Aggressive German shepherd

I wouldn’t necessarily call him “aggressive” but rather it sounds more like a German shepherd doing what a German shepherd is meant to do. GSDs are naturally paranoid towards strangers and are driven to maintain order in their flock, they are a livestock breed after all. Although I highly recommend working with a trainer who’s familiar with the breed in order to prevent adverse behaviors or worsening his habits, you can start with the basics which are of course crate training, place training, and basic desensitization (you can start with something simple such as sitting at a park with him and correcting the barking behaviors and rewarding neutral behaviors). Still, I highly recommend seeking an experienced trainer, but shepherds are willing to work to please their owner and so training him will bring you a lot of success.

@Melissa okay that’s a bit of a relief to hear, but yes I do know a trainer will be better for us but we can’t afford one at the moment

@Marilyn understandable, I recommend watching stonnie Dennis on YouTube. With shepherds, it’s a lot of tough love training and I do recommend utilizing a prong collar (please make sure you research appropriate ways to use them if you do!) because they’re very tough skinned but they’re also just big babies lol

Okay thank you sooo much

I hired one of the top trainers in the US, Shelby Semel, for my three year old GS. She is the sweetest thing and is probably our most trainable dog because she is so happy to please and so treat driven, but she was having some aggression issues probably from anxiety in new environments since we moved multiple times in a short timeframe. She is also part blind. The trainer had us practice “touch” before she came over and the first few times just stood in our house with me holding her leash. After my dog calmed down enough the trainer would say touch and my dog would bop her hand with her nose and from the other hand get a piece of a treat. From there it was walks with a treat bag. At first we would have to stand in between our dog and whatever we thought she may react to. Dogs remember their triggers and it only compounds. We’d do “sit” at a bench and whenever she stood up we’d use treats to

have her sit back down. Gradually, in the house, we’d ask people to come over. We kept a bag of treats by the door for people to come in with and use her touch command. First rolling the treat to her and then touch. We kept her on a leash at first, then we’d have her do “place” and then “down” on a yoga mat. She knew that was her safe spot and her reward box as we called it. Without other people outside of the family to help get her used to others being around, there won’t be progress, so try and find friends who aren’t very afraid of dogs to come over and help with training and to work on place, touch, down, and sit on your own in between. We kept all of our other dogs and kids away from her during training practices and made sure she was getting enough exercise daily which helped a lot too. Best of luck!

@Renee thank you I will definitely try to do some training at home

My GSD is really protective & always barks and gets defensive when someone new is in the house. She’s the soppiest dog though & it sounds like yours is just doing what a typical gsd does - I wouldn’t call your dog aggressive. I would start introducing strangers to your house slowly. Maybe have a friend come over once a week, over the space of the month. Once your dog becomes use to this person, introduce another & repeat. Maybe getting these strangers to come in with a treat too will reinforce the idea that strangers in the house isn’t always a negative thing & your dog may lower their guard a bit. My gsd is protective, but she does love the attention of friends because we always have friends over & always have since she was a puppy. I do however know that if someone ever broke into our house she would protect us!

I recommend reading the training books by the new skeet monks-- they train German shepherds and have excellent recommendations. I got mine through the library. For our German Shepherd we took him to a physical therapist for a while before we scheduled his knee surgery and she used a massage oil on him that we have found works really well at calming him down when we have guests. We put a few drops on his head before we have guests and give him some 1:1 pets/attention and then he's pretty good. It's called t-away animal scent and you can get it on Amazon. But you need both, the training and the oil.

Take him on walks, dog park, regular park. Slowly introduce him to other dogs and people German shepherds are very territorial

GSDs have good noses. Maybe bring your friends/family scents around, associate their smells with treats and commands to set boundaries. Maybe start with 1 person outside the home and be consistent with it so they understand. When the time comes, make sure the dog is on the leash(correction collar, prong collar, etc whatever you need), meet outside the home in a neutral area and still practice those commands with the person and treats present. And then increasingly get closer to home from time to time. Not a dog trainer but worth a shot.

@Kea no I’m too afraid to see what will happen if he actually met someone he doesn’t like. For a while I had family staying over my house and all day he would be barking and growling in the cage, my family would tey to feed him and pet him and he would try to bite them every time

@Luce I had family stay with me for over a month and he never got used to them, he would bark and growl even when he was in the cage and they would try to feed him so the can get used to their smell. For a while we thought he was somewhat familiar with them but the minute we let him out of his cage to try to get a better idea, he went running and jumped on them trying to bite them so after that we just didn’t trust him around anyone anymore. Idk what else to do