Make Your Training Fantasies Come True

Garmin · April 11, 2016

By: John Wick

You are in charge! Itâs your turn to be boss. Thatâs because you are the one who has been doing your homework. Youâve prepared your dog, and youâve prepared yourself with information, tactics, and planning. Now youâre ready to start pushing the button to teach your dog better manners and gently help it learn right from wrong concerning the top one or two things on your wish list to change.

There may be one important requirement youâve forgotten to cover. It is that regardless of what youâre going to do with your E-collar and your dog, you need to calmly and carefully explain your plans to your family and friends who will be around this dog from now on! Enlist their help, understanding, cooperation, and insist they follow your lead or they simply cannot interact with your dog for the next couple of months.

For instance, letâs say Fido is bad about chasing cars. He needs to get broke of this bad habit or the habit may end up sending Fido to the vet office and racking up a huge bill; or maybe to his grave pushing up daisies. It canât go on. âSides, the neighbors are tired of it. Youâve noticed theyâve started to dislike Fido and maybe arenât quite as friendly towards you as they used to be. Youâre ready to do this. You donât yet know that it will be much easier than you think. But I can assure you that if you enlist the help and understanding of friends and family, itâs gonna be a piece of cake.

Youâre prepared and youâre going to be watching. Every time Fido gives chase, youâre going to give him a little zap. Each time he misbehaves, the zap will be slightly larger and longer. Youâre going to let Fido set the pace. In other words, youâre going to be as gentle as you can but also escalate the deterrent as long as Fido chooses to continue, and also after you thought you had his mind permanently changed but then realize heâs still thinking about it and occasionally loses his self discipline and goes back at it. In every one of those situations, Fido CANNOT get away with misbehavior youâre working on at the time! You must be extremely consistent and lay a lesson on him EVERY SINGLE TIME HE MISBEHAVES! No exceptions!!

Hereâs the problem. Some of your family members may think itâs cute how Fido runs out there barking and biting at those tires as they zip down the street. Or they may think itâs kind of cruel to zap Fido for doing what he thinks is right or fun. Remember, itâs your turn to be boss. If youâre in charge of Fidoâs behavior, you must insist that anyone who lets Fido free to chase cars MUST, ABSOLUTELY MUST have the E-collar properly attached to Fido and have the transmitter in hand and ready to deal out discipline if needed. If you diligently zap Fido four times in a week and then your wife lets him get away with chasing a car one time while youâre at work, youâre not only back at square one, youâre in worse shape than that. Now Fido knows that even though he gets zapped sometimes, he gets his fun sometimes too. The training process is now going to take much longer and the outcome be much less certain.

Any family or friends who will not solemnly agree to abide by your wishes on this issue simply cannot have any dealings with Fido that could undermine your training program and plans. Even though some of these folks may be resistant in the beginning, usually with enough helpful explanation you can teach them that itâs much better for Fido to get a little zap now and then as opposed to two broken legs or tire marks on his mashed head. Even if Fido is so fleet and agile that those are not likely happenings, one of these days one of those vehicles may swerve to try to intentionally hit him, or maybe that road will have a skim of ice on it and Fido will slip at just the wrong instant. The result wonât be pretty. Besides, itâs just bad manners for a dog to act that way in a community unless itâs on your own property and you and your family find that behavior okay or maybe even helpful in a security sense. Other than that, this isnât a good habit for any dog.

This was just one example I picked to explain how important it is to get family and friends understanding and onboard with any training project youâre doing that they could have any impact on.

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