Summarize:

German Shepherds are not necessarily any different than other dogs when it comes to training. If your dog does not know simple commands, such as sit and heel, then start with those. It is important to begin training by building trust between you and your dog. Keep training sessions happy and short and give the dog a break in between lessons for play and a drink. Food is a powerful motivator for most dogs. Other dogs, particularly those with a high prey drive, respond well to toys as a reward. Either way, praise, in addition to a reward that is valuable to your dog, is used to communicate to your dog that they have performed well.  The timing of the reward is extremely important. Your praise and reward will need to come within two to three seconds of the behavior you are reinforcing. If the dog does something else in between the desired behavior and the reward, you are rewarding the last thing that the dog performed. For instance, if you want to teach the “sit” command, the praise and treat should be delivered when the dog is sitting with all feet on the ground. If you deliver the praise/treat with one paw up or as the dog starts getting up, you have just rewarded the dog for that most recent behavior.  Treats should be small and tasty. Consider three types: Low, medium and high value treats. Keep these in your arsenal to help your dog learn commands. When they first learn a new command, you may need medium or high value to treats to start them off and treat for every success. As they understand the command more, start adding in lower value treats intermittently. You can always go back to high value treats at any time you want to let the dog know they did something exceptionally great and you want them to remember that so you get that behavior again and again. Gradually, you will phase out any treat and do more praise reward as the dog gets more consistent. You don’t want to create a dog that will only work for food and ignore you the rest of the time. That could become a dangerous situation. Clicker training is a method where the dog learns to associate the sound of the clicker as a positive “marker” for behavior.[3] You start by clicking the device while feeding a high value treat over and over again so that the dog learns that the clicker sound means “very good.” After that association is made in the dog’s mind, you can create, or “shape,” behaviors by clicking as the dog performs a behavior you like. You can click faster than you can praise or treat, so by clicking you reward the dog instantly and then follow up the click with a treat. Clicker training is an incredible way to train dogs because they learn so fast with such immediate feedback. Spend even less time (5 to 10 minutes) for younger pups. Multiple shorter training session are generally more effective than one long one, particularly for puppies under 6 months of age. Their attention span is short and puppies get tired; your patience will be worn thin trying to train an over tired puppy. Training has to be upbeat and happy in order to get the maximum response from the dog. Play with the puppy in between and help them understand that people are fun and not all about “school” all the time.
Begin with dog training basics. Use food, praise, and toys as motivators. Consider clicker training. Spend no more than 20 minutes per training session without a break.