like bite holds and just focusing on you, but you still want that general socialization with lots of people, places, and other animals. Socialization, bite control, and potty training will be the most time sensitive at this age, so make those the priority still while pup is young. For pup to learn how to control the pressure of their mouth, I recommend time playing with other young puppies off learn. This tends to be learned best through moderated off-leash play before the age of six months. The sooner the best developmentally once pup can safety join other pups. https://www.petful.com/behaviors/puppy-classes-when-to-start/ Once pup is ready to start obedience training, which can start right now if you have enough time for that, potty training, socialization, and bite inhibition to remain priority, or can start once pup is a little older if you are short on time, then I would work on teaching pup all your routine basic obedience, but continue onto intermediate, then off-leash obedience. Along the way you can do things through play to encourage pup's defense drive, which is important for later police work training, so pup learns how to more into a source of pressure instead of retreat. Games like Tug of War, where you teach pup to release the toy on command, a firm Stay and Come command - which will be needed during times of high pressure, teaching a release cue, and eventually starting on bite bags and increasing pup's interest in mouth games. Depending the specifics of the work pup will be doing as a police dog, agility can be helpful for building confidence and skill with navigating obstacles and jumps, teaching to find something by scent through scent games can help prepare pup for later nose work, and getting pup used to a lot of different types of environments and building focus on you or a task even in the distraction of the environment are all good things to prepare pup for more formal training later. Best of luck training, Caitlin Crittenden

Hello Abdul, I would pursue something like agility, to build overall confidence. I would also make sure any police type training you are doing is using positive reinforcement like games of tug of war, interesting scent work with treats for finding, and is generally fun, and not intimidating. Dogs who make good police dogs need to have naturally strong defense drive. That's an inherited drive, that can be encouraged, but needs to be there to begin with. Usually between 1-2 years is when you start to see that drive the most. Up to one year, I would focus on building confidence through thorough socialization and obedience commands through training like relationship based training and positive reinforcement mostly. Best of luck training, Caitlin Crittenden

Hello Aman, I would need to know a lot more about pup's temperament and history to accurately answer your question. A good guard dog generally needs to be alert of their surroundings, have a good defense drive (will hold their ground or move toward a source of pressure instead of flee), be confident around people and not overly fearful or aggressive of everyone, so they can differentiate a threat and a family member entering the property, and be taught a few specific commands so they will defend or move away from a threat on your cue as needed. There are many breeds and mixes of breeds that can have those traits. Your dog may or may not have inherited them. Best of luck training, Caitlin Crittenden

Hello Elzbieta, It sounds like she has great potential. Intelligence, confidence, a balanced temperament, and good obedience skills are a very good foundation. A good police dog also needs a fair amount of defense drive - which is when a dog can naturally holds their ground or moves into a situation instead of retreating when there is pressure. Think about dogs who run into a fight on command in the army or police work to protect their handler and take someone down, instead of running away when things get loud and scary. It's the natural push forward and confidence that can be paired with the specialized obedience training later. This is different than fear aggression. This is a confident dog that has control over themselves and can keep a clear head when things are tense - Not a dog who just reacts to everything aggressively. How does pup do under pressure? Best of luck training, Caitlin Crittenden

Hello Jessica, I need a bit more information to answer your question. How is Shi Tou reacting right now when you give commands? Do they know the commands well enough? Are they disobeying when distracted? Are they struggling to learn the commands to begin with? Are they acting fearful? Are they acting aggressive? Sometimes the issue is that pup doesn't understand a command well enough, using a different training method or practicing more can often improve that. For reliability dogs have to progress through three general obedience training levels - Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. Basic involves simply teaching a dog what a command means and practicing in calm environments - most dogs only gain this level and most puppies are only at this level. Intermediate specifically works on practicing the commands pup learned in Basic, but gradually adding in more distractions, distance, and duration as pup improves. These things have to be worked up to with hundreds of repetitions often to gain true reliability around all types of distractions. If someone gives a dog a command around another dog in a busy park and expects that dog to obey but they haven't first worked up to calm parks, dogs without park distractions, new people, and whatever else is going on, as individual distractions - that dog won't be able to obey with their current level of self-control and focus when all of the sudden all the distractions are combined. Advanced involves those same skills around distractions being practiced, but using long training leashes and sometimes low level e-collar training or whistles to gradually transition the dog to fully off-leash obedience. Sometimes their is an underlying respect issue and that's why pup ignores commands. The method from the article below can often help with simpler respect building needs not complicated by things like aggression or a general lack of training and communication. If there is an aggression issue more safety measures like a basket muzzle and help from a trainer will be needed. https://wagwalking.com/training/train-a-doberman-to-listen-to-you If pup is fearful or aggressive, I would need more information about pup's history and behavior to address that, and I recommend hiring a professional trainer to help in person with aggression. Best of luck training, Caitlin Crittenden