April 28, 2011

My GSD pup is 16 weeks old. I was thinking of purchasing your "Dogtra 280NCP" collar and your E-collar DVD. Would this be the right collar for a puppy?

Full Question:
Hi Cindy,

Your advice worked out very well. My GSD pup is now 16 weeks old and I have come back to you to ask for your gracious help with another problem.

The pup is very "mouthy" on me and on inappropriate objects, i.e. he trys to eat sticks, rocks, grass, and even dirt! I judge him to be of extremely high prey drive.

I have been studying your DVDs ("Your Puppy 8 weeks to 8 Months," "Basic Obedience," "Establishing Pack Structure For the Family DOG") and learned that you often move to an e-collar at 4 months of age.

Concerning the "mouthiness," I have only used verbal corrections and diversion to toys up until this point as per your puppy dvd to help. This techinique has resulted in improvement but I think I need to go further to stop this "teeth on skin" fun my pup is having. Your obedience dvd says that I should wait till 5-6 months of age to use corrections (so as not to damage my bond with him) so I think the time is coming very quickly for me to become firmer.

Since I would like to use the collar to train the puppy to stop his nipping me and to stop eating "garbage" I was thinking of purchasing your "Dogtra 280NCP" collar and your E-collar DVD. Would this be the right collar for a puppy? Would it still be OK to use when he is older for other training? Will the DVD tell me everything I need to know to start off right now at 4 months of age?

Thanks in advance for your great advice!

Dennis
Cindy
Cindy Cindy's Answer:
I’m glad the advice I gave is working out. Thanks for letting me know.

I do start my own dogs with the ecollar around 4 months. I use super low level stimulation and I find that it makes learning go quicker and it’s less “emotional” than giving a collar correction with a regular collar/leash.

I would recommend the ecollar video and the collar you picked out. I use the 280 NCP daily with my dogs.

For the eating of stuff and biting you, I use the word YUCK. I say YUCK, wait a split second and then give a low level nick (you will learn how to determine the level to use in the DVD). As SOON as the pup stops what he is doing, I say YES and give a reward. This works very well. I want the dog to eventually leave whatever he is thinking of picking up, eating or biting when I say YUCK. We have guinea fowl and my dogs LOVE the little presents they leave all over the grass, I find myself saying YUCK at least once a day. It really works.

I like to use this word instead of NO, because I use NO in my marker training.

I hope this helps.

Cindy

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Expert Dog Trainer Cindy Rhodes
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