Quote Originally Posted by shepgirl
Stick with the advice you were given and you should be fine in a few months and on your way to a good relationship with this dog.
I think if you could handle Irish Setters, this one should be easy...lol.
>.> If I was smart I would have specified the setters in question were mixed. . .the one we owned was mixed with a golden retriever and gentle as a butterfly. Endured all sorts of 'play' from myself and my sister when we were kids. The other setters were owned by neighbors and loved to be visited.

I thought about specifying, but thought to myself nahhhh. Shows what I get, eh?

My folks were huge into Goldens, and we had a sort of Golden club growing up. A few of our neighbors owned goldens too, and we learned all sorts of useful things about the breed and training in general (especially after the old guy across the street lost his sweet old lady and got two energetic young puppies. I still remember him yelling after them. . ."DAISY! KENNA! GET OVER HERE!" and seeing two streaks of Golden racing by hehehe) Only after our golden died did we switch to American Eskies. The potty training was hard, but the dogs were easy-going and rarely needed to be corrected.

So here comes Odin with all his intelligence and stubbornness and I was scratching my head thinking, "I've never trained a dog like this one!" Delved into the books and found all these things about how Germans aren't meant for everyone and how they just need more than most other 'family' dogs. So I will learn how to properly train Odin and, well, stop being so stubborn myself in my preconceptions.