The Freedom Tool

Michele and I met at the park again. Holy hell was I nervous. This would be our first E-collar experience. Michele put the collar on Chili. I walked her and she held the collar remote. She wanted to make sure that I was very clear on how to use the collar before she handed the remote to me. The idea was to snap Chili out of her trance before she got to that hind brain state where she started to lunge. It wasn’t about making her screech, it was about breaking her train of thought. That thought being, she must lunge at the oncoming dog. It was working. As Chili would start to tense up, and stare at a dog, Michele would hit the remote and it would break Chili’s concentration. We would tell her to ‘leave it’ at the same time, then ask her to ‘look ’ at me, to redirect her stare. We were making a connection between the collar and the command.

One of the things that I really noticed was the absence of a dramatic incident. In the past when Chili would lunge, it was very stressful. She would be lunging, I would be telling her ‘No’, and giving her corrections on the choke collar, or the pinch collar. She could care less about the corrections so it would prolong the show. It wasn’t pleasant for anyone. I guess the question here would be what is worse, the couple of minutes of struggle, or the zap that takes a second?

Once the connection was made, and after many outings, I started letting Chili off leash more and more. If she didn’t ‘come’ on command, I would use the E-Collar to remind her that she must obey. I would never have thought that she would be free of the leash, but there she was, running and playing and coming when called. I don’t know if this would have been possible without the E-Collar. Thank you Michele.

You might be aksing, “Why does Chili have to come right away when called?” Am I that controlling? The answer to that depends on who you ask, but in this case the answer is safety, of course. Chili thinks she knows what’s best. She is very stubborn and when she gets an idea in her head, it’s difficult to change. This resulted in her being on leash most times and not experiencing life to its fullest. For example, if Chili saw something of interest on the other side of the road, she would just go. Luckily, I always had her on leash. Now, after training with the E-Collar, if she starts to go, I only need to use a voice command to get her back. Another example; Chili loves people. She thinks that everyone loves her, and they want her to run up to them and give them tons of kisses. She doesn’t understand that although she’s a Boxweiler, she looks very much like a Rottweiler and there is a stigma out the there that Rotti’s are mean. So, when she runs up to say hello, it scares people. Not all, but some. After all, some people gather up their children and their dogs, give us a dirty look, and veer away from us when we’re walking. Oh yes, and this is when she’s on leash and just walking along with a happy face. I need to protect Chili from these people creating an incident out of nothing. So, thanks to the E-Collar, I can walk with her off leash, and when I see people coming towards us, I just tell her to come, and she walks off leash at my side and doesn’t go near the other people.

I take my responsibility for Chili very seriously. Everything I do is with her best interest at heart. I’ve learned that there is no easy way, no magical wand, and no fairytale that will make her that perfect storybook dog. We’ve had to work hard for our successes and that makes them sweeter.