May 13, 2011

My dog loves a ball. He won’t perform a down stay when I throw a ball. Should I use an electric collar?

Full Question:
My dog is totally ball crazy. He always walks around the house with it in his mouth and is always ready to fetch. For exercise I take him to the park and let him off leash I hit the tennis ball with a racquet to get some distance. I put him in a down-stay and as soon as I hit the ball he is off after it. Totally ignoring the down-stay. At all other times he will correctly execute the down stay even with loose dogs running around him. I have pulled him back to his down-stay spot, after tricking him by faking hitting the ball because I thought by the time he gets back from fetching a football length he has totally forgotten the down-stay command, by the back of his neck and with a little ear. And even right after I put him back and hit the ball he is off again. The only thing that worked so far is putting my foot on top of him. Should I continue with the foot or is there something else I can do? Is it shock collar time? One more thing. Is the 3 second rule credible? Which is if you don't correct you're dog in three seconds after an incorrect behavior you might as well not correct. Because he won't know what he did wrong?

Thanks again,
Chris
Ed
Ed Ed's Answer:
What in effect you are saying is that your dog is not fully obedience trained. The ball is an extreme distraction and the dog will not perform in its basic commands.

I would train the dog in two ball, I would use a prong collar and long line.

I would not recommend an electric collar to you, because its obvious that you do not fully understand the principles of dog training and in my opinion it would be a mistake for you to use the collar (you will end up causing more problems than you fix).

If you want to use a collar you need to learn how to use it. The 3 action training videos that we sell are very, very good.

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Expert Dog Trainer Cindy Rhodes
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