My first Rott was a stubborn SOB. But I knew that going in. I took him to a trainer who specialized in German dogs (Schutzhund work in particular) and worked with him for almost a year. He knew every command and hand signal. The problem was he was a punk and decided HE would decide when he felt like obeying. For instance, doing a rolling sit or down command from a heal. He would stop but not execute the command. He would read my inside shoulder and as soon as I turned and was in the process of gathering the lead (giving slack) he would hook the lead with his front paw, put it in his mouth, and go into a play bow for a game of tug of war. It was hard to not laugh at the little fokker. So one day, after many weeks of this, Don (trainer) says hang on. Goes in and comes back out with a prong collar. He says "I really hate using these in general but we need a correction he will respect." Sure enough, 15 minutes with that collar on and that dog was on POINT. Executing commands with extreme enthusiasm. We both laughed because it was like we had a different dog on our hands. He had always shown signs of being capable of this kind of performance but, like I said, he was a punk. Pack order was never in question. I was alpha. But he was the quintessential 14 year old kid who decided he could take on his old man and push the boundaries. I never had to use the prong collar with him after that day but it was always on hand. That was 25 years ago.

A few months ago my father in law adopted a retired SCH3 regional champion GSD. She spends a lot of time at our house and has bonded with our daughter. She is slowly learning how to DOG as her life up to this point was all business. She uses an electronic collar. It is rarely needed but for those times when you need to break her target lock it works to get her attention and break her focus. She likes to kill squirrels. We don't like to clean up the mess but we applaud her vigilance in keeping the yard free of domestic terrorists. So it gets used to disrupt her prey drive when appropriate.

There has been a parade of both GSDs and Rotts through our door from that first one, 25 years ago, to this current fur missile. All of them have had different personalities, temperaments and idiosyncrasies. They key has always been to understand each dog and figure out what works and doesn't work for that dog. While working towards the same end goal; a well adjusted and happy dog that knows its place in the pack and what is expected of it.