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April 27, 2011

My dog became over stimulated by the bark collar while walking and bit my leg. Did I address this situation correctly?

Full Question:
Cindy,

I am writing to see if I am going in the right direction. I was walking my blue heeler/ border collie, Blu. He was wearing his tri tronics bark collar. He's been using it for over a year.We had just seen 5-6 does on our last walk, he was pretty excited about that. Next walk, two little shi tzu puppies approached from about 25 feet away. Blu began the long howling barks, you could hear each time he barked the collar set at 4 shocked him, and he just kept going off. This was the 1st time he's ever displayed "over stimulation" from this collar.

He's normally a dominant dog, but not dog or handler aggressive. I began to reconduct him away from the approaching dogs back to our garage, he would not give up on barking and snarling. He gets walked on a prong collar (plasti-dipped prongs) with a dominant dog slip collar - he has a tendency to pull when were on a pleasure walk without it. I normally will put myself between him and whatever he's fixated on, at arm's length. I got bitten in the thigh, I didn't mark the behavior because frankly I was shocked, but he was very aware he'd done something wrong.

I walked him home immediately and he's been in his cage continuously since, like just starting over with the week of cage / no freedom, like when he was a puppy that 1 week Ed instructed in the groundwork video. Is this the correct way to address this issue? I just don't know what else to do to re-assert my dominance over him.

Thanks,
Alex
Ed
Ed Ed's Answer:
Personally, I wouldn’t use the bark collar while I was out walking with my dog. The reason is because of exactly what happened to you. I use the bark collar for times I can’t correct my dog for nuisance barking, not for corrections while I’m walking the dog or training the dog.

The reason is the dog barks, gets a correction and IF the dog is overstimulated he may vocalize upon getting the correction which causes another correction, which causes him to vocalize….the cycle will go on and on and if the dog is looking at something that makes him over excited (deer, another dog, etc) he may redirect that overexcitement into any person or dog that is close to him. I typically recommend not putting bark collars on two dogs running in the same enclosure, for the same reason. One dog may get a correction and redirect into the other dog when they feel the stimulation.

If you want to use a collar to correct him while you are out walking, then I would recommend an electric collar. NOT a bark collar. We have an excellent video on how to train a dog with the electric collar Electric Collar Training for the Pet Owner.

I’d save the bark collar for times he’s in his crate or in your yard to correct him for nuisance barking when you can’t be there.

I would go back to your normal training after a short groundwork refresher. 

Cindy Rhodes

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Expert Dog Trainer Cindy Rhodes
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