January 01, 2024
Family members misused the remote collar on my dog when I was on vacation ! Is my training ruined?
Full Question:
I’ve followed your recall and remote collar program and my dog is near perfect on recall mostly.He was very well behaved off leash on our property.
We are very protective of the collar training only me and my wife but we left the dog with family for vacation who used old school shock punishment style and made my cattle dog collar-wise.
Haven’t been able to break it.
He now won’t come without the remote collar on and will hide from putting it on.
The no longer coming without the collar on is probably the worst part.
Have tried rewarding putting it on etc
Cindy's Answer:
That's a really unfortunate situation that you are in. For the future, DON'T let anyone else use the remote collar on your dog. Don't even have the collar available. If someone else watches my dog, I don't give them the collar and the dog MUST be either on a long line or in a secure fenced-in area. I don't want an accident with my dog getting hurt but I'll admit I never even thought about someone using the collar in the wrong way. I would be very upset if this was done to my dog.
I think all you can do is start from scratch, don't allow him to avoid getting the collar on. Put him on a leash and then matter of factly put it on. Don't ask him to come to you right now without a line on him. Start like he's just at the beginning stages of the collar conditioning, I'd make him wear it a LOT without using it.
Do NOT call him when you don't have a way to reinforce the recall, if he doesn't have his collar on, don't call him. This is the most important part. He may be wearing the collar every day for a very long time, don't get in a hurry to "test" this.
My fully trained dog wears his collar every single day when we go outside on our unfenced acreage, smart dogs learn in one repetition that if the collar isn't on there is no consequence for not recalling. I like to be ready for the unexpected.
I think all you can do is start from scratch, don't allow him to avoid getting the collar on. Put him on a leash and then matter of factly put it on. Don't ask him to come to you right now without a line on him. Start like he's just at the beginning stages of the collar conditioning, I'd make him wear it a LOT without using it.
Do NOT call him when you don't have a way to reinforce the recall, if he doesn't have his collar on, don't call him. This is the most important part. He may be wearing the collar every day for a very long time, don't get in a hurry to "test" this.
My fully trained dog wears his collar every single day when we go outside on our unfenced acreage, smart dogs learn in one repetition that if the collar isn't on there is no consequence for not recalling. I like to be ready for the unexpected.
User Response:
Thanks for the advice sounds like some work but we will get him back. Super high drive engaged cattle dog. It was a judgment failing on my part - I thought a conversation and demo of how to use the collar could override the past training and perspective but was clearly wrong.
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