question: how to train my dog to only listen to me

i was wondering if anyone knows how to train my dog to only listen to me. My german shepherd is very easily distracted and i was just looking for some help. thanks

 

How old is your dog?

Theres an easy way to teach it to respond only to you with verbal commands, either use another language or use different words for commands...i.e you can use the word 'frog' instead of 'sit', 'sugar' instead of 'down', whatever you want, just make sure your consistent with the words that way if someone else tells your dog to sit that word wont mean anything to the dog. Youd have to make sure no one else is listening to you when you training the dog.

If you do a good obedience course (I can send you a link to an excellent training programme on video if youd like) you can incorporate distractions and desensitization in it which will help get your dog under control....so if youve told the dog to sit and stay and people are walking past, trying to pet the dog he shouldnt move until you tell him its okay.

There are other ways to do it but what Im thinking of is pretty hard on the dog and you would need to go to a good professional trainer.

Why do you want the dog to only listen to you? Whatever the reason keep in mind that what if your on vacation or sick or for some reason need to rehome the dog....wouldnt it be easier on the dog if its already gone through training to continue with the same commands that it knows. The reason I mention that is Im working at a shelter with rescue dogs, it usually only takes one workout to figure out if a particular dog has been trained before, a dog Im working with now has been trained with food in the past, thats obvious, he knows a couple of the hand signals I use and is pretty good with my body language but we are stuck with what language he knows, so far weve tried German (Im in Germany) English, Russian and Spanish....its not a huge big deal and he can be reconditioned to respond to German, just a little frustrating for both the dog and me.

 

My dog has learned to only listen to me but that can sometimes become a problem. When anyone else tells him what to do he looks at them like they are stupid and walks away, that isn't always a good thing. All I did was took my dog to training classes, but they were classes that you train your dog your self not the person that works there they just demonstrate with an already trained dog. I have a chow/St. Bernard mix and Chows are one person dogs so that might have something to do with it. Just train him yourself and don't let other people tell him what to do, however don't punish him if he does happen to listen to someone else cuz that will just make him think he isn't supposed to do that (sit, down, come or whatever it is) I didn't do it on purpose with my dog I dunno how to do it intentionally so I dunno if I helped you any. Good luck though

Ashley

 

my dog does alot of hand sigbnals, so he doesn't really listen to me anyway. When I have friends over I sometimes will make up stuff, like put your butt on the floor, instead of "sit" but really it is a hand signal thing.
There was once a dog that a man took all over the world and said he could understand 7 languages, but really it was just that he did hand signals!