Dog training collars - are they worth a try?
Discussion
Short version:
We have an adult neutered male dog and his default behaviour with other dogs is to mount them. We have been working on trying to improve recall etc but it hasn't helped this behaviour. We need to fix it before he hurts another dog or we end up keeping him on a lead for the rest of his days.
Are training collars (the ones which vibrate / buzz worth a try?
Long version:
We recently took on a large adult neutered male dog. He came from a rescue place but he was a straightforward rehome from a decent family who just didn't have space in their lives for a dog any more. He absolutely great, but nobody needs to re-home a dog with perfect behaviour and his thing is mounting (not humping) any dog he meets. It appears that he doesn't know how to play with other dogs - all he knows how to do is mount them.
Since we have had him we have worked on making sure that he has an appropriate position at the bottom of the pack / family, stopped him from pulling on the lead and worked on recall and general obedience. Recall is OK but it all goes out of the window as soon as another dog is there.
We are fortunate to live in a rural location so we can generally go for decent walks with minimal contact with other dogs, but when he does meet another dog the risk is that he will injure a small / weak / elderly dog. He will back off if the other dog has a go at him, but if the other dog is passive then he will squash them until he is pulled away. Once he knows a dog and they have seen him off regularly he will just ignore them.
Training this out is a challenge - once there is another dog involved the blinkers go on and no amount of distraction will divert his attention. It's not an easy situation to engineer in order to allow us to try and desensitize him. Walking him on the lead the whole time isn't much fun for him, being stressed about the risk of meeting another dog isn't much fun for us - so something has to be done.
Has anyone tried one of those buzzing training collars for a situation like this? I know that the current trend is for positive reinforcement rather than negative conditioning, but it feels like a collar might provide a solution. What we don't want to do is try something which fails and provides confusing messages / associations for the dog.
Any experience would be appreciated.
We have an adult neutered male dog and his default behaviour with other dogs is to mount them. We have been working on trying to improve recall etc but it hasn't helped this behaviour. We need to fix it before he hurts another dog or we end up keeping him on a lead for the rest of his days.
Are training collars (the ones which vibrate / buzz worth a try?
Long version:
We recently took on a large adult neutered male dog. He came from a rescue place but he was a straightforward rehome from a decent family who just didn't have space in their lives for a dog any more. He absolutely great, but nobody needs to re-home a dog with perfect behaviour and his thing is mounting (not humping) any dog he meets. It appears that he doesn't know how to play with other dogs - all he knows how to do is mount them.
Since we have had him we have worked on making sure that he has an appropriate position at the bottom of the pack / family, stopped him from pulling on the lead and worked on recall and general obedience. Recall is OK but it all goes out of the window as soon as another dog is there.
We are fortunate to live in a rural location so we can generally go for decent walks with minimal contact with other dogs, but when he does meet another dog the risk is that he will injure a small / weak / elderly dog. He will back off if the other dog has a go at him, but if the other dog is passive then he will squash them until he is pulled away. Once he knows a dog and they have seen him off regularly he will just ignore them.
Training this out is a challenge - once there is another dog involved the blinkers go on and no amount of distraction will divert his attention. It's not an easy situation to engineer in order to allow us to try and desensitize him. Walking him on the lead the whole time isn't much fun for him, being stressed about the risk of meeting another dog isn't much fun for us - so something has to be done.
Has anyone tried one of those buzzing training collars for a situation like this? I know that the current trend is for positive reinforcement rather than negative conditioning, but it feels like a collar might provide a solution. What we don't want to do is try something which fails and provides confusing messages / associations for the dog.
Any experience would be appreciated.
How long has he been neutered? If he has only just been done by the rescue centre it may be that he needs a bit of time (months) for his testosterone levels to drop as it sounds like a male dominance issue.
Keep him on a long line so you are in control if he tries to mount another dog.
If you want to try a collar then one of the citronella spray collars may work but definitely not anything else, but as you say his recall goes out the window as soon as he sees fit to mount then a long line would be my recommendation, particularly as he's a big dog that could hurt a smaller mutt!
Keep him on a long line so you are in control if he tries to mount another dog.
If you want to try a collar then one of the citronella spray collars may work but definitely not anything else, but as you say his recall goes out the window as soon as he sees fit to mount then a long line would be my recommendation, particularly as he's a big dog that could hurt a smaller mutt!
pequod said:
How long has he been neutered? If he has only just been done by the rescue centre it may be that he needs a bit of time (months) for his testosterone levels to drop as it sounds like a male dominance issue.
Keep him on a long line so you are in control if he tries to mount another dog.
If you want to try a collar then one of the citronella spray collars may work but definitely not anything else, but as you say his recall goes out the window as soon as he sees fit to mount then a long line would be my recommendation, particularly as he's a big dog that could hurt a smaller mutt!
All this is correct,but use the unscented water. It does the same thing - DISTRACTS the dog, but without leaving him smelling of citronella. Their scent is soo much more powerful than ours and I can't imagine that having citronella sprayed all over his face/neck isn't extremely disturbing to their scent and everything that they use it for.Keep him on a long line so you are in control if he tries to mount another dog.
If you want to try a collar then one of the citronella spray collars may work but definitely not anything else, but as you say his recall goes out the window as soon as he sees fit to mount then a long line would be my recommendation, particularly as he's a big dog that could hurt a smaller mutt!
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