I have an extremely hyperactive dog who bites everything. Do you think that an electric collar will help calm him down when he gets hyperactive?

Question

Dear Mr. Frawley:

I have a one-year old German Shepherd from pure German imported parents. He is very lovable and he is moderately friendly to people, but very hyperactive at home where he lives in our house with a 6-year old female German Shepherd and an 8-year old male. If you try to brush him, he tries to bite the brush. Whenever you put the leash on him he tries to bite the leash and he is very excitable about most things. When he is taken for a walk he is very quiet and docile unless he is walked with the female. If let loose on our property with the female, he and she will play fight vigorously, but not hurt each other. When I take him to the vet, he is very calm and behaves himself. He is afraid of strange dogs however, when he is off our property. I took him to a dog park and all he did was run from the other dogs to hide by me and by any other person who he thought would protect him. By the way that he followed me at the dog park, I am convinced that he regards me as his park leader. I am not too concerned about his fear of other dogs. I think with familiarity of the dog park and of the other dogs he will lose his fear, so long as I am there to protect him. I am more concerned about how to deal with his hyperactivity at home. By the way, did I forget to tell you that he is 100 pounds and almost impervious to pain? Do you have a DVD or magazine article that I can obtain that will help me. He is not a dominant-aggressive dog, so I don't see that that DVD will help, unless you say differently. Do you think that an electric collar will help calm him down when he gets hyperactive?

Thanks for your help.
George

Accepted Answer

First of all, if your dog bites the brush when you try to use it on him or bites the leash when you snap it on he DOES NOT see you as the pack leader. The first thing you need to do is establish leadership to the dog in a clear and fair manner.

Pack structure and how to live with a dog in your home are the first issues to deal with whenever you add a new dog to your family or have problems with an existing dog. We are taking orders for a new DVD that extensively covers the way Ed and I live with dogs in our home. It is called Establishing Pack Structure with the Family Pet.

We do not recommend dog parks at all, for any dog. A good pack leader doesn't put his pack members in this situation.

Once you have the pack structure worked out (which can take weeks or months, depending on how consistent you are) then I would work on obedience on leash and then eventually the electric collar.

Basic Obedience

We produced a training DVD in the fall of 2005 titled ELECTRIC COLLAR TRAINING FOR THE PET OWNER. In this DVD Ed teaches people how to handle the foundation training and then how to use the collar.

Many trainers, especially hunting dog trainers and even some professional dog trainers use “escape training” when they train with remote collars. This is where they stimulate the dog, give it a command and then teach the dog how to turn the stimulation OFF by doing what’s told. I don’t agree with “escape training.” I don’t think it's fair to the dog. He is being stimulated before he is even asked to do something. In my opinion this is ass end backward. Rather I believe in using the collar to reinforce a voice correction. In other words, I always tell my dog “NO” before I correct him. I give him the opportunity to change his behavior. My goal is to always teach my dog to follow my voice command.

If you read the article titled THE THEORY OF CORRECTIONS IN DOG TRAINING you will understand how to approach corrections. In the DVD Ed simply applies that philosophy to remote collar training. The article explains how to determine the level of correction to use on each dog. This varies according to the temperament and drive of the dog along with the level of distraction it’s currently facing at that moment in time.

This DVD shows how to determine what level of stimulation to use on your dog. That’s important. In this DVD we never used a level higher than a medium and most of the time it was on the low settings for every dog we trained.

We use a Dogtra 1900 on our personal dogs. This is about a $300.00 (plus shipping collar). There are other good collars for less money. I recommend staying with DOGTRA, INNOTEK and TRI-TRONICS. Other companies sell cheaper collars but in the remote collar business you get what you pay for.

I hope this helps.