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Nova as a puppy

My dog Nova is a German Shepherd who is a very good girl, although sometimes she isn’t always the best girl.

If you didn’t know already German Shepherds have a lot of personality, they’re one of the smartest dog breeds while at the same time one of the hardest dogs to train.

Nova is a shining example of that, she’s probably the most stubborn dog I’ve ever met, she doesn’t listen when told to come inside, and she had to go to doggie school to learn to behave. Nova is a  good girl at her core but as of right now she can be a real nuisance.

We are continuously trying to figure out how to train her and get her to listen to us. Some things that have worked for us is putting a bell on our back door that she can ring when she wants to go outside.

Nova is very playful and loves to play with people, but she has a bit of a biting problem which ruins the fun a little, but if you give her a toy it helps her not to bite you.

Other than all the things she does to misbehave, like go in my brother’s room and bring all his trash downstairs, I still love her because I know she will learn with time, hence why she’s going to doggie school right now.

At school they are trying to teach her how to listen better when we give her commands and not to jump on people when she gets excited.

 When we first got Nova she wouldn’t be quiet at all, every night she would stay up and just whine the whole night, because she was lonely and wanted to get out of her kennel. It would go on for hours never stopping for a second,  just one sound after another.

She’s also a brand new puppy so she wasn’t potty trained yet either so she would go potty in the house while we weren’t home or in her kennel. The first few nights with her were probably the hardest since she was so new to the house, there were a lot of things that made it hard, she would poop in her cage, pee when she got excited to see someone, and whine at night for hours. The whining was awful and probably her habit I hated the most,  she would just keep whining at night until either she stopped at 3 am or mom took her into her room so she’d stop, but once mom left for work it continued again.

There is also her jumping problem she has where she jumps as high as she can just to reach your face to give you a kiss. One thing to help with that is when you see her instead of bending over to say hello, get down on her level so she is less likely to jump. It’s been a while since we got her, but she has definitely grown on me. I didn’t like her at first but now I love saying hello to her every day. The whining got to me at first and gave me a bad impression of Nova, but now she is still a little annoying and is a lot better than she used to be. For example, she doesn’t bite as much when we play with her, one thing she did that was pretty funny though is that if you jump at her and just squat your knees down low and run towards her, she will get very low to the ground and just start running back and forth across the house. It happens so much and it’s very entertaining to watch. Nova has her moments of cuteness while she’s calm and a good girl but that’s only for a little bit before she starts running again. 

Doggy school is a place we can take Nova to be trained better than we know how to. German Shepherds are very hard dogs to train in general the same way huskies are since they are so communicative with everyone.

She has been getting better with the help of doggy school, but that doesn’t mean she’s done being naughty.  As of recently she has a problem with listening to come inside, especially when the neighbor dogs are outside and she gets excited. Just the other day i had to go out to the yard, get her attention with a treat, tell her to lay down, and get her to sit still enough to grab her and bring her back inside.

Despite all her faults love is still a very good girl and deserves all the love in the world as any dog should. It will take a little bit of time but I sure know she will become a very good girl that listens to everyone.