I think the first experience with an Ecollar has left my dog somewhat traumatized. How can I regain his confidence and improve commands?

Hi,

Thanks for all your helpful articles, DVDs, nice leather leashes, etc.

I have a question regarding my second male labrador retriever. He is currently about 7 months old. About a month ago, I was trying to introduce the Dogtra Electric Collar into some training to advance things a bit. I used the collar one time for a short period (5-10 min) but after watching your Electric Collar Training DVD again, I believe I used it incorrectly. Instead of "Command," "No" and Quick Stim... I was doing "Command" and Continuous Stim if the command wasn't met. Although this was only a 5-10 minute session done once with the E Collar, my dog seems to have developed nervous urination at times when I'm now trying to go through basic sit, down, stay commands with food.

I've held off on using the E Collar a second time on him until I can hopefully get his confidence back with basic training using food rewards. With my first Lab who is 4 1/2 yrs at this point, I can confidently go through commands without worrying about making him nervous. With the younger dog, I'm now more cautious because it seems even the tone of my voice can set him off into a nervous, urine spitting mode....He is a very healthy, young dog with great behavior otherwise, so I'm confident he got a little traumatized by that one session with the E Collar...

Do you have any suggestions on how I can get his confidence back or how I should approach training with him given this situation?

Thanks - Bob

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. The immediate issue right now has nothing to do with the E collar. He hasn't worn that since the incident that traumatized him. So I'm trying to get back to basics (which I believe you do prior to even introducing the E collar). The problem I'm having is even through basic training for Sit/Stay, Down/Stay, Come... he is not consistent. I am using food to reward at times and also walking on the prong collar/leash to have him go through this routine. The problems I'm seeing when he doesn't obey the command (usually about 50 % of the time now) is the following:

1) His sit is not a good solid sit but more of a half sit with his ears back submissively

2) He won't go down all the time and that's typically the command that gets him to spittle a little bit of urine out of nervousness (this happens occasionally, not all the time).

About half the time he's pretty good, and the other half I'm facing the issues above, which I never had prior to the E Collar episode. So it's not the collar itself or putting in on or off that's the issue at this point. It's trying to instill his confidence back using basic training... Down the road I'll look at the E Collar again, but I'm most concerned with him getting through a training session without being nervous or fearful.

I guess my real question is, how forceful should I be in basic training given his lack of confidence? Should I just rigorously go through Sit/Stay, Down/Stay, Come.. a couple of 5-10 minute periods a day using food until he just gets it? Or should there be some other, gentler method I should follow given his nervousness at this point?

Thanks again.