German Shepherd Puppy Chases EVERYTHING

Question
QUESTION: Hi, I have a female, 5 months old, named Sadie.  We live on a farm and there are 2 other dogs, 1 male German Shepherd and a female St. Bernard/Aussie cross.  The dogs are not confined.  I take them on long walks at least once a day but mostly twice a day.  I play fetch with Sadie.  The issue I am having is that she chases everything, the barn cats, the wild turkeys and our peacock.  All of these animals are free and we have ample land with trees and hay stacks where they can escape from her, but I need a method to stop her from chasing in the first place.  She gets so worked up that she does not listen.  Any suggestions?

ANSWER: Hi, Ann,

I'm not sure what you mean by the dogs are not "confined." Does that mean they live outdoors and have complete free reign of the farm? (I live in New York City where a dog "being confined" means being kept in a crate.)

LCK

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Yes, they have full run of the farm.  They stay mostly in the garage or close to the house most of the time, but they are free to go to the barn and explore.  I have never had problems with them leaving the grounds.  The farm is 63 acres in size.  I started playing fetch on the long walks yesterday and spent time playing fetch after the walk this morning.  I think that she just has a lot of energy that needs to be burned.  We also have a command that we use when she is misbehaving that I am using coupled with the "come-sit" commands.  She is doing pretty good with that but it is not consistent yet.

Answer
Hi again,

There's a general rule in dog training circles that a puppy should either be confined or supervised. That's generally applied to housebreaking situations, but it also applies to what kinds of things a puppy focuses her teeth and jaws on.

And you've anticipated one of my suggestions (playing fetch with her). The other one would be to play tug-of-war, let her win, and praise her enthusiastically for winning. Here's a link: http://www.tiny.cc/MythofTug

If she's truly unable to catch the things she chases, she'll be left feeling a certain amount of frustration in her mouth and jaws when they get away. The frustration may manifest as barking, etc. but ff she's getting that satisfaction she seeks through playing tug with you then over time she'll have less and less need to chase the cats and birds.

In terms of giving you a specific training regimen, this is not the place for that. But I CAN give you the following links:

http://www.tiny.cc/RedirectEnergy  

http://www.tiny.cc/ChaseSquirrels  

http://www.tiny.cc/RecallAtDogRun  

You'll have to adapt the the last two to fit your situation, but the underlying principle is the same: get the dog's instinctive energy to be more focused on you than it is to the things in the environment. You have to sort of become a hunting partner for her. Then you can co-opt her instincts and re-direct them any way you want to.

I hope this helps,

LCK