Right now it appears to be an off-lead thing. She doesn't seem to care about what collar she has on. I suspect I'll get the 1" contacts sometime the first week of the new year. I'll let you know how it goes with them.

st

Scott,
Collar conditioning is a process that measn you take the dog through the whole concept of working to turn off the collar. Some people will tell you that they have a method that is different than escape training but at the end of the day it is all escape training. In other words the dog works to turn off the stim.

From the sounds of things she has not been through that process and while it could very well take longer for someone with a dog who is wise to a long line - it shouldn't be skipped.
I would suggest taking your dog somewhere where the environment around her draws her away from you for a little bit so that you have the opportunity to call her back. You can then stim and guide her with her long line.
In your original post when you said that you corrected her with the collar and she didn't come - she went the other way. If you repeat this enough times she will think that there are several options to turning off the collar - one being running away - the opther may be sitting and doing nothing.. etc...
Whatever the dog is doing when the srtim stops can become a learned lesson and creates problems that you'll have to work through later.

If the collar is properly fitted - And you have already established a level then it is going to be working without the ability to guide the dog through the process that you are seeing creating the problems 99 percent of the time.

Something to think about is that when training with a line - your correction gives the dog direction - whereas the remote is foereign to the dog and does not supply any hint of a direction. The leash correction spell out sit, down , come etc .. by way of the direction given on line - when you are working with a remote and a dog who is green to it all - you need to couple the line with the stim to help the dog fit the pieces fo the puzzle together.


I have a malamute here in the kennel for training that is also on a 1700 NCP and he is working on the regular contact for that collar and I am going to assume that if he works on the regular contact points your akita would be fine as well.

One last point is when you went out to establish a level and found her working level and stopped there - that can create confusion in a dog. The dog feels the stim a few times and then it stops. Why did it happen? Why did it stop? It becomes inconsequential for the dog or even worse stressful. It's preferable to find the level and move on to work so the dog can make sense of what is going on and what the collar signifies. Especially for a dog who is just getting her feet wet.

Nick

Nick--thanks for the response. It's interesting to consider that it's all "escape" training, i.e. that the methodology demonstrated on the Frawley DVD is merely a *special case* of escape training, as opposed to the classic lay-on-the-button-until-they-do-what-you-want style.

I'm not sure if you read all the way through my rather lengthy posts, but if you do you can probably can see that things are already headed in the direction you suggest. For example the other dog distraction at the training facility. My wife and I have also been trying to work as a team now with one distracting the dog. The good news is she hasn't bolted again and we will continue to take measures to guard against that and always train to success.

What also may not be clear is that I try not to make it a special event when checking for the correct working level and as my confidence and experience with the equipment has grown this step has actually just about disappeared. I still try to initially nick her at 40 during the first training evolution of that particular outing, but always wind up at 45 now. The difference in her response from 40 (nothing) to 45 (big twitch) seems like an awful big difference. It would be nice to accomplish something in-between, but using the levels in between 40 and 45 result in inconsistent responses.

It's interesting to hear that you have no problem with your dog and the standard contacts. That's a good data point. As you suggest then that will also probably be true for mine. If she responds the same with the 1" contacts then after that it may just become a question of how tight the collar is. If they work the same it will be a bonus then if the collar can run a notch or two looser than what it is right now. I've also got one of those SCG grid style contacts to try.

st

For me I like my dogs to have secure recalls without ANY "tools"
Don't get me wrong I use the E-collar but not until I have accomplished all commands with solid responses.I have a hard headed male(1 y.old) when I would call him to me at times he would look at me and stay where he was at or come slowly.I have never had that problem with any of my other GSD.SOO I was told my another member of my club, hey call him and start running away from him.So I did and continued for every recall i did with him for a while.He would panic and run as fast as he could to me( thought I was leaving).Now when I call him he runs fast to me thinking I am going to take off.
At one of our trials (with another male of mine) I had the fastest recall of all the dogs entered.You have to use motivational tools, having your recall solid before putting on the E-collar.Your dog is so young too and at 8 months they become more testy.Try other things to get her to come to you fast and happy to come, then use the collar for re-enforcement and long distances.
Good luck scott
http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r77/cadogancna/

Beautiful photos, Angelique.

You know, I've tried everything but the kitchen sink to motivate off-lead recall. While she does enjoy a good game of "chase daddy", she isn't strongly motivated by that or any positive reward when it comes to off-lead recall. There are no toys, treats or praise that motivate her. Toys and treats work a little better for simpler commands like sit and down. Surprisingly she is very, very good at stay. But off-lead recall has been very tough and it is really the only reason that I've gone the e-collar route. If she is not constrained by a house/ring/fence/lead/collar she's just not interested. It's been a real challenge.

You know Scott I was thinking she was a GSD , Akita I am not familiar with ,maybe she is more on the stubborn and indepent side of breeds? Thanks for the compliment ,I love the rocky mountains here ,I don't like vegas really.

Oh yes, very independent. Sometimes I think she has AADD: Akita Attention Deficit Disorder :-)

Nick, I see you obviously do NOT have Ed Frawley's e-training DVD http://www.leerburg.com/318.htm because "collar conditioning" has ZIP to do with escape training, avoidance training, or ANY method of "working to turn the collar off" -- Instead, it's a two week protocol used with the dog before you ever even turn ON the electric shock !

If whatever methods you employ work for YOU, that's really great, but I would not use them on MY dogs (no personal offense intended...) -- My suggestion would be, please study Ed's e-collar DVD in great detail before you hand out advise regarding e-training on this board <:-)

Scott,
I have seen Akitas' in our social class I take once a week, and they are so calm for the most part but so serious, I see the stubborn side when they are asked to down, or do their recall.So I can see your point.
Well I wish you luck and hopefully we can all figure out a good method to get you where you want to be with your dog.No problem can't be fix

Update: Miko is getting used to the whole e-collar thing and has started treating it just like everything else, i.e. "You want me to come? Then you better make it impossible for me not to come!" The bottom line here is that I think following the Ed's e-collar DVD is violating one of Ed's cardinal rules, which is that "A few big corrections are much better than a million small ones."

Consider this: under low-drive conditions if I tell her to come I still have to warn her with a "No" before she will come. Put on a little more drive and she'll completely ignore me until I give her a nick at 35. Every time. Put on some more drive and I have to nick her at 45.

So with a little drive she is completely ignoring my voice commands and actually only responding to, indeed waiting for, the collar correction, at which time she will comes right away.

She's completely used to the collar now and won't even toss her head. She is one tough girl. Doesn't care about putting the collar on or off or if I have the transmitter in my hand or not. Under high drive she doesn't bolt so much as play "Nick me if you can!" She got in the woods (drive on!) I called her to come. She gave me that laughing Akita "Catch me if you can!" look and ran a few more yards into the woods and looked back to see what I would do. I voice/e-collar corrected her and she booked a few more yards into the woods. I turned the control up, called and voice corrected her again and she took off. I hit her with a constant 60 and she froze and did the scratch-with-the-back-leg thing for as long as I sent the correction. No twitching, no vocalization. It took 2 evolutions of that correction and she came back (to much praise and laughter on my part).

So, it seems my pup's "working level" is now going to be a BIG correction, not one of these measley head-tossing, twitching little nicks.

BTW, I did get the 1" contacts. They are perhaps a bit over-long. I'm going to order the .75" contacts now :-/ Nevertheless, they do provide better contact on my long coat dog with less collar pressure and a better range of effectiveness.