Q: You’ll  need to be in the right space and mood in order to connect with your spirit guide. Create a quiet space by cutting out distractions (computers, phones, television, etc.). You can even hang a “do not disturb” sign on your door if you want to be alone. Dimming the lights, wearing comfortable clothes, and lighting incense or candles can also help. Once you have prepared your space and are sitting comfortably in an upright position, start by taking a few slow and deep “grounding breaths.” This will increase your alertness and focus. You can use any of the various meditation techniques to relax and focus your mind and body. This will help you enter the right mental state to connect with your spirit guide. Try this simple mindfulness meditation exercise as a start to help relax and open your mind:  Sit down in a comfortable position, such as on a pillow or mat. Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths, exhaling slowly each time. Turn your attention to your breathing cycle. Think and feel each time as you breathe in and out. If your attention wanders, just bring it back to focusing on your breathing. Keep your mind open. Don’t stop to judge any thoughts that you have. When you feel that your mind has cleared and you are relaxed, you can try to connect to your spirit guide through visualization or other techniques. Try meditating for a minimum of 5-10 minutes at least once a day. Don’t get frustrated if you can’t connect with your spirit guide right away. The regular practice of meditation will help to open your mind, if you are patient. While you will connect with your spirit guide on a mental and spiritual plane, you may find that certain tangible objects help you reach it. Many believe that certain crystals hold spiritual powers, for instance. Likewise, you may also like to prepare for meeting your spirit guide by starting with a tarot reading. Connecting with your personal spirit guide can take time and practice. Often, it requires techniques that go beyond what you can learn from a book or self-study. If you are serious about connecting with your spirit guide, consider working face-to-face with a spiritual advisor.   Spiritual advisors can take a variety of forms, depending on one’s beliefs and practices. You may find help from a guru, priest, shaman, psychic, medium, or similar individuals.  You can connect with a spiritual advisor in your area by asking for recommendations from friends or a spiritual center. You may also find some that advertise their services online or in print media.
A: Create the right environment. Breathe. Meditate. Try using aids. Consult a spiritual advisor.

Q: 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.
A:
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.