The Roles We Play

Chili loves life. She’s always smiling and running around in a blissful state with the belief that the world is her cookie. Well, except for when she’s defending the house against a rabbit, squirrel, cat, or deer that happens to dare to cross into her yard. Even then, she’s happily defending her home and doing her job. Those who know her love her. Seriously, they do. She makes people smile. No matter what she does, she’s committed to having the most fun ever. As we walk and she passes by people, I imagine that if she could talk, she would say ‘hi’, ‘how’s it goin’, ‘hello’, ‘what’s up’, ‘wanna play’, to every person that walked by her. I often wonder how such a happy dog could cause us so much trouble.

We all think we know our dogs. Do we really know them, or do we know the story that we’ve created around them? Although Chili has improved incredibly, I know that she lunges at dogs, and I know that I have to facilitate greetings for her with other dogs. After the initial crazy, she’s ready to play. That’s what I know from my history with her. However, the girls at daycare know a different story. They don’t know one of lunging and problems, they know her as pushy but playful, happy and energetic, a big goofball who will play with almost any dog who will play with her. She doesn’t have any lunging or greeting issues. She’s the perfect dog to welcome new dogs into the daycare. So, which is the real Chili?

I find this whole idea fascinating. I like to think that daycare Chili is the real Chili. She’s allowed to be herself. They don’t worry about her and feel like she needs to be monitored. She’s watched just like the rest of the dogs, and when she acts up, she gets in trouble just like the other dogs. It’s all quite simple. Not like at home. I know I worry about her too much, but really, what am I supposed to do? Our story started when we adopted her and it’s been a difficult story to rewrite. Early on when she started lunging, we didn’t know how to manage it, so it went on and on. With consistency, we became more and more stressed and the story we played out was giving each other the heads up when we saw an oncoming dog, preparing to hold her back and riding out the wave. The story for Chili was that every time a dog passed, mom and dad became nervous and stressed so she would lunge. It happened consistently so it became her routine. It was our routine, our story. After a number of repetitions, we all learned our role in the walk.

The whole time, I always knew it could be different. I believed that Chili had it in her to walk by a dog calmly. I didn’t know how to make it happen, but I knew it would. So, we kept playing our parts. We had some success with the E-collar but it was inconsistent. It was great for the recall, but not so great for breaking her focus. As I look back, I’m quite certain I wasn’t doing my part with the collar and that’s why it wasn’t really working. I had to find a way to get her to stop staring at the oncoming dog. I knew the answer would come, I just hoped it would come soon. I had to find a way to change the story and change our roles. Daycare Chili would prevail.

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.

The Controversial Collar

While on one of our pack walks, Michele asked me if I ever considered trying an E-Collar on Chili. My immediate reaction was, “NO!” I mean, really?? Isn’t that cruel? I’ve learned through my experiences with Chili that I have to step outside of my comfort zone sometimes. So far, I liked Michele’s style and she is an experienced trainer, so she must have a reason for suggesting this tool. For me though, on this day, that was the end of the discussion. No.

On the next walk, she asked if I’d thought about her suggestion of testing out the E-Collar. I had thought about it. Thought that it was not for me. Why was I so anti-E-Collar? Was it because of my experience? No, I didn’t have any experience at all with this collar. It was because I had already made up my mind without having any facts. The only fact I had was that it would give my dog an electric jolt and that was cruel. Only cruel people use them. Now, if I wanted to be true to that line of thinking, I was already a cruel person. I had used a choke collar on my dog. That “chokes” the dog. Isn’t that cruel? I had used a pinch collar. The pinch, pinches points around the dogs neck when you give it a correction and can do some damage if the prongs are digging into the wrong spot. Isn’t that cruel? I had made up a story in my head about the E-Collar, and people who use it, that wasn’t based on anything. I was doing to them exactly what people do to me and Chili. I think I need to find out some facts first before I make another judgement. Besides, as we all know, you don’t need a tool to be cruel.

So, why did Michele recommend the E-Collar? From her own experience, the E-Collar was the tool that allowed her to give her dogs a better quality of life. Freedom. Better yet, freedom with safety. The E-Collar gave her the power to keep them out of their hind brain and teach them a new reality. To come to her when they feel afraid and stand by her side. She would protect them. They didn’t need to take on that burden any longer.

When it gets to the point where a dog will harm themselves or their owner with their fight or flight instinct, or, when an owner has tried everything else and their lives are being ruled by anxiety because of their dog’s actions. Or, when you dread the walk and you have to build yourself up for it. It’s time for the next step. Although Chili is a great dog, and I never had a worry that she would bite, she would still lunge and make poor decisions for herself because she is so headstrong. She’s a dog, and doesn’t understand that my commands are protecting her and she must listen. Nothing I had tried so far, was working on these issues. This caused me anxiety and kept her from having freedom. Neither one of us deserved that.

Like any other tool, the E-Collar isn’t for every dog. Out of the approximately 4500 dogs that Michele has trained, she’s recommended its use for about 20. As with every other tool, you should get a professional to give you training with it BEFORE you use it. Every tool has the potential for harm if not used wisely.

It was time. After much consideration, I asked Michele if she would show me how to use the E-Collar.