E.Collar training

[ladyjubilee]

So because the dog reactivity was getting so bad, we went against vet advice and started with the ecollar.

I just couldn't control her reaction despite 8 months of training. Ithink because she has a "high drive" (I'm still not entirely sure what that means other than her intense focus), my inability to be loud or escalate (parent and aggressive child long enough and you learn not to!) and her protective nature muxer with my son's fear of dogs, nothing else was working. She REALLY looses it when a dogs scares him. The final straw was her going completely ballistic, and my oh so helpful son circling behind me to give her the "good girl" pat while I was literally pinning her to the ground. Urgh! She paused for just a second ti give me the "See, I'm good girl" look. So not working.

That said ecollar seems to be helping a lot even at this early stage. I'm following the trainers instruction, but before I finally decided I read several and there seem to be a lot of techniques out there. How do you use the ecollar? When do you phase it out? Which ecollar do you use?

[Dutchringgirl]

https://leerburg.com/fsearch/results.php?terms=ecollar

Check out Leerburg ecollar training videos, that will get you started. Bacically its a marker, but you have to train them what it means. I have an inexpensive collar now, I used to use Dogtra. I keep it on vibrate, start with that first, because if you use the electric stimulation too high and wrong, you will mess her up.

You leave the collar on 24/7 because they will learn that when you put the collar on, something is coming and it will upset them.

Pay for the videos, he is really top notch.

[ladyjubilee]

I watched a few of the free and read some of their articles. Their video explaining the Educator 800 is why I went with the 300. Way overkill for what I need. They seem to use moderate "nick" as correction. I saw some others that use low continous where the reward as absentlce of correction.

[Dutchringgirl]

Good !

[NickLA]

sorry if I’m late to the party here.... but we’re going through this with Aylin.

Our trainer never used the vibe function, but we kept it on level 3 (we couldn’t even feel the stim on our hands until level 10) for the first week and taught recall as a choice/reward. We would call her, then tap the constant until she was fully committed to the recall. Tapping would stop and we’d mark/pay.

As she figured out what it the stim means, we slowly removed the choice and slightly upped the level depending on situation.

Also, ditto Dutchringgirl about leaving it on whenever you are home. That can become a fight. Just don’t forget to switch sides every so often so the pup doesn’t get sores.

[ladyjubilee]

Our trainer said to take it off at night. I guess to prevent sores

[Dutchringgirl]

I do take it off now at night. you just dont want to put it on right before you use it. you dont want them to associate it with getting zapped

[ladyjubilee]

Bramble gets very excited when she sees it, even though she seems to have figured it out.

[Dutchringgirl]

sadie does too but it stops right after i put it on,

[ladyjubilee]

I've shared all my failures, so I'll share a HUGE success. We got the ecollar 3 weeks ago. Today was only our second training with the trainer with the ecollar....and she was like a whole different dog. From being barely controllable to today an off leash dog was close enough to her in her down stay to accidentally step on her tail.....and she didn't even flinch, just continued in a relaxed stay. Other dogs came in and she even looked away to control herself. I didnt need to do any corrections at all.

It was wonderful!

[centrop67]

[Dutchringgirl]

[Tim91118]

Way to stick with it