Prince Enrolls in Obedience School

After befriending Max and Jack, Prince was positive that every dog he happened to encounter was a potential friend in the making.  Each time an unsuspecting dog walker would pass by, Prince would gallop over to greet them, barking joyously, and race back and forth to try to reach the dog as it passed by.  Unfortunately, most people were somewhat taken aback by the sight of a 100 plus pound German Shepherd racing toward them, spraying dirt onto them liberally, and would hurry on their way instead of pausing to make his acquaintance...in spite of the fact that their dogs, no matter how small they were, never appeared to be intimidated by him in the least.  Some of them even tried to nip at him through the fence.

With the aim of socializing Prince further and calming his overly exuberant reaction to other dogs, I subsequently decided that obedience school might be a good option for him.  I had taken my old dog, Trevor, to obedience school years ago, and while it never really addressed any of his behavioral issues (or made him like other dogs), it was a good opportunity for socialization for him.  With that in mind, I signed Prince up for the "Prestigious Pup School."

"My brother knows the people who run that," my boyfriend told me.  "You should ask him about them."  So I did, even though I had already decided to take Prince.

My boyfriend's brother was somewhat less than enthused.  "Their dogs are like robots," he said.

"Well, I'm really just taking him for socialization," I said.  "Not to really train him."

"Oh.  Okay.  Well, that might work," he said, somewhat doubtfully.  I didn't pursue it further...but in retrospect, I really wish I had.

Max and Jack Part 2

When Prince was around 1 year of age, Jack disappeared.  He snapped his leash and ran into the park near our house, and although his young owner looked for him everywhere, even checking with the local humane societies, he never could find him.  I hope that he was picked up by somebody who loved him so much that they didn't want to return him.

After that, Max became the top dog of his household, and his attitude quickly changed.  Many times when Prince and I would pass by on our daily walk, he would try to attack Prince, which Prince mostly ignored.  One day, though, Max actually hurled himself at him... at which time Prince responded with such a threatening growl that Max quickly backed off.  He never attacked Prince again, but would often bark at him and snarl when we passed by.

Other times, oddly enough, Max would seem happy to see Prince and occasionally even followed him and licked him.  I think a lot of it might have depended on how things were going for Max that day.  His young owner left him with his father, and Max wasn't nearly as happy as he had been before.  A lot of times he was left to roam loose and would often go past our house (causing Prince to erupt in hysterical joy).  Other times, we wouldn't see him for days or even weeks.

Eventually, Max was gone, too...his new owner moved away, and Max was supposed to be going with him.  I hope he's still with him.  Every time I pass the house where he lived, I think about him...and so does Prince.  Even now, after Max has been gone for a year, he still strains at the leash when we get near "Max's house" and always pauses to look around and sniff for him.  I always say, "Max is gone, Prince," but obviously he doesn't understand, because he still looks for him every single time that we walk past.

Max and Jack - Part 1

When I took Prince to the vet for the first time, she told me the most important thing I could do to make sure he turned out to be a well-adjusted dog was to socialize him.  According to her, and to various articles that I read, this meant introducing him, at a young age, to as many unfamiliar people, places and animals as possible.  Since the last large male dog I had owned had absolutely hated other dogs (except for those that he lived with) I considered it crucially important that Prince meet as many other dogs as possible.  I also wanted him to have other dogs to play with, and since my other dogs were too small...and too afraid of him...I solicited the help of a neighbor.

The young man who lived three houses away from me had two large, young dogs...a Westie/Labrador mix named Max, and a Siberian Husky named Jack.  One day when I was talking to him, I asked him if he would like to bring them by to play with Prince, and he immediately agreed.

Unfortunately, Max and Jack's idea of playing was not the same as Prince's.  He thought they were there to run around the yard, chase the ball, sniff each other and maybe wrestle a bit.  Max thought he was there to dominate Prince by constantly mounting him, and Jack thought he was there to help Max get Prince.  After a couple of rounds of this, I decided Prince would be better off inside...but I continued to walk Prince by the yard where they were on a fairly regular basis, and allow them all to sniff each other.

Max and Jack's owner would tie them to the front of his bike and let them pull him through the park while he pedaled ( he said it took about 15 minutes to go a mile) and each time they would go by, Prince would go into hysterics and try to follow them.  I think he almost saw them as his pack and wanted to join in the fun.  Nothing excited him as much as seeing Max and Jack, at any time, in spite of their almost off-handed acknowledgement of him.  Unfortunately, they didn't feel quite the same way.

Isabel and the Demon Dog

From the very first time that Isabel experienced the sharpness of Prince's bite, she was convinced that it was her duty to protect everyone from him.  Each time he tried to sniff Nikki or Charla, she would literally place herself as a barrier between them, raise the hair on her hackles and snarl as if she meant to tear him to pieces.  Even when he grew to be 20 times her size, she continued to stand up to him, valiantly defending whomever she suspected he wanted to accost.

Her protectiveness did not just extend to Nikki and Charla...it also included myself and my boyfriend. Prince's attempts to approach us when one of us was holding her resulted in her launching herself off of our laps and attempting to attach herself to the nearest part of his anatomy in a fit of rage.  Sometimes it was his body, sometimes his chin (whereupon he would shake his hand and send her flying).  This never deterred her, however.  She would simply race back for more, barking ferociously and hurling herself at the nearest part of him.

Sometimes Prince would tire of her attacks (especially when they involved food) and would simply pick her up in his mouth and move her.  Other times, however, he almost appeared to enjoy it, racing past her with his ears down and leaping over the gate separating the kitchen from the living room so she couldn't pursue him.

"She's so mean to him," I marveled to my boyfriend, who was Isabel's most special person...and the one she defended from Prince most ferociously.

"That's because she's scared," he said.  "Of you and your demon dog."

I had hoped that the two of them would be friends someday...but it appeared that was not to be.  At least not in my presence.  My boyfriend claims sometimes when Prince is asleep, Isabel will lie on top of him...but I have yet to see it with my own eyes.

German Shepherds and Other Dogs

When I brought Prince home at 8 weeks of age, I had three small dogs at home...Isabel, my 1 year-old Chihuahua; Nicholas, my 10-year-old Shih-Tzu, and Charla, my 10-year-old toy poodle.  Having the high opinion of German Shepherds that I did, I never expected him to have any problems with them...and, in actuality, I turned out to be somewhat right.  He never actually had any serious problems with them...but there were a few personality conflicts.

Charla, my toy poodle, was the queen of the house...and had been for many years.  Since her earliest days with me, she had an established method of showing her dominance, i.e., flipping anyone new who came into the household (be it a cat or a dog) onto their back and nipping at their belly furiously.  Usually she only had to do this once, because they got the message afterwards and never challenged her again.  When I brought Prince home, he was actually almost the same size as she was...but for some reason which I never did truly understand, she never tried it with him.  Instead, Charla simply gave him what I called "the eye."

The first and most significant time she did this was the first night they both slept with me, on Prince's first night home.  Charla had always slept on my right side, next to my pillow...and little Prince considered taking her spot that first night.  At the first sign of this defiance, Charla sat up, snarled at him in warning, and gave him "the eye."  In spite of their being newly acquainted, Prince knew what it meant, because he stopped in his tracks and began barking at her furiously.  Charla simply continued to give him "the eye," whereupon Prince backed off, went to lie down with a last defiant bark, and stayed away from the head of the bed for the rest of the night...and every night thereafter..

Nicholas had an entirely different method of handling Prince...he simply ignored him.  No matter how much Prince barked at him or danced around him, Nicholas simply stood there staring straight ahead, waiting for someone to rescue him from Prince's unwanted attention.  Considering Nicholas' advanced age, and his dignity, we always responded in the manner...by picking up Prince, gently correcting him and carrying him away.  After a while, Prince gave up on trying to make friends with Nikki...but he never gave up on Isabel.

Isabel was exactly the same size as Prince...and she ran when he chased her.  At first, she seemed to enjoy the attention...until the first time he tried to chew on her.  Isabel reacted with outrage...for the first week, anyway.  By the second week, he was twice as big as she was...and their relationship began to progress in an entirely different manner.

Sometimes Punishment Works

After my uninspiring conversation with Tim's boss, I continued to walk Prince on a daily basis, in spite of the increased ferocity of his attacks.  By this time, they had escalated to the point where they resembled a child's temper tantrum...the fierceness of his nipping and my struggles to stop him literally resulted in our being propelled off the side of the road.  One day, a friend of my boyfriend drove by and saw us in the middle of a large area of shrubbery.  Of course, the instant his truck appeared, Prince stopped attacking me and simply stood there innocently, as if we had somehow wandered off the road and found our way there.  When the truck was gone, he continued his assault upon me. I was so furious that I actually contemplated tying him to a tree and walking home by myself.

"This is it," I said, when he had finally calmed down, and I stalked back home, practically dragging him with me.  Once I got there, I considered all of the options that so many professionals had provided to me (none of which had worked) and then I considered what my father would have done.

My father had trained German Shepherds in the military.  When I asked him once what would happen if he ordered a dog to do something that it did not want to do, he said it would do it regardless....because it would be afraid not to.  While at the time I was affronted, at this point I wondered if there might not be something to this advice when it came to German Shepherds, and I grabbed a newspaper, rolled it up, and hit the wall with it as hard as I could..

"No!" I shouted.  "No!  Don't you ever bite me again!"  Each time I yelled it, I hit the wall with the paper, while Prince stared at me with something akin to astonishment.  Then he did something he had never done before.

He put down his ears, and slunk away from me.

I've heard that there is no point in correcting a dog unless you do so immediately, but obviously Prince knew exactly what I was scolding him for, because he never nipped me again.

Sometimes punishment does work.

After Tim recommended that I have Prince neutered at an early age, I went to talk to the veterinarian that he worked for.  The first thing Prince did upon meeting him was jump up in delight and hit him with his left front paw, leaving an enormous red welt down one of his cheeks.  I could see that the veterinarian was both annoyed and intimidated by my extremely large puppy, but he tried to keep a stiff upper lip.

"What you are dealing with is a potentially extremely dangerous dog," the veterinarian said.  "One day, he will more than likely attack you."

"But I'm his owner," I pointed out, thinking I had never heard of a German Shepherd that actually attacked his owner.  (Nipping was another matter entirely.)

"One day, he will attack you, even though he loves you, to punish you," he said.  "And with a dog this large, someone could potentially be seriously injured.  Then, you will be coming back here and I will have to put him to sleep."

"I'll think about it," I said, and went home, where I actually did think about it.  I had always intended to neuter Prince eventually, because I believe there are already too many dogs in the world that nobody wants.  Yet I wanted to wait until he was mature, and I knew, from past experience, regardless of what any veterinarian would tell me, that dogs neutered early do not develop the same way as dogs who are neutered later.  And I was, already, a little bit vain about my dog's looks.

I wasn't entirely to blame for this.  Every time I complained about his bad behavior to people, they would murmur in sympathy and then add, "But he's gorgeous!"  Which made me wonder if even good looking dogs (like good looking people) tend to be excused for their bad behavior more often.

In the end, I decided to wait.  Sooner or later, I thought, he'll grow out of this bad behavior, and I'll be glad I did.

What I should have known is that the apex of Prince's bad behavior was about to arrive, and I was going to have to deal with it in a manner that I never thought I would.