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and it works great.
I use the star collar with her. And she is very responsive to do it. The slightest correction and she is very obedient. Kind of even scared so that’s not good but I really use it lightly and I do not need to use it often even with the higher distraction level outside. I mentioned before that I think she is a sensitive dog.
She is also very good with transitional sits and downs. She totally understands the chain reaction. If she is in down and i tell her “sit” and if she does not do it within 1-2 seconds and I say “no” she nearly jumps in the “sit” to avoid the correction.
One question about the star collar: I did buy the large one but had to remove 3 links so there are just 5 links on it (5 links and the two where the cord runs through). Is that ok (and you might say “obviously” because as described above she reacts very well to it)? Or should I have bought the medium one (but she weighs 52lbs)?I have a more difficult question concerning the “flexi come” exercise: I bought the flexi 26 foot leash and she is very suspicious of it. Maybe part of it is that the pull (by the spring) on the leash is quite strong so she would not even walk away far enough from me to warrant a “come”. I noticed in your video with Elu that Earl had to make Elu come to him so that there was a distance between Elu and her trainer.
So I threw a stick 15 feet away and then did the flexi-come-procedure. We did this a little bit (like 5 times), then I released her from the leash and we played some and then I called her “come” and she did not come and I said “no” (thinking that she might react to it already even when not on the leash) and she did not come. So I thought “well, I guess that was too fast” and walked to her to put the flexi leash on her again but she expressed a somewhat fearful attitude and walked away and would not let me attach it.
Two more pieces of info about this: Ellie is actually quite good at obeying to the “come”. In the beginning I did a lot of clicker training with her. I just want a higher reliability. So after this situation with the flexi-leash, she would not even come when I waving a treat and put the flexi-leash demonstratively away.
The other piece of info is that she hit the end of the flexi leash a couple of times in full run when I could not react quickly enough. That might have made her fearful/ suspicious to it.
So my questions are:
1) Does it happen that dogs get fearful of those kind of tools and is there a way around it once they are suspicious/ fearful of it or is it better to not use this anymore?
2) Is it common that dogs in a low/ medium distraction level environment react already to the spring force pull of the flexi-leash and do not walk away so that you would actually have to introduce a distraction or move to high distraction level environments?
Thank you in advance for your answersMichael
