Helping a Family of German Shepherds All Get Along

In this Omaha training session we worked with a family of German Shepherds who needed help to get all of the dogs get along using Behavior Adjustment Training or BAT.

When I first arrived to meet the GSD family, I was thrilled to see how well mannered all of these dogs were. Their guardians took excellent care of them and they were all well trained. The only thing that they needed help with was that their newest addition to the family, Karma, was getting picked on by two litter mate siblings that were about two years older than her. This is not uncommon for litter mates to gang up on or pick on another dog together. So my first suggestion was to work with each of the dogs separately to help them each establish a relationship with Karma alone and once they achieved that then they could bring them all together. You can see how we started this process in the video below:

Another thing that I noticed was that the dogs could see Karma inside getting attention from their owners while they were outside. This could create feelings of jealousy, so I encouraged them to block this view to keep everyone on the same playing field. I also suggested that they make time to spend with each dog individually, such as brining them to the store withe them so each dog felt like they had a person connection with each owner and didn’t feel left out. These are all ways that they can help all of the dogs get along so they can eventually have all five of them in the house together without any issues.

By the end of the session the dogs were looking to their guardians for leadership and direction and were establishing some new rules. As a German Shepherd trainer I suggest that they keep using our Petting with a Purpose technique to help the dogs learn how to relax and stay calm to get attention. We wrapped up this dog behavior session with Gus, Tommy, Karma, Bonnie and Clyde’s Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.