Kennel Training Two Shepherds to Relax

In this Omaha dog training session we worked with a pair of German Shepherds, a mom and son! who needed help with kennel training.

After I arrived I sat down to chat with Riley and Cova’s guardians about their main dog behavior concerns. Their primary concern was getting the two dogs to listen to their female guardian and learn how to relax in their kennels. When dogs are highly excitable in their kennels they will take that same energy out of their kennels and in this hyper state they have a hard time listening. To change this, we trained them to relax in their kennels before letting them out so they could engage in thinking and listen to their guardian. To see how we accomplished this you can watch the video below.

When doing German Shepherd training it’s important to remember that timing is everything! The guardian did an excellent job in this video of working on quick timing. When your dog offers a good behavior such as relaxing, you want to start reaching for the kennel door so that way they know that relaxing equals you letting them out. When they start pawing at the kennel you remove your hand from the kennel so they know that pawing at the kennel results in staying in the kennel.

By the end of the session the dogs were learning how to relax and looking to their guardians for leadership and direction. To keep up with this good behavior the guardians will want to work on the kennel training each day and be consistent with the new rules. We wrapped up this dog behavior session with Riley and Cova’s Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.