July 12, 2011
Our dog reactive rescue lunges at other dogs while walking. I am wondering if we should keep working with her as we are or would we be better off using an ecollar or dd collar?
Full Question:
My husband and I have a 17 month old female Black Russian Terrier x Shepard. We rescued her 6 months ago. Shelby is our 4th rescue. We also have a 12 year old lab X shepard, Sydney. Although we had a few bumps to start - they get along very well. Shelby is crate trained. We are working with marker ob training and is generally going well. She is very dog reactive. Barking at the window, the fence, and when on a walk she sees them coming before I do. She stands with her tail straight up, heavy breathing and lunges when they are close (no barking on a walk). She is the worst with larger dogs, dog coming towards her or especially standard poodles. The command look at me is working if I catch it soon enough. She is much better when she runs with my husband. She is good most times with the on by command. Do we keep working with her as is or would we be better with an e-collar, DD collar? We are using a prong. She is a nervous dog with new situations, some men. She is great with us. Karen
Cindy's Answer:
The first thing I would suggest is to NOT allow her access to situations that you can control (i.e. Don’t allow her at the window, or at the fence). For now, don’t walk her in areas you know are going to have challenges for her. Don’t let her keep practicing this behavior.
For aggression/excitement a dominant dog collar is much more effective. A prong can actually make this worse, it stimulates an already overstimulated dog.
Start with our groundwork program and Pack Structure for the Family Pet. I’d also recommend our Leash Reactivity course.
Once you are getting results with the dominant dog collar, you may want to switch to the ecollar at some point. We have an excellent video on how to train a dog with the electric collar titled, Electric Collar Training for the Pet Owner.
I hope this helps.
Cindy Rhodes
For aggression/excitement a dominant dog collar is much more effective. A prong can actually make this worse, it stimulates an already overstimulated dog.
Start with our groundwork program and Pack Structure for the Family Pet. I’d also recommend our Leash Reactivity course.
Once you are getting results with the dominant dog collar, you may want to switch to the ecollar at some point. We have an excellent video on how to train a dog with the electric collar titled, Electric Collar Training for the Pet Owner.
I hope this helps.
Cindy Rhodes
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