Kipp is a 2 y/o Border Collie and gets fixated on cats. It was already ingrained when I got him last fall. Last fall he would try running up and nipping at them, but after several consistent corrections with the prong collar, I think he's past nipping at them. If he's on leash he ignores them fairly well. The problem is I can be out doing off lead work with him now and one of our cats will happen to wander by - we have a large piece of property, and the 2 barn cats are free to roam during the day. Sometimes he's focused enough on the ball to miss the cat completely, but if he does see it, he becomes quite focused on it, and everything else goes out the window.

I've been correcting with a firm "no" and it usually works to get him to come back to me, if not I walk up and take him away from the situation. Either way though, I've lost his attention. So I just have to put him up and train a little later.

I've contemplated getting an ecollar, but am wondering if that would be the best way to approach this? Or are there any other thoughts/suggestions?

Thanks!

I acquired a 3 yr old Doberman about 7 months ago with the same fixation. I tried everything in my bag of wonders for the first few months and nothing worked. I finally tried the e-collar; it didn't work, if anything it made him more obsessed because then he really had to watch the cat to determine when he was going to receive the stimulation.
I finally took him back to zero and started over controlling every aspect of his life from work to fun and that did the trick.
I don't remember where I read it on this site but there is an outline for "starting from zero" (it's not called that but it amounts to the same thing) and it was the best advice I have ever seen anywhere for fixing problems like this.

Thanks for the ideas. I've thought about a little more, and am now wondering if I just need to back up a step or two in training. So I'll be trying that for several days and see what results I get.

I don't mind letting him "be a dog" to a certain extent, but my ultimate goal right now for him is SAR, so eventually he is going to have to learn to work in spite of the distracion. If he was just going to be a farm chore dog, I wouldn't really mind a bit of cat fixation as long as he wasn't chasing or nipping at them.

Get the e-collar and either use Ed's method or the crittering technique heralded by Lou Castle. They both work.

Howard