a little background on my dog: 4 1/2 year old golden retriever, she is sensitive. does best on the e collar out of any tool, she listens the best and experiences the least stress on it. she’s also a service dog. very smart and motivated but likes to test boundaries.

so i’m thinking of getting a pro educator remote for my golden, i have a RX-070 receiver that will likely be due for a replacement some time later this year. it works fine but it’s old, i’m hoping to eventually replace it with a brand new RX-090.

so i’m thinking of just getting the new remote on its own alongside a charger, and then getting a separate receiver later on as that’s cheaper than buying the whole thing together surprisingly.

would it be worth it to buy a used pro educator set? or is the warranty so worth it that i should buy new?

i bought a micro educator 2 dog set used last summer, one collar brick was harsher than the other and i couldn’t do anything abt it as it wasn’t covered under the warranty. i’ve also heard e collar tech products are slightly more likely to fail than dogtra products, which makes being covered under the warranty more appealing.

also wondering, should i just get the EZ remote? the ramp feature on the pro is highly appealing to my pup as i’ve heard it releases less stress hormones in a dog. it would be a cool feature even at a low level.

the pro and the EZ remotes cost the same when you buy just the remote and charger. even if i don’t use the ramp feature, the pro remote comes with a black skin which overall looks sleeker with a service dog. i also love the learning curve, i don’t mind the slightly more complicated programming the remote has.

what do you guys think?

Hello all. About two and a half years ago we adopted two dogs from the same litter from a puppy rescue. One of them is an absolute sweetheart, but a little aloof. The other dog is friendly and rambunctious with the family, but he is extremely aggressive toward strangers. He has bitten a delivery person (who had entered our breezeway despite directions not to) and bitten two extended family members and a guest of my son. I can't seem to get through to my family the seriousness of this issue. My son (21M) absolutely loves this dog and is convinced he can train him. He has had some success working with him. I am just terrified something else is going to happen. We were fortunate the delivery person didn't report the bite. After the first bite incident we posted Dog warning signs around our home and we had him seen by a dog behaviorist. She recommended Clomicalm, which does seem to help, but isn't a miracle cure. How do I safely get my dog to deal with visitors in our household?

I’ve been using a martingale with my husky and have been able to have amazing walks, she doesn’t walk well without one even though I’ve been attempting to train her to walk well on a normal collar but recently discovered that there’s two styles of martingale, chain, the one I’ve been using, and looped(dunno how else to describe it, not chain?) and was wondering if they worked the same or if one works better then the other, the one I have I got with a broken buckle(still latches but she can jimmy it open in the car) and I would like to get a new one soon and was wondering about opinions on the different designs

I am considering raising a therapy dog. I would also like a breed that has enough drive to do some sports with me on the side for fun, (no bite or protection) when not working. And lots of hiking. What breed do you recommend? I currently have a 75lb male Mal so they'd be living together.

We recently had a session with a top trainer in our city for our barrier/frustration based reactive 3 yr old dog. He showed us how to use a transitional slip lead which loops around her snout. He demonstrated by having her walk by a dog in a nearby yard who was barking and he got control of her much quicker than we’ve been able to.

Since then we’ve been practicing but I feel like we’re missing the mark. She will scream like she’s being stabbed as soon as she reacts to a dog when she realizes it tightens around her snout. She will start fighting her leash and it’s extremely hard not to get caught in the crossfire of flailing. My husband got scratched the other day.

I’m wondering if anyone has any tips or experience with this? I wonder if we might be holding the leash too loose when a trigger happens - should we be holding it very close to begin with so she doesn’t get any momentum?

Other than reacting to dogs she’s been 10/10 walking on the transitional slip leash. She has no issues putting it on now and she walks loose leash except when reacting.

succeeded in the hardest scenario we've encountered so far. had a yappy, pulling Yorkie walking on the other side of small street last week. pulling torwards us, barking his head off on the boulevard beside the road. my guy looked at the other dog, and his tail raised like he was thinking about barking, but then he pushed through and looked back at me. rewarded and his tail went down and he was able to steal looks at the other dog to reassure himself without going over threshold as we walked away. feels so fucking good to get rewarded by successes like this after working thru reconditioning so diligently.

we use control unleashed exercises (look at that, and 123 game) for training and management, and lots of teachings from grisha Stewart about bat and reactivity.

I saw a Tiktok video of someone who said they chose to do energy management with their high energy dog rather than obedience training. I'm wondering if anyone has heard of this and if so, where I would find more information on it.

Hello all. I’ll start off by saying I have a dachshund and I know they’re prone to barking. She’s my first small dog and I just can’t seem to get it right with her. I know zero barking is unrealistic, but I’d love for her to know how to relax and when something is not a real threat.My other dog is a zero issue type of dog,100 percent chill. my dachshund just can’t seem to fully relax around any type of people or dog movement.

Both dog wear ecollars for recall. That is the only way I use them as I don’t know how to properly discourage behavior with them. My dachshund gets a firm “no” with body pressure when she reacts. Other than that I don’t know how to communicate to her to not react at these small things (a dog walking by 20 yards away, someone talking loudly at the campsite next to us )

This dog is super smart so I know it’s something I’m doing wrong. She dislikes new dogs and will bark her head off if one surprises her and gets in her grill, as best I can I keep this from happening. I respect her boundaries and don’t force her to say hi to a dog or person ( again as best I can people love weiners)

We work on obedience often, we exercise often, her place command is great. But even with her butt glued to the ground she still will bark at someone in the distance terrified they will come up to her (the closer they get the bigger the reaction). Today after our hike she let out a little bark at something she heard while seemingly totally relaxed laying on her back with all four paws in the air, it’s rediculous.

In the simplest of ways to word this, does anyone have any advice on how I can strengthen our understanding of each other and how I can help this little thing to be neutral of non threats?

If anyone has experienced this with a small barky dog please lmk what helped, your mutual understanding, tools, tips, tricks, YouTube videos. I would say I’ve tried everything because it seems like I have but obviously I’m missing something!

my dog has been leash reactive since last May and for a while there i thought things would never get better after months using R+ and a harness to no avail

in december i started her on the prong collar, and noticed a marked improvement in her reactivity with this tool (mostly just training leash pressure, heel, and letting her give herself corrections for lunging/pulling) combined with lots of treats for engagement and counter conditioning

a couple weeks ago i put her back on a harness, using ecollar as a substitute for the prong leash pressure, and guys, we walked through a busy festival yesterday with no reactions whatsoever! there were tons of dogs walking around, and she just stayed engaged with me and took everything in stride. i only had to press the low stim button one time for pulling. at one point she started getting a little hot and overstimulated, so i had her lie down in the shade, and she just kept her chin on the ground as many dogs walked by us. i didnt plan on taking her there, but she wanted to go check it out and i was so impressed with her behavior there

i know the ecollar is generally not suggested for reactivity, but if you already have a good relationship with your dog, understand the source of their reactivity, have other factors in their lives set up for their success, and do lots of base work and conditioning, it can be totally transformative! i'm so grateful for these tools that have helped my girl learn to be comfortable in these settings once again

Hey folks,

I am wanting to start using corrections with my dog, however, I am unsure how to start. I recently bought a Herm Sprenger prong collar, so I imagine that will be helpful, but I only have it on him when we're outside. I am wanting to do corrections inside as well, particularly when he starts getting mouthy or demanding with me, and I don't have him on a prong/leash. Funnily enough, the moment the prong comes on, he mellows out quite a bit.

Can anyone help me out?

Thanks! :)

I'm trying to get a bit more knowledgeable about Training Strategy's and Concepts!

Would be cool if you could give some Keywords, names of Concepts and Strategies which fit best to train a Wolfdog is there is anything official out there at the moment?

I'm also interested in how to handle a traumatized Dog, Dogs which turned very aggressive maybe out of fear or just because they are quite dominant and territorial in their personality.

(I do not own any dog at the moment.) But i would like to know some things about Trauma and why a dog behaves in an undesired way and ways to help the dog to relearn this behaviour. At which point it might not be possible anymore because its too traumatized or there might be even some kind of mental illness involved.

Hello. Sorry for the long post.

We have a puppy that is 9-ish months old rescue, neutered male and mix breed. When we got him, he was fearful, malnourished., and had marks/signs of physical abuse. Since bringing him home, he has really come out of his shell and is a happy, snuggly, and healthy. It's my first time (though not my husband's) with a puppy. This event is a first for me I am worried he may be traumatized or regress in his training.

Did we make a mistake here? How can we help our guy if something like this happens again?

Here's what happened:

We are working on leash training and socializing our guy. He does well with other dogs usually - no fights, no aggression. Some nervousness with dogs who give off a certain vibe, but overall he loves to meet them, play, loves people, etc.

We went to a new regional park today - forest, river, wide trails, not a fenced in dog park. We didn't know til we got there that it is off leash friendly. Not a problem though, we have a routine when meeting other dogs. My husband walks our pup, greets other park goers, communicates that our dog is learning but friendly, and steps on his leash to limit his movement until we can determine the situation is under control. He gives enough slack that our dog can still move, and stays until we decide it's safe to say hello. 9 times out of 10 it is a great experience. Either pup gets to say hi and play a bit, or folks with reactive or unruly dogs move on respectfully. Today was much of the same, except when we were heading back to the car.

A couple approached the opposite way with four larger adult dogs off leash. As usual, we step to the side, my husband says good morning, and steps on our pup's leash. Right away their four dogs rush ours. The man sort of quietly calls one dog back unsuccessfully while the dogs swarm our guy half their size. Our pup got immediately defensive - hackles up, growling, ears back, trying to hide behind me and my husband, etc. The four other dogs just seemed excited, but were totally out of control while their owners ignored them and walked by.

While we tried leaving, my husband calmly express that our dog was uncomfortable with the situation. The woman snapped at my husband at this being an off leash park and we should know better (as if that absolves them of responsibility to control their dogs?). And still didn't call off her dogs. Our pup peed on my husband's shoe as we left and was whimpering in fear - things we haven't seen since we first brought him home.

Thankfully no one got hurt, but I worry with his history and this event that he will regress in his socializing or is at risk now for aggression to other dogs.

Thanks for reading. Any support is appreciated.

im not sure why but she refuses to give me her left paw. not only refuses, but runs away.

i put her in a sit, ask for paw, and she will give me her right law with no problem. i do the same and put my hand in front of her left paw and she gets jumpy and moves away or keeps readjusting to sit further away so i cant grab her paw. she understands the command and purposely moves her left paw away. this has been very consistent during her training. there are no visible issues with the paw and no limping. when i do touch or grab it, she tries to pull it away but doesnt flinch or yelp.

what should i do? keep touching it in order to desensitize her? keep her on a short leash and keep trying to teach the left paw? it would be very helpful for nail clippings and filing, and for when she gets groomed, so i want to figure this out. she doesnt even hesitate giving me her right paw. its so weird. any advice?

context (can skip): cookie (smaller dog) and sara (bigger dog) we introduced both as adults. it took months for them to get along. sara is immunocompromised so she cant be around stranger dogs/unvaxxed dogs. so, she doesnt have much experience with other dogs. she has only interacted with an elder yorkie, the yorkie lived here when sara got here so they got along but the yorkie never played and merely tolerated sara. (the yorkie has since passed)

cookie is the new dog. shes a rescue and her past is mostly unknown, but i know she did live with one other dog. sara is double cookies age and double or triple her size.

my two dogs have been getting along a lot better, not having too many disagreements, but cookie whines a lot and i dont know why. cookie sniffs sara a lot and starts whining and pacing, almost worried or confused. she sniffs then whines and runs away then comes back and sniffs again. sara allows it for the most part and doesnt react to cookies whining.

has this happened to anyone before? how do i stop it?

I know there is a lot of hate for dog parks from people but I really think it depends on the location. This is my local dog park 12:40 on at Saturday afternoon. I wish another dog would show up. I love it because it’s a great place to work on recall. He’s off leash enclosed area lots of new smells, there is a walking trail going past so lots of distractions. I hope another dog or two shows up to help test his recall. This is Southern California though I can image a dog park in NYC may look a bit different.

How can you tell if a dog does not get enough mental & physical stimulation, or chew time, etc? And how much chew is enough for a dog that likes to chew and is very food motivated. I have a 12 month old samoyed. She is not destructive, but displays lots of excitement during our walks and picks stuff up from the ground (mainly to chew them, but often swallows anything.... of course, if she finds food on the ground she eats it right away). I thought that this behavior might be related to how much stimulation she gets before our walk?!

I have a question about e-collar use. I have never used one, nor have I worked with a trainer that uses one. I'm curious what the "standard" approach is for e-collar usage. I was just reading an explanation online that its usage might look like this:

Ask dog to come. and activate the collar. The collar remains activated until the dog starts the behavior (i.e., returns to you.) This is negative reinforcement, essentially teaching the dog once they do the command the stimulation will stop. One question here. For those that use it that way, do some people train with vibration only or is the vibration paired with shock first? When people refer to vibration are they just referring to the fact that at very low levels the shock effectively feels like a vibration?

I've heard many people refer to it as a way to get their dog's attention. So I always assumed it might be used more as standard positive punishment (i.e., a result of NOT doing the thing you asked). This would look like:

You ask dog to come. They don't; maybe they keep sniffing the grass. You buzz them with the e-collar (a short buzz) - they look up and at you. You ask them to come and then they come to you and you reward them for that behavior. Are they used in this way as well?

Not trying to start any discussions about different types of training; just trying to understand how its typically used and what quadrants of operant conditioning they fall into. Thanks!!

Hey everyone, I have a two year old beagle who is quite a nervous nelly. Always darting his head around when he hears a noise, has a hard time settling especially in the car and is whiny.

I know beagles are known for being whiny but he whines a LOT.

I’ve taken him to the vet thinking it was anxiety and they said that’s just his character. So now it has me thinking, if dogs are mirrors of their owners am I the problem?

Im quite an anxious person myself, always on the move and never really settling down either.

To be honest too, I give my dog a lot of attention. I work from home so i’m with him basically 24/7 and he gets lots of pets and attention from me.

I’ve been told to start ignoring him more and I have been, he’s been going to his bed more frequently and actually beginning to settle down!

My question is, am I truly the problem lol? Is this something fixable? Will me ignoring him encourage him to be more calm throughout his everyday life?

Thank you in advance!

We adopted a middle aged poodle x dachshund. She was a former breeding dog surrendered to rescue, plus she was in foster care, now we've had her for 4 weeks. She was spayed and had all but 4 teeth removed through that time. She has been through a lot. She's about 6 lbs and the sweetest thing ever.

I've had a lot of animals in my lifetime, but never have I experienced this intense of a need to be with me before. She will go anywhere I go, up and down the stairs, to the bathroom, constantly. She has made great progress as far as she will now let me leave her on a bed or couch (she's scared to jump down) and not scream her head off waiting for me to come back.

I really need this dog to form a bond with my husband and child. She saw me leave without her and my husband said she nearly did a backflip on leash after she realized.. We have been forcing her to sit with my husband in the evenings, but she just stares at me. I can feel her big brown eyes watching my every move while she's 4 ft away from me on his lap lol We all go for walks and if he has her leash, it's like she knows that and is deeply unsatisfied and acts like a wild mustang on lead. It's ridiculous.

She does sleep in a kennel in our living room at night, away from me and she is doing really well (knock on wood).

Will the bond and comfort with other household members come with time? Or do I need to be doing something else to force it more?

We recently moved our two pet bunnies to an outdoor rabbit hutch. My husband built it himself and it’s very secure but obviously we still need our dogs to leave it alone.

We’ve had rabbits inside the house (caged) with the dogs and they’ve always just sniffed the cage and left them alone but since moving them outside last week both dogs have tried to attack the hutch to get the rabbits.

Would it be possible to train them to avoid the hutch? Obviously we wouldn’t leave them completely unsupervised at any point but it would be nice to be able to relax in the backyard without having to be stare at the dogs. The Boxer mix can’t even go out without being leashed because she’s the worst. The German Shepherd is much better but still sometimes gets too focused on the rabbits.

i’ve had my 12 week old for almost a week now and so far she’s doing really well in her crate. naps there and sleeps all night without protest and whenever we’re done playing she’ll go in who can lets me know she’s tired. i have this week and next week off work to help adjust but i’ll have to get back to it soon. i work from home and for a call centre and need a very quiet place to work, so i won’t be able to stay in the same room with her as she tends to get into things and always wants to play when i’m around, which would be very distracting. so from next weekend she’ll need to start staying in her crate for the time i work (part time, only 4.5 hour shift).

she’s comfortable in her crate but only when she’s sleepy. i can even leave before she fully falls asleep without any protest. but if she’s awake and i leave, she gets very upset. how can i start getting her used to being in there even while shes awake just for an hour or two? i put her toys in there but it doesn’t really sway her (i’ll let her out to potty and water etc during my shift). or is this too much to expect? what do you suggest i do if ill be having to work in another room for 4.5 hours in the day? let her cry it out and just check in? i

Need help. I will make this as short as possible and in point form. Thanks for reading.

I got Rocky, 7 year old pitbull (possibly amstaff) from the rescue shelter. When ever I had to leave the house without him, my plan was to leave him in my nice big hallway with a comfy bed and some water, rather than in some small kennel. Turns out he can't handle being alone, even if it only for an hour, so he chewed the heck out of everything he could in the hallway and almost busted the door down trying to get out of the hallway. Can only imagine the damage if he got out of the hallway.

So next I tried a plastic Kennel with a metal grate door, and as soon as I left the house he busted the door clean off it's hinges and got out. I tried reinforcing the door but didn't help.

Then I ended up getting a solid metal kennel from impact dog crates and... success! He can't get out. The problem is now he pees in the Kennel. It doesn't matter if he has been outside first and I have physically watched him pee, and it doesn't matter if he is in the kennel for a short or longer time. He still pees.

Someone suggested the Kennel might be too big so I made it smaller with a divider. It didn't help. Now the dog still pees and even lays in it now. They say dogs won't pee where they sleep. Yeah right. This one sure does.

I made a work around solution where I put raised steel grate on the bottom of the kennel, and put a waterproof polyurethane bed on top, and tilted the kennel, so any pee just flows off underneath the bed and he doesn't lay in it. Now all I have to do is wipe underneath the mat, and possibly wipe him a bit.

It still is annoying to do this every day, and I think it's possible he is peeing elsewhere in the house too. I have tried exercise stimulation, multiple kennel sizes, music, various open places in the house to leave him. Nothing helps, Any advice on how to stop him from thinking it's a good idea to pee in his kennel?

Thanks

My dog (4yo Beagle) is reactive/anxious around other dogs - mainly bigger dogs, but sometimes smaller ones too and there doesn’t seem to be a pattern. Sometimes she will greet and play with a dog fine, she never gets reactive in a restaurant etc if another dog enters but she gets very leash reactive if we come across a bigger dog in the street.

Context: we rehomed her a 6 months and she had no socialisation and training, we initiated all of this and she was doing great. Then, when she was one year old a larger police Alsatian jumped all over her one evening when we were taking her for a walk on her lead. It was scary, the dog was barking deeply but she wasn’t injured, the police officer said she was ‘just playing’ but it was honestly terrifying seeing that dog bound towards her. Ever since this day, she’s been anxious. It was like a switch flipped and we lost our normal playful excited dog. I can’t even get her to go anywhere close to a bigger dog in the park now and it’s moved beyond just bigger dogs. If a dog comes towards her overly friendly she won’t like it and will run away, she needs to suss them out herself before being open to playing etc. I’ve tried resocialsing but she WILL NOT go anywhere near a group of dogs. I would be physically dragging her towards other dogs which feels cruel. I thought about doggy day care but it feels cruel to throw her in at the deep end there?

Any words of wisdom? Can a dog get over an incident like that? When she is playful with another dog it’s lovely to see.

I have a 8 month old puppy and I’ve been training him how to walk on loose leash for at least 2 months but there has been no improvement. I’ve done research on prong collar and used it on him for correction training every day for the past 5 days. Every time he would walk perfectly after a few corrections and then I will switch it back to the regular collar and leash. As soon as I switch it back he will start pulling again. I am curious, what is a good time to retire the prong collar? Is it correct to continue training with prong collar until they can walk perfectly in regular?