Sonic training collars--hertz or heel?

[Elok]

Some people say these things are unethical, but when you've got a dog that just keeps tugging at the lead, what can you do?

I know: let's make a list of all the different brands of collar, give them each twenty points, and have everyone add and subtract points from them in a regular manner until only one is left. Yes, that sounds like a novel diversion that hasn't been run into the ground at all, let's do it.

[Theben]

My friend has a dog that used to bark incessantly. As a last resort he used a sonic-activated shock collar. Now it barks only rarely, and is still friendly and active.

[DirtyMartini]

Good question, Elok. I've got a 6 month old German Shorthaired Pointer. She's pretty well trained -- sit, stay, stand, fetch, bed, crate, off, heel, catch, dance -- she does really well. All were trained lure-reward, but she's pretty much awful on leash. I think her nose just takes over and she wants to hunt. I've tried the whole red-light/green-light technique, but she's too distracted. We've got a rope slip-leash (basically a non-metal choke chain) and I don't even really like that. The best luck that I've had is teaching her off-leash heeling using food lures while in the house, then adding the leash in the house, then slowing moving it out doors. Right now we can get around about 300 yards or so from the house pretty well, but it requires a lot of stops to reset into heel. I'm not sure how much additional help a shock collar would be for leash work, but I've thought about them for when I start her in the field and for recalls. Despite my best efforts, she's starting to ignore the "come" command, and that can't happen when we're out in the field. So basically, I'm up in the air on shock collars.

If you really just want your dog to walk on leash, there are a couple things--

you could try the heel around the house thing, like I talked about and slowly move up to less familiar terrain.

They make things called Haltis or Gentle leaders that are supposed to be really good at stopping pulling -- they're like halters for horses and wrap around the muzzle. The dogs dislike having their heads a lot more than they object to having their neck pulled. Chest harnesses work pretty well too I've heard. The problems are that the haltis look like muzzles, so people might wrongly assume your dog is a biter. Also, they dont generalize well, so the dog won't really learn to use a normal leash and will still pull if the halti isn't on.

[DirtyMartini]

Can't resist posting a picture. Her name's Ripley.

[Elok]

...before anyone else puts too much thought into this, my dog is so naturally submissive and obedient that she voice-trained herself. I can take her out with me to get the mail at the end of our eighth-of-a-mile driveway and tell her to stay about a hundred feet from the road while I go to the mailbox...and she'll stay. She doesn't even have to be told anymore, she does it automatically. I posted this thread only for the sake of the stupid double-pun title and to protest the absurd proliferation of hurt-or-heal games in the OT. It's like a new "aggressors."

With that said, DM, how do you train your dog to heel? If you just pull back when she starts pulling, she might turn it into a battle of wills, and you'll get tired of that long before she does. The trick is not to pull back, but to instantly turn around and start marching the other direction when she starts to pull ahead. You have to do it abruptly, so she'll only know it's coming if she's got at least one eye on you. That way she doesn't think you're fighting her, just "Oh, now we're going this way, I need to pay attention to master instead of just forging on ahead."

Gentle leaders do work quite well--my mom uses one to control our great dane, who could pull her right over if he had a mind to on a normal lead--but many dogs don't like having those things on their faces. It's a real battle getting the harness on him.

[Arrian]

We use the "gentle leader" on our dogs. In the case of the younger dog, Max, it works wonders, just like it claims. It was indeed a battle at first with him trying to get it off his face, but once you get past that (rather understandable) reaction, it's good.

The elder, and more psychologically damaged (both are rescues), however... not so much. He just pulls anyway (and worse than just pulling if other dogs/people are encountered). The gentle leaders helps - quite a bit, actually - but it doesn't solve the problem. It merely makes it manageable. Oh, and we went through two of them before he finally accepted it on his face (he was a wiz at getting the loop off his nose and then chomping it).

Given that we're now out in the country and have a large fenced yard... eh, good enough. If we'd stayed in suburbia, it would be different.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Oh, yeah, picture: Toby & Max, playing Toby's favoritest game.

[Arrian]

Max being hisself:

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by Elok
...before anyone else puts too much thought into this,

sorry, I thought it was an honest question bundled with the pun and the very valid critique of heal/hurt. I love talking about my dog, and I have been thinking about the shock collar thing a bit, so there you go...

I trained her to get into the heel position by luring her with a ball or a treat -- from sitting in front of you you just make a little figure of eight type move by your left leg while saying heel. Then I hold the treat in a closed fist by my left knee and take off with my left foot saying "let's go". She follows with her nose on the treat. If she's doing well she gets the treat eventually. Every so often stop and wait for her to sit by your left foot. At first it was like sit, one step, sit, one step, etc. Once she could do this pretty well in the house without the leash, I added in the leash. If she stops paying attention/pulling -- yeah, I just change direction or stop and tell her "steady" or "wrong". We don't move again until she's sitting by my left foot and paying attention. It's slowly working.

I had initially tried just putting the leash on and going with frequent direction changes and stops without requiring a relatively formal heel, but she was too distractable and this was too big a step. Adding in the indoor/off-leash work seems to have made a big difference and she doesn't seem too stressed out by having to heel all the time. Since she has to heel before she gets to chase the frisbee, the whole sitting by the left foot thing is just about her favorite trick anyway.

[LordShiva]

Dogs