04/23/2025
This past week, we dealt with something we’ve never really had to deal with before and hopefully this post will educate those that may be fearful of GSD’s and the job that ours are trained for-
Paige has been working diligently and taking Bosco to 4-H obedience. Immediately upon learning that she had a GSD, the instructor had this negative stigma around it (keep in mind that this is Bosco that has been to nursing homes, goes to horse shows, and licks the bottle goats while we are feeding them- the same dog that we had at our fair booth last yearsr that was mingling with the general public).
Every dog in that 4-H class has barked at the other dogs at one time or another. The situation escalated week after week of the little dogs crabbing at Bosco. For 4 weeks, everything was ok, the 5th and 6th week Bosco responds by barking back. Paige very much had him under control and Bosco is reacting to this volatile environment that has been allowed to continue.
At this point, I step in and give Bosco a significant correction. Even though he is reacting to this sitauation that’s been allowed to fester, we will control his reactivity since he has an 8 year old handler. He is a kitten the rest of class.
This throws the instructor into defense mode immediately to the point that she files an aggressive dog report with the state and writes a letter that is so misrepresented that we felt like we were living in the twilight zone. We don’t ask for special treatment, but we do ask to be treated fairly. So to recap, every dog in the class has barked at one another, one dog bit the instructor, but since we have a dog that sounds and looks scary, and because I stepped in the instructors toes by correcting it and grabbing the dog, we have been vilified, suspended for 2 weeks, and told basically if he makes a peep, he’s banned from the program.
In the interest of making a long story short, we compromised, and Paige was allowed to attend class for 2 weeks without Bosco. We were the only ones to show up to our class last week. Paige happily worked away. The instructor talks to me and says, “well he’s a protection breed and I don’t have a good track record with German Shepherds, as I was attacked when I was younger and I have been bitten twice by GSD mixes while judging.” BINGO 💥 She also tried to talk about his training and how theyve never had a dog like that before. What that has to do with anything- who knows?!
So because an instructor is scared of the breed, our dog that’s trained is at risk of being banned from the 4-H program. Nobody is doing anything to help correct the issue with the dogs barking so the other parents and I have taken it upon ourselves to meet up and train outside of 4-H. Not only do I feel bad for Paige but I feel bad for the other little girl who is in the same boat.
Big dogs bark loud. We wouldn’t set our dog or Paige up for failure. Protection dogs if trained correctly are very open and social and only turn it in when asked. There is no reason to be fearful. Additionally, when you let animosity continue to build between two dogs and you don’t squash it, behavior dictates that it will eventually come to a head. All of our dogs are open and social. Most all of them will rip someone through a car window if asked. Not out of aggression but because that’s what they’ve been trained to do. The bite is either the reward or the bite leads to the reward which is their favorite toy.
We are working diligently to make this work and it’s fairly laughable that the dog pictured below, who has never been in a dog fight, the low man on the totem pole here, our kennel representative out in the general public has been labeled as “aggressive” by someone who has no business evaluating a dog like him. He deserves better.
