electronic collar #2

"What a beautifully-behaved dog!" they said. Three of them, two women and a teenage-boy were trying to hold back a lungeing Labrador. Maggie, my ten-month-old Great Dane was in a placid dowstay at the side of the prairie path.

"Uh, folks..." I started to say. "It's this zapper I'm holding and the receiver on the dog's neck." But I withheld my fervour about electronic collars even though they could barely control their dog.

In fact, I have doubts about the collar. Not doubts that it works. IT WORKS! No, what I have doubts about is that Maggie's now near-perfect obedience has nothing to do with me and everything to do with a device. In otherwords, without the collar she'd be the recalcitrant dog she was before. She is not well-trained, as I'd like to believe, she is merely well-conditioned to avoid an unpleasant zap.

I should give her some credit since she is still a puppy, (at 115 lbs.) In the house she responds to "sit", "stay", "down" and "come to me" without the collar. When we feed her, she has to sit before her bowl and wait until we say "OK" before she can eat. She waits beautifully, drooling all the while. She also knows not to bark uncontrollably if she sees a coyote, deer or the neighbour's cat out the window.

But in a larger environment, the dog park for instance or the prairie path, where she walks well on the leash but will charge off if something catches her eye, (and pull me over or dislocate my arm), she is uncontrollable. By that I mean she's powerful and if she's out of range and distracted, her response to "come" is either mischievous or "whatever". And she's fast and limber and stays just enough beyond me so that I can't catch her.

This is what I was having trouble with and the pinch-collar only worked if she was attached to me. Even then, it took all my strength. I developed tendonitis in my left elbow.

How to get her to respond if she was a couple of yards away or 400 yards, (the range of the electronic collar.)?

Quite simply, I couldn't. Some dogs at the dog park come when they're called. Most don't. For the most part it is the last command they obey. An out-of-range dog has all the power. Even if you're an Alpha. A treat helps but not always, not if there's a Viszla your dog wants to chase.

I agonized over getting an electronic collar. I was concerned that it was inhumane to give an animal an electric shock. But I was feeling frustrated and angry and losing confidence that I could ever handle my dog. And I didn't want a dog I couldn't control. I see too many out-of-control dogs at the dog park and I hate it. Out-of-control dogs are obnoxious. I'm going to write another day about obnoxious dogs.

Some people say a shock collar is lazy training. You're shifting your responsibility. Believe me, I think about this.

And is an electronic collar really inhumane? I've felt the "zap" on my hand and I don't think so. Repeatedly, it would be annoying and puzzling but not painful. Not the way a pinch-collar must be. And the dog has a choice. It can stop the "feeling" by obeying the command. Just as a dog has the choice to jump an electronic fence, but chooses not to to avoid a "zap".

That still doesn't answer the question of who is in control, the device or me? What would happen if the battery went dead or if, as happened one time, I forgot to wear the remote? I'd be powerless as ever over my dog, right? Not quite. What is happening is that I have to zap less and less. Maggie responds sometimes to a command without my pressing the button. She still has to be zapped for digging but not for jumping up. And she'll "drop it" without a "zap" when she takes another dog's ball. And miracle of miracles, she's starting to come when she's called. "Maggie, come!" I shout firmly and 'lo and behold, she trots up to me or follows behind if I'm going to walk around the dog park. She's stopped pulling on the leash as we approach the gate and she sits before I let her enter.

There is only one other dog at the park, (among what must be over a hundred), who wears an electronic collar: Remy, the miniature Schnauzer. He's feisty but responsive to his owner's commands. But there are dozens of dogs who aren't. I wish more people used the device.