PetSafe Deluxe Big Dog Remote Trainer; Pet Training System


I should have known even a shock collar couldn't stop Linkin!

Okay, here's the background and story on this whole situation...

We do NOT have a fenced yard, we will NOT have a fenced yard. We have five acres that would be bloody expensive to fence. Even if I wanted just a small portion fenced it would be expensive. Something I personally could not pay for, and because this is my parents property it means it's THEIR final decision regardless of whether or not I paid for it. I don't plan on being here much longer (I sure HOPE I'm not here much longer; nothing against my parents; it's just time to move out) so putting up a fence that will wreck their lawn and be useless in the future (they don't plan on getting any dogs after I'm gone because when they retire they want to travel... though personally I can't see them without a dog so we'll see how that goes). Coal's been boundary trained. He stays home very well. It is easier to keep Coal home because a) he's been boundary trained since he was 9 weeks old, and b) he spends all day chasing 'spots' in the backyard (his big obsession I have no idea what it's about or where it came from) so the world outside our yard is uninteresting to him.

Linkin has been living here for about 9 months now and was a lot older when I first got him (8 months old) with a lot of bad habits already engrained; including wandering. I've been working on boundary training but haven't gotten very far with it. He's OBSESSED with moose and deer so if he catches wind of either there's no stoping him. He's not stupid; he knows there's a lot of "fun" things to do outside our property. His on-leash obedience is solid, it's perfect. He's so pro it's hard to imagine he was the little hellion he was when I first got him. The second you take that leash OFF him, however, he sits there and looks for ways out. You can see him plotting his escape. As soon as he sees his chance he's gone and there's no getting him back.

It's EXTREMELY important to keep Linkin home for several reasons. ONE: the obvious dangers outside our yard like cars that could run him over, and TWO: he HATES the little boys that live down our road... for whatever reason. ESPECIALLY if they're on a bike. I've finally, ufortunately, got to witness his reaction and it's down right aggressive. I have no doubts on the subject anymore of whether or not he was being agressive or playful. 

So, after trying several different methods to keep him in the yard and phase him into offleash training (it seriously sucks having to keep him onleash all of the time, for both me and him), inlcuding several adviced to me by friends and people online, several I've read about, and several we were trained to use at school, all of these failed... finally I caved and got a shock collar. I was convinced it's my last resort and the only glimps of hope.

Our first training session with it went amazingly well. It was like a large burden was lifted off of my shoulders. For the first time EVER I played fetch with Linkin without having a line tangle around his legs. I was able to just PLAY with him offleash in the yard without any worries. He DID take off ONCE and when I gave a correction (on a very VERY low setting) he turned around and came back. It was amazing. I tried very hard to associate everything in the yard with me with good things (praise, cookies, toys etc.) and going OUT of the yard equals bad. In the dog world this is how they learn. They're not stupid, they won't keep doing something if all they get is negative reinforcement out of it. They will, naturally, want to do the things they get positive reinforcement for.

Except for Linkin.

First day of training went great... second was a disaster. He ran and ran straight out of range (100 yards), powering through the stimulation until he was out of range. I even turned it up a few notches once I realized he wasn't responding... nothing.

I got him back and tried again.

It's been about 4 days of training with this collar and every time the same thing happens. Every time I end up having to go hunt him down again. I've had to turn the settings all the way up and am still getting no response.

Dad thinks the collar may not be making good contact because of his thick coat, so I'm going to try the longer prongs that are meant for thick coats and if there is still no difference I don't know what to do.

Do I just keep at it? Do I hope we'll have some kind of breakthrough? Or do I search for another answer, which I don't know if I'll find one because THIS was my last resort.

I have a few more ideas up my sleave... including taking him to Sowchea school to the fenced area and working with him there, that is what I had to do with Coal to train him for offleash... Coal isn't as stubborn and pain tollerent as Linkin though, Coal was MUCH easier to train (and Coal has his bonehead moments too! He wasn't exactly easy breezy to train!).

I think I'll give it a few more tries with a few more methods before giving up... but in the meanwhile it sucks having to hunt him down every time I take him outside!

I've started training Linkin for Dog Agility. He's doing alright so far, we've only had a few lessons (minus those ones months ago in Salmon Arm), and he's catching on rather quickly. I think once he learns the concept he'll rather enjoy it. It will be a great way to curb his enthusiasm and energy. 

He's having a little bit of trouble with the tunnel so far. Some reason he doesn't want to go through it; feels scared to. I don't entirely blame him considering whenever it rains it gets filled with water (which is damn near IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of) and even a few earthworms. I did rinse it out and shake it out the best I could though. Besides, he's adog. He walks through worse things than that on a daily basis.

The weather as been pretty good for Agility. On the hot days I wait until the evening when the shade covers the yard, and the rest of the time it's either just perfect or raining (when you can't practice at all).

Yesterday I got him to go through the tunnel okay enough. He seems to go through it a lot easier when Coal goes first; but Coal's a huge distraction on the course because he just wants to play with Linkin.

That is the best pic I have of Linkin doing Agility. Dad's not the best photographer. I'll try and get some better ones at some point. He's not at the stage where I can stand back with the camera and tell him to go like I can with Coal, so I might have to get my little assistant over to help me out with taking pictures (Lexie).

Another note: Yesterday I took him out around 2:10 (when the kids get off school) and worked him on the road. He's had a problem with biting kids apparently, especially if they're on a bike. Lo' and behold; a kid came around the corner on his bike. Linkin got antsy and barky so I gave him a correction and told him to Leave-It. I'm hoping if I do this every day he'll learn to just ignore them.

God Linkin makes me so angry sometimes. He’s what I call “the bad son”. Sometimes I also refer to him as “the other one” because he is just so bad he shouldn’t deserve a name! Don’t get me wrong, I love both my dogs very much and wouldn’t part with them for anything… but sometimes, ooooh sometimes, Linkin makes me so darn angry!

I let them outside tonight (they can both run free once it gets dark out because there aren’t any people out for them to harass) and like almost every other night Coal came back after he was called but Linkin was no where to be found. I gave Coal a cookie and dried off his paws then grabbed another cookie, a sweater, Linkin’s leash and put on my shoes. I went outside and called him. I had basically all the neighborhood dogs barking at me (apparently no one lets their dog in at night; typical) but still no sign of my own dog. I looked back to see Coal staring at me from inside, being quiet and a good boy.

I called and called and called until finally I could hear Linkin barking and rushing through the woods. I called in a more upbeat, excited tone and could hear his barking and crashing like an elephant through the jungle fade away. I stormed inside to find a flashlight and go retrieve my dog but the only flashlight I could find was dead. So off I went, down the road, into the darkness with a lingering fear in the back of my mind with all the warnings dad’s always given me about wild animals. I kept calling, and calling. Finally I heard something snapping branches in the woods. I froze. Everything inside of me screamed to turn around and run back home while the more sensible side calmly reasoned with the other side that it was more likely Linkin than anything else. I eventually was able to calm this other side once I heard for sure it was Linkin. He flew out of the woods, onto the road, towards me. I jumped up and down and offered the cookie, called him and acted like I wanted him to come play and eat cookies and have a gay ol’ time. He got closer, and closer then blew past me, across the road and into the other side of the woods.

I was SO angry. I COMMANDED he come to me right this instant but alas, he didn’t listen. Did I really expect him to?

“Why the hell do we do obedience every damn night if you’re not even going to use it in the real world?” I exclaimed. In a dramatic gesture I hurled the little biscuit onto the road, stomped my food and exclaimed “FINE! Stay outside and die in the woods! SEE IF I CARE!”

I turned around and stomped back down the road, with the leash trailing behind me.

A little voice in my head kept telling me to keep trying… that, especially after my previous comment, if something actually did happen to Linkin I would be very upset and never forgive myself. Regardless, I kept walking. I knew that standing outside waking up the neighbors really wasn’t going to make him come back if it hadn’t worked the first 50 million times. I figured my best bet was to go back inside, and periodically check outside to see if he’d come home yet.

I reached the driveway when I heard faint footsteps behind me. I turned around to see Linkin slinking behind me. I stopped, stood there, pointed to the ground and demanded “COME”. He came trotting to me and sat in front of me.

“Dammit” I thought to myself, “all I want to do is yell at him and now I can’t do that because he actually came.” I gave him a pat on the head and bent down to clip the leash on him. He was licking his lips and his breath smelt distinctly of Milk Bones.

“Oh, so you realized coming home means you get cookies eh?” I asked him. He stared back up at me with a big grin. “come on idiot, lets go”

The walk down the driveway I talked to him in a happy voice all about how I was so mad at him and how he’s such an awful dog. He wagged his tail and jogged along, probably thinking “yay, she loves me!” or something along those lines…

When we got back to the house I pointed at Coal and told him “look! SEE? Coal’s inside, he came home right away. HE’S a good boy. He’s the GOOD Son, you could probably learn a thing or two from him.”

  The Drunken Trainers Walk:

Today I started focusing on Off-Leash training with Linkin again. I worked on it a bit when I was in school but didn't feel we were quite at that spot in training yet. Now that the snow is melting and the sun is finally coming out of hiding (it was so nice this weekend!) the roads are bare enough to train on. You have to understand first; I live in a very rural area so traffic is very limited and not something I need to worry about. Regardless, I also always keep an eye and ear trained on the roads around me for vehical and people traffic coming our way.
So, I suited Linkin with his Prong Collar and Tab, wrapped his regular lead around my chest and clipped it there (just in case it would be needed) and took him out to the road in front of our property (Schram) and began what I like to call "the Drunken Trainers Walk". Basically it consists of weaving back and forth along the road (so the amount you walk is a good 2 - 3 times longer than if you did a straight line). The reason I do this is because if I walk a simple straight line Linkin goes off in La La Land and is no longer paying attention. Off-Leash training for the first time can be suspensful stuff so I'd like to eliminate him going into La La Land as much as possible!
He did great! At first he had that Super Tracker nose of his up in the air but soon enough he realized he had to pay attention or else I'd either step on him or leave him behind. We also worked on some down/stays and recall, but at very short distances. Short enough that I felt secure I could grab him if needed.
We encountered one couple going for a walk who commented on how well he was doing :P Linkin watched them intently but did not break his heel!
I'm very proud of him and I hope to work on this as much as possible in the evenings in the weeks to come (as long as the weather will permit it).
I also am going to start working with Coal off-leash too, but less complex stuff as Linkin. Coal was originally trained differently so his obedience is lacking a bit.

Which brings me to...

  Arthritis Pains and Other Ailments...

Coal's arthritis seems to be getting worse these days. He's much more grumbly than usual and I've seen him stager, limp, and have trouble sitting and downing more than he use to. This hurts to watch him, so bad... he's only five, he shouldn't be like this. I worry sometimes it's due to all the activities I did with him because the vet said it could be three causes: too much exercise when he was younger, bad puppy food, or poor genetics (or all of the above). If the pain he is suffering from today was caused by me I couldn't bear it. If I'd known that then I wouldn't have done as much with him as I did... although Dr. Wigmore did point out it's quality not quantity that's important. Coal absolutely loved doing agility, frisbee, swimming, biking etc. Even so, I still can't help but feel bad.

Also, this morning when I took Linkin out for a pee (Coal was already outside) I noticed Coal kept stoping and violently laying down and chewing on his front right paw. I brought him inside, cleaned his paws off and took a look. In between his toes, right next to/against his pad there was a red bump. I cleaned it up and kept an eye on it through out the day... he eventualy stopped chewing on it (though has obviously still been favoring it) and it is no longer a bump but instead looks like a gouge. I think he must have stepped on a stick or something that jabbed and cut in between his pads. Poor guy... I hope it heels up okay, I have to keep an eye on it and keep it clean. If it doesn't clear up within the next couple of days another trip to the vet will be needed... and Coal does not do well in long car rides and he does NOT like Dr. Wigmore (and the whole Vet Trip in general).

Poor Coaly Moley... :-(

Sorry it's kind of poor quality video... it was really dark. My house is bad for videos and pictures at night when it's dark. Seems like no matter how many lights you turn on at night when you get the camera out all the light is eaten up. Anyway, you get the jist.

Took only about 5 minutes for him to learn it, which was amazing. Last trick he learned took about 3 months to learn and that was the "Wave" haha.

Not too shabby... although now all he does is roll over when I ask him to do anything else haha. 

How it Was Trained:

1. Left Linkin in a Down/Stay at the side of the room and brought Coal to the middle. Had Coal roll over a few times and then let Coal outside. 

2.Brought Linkin back to the middle of the room and had him lay down. I then, using hand motions and a treat in my left hand told him "Roll Over" and pull his body over into a "roll". You have to know how to manipulate your dogs body pretty well to do this. Linkin's rather "maluable" and willing for you to pick him up, move his legs, roll him over, heck whatever you want to him! You have to know how a dogs body rolls over. If he's on his left him that makes it hard to roll him in the left direction (his right) so you have to start by pushing the dog on to whichever side they lean towards the best (whichever side their hip is on). Once on his side I grabbed the front shoulder/leg under neith him (rolling in the left direction, wtih his body on HIS right, so grabbing his right front leg) and pull him up onto his back and over onto his left side.

3. Praise, treat, rub his belly, exlaim that he's such a good boy and he did a very good roll over.

4. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Repeat this until you can tell he's starting to anticipate what you're going to do and is starting to roll over without so much help from you.

5. Once you can feel his body isn't just laying there while you roll him over, take your hands away. If he fumbles and isn't quite sure what to do halfway through (at one point Linkin layed there belly up at me with a look like "what now?") use your hands as a guide and show him what to do again.

6. Once he seems to be rolling on his own with very little help from you do this 2 or three times in a row.

7. Switch it up. Get him back to his feet and get him to sit and do other tricks a few times. This takes out the "training through anticipation" from your dog. Go back to the down and tell him to roll over again. If he's unsure this means he wasn't getting it as well as you thought he was. The distraction of other tricks made him either forget quickly what you were previously doing or he never knew it all that well in the first place and was just repeating the same move over and over again. This is fine, it's all apart of learning. The fact he was rolling without any guidance tells you he DID learn some, it's just not solid yet.

8. Do a few more rolls with/without guidance until he gets the hang of it again. Move to his feet again. This time don't do other tricks but instead tell him "Roll over" from a sit rather than from a down. He might not get it right away but encourage with voice and hand signals to try and show him what you want. Up until this point he's been connecting DOWN with ROLL OVER, and the idea of SIT with ROLL OVER never even crossed his mind. If he doesn't do it pull him into a down without a command, just say "Roll over" as your command. Into a down and roll over smoothly and quickly to show the transition from Sit to Roll Over. Repeat from Sit until he's going down and rolling over from a sit on his own.

9. Try this same concept from a stand.

10. Mix other tricks into it to test his grasp on the whole concept and to trick him a little bit and teach him just because we're doing roll over now doesn't mean that's what we'll be doing next. A dog should listen to your words not just your previous exercise or not listen at ALL and pull out all the tricks he knows just for a reward.


Linkin isn't quite at step 9 or 10 yet but I think a couple more lessons with this and he'll have it down solid ;)

Well I went to Kat's today to give some training lessons to Zero (and her and Ian). It was well... interesting. Puppies can be SO hard to work with! They're basically like 'I defy you! I shall chew on you! Oh what's this on the floor? I think I'll eat it! Don't take it away, I shall bite you! Oh look! A CAT!" Ugh. Frustrating. I think I was able to keep my cool enough though and keep trying different ways to keep his attention.

It was going alright. I showed Kat how to teach him to Stay (Bleib... they're teaching him German), and also showed her the easy, propper way to get him to sit. He's REALLY bad for mouthing and was being a nippy little brat so I showed her a different way to correct him for it. Before I showed her to grab his bottom jaw and tell him "NOOOO", which works for some dogs and others it doesn't. I used this approach on Linkin (he was terrible for mouthing and sometimes still is) but it didn't work very well. It doesn't seem to work the best on Zero either so I showed her the "cheek shake" method, which is what works on Linkin. You basically take their cheeks and shake them and tell them "NOOOOO". I showed Kat when he bit me and told her to make sure not to shake him TOO hard, you don't want "shaken baby syndrom". She then tried it when he bit her and it seemed to work okay. He THEN proceeded to roll over onto his stomach and PUKE. I was shocked at first. No way should a simple shake of the cheeks make him puke. He shakes his head more viollently when playing with a toy. Then I saw what was IN the puke; WORMS. Ugh, so disgusting.

Poor little guy. But man it was disgusting. If there's one thing in this world that COMPLETELY freaks me out it's parasites.

I can't say I'm surprised though. I knew there was no way he's ever been to the vet nevermind his mother being there. He probably got them from her. That's what you get with Rez Dogs!

Vet's office is closed tomorrow so Kat's going to phone Tuesday and make an appointment. He needs to go in and get his vaccinations done anyway.

Needless to say... that was an... interesting... first lesson.

The Newest Addition to the family! Welcome Zero!

            

No no, I'm not crazy. No one start yelling at me because I've suddenly gone off the deep end! HE'S NOT MINE! He's my sister Kat's, so like my dogs cousin :P However I will be helping her train him so I figured I might as well add him to the Training Blog as well. As you may have noticed he has his own Avatar picture as well. I also put names on Coal and Link's pictures too... JUST IN CASE there's any confusion hehe

I just thought I'd introduce the little fella. He's very sweet (though had a bit of a mouthing problem but that can be fixed), pretty lazy for a puppy, good temperment, rather submisive and I think he's one of those eager to please type dogs so I think he'll be pretty easy to train. Though don't let the picture fool yah, he's got some big feet on him :P

So I look forward to training this little guy and writing all about it here.

As for my too knuckle heads... you don't even wana KNOW how Linkin reacted to Zero. He went INSANE. Coal on the other hand (AKA: THe good son) was a pro. He was very calm and deffinatly not over bearing and after the sniff session pretty much lost interest in Zero lol. I'm sure he was thinking "ah please mum, not ANOTHER one!" lol

This morning my neighbor told me about how Linkin was in her yard chasing moose... THEN at the end of the day mom tells me how he took off towards Sowchea (a rather busy road/highway) with the neigbor's dog and she hadn't seen him since.

When I got home he wasn't there. I was at my witts end and ready to STRANGLE HIM! So I went on a search up and down the roads calling his name. Coal followed along in our property and THEN took off after another dog so I conned him back (shook a container of gum that was in my pocket and he thought it was treats :P) and went back to the house to put him inside. I also grabbed my toque because it was getting really cold out, and when I went outside again Linkin came bounding up to me like a big dork all happy to see me.

I was SOOO mad but of course I couldn't get angry at him for coming home so instead I did the one valuable thing I learned at the Agility Club I went to... I told him "your'e so stupid, you a bad boy! Oh you're so bad I could just beat you!" in a happy, excited tone so he figured I was just happy to see him lol

I put him prong collar on and the long lead (30 feet) and brought him back to the properties edge and began working with him. At first there was a lot of confusing and hurt feelings as to why I was yelling at him but he soon got the idea once I was able to praise him for being in the yard and then correct him for leaving it. He walked along beside me (in our yard) while I talked to him and drilled the word "home" into his head (a lot of "that's a good boy, good boy at home. Home is a fun place to be. Yes that's a good boy for staying home. Yay we love home!").

When we were on our way back towards the driveway the lead got tangled around a big chunk of ice on the bank so I climbed up it, untangled it and when I went to climb back down a slipped and WHACKED my knee HARD on the ground. My knees are in horrible state as it is (long story) so it hurt like you wouldn't believe. I turned around and saw Linkin standing above me on the bank with a sad look on his face and I could see he wanted to run over and save me but was afraid he'd get yelled at for leaving the yard (which really, is a good thing I suppose!). I praised him the best I could while I had tears running down my face, hobbled to my feet and gave him a hug. I told him "OKAY Linkin! Come on! Lets go!" and got him in a heel and we walked the rest of the way home that way. I didn't think there was any way I could properly concentrate or walk the way we had been with him up on the bank (takes a lot of coordination to make sure the leash doesn't get tangled etc).

By the time we got to the driveway I was completely miserable in pain and crying but I knew it's important to end on a positive note so I told him "let's go home Linkin! Good boy! GO HOME!" and "jogged" (the best I could) into the driveway and praised and patted him and told him he was such a good boy.

It's now light enough outside I think I can probably work with him every day after work on this... just NOT in my skate shoes :|

Oh, and when I let him out after dinner tonight i told him to stay home and then when I went downstairs about 20 minutes later, looked outside and he was on the porch so I let him in and made a big fuss over him being a good boy who STAYS HOME!