Sorry to hear about your old girl passing.
I'm efinitely not in the egg sucking education business here Mr Nut, especially if you've been rescuing dogs for years, but I'm hugely interested in how you get on with a young, lead reactive, male GSD. Please keep us updated.
A couple of questions if l may.
How old is he, and do you know anything about his life before he came to you?
He's about 3, we were told, although his teeth and general demeanour seems to suggest that he's younger than that. We have no idea about his previous life unfortunately. My other half wants him to settle in here for a few months before she starts to try and train him seriously but he is definitely improving on lead and his recall is getting better although it's non existent if there's something else really exciting, like someone going down the track next to our land - then it's all bets off. The woodland tracks and lane around us mean that when you interact with other dogs it's generally head on and in a confined space so that's problematic, he's just way too over the top. I didn't see it but apparently he was running up and down chasing a dog the other side of the fence today and the other dog was play bowing and interacting with him, suggesting that his chasing and barking isn't threatening behaviour but more likely excitement and exuberance. Other dogs are generally a far better judge of dog behaviour than we are.