May 18, 2011
My 3 year old Mal is sensitive to the E-Collar. What can I do?
Full Question:
First let me thank you for responding as I am sure you are very busy. I am fan of your videos, I've ordered several and plan on ordering several more along w/ the books.I have a 3 y/o Mali who is sensitive to the E-collar. He doesn't even like just a slight shock. For example when it's put on him for a building search he will enter the building go about 10 yards, turn and detain me (the handler). His previous handler has only had to 'roll' him once and it was when he had the shock collar on him and he gave him a slight shock, the dog then went into prey drive and charged him.
I thought about putting him in muzzle and working him very extensively on the collar until he just got used to it. Is that the way to go or would you suggest something different?
Thanks for your time,
Ted
Ed's Answer:
There are so many things going on here that I could write a chapter in a book on it.
There has been some very bad training for this to happen.
You have two problems here.
So do short muzzle searches - 30 feet inside the door and slowly expand it. The fact is I have an excellent training video on how to do building searches. Talk your department into getting it.
If this were my dog I would not be using the collar on this dog in a search until the search training was correct.
I would only use the e-collar on other issues and not around a build search - this is started by taking 2 or 3 weeks of putting the collar on the dog and taking it off 3 to 5 times a day. So the actual act of putting the collar on means nothing to the dog. We don’t want the collar going on to be a trigger to do stupid things. Proper conditioning to the collar is the biggest mistake trainers make.
Once the conditioning is done then it's time to learn how to use low level nick to train. This is not rocket science but it does require you to learn how to break an exercise into the smallest of parts. Read the Q&A on police K9 work on my site there is a detailed answer on how to train the OUT.
There has been some very bad training for this to happen.
You have two problems here.
- A Building search problem
- An electric collar problem
So do short muzzle searches - 30 feet inside the door and slowly expand it. The fact is I have an excellent training video on how to do building searches. Talk your department into getting it.
If this were my dog I would not be using the collar on this dog in a search until the search training was correct.
I would only use the e-collar on other issues and not around a build search - this is started by taking 2 or 3 weeks of putting the collar on the dog and taking it off 3 to 5 times a day. So the actual act of putting the collar on means nothing to the dog. We don’t want the collar going on to be a trigger to do stupid things. Proper conditioning to the collar is the biggest mistake trainers make.
Once the conditioning is done then it's time to learn how to use low level nick to train. This is not rocket science but it does require you to learn how to break an exercise into the smallest of parts. Read the Q&A on police K9 work on my site there is a detailed answer on how to train the OUT.
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