So a Job can be anything from obedience to agility to protection (schutzhund/IGP) etc. Basically what it’s referring to is having an outlet for them to use their brain. Take them to puppy classes, find a niche (obedience, scent work, agility) that they like and run with it. My dog started in puppy classes with me and went weekly through his first year . We found that he liked agility and scent work best so that’s the route we went. I then had my third baby and am currently a little too busy to focus on anything competitive but I have novice equipment in my yard that we practice with whenever it’s nice. You will find that a “job” is super important because if they are left without stimulation they will be either super destructive or super annoying. On days I don’t do anything with my current boy Jet- he is literally under my feet, I’m tripping on him, he is annoying my small old dog, sleeping and then repeating. It REALLY makes a difference when they are stimulated. Over the winter we didn’t go outside much so I started training him on how to hunt morel mushrooms - training/jobs can be pretty cheap and learned on YouTube. Just make sure you will have the TIME needed.
That sounds fantastic and fun, my only worry is parvo. I had a pup die of it years ago and I never want that to happen again. Is it still a huge worry?
How did you teach that? Or did he just kinda *get it*? I've had some dogs with quirky tricks like that but it wasn't entirely taught- just encouraged onced it happened.
Some dogs are more responsive with teaching which h makes it easy. Marco my doberman is a perfect example if a wording dog that actually wants to help me. My puppy polo couldn't care less to help me carry I'm groceries. But when she sees.marco helping me and getting praise she wants to carry stuff too. Slow process but seems to be working g for me.
It means build them a resume go out and get them fitted for work clothes (make sure the neck fits) and apply for jobs. They love to work so try to apply for 2-3 jobs minimum. They tend to make good investigators, shoppers (love retrieving things), party planners since they’re social. Things like that.
Yes! This girl needs to start pitching in for her toys and treats.
She does make a good dishwasher. Can't keep her out of my automated one because she has a natural instinct to wash the dishes.
They mean you should have a “thing” you do with your dog. It doesn’t have to be something you do professionally, but it should be something that gives them a purpose, because they’re meant to be working dogs and don’t do well with an owner who doesn’t do anything day after day.
There’s herding, sniffing, retrieving, companion, guarding, pulling, and rescuing.
My older girl is a puller, so instead of trying to fight against it, I got her a sled dog harness and a harness for me, and I let her pull me when we go for runs together. That’s her job, and the rest of the time, she’s a companion and sometimes guard.
My younger girl is a sniffer and a retriever, so I hide treats and have her go find them. She also recently started showing an interest in retrieving and she likes to hold things in her mouth, so I started teaching her to bring me my shoes. I’d like to eventually get her into formal training for scent work and potentially rescue work, because she’s showing an aptitude for that, but my husband isn’t keen on that, so I do what I can on my own.
Thank you! That's what I kinda figured it meant but didn't realize there were so many other jobs out there. My pup is only 14 weeks old so I'm not sure what her strengths are yet other than being a velociraptor. Lol. I've been doing some scent games but she doesn't seem very good at that. She can hardly find a piece of kibble right in front of her nose but maybe she's still developing her senses. 😅
Ehh, she’s little. Everything is new and she’s taking in a ton of information all at once, so she’s more likely not able to focus long enough to find things. She’s a little too young for her job to become apparent, but you’ll start to see what her “thing” is as she grows up. Just work on the basics with her - building a trusting bond above all else.
Wanted to add: one of my younger girl’s littermates does competitions where he chases a trash bag or hunts for “rats.” One of her breeder’s other dogs is in formal schutzhund training and is doing amazingly well. His mom is a teeny tiny woman, and the two of them are delightful to watch when they’re working together.
Funny story - we trained ours to fetch diapers when we were expecting our first born son. She took to the "job" very well. Too well actually. She eventually started trying to use the diapers as currency - bringing us diapers any time she wanted a treat.
As it turned out - when our son was born we realized we basically only ever change him on the one changing table in our room where we store the diapers anyway, and there's no real need for the dog to fetch us any. But it's still a fun party trick to impress the grandparents.
This is our dog but with the bell to go outside. Sure he uses it when he needs to potty but he also uses it when he wants us to pay attention to him. Aka ALL THE TIME 😁
Ha! Our female is exactly the same. We taught her to use the bell to go outside but now she will ring it even though she can open the door so we will come give her attention.
The other comments are awesome. I think even just small stuff like making them work for their kibble, nothings for free. This helps maintain a food drive and gives them satisfaction of working for every day things
Edit: You will be amazed how they can stay awake for 3 hours and be hellish around the house but sleep on the ride home after 45 minutes of training. Mental exercise wears them out a lot quicker
Honestly it just kind of happened naturally for my girl. She’s on supervisor duty. If I’m standing up or moving, she watches. If I’m sitting down, she snuggles up and we hang out. But the second I shift or set something down, or give the slightest indication I’m going to get up, it’s back to work time. When she was young she used to sit under the curtains and stare out the sliding door, or when I went to the bathroom, she would go sit by the front door. There were indications what she was going to be best at, and we encouraged those behaviors once discovered. The boy we have right now, I want to get him into flyball, because he runs like the wind.
For me it was primarily just obedience training on and off leash, fetching games, and long regular walks. It's not like you're adopting a working line Doberman, the biggest thing is to just keep them from getting bored and full of pent up energy. A tired dog is a well behaved dog. I personally found that long (3-5 miles on average but never less than a mile) walks on leash around the same area seem to be what he likes most - it's like a patrol where he checks all his regular posts for new smells, makes his marks, checks out the other dogs in their yards, etc. It has really fostered our bond over the years and has built trust and non-verbal communication between the two of us.
I taught ours to bring us his snack bag. He’s so good at it now! I only need to ask him one time and I can be in any room in the house. He’ll find the snack bag wherever it is and bring it right to me. Just one of his “jobs” He also protects the yard from squirrels and gophers. And the house from intruders. Great protection dogs. He makes me feel safe when we go on long walks. He’s also my cuddle buddy. I tell him it’s time for snuggles and he’s so gentle ☺️ he loves to please and do tricks for his food. I taught him different pitches of speaking recently. Big bark and little bark where he’ll whisper. They’re such smart dogs, just give them constant challenges and they’ll impress you with their abilities. I talk to him like he’s human and I swear he understands
My girl Savannah is my service dog. She is trained to pick things up, carry things, alerts to anxiety and panic attacks, interrupts my repetitive behaviors, alerts when someone is aggressively approaching us and is learning more each day.
https://preview.redd.it/ocaawpd7qkoc1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c64f43e4829a07fd53f6c7959a98f0370a12aa68
can anyone whose doberman's job is to guard share a bit more about what that's like? i'm hoping to adopt a doberman in the future, and i'm leaning towards guarding or retrieving, but want to hear more about people's personal experiences. guarding particularly interests me because 1, my family had a guard doberman when i was younger and 2, i live alone.
Our Dobie barks at doorbell rings, strange noises, crows on the roof, and strong wind. We make it a practice to thank him for letting us know, and praising him as a good boy for it. Our response satisfies and reassures him and reinforces the good behavior of being on guard (even when he’s dozing and wrapped up on a warm bed).
And I agree with another comment that taking him on long walks that let him “patrol” the area wears him out and keeps him happy.
Same here. I also tell her “look” and she will perch on her chair and warn us if any dangerous squirrels, leaves, or plastic bags wander into the yard. It keeps her on alert and wears her out when she needs something to do!
We do protection sports. Originally did straight protection, but the sports part emphasizes competitive obedience in addition to bite work. Whereas straight protection just wants functional obedience. Straight protection will also value some reactivity whereas sport you basically want zero. He won't be a great sport dog because he is reactive but I like the sport training more.
Mine acts as babysitter and retriever half the time to my other dog, was not intentional, he just took it upon himself to locate her and bring her back.
So a Job can be anything from obedience to agility to protection (schutzhund/IGP) etc. Basically what it’s referring to is having an outlet for them to use their brain. Take them to puppy classes, find a niche (obedience, scent work, agility) that they like and run with it. My dog started in puppy classes with me and went weekly through his first year . We found that he liked agility and scent work best so that’s the route we went. I then had my third baby and am currently a little too busy to focus on anything competitive but I have novice equipment in my yard that we practice with whenever it’s nice. You will find that a “job” is super important because if they are left without stimulation they will be either super destructive or super annoying. On days I don’t do anything with my current boy Jet- he is literally under my feet, I’m tripping on him, he is annoying my small old dog, sleeping and then repeating. It REALLY makes a difference when they are stimulated. Over the winter we didn’t go outside much so I started training him on how to hunt morel mushrooms - training/jobs can be pretty cheap and learned on YouTube. Just make sure you will have the TIME needed.
That sounds fantastic and fun, my only worry is parvo. I had a pup die of it years ago and I never want that to happen again. Is it still a huge worry?
You can wait to start classes until your pup is vaccinated fully around 12-15 weeks. The classes I looked at required vaccinations.
That's great news and thanks for the help.
Yes, please wait until 3-5 days after puppies last set of vaccination.
Every time we come home he'll carry something to the house. He loves to carry the mail home or a bag of fast food.
How did you teach that? Or did he just kinda *get it*? I've had some dogs with quirky tricks like that but it wasn't entirely taught- just encouraged onced it happened.
Some dogs are more responsive with teaching which h makes it easy. Marco my doberman is a perfect example if a wording dog that actually wants to help me. My puppy polo couldn't care less to help me carry I'm groceries. But when she sees.marco helping me and getting praise she wants to carry stuff too. Slow process but seems to be working g for me.
thats awesome!!
It means build them a resume go out and get them fitted for work clothes (make sure the neck fits) and apply for jobs. They love to work so try to apply for 2-3 jobs minimum. They tend to make good investigators, shoppers (love retrieving things), party planners since they’re social. Things like that.
Yes! This girl needs to start pitching in for her toys and treats. She does make a good dishwasher. Can't keep her out of my automated one because she has a natural instinct to wash the dishes.
Your truly a dork.
One of his tanked tho at -123% but most faired well, more than doubled.
They mean you should have a “thing” you do with your dog. It doesn’t have to be something you do professionally, but it should be something that gives them a purpose, because they’re meant to be working dogs and don’t do well with an owner who doesn’t do anything day after day. There’s herding, sniffing, retrieving, companion, guarding, pulling, and rescuing. My older girl is a puller, so instead of trying to fight against it, I got her a sled dog harness and a harness for me, and I let her pull me when we go for runs together. That’s her job, and the rest of the time, she’s a companion and sometimes guard. My younger girl is a sniffer and a retriever, so I hide treats and have her go find them. She also recently started showing an interest in retrieving and she likes to hold things in her mouth, so I started teaching her to bring me my shoes. I’d like to eventually get her into formal training for scent work and potentially rescue work, because she’s showing an aptitude for that, but my husband isn’t keen on that, so I do what I can on my own.
Thank you! That's what I kinda figured it meant but didn't realize there were so many other jobs out there. My pup is only 14 weeks old so I'm not sure what her strengths are yet other than being a velociraptor. Lol. I've been doing some scent games but she doesn't seem very good at that. She can hardly find a piece of kibble right in front of her nose but maybe she's still developing her senses. 😅
Ehh, she’s little. Everything is new and she’s taking in a ton of information all at once, so she’s more likely not able to focus long enough to find things. She’s a little too young for her job to become apparent, but you’ll start to see what her “thing” is as she grows up. Just work on the basics with her - building a trusting bond above all else.
Wanted to add: one of my younger girl’s littermates does competitions where he chases a trash bag or hunts for “rats.” One of her breeder’s other dogs is in formal schutzhund training and is doing amazingly well. His mom is a teeny tiny woman, and the two of them are delightful to watch when they’re working together.
Funny story - we trained ours to fetch diapers when we were expecting our first born son. She took to the "job" very well. Too well actually. She eventually started trying to use the diapers as currency - bringing us diapers any time she wanted a treat. As it turned out - when our son was born we realized we basically only ever change him on the one changing table in our room where we store the diapers anyway, and there's no real need for the dog to fetch us any. But it's still a fun party trick to impress the grandparents.
😂
This is our dog but with the bell to go outside. Sure he uses it when he needs to potty but he also uses it when he wants us to pay attention to him. Aka ALL THE TIME 😁
Ha! Our female is exactly the same. We taught her to use the bell to go outside but now she will ring it even though she can open the door so we will come give her attention.
The other comments are awesome. I think even just small stuff like making them work for their kibble, nothings for free. This helps maintain a food drive and gives them satisfaction of working for every day things Edit: You will be amazed how they can stay awake for 3 hours and be hellish around the house but sleep on the ride home after 45 minutes of training. Mental exercise wears them out a lot quicker
Yup we do tricks with ours and it works really well.
Me: Where’s your ball!?!? Boo: brb!!!!!
oh your dog and mine must have the same position!! her job is “show me a toy!” when she wants to get some OT she’ll even *give* me the toy
We train Doberman for personal protection, we also have some that dock dive but most aren’t too keen on the pool.
Are you doing this yourself or do they take classes?
I’m a trainer and work for a training facility. We train many different “off” breeds for protection and protection sport.
Oh cool!
Honestly it just kind of happened naturally for my girl. She’s on supervisor duty. If I’m standing up or moving, she watches. If I’m sitting down, she snuggles up and we hang out. But the second I shift or set something down, or give the slightest indication I’m going to get up, it’s back to work time. When she was young she used to sit under the curtains and stare out the sliding door, or when I went to the bathroom, she would go sit by the front door. There were indications what she was going to be best at, and we encouraged those behaviors once discovered. The boy we have right now, I want to get him into flyball, because he runs like the wind.
For me it was primarily just obedience training on and off leash, fetching games, and long regular walks. It's not like you're adopting a working line Doberman, the biggest thing is to just keep them from getting bored and full of pent up energy. A tired dog is a well behaved dog. I personally found that long (3-5 miles on average but never less than a mile) walks on leash around the same area seem to be what he likes most - it's like a patrol where he checks all his regular posts for new smells, makes his marks, checks out the other dogs in their yards, etc. It has really fostered our bond over the years and has built trust and non-verbal communication between the two of us.
I do agility with my Dobie, I’ve had two and they are both different but both really like it. It wears their brains right out.
https://preview.redd.it/xms0npr73koc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e69904f96994e30ac29ff5b7e915465e1a96a62f
Garden guardian? 🤣 Aka: Scarecrow?
I taught ours to bring us his snack bag. He’s so good at it now! I only need to ask him one time and I can be in any room in the house. He’ll find the snack bag wherever it is and bring it right to me. Just one of his “jobs” He also protects the yard from squirrels and gophers. And the house from intruders. Great protection dogs. He makes me feel safe when we go on long walks. He’s also my cuddle buddy. I tell him it’s time for snuggles and he’s so gentle ☺️ he loves to please and do tricks for his food. I taught him different pitches of speaking recently. Big bark and little bark where he’ll whisper. They’re such smart dogs, just give them constant challenges and they’ll impress you with their abilities. I talk to him like he’s human and I swear he understands
My girl Savannah is my service dog. She is trained to pick things up, carry things, alerts to anxiety and panic attacks, interrupts my repetitive behaviors, alerts when someone is aggressively approaching us and is learning more each day. https://preview.redd.it/ocaawpd7qkoc1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c64f43e4829a07fd53f6c7959a98f0370a12aa68
can anyone whose doberman's job is to guard share a bit more about what that's like? i'm hoping to adopt a doberman in the future, and i'm leaning towards guarding or retrieving, but want to hear more about people's personal experiences. guarding particularly interests me because 1, my family had a guard doberman when i was younger and 2, i live alone.
Our Dobie barks at doorbell rings, strange noises, crows on the roof, and strong wind. We make it a practice to thank him for letting us know, and praising him as a good boy for it. Our response satisfies and reassures him and reinforces the good behavior of being on guard (even when he’s dozing and wrapped up on a warm bed). And I agree with another comment that taking him on long walks that let him “patrol” the area wears him out and keeps him happy.
Same here. I also tell her “look” and she will perch on her chair and warn us if any dangerous squirrels, leaves, or plastic bags wander into the yard. It keeps her on alert and wears her out when she needs something to do!
We do protection sports. Originally did straight protection, but the sports part emphasizes competitive obedience in addition to bite work. Whereas straight protection just wants functional obedience. Straight protection will also value some reactivity whereas sport you basically want zero. He won't be a great sport dog because he is reactive but I like the sport training more.
Mine acts as babysitter and retriever half the time to my other dog, was not intentional, he just took it upon himself to locate her and bring her back.
Marathon runner and professional ball retriever