Forum Replies Created

  • jokowalczyk

    Member
    August 8, 2010 at 1:59 am in reply to: stealing food
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    Hey there Mike,

    thanks for your help on the distraction topic, we are doing well so far with the heel and distractions mostly on the pinch collar…

    So we have a lab on hand and I wanted to know if he is ever going to grow out of the food obsession. I train him in the house now for place and bring him in as much as possible. He is restricted to the mudroom and the kitchen and we do spend time mostly in the kitchen if we are not outside. We do have two small children so stuff gets dropped off the table all the time. He Buddy is obsessed with every little crumb on the floor ( I do keep the floor quite clean). If I leave anything within his reach it becomes his mission to get it. I don’t think he is hungry cause we feed him well and treat train as well. I was going to get him checked for worms to see if that would help. I have heard that labs are ‘stomachs’ but does it last forever..?? he used to eat veggies straight out of my garden but thanks to the dogtra god he does not enter it anymore…fresh onions, garlic peas you name it…vegetarian at heart….
    Any suggestions.

  • jokowalczyk

    Member
    April 28, 2010 at 1:17 am in reply to: How to Train a Dog to Come when Called
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    Hey Mike,

    I just had another thought about out problem here. We didn’t do the flexi come with the training collar since our dog is not so bad at coming but after couple of days of trying the collar out I am thinking that maybe he just doesn’t understand what is going on. Today on our walk he got really into this feather and didn’t respond to me calling him at all. I used the collar on vibrate and he still didn’t come even thought he felt the collar. He just jumped around the feather as if he was playing with it and maybe felt that the stimulation was coming from it. So maybe we are just not getting ahead without following all the steps. Also is it possible for the do to build up tolerance to the shock??

    Thanks again
    Joanna

  • jokowalczyk

    Member
    April 26, 2010 at 2:52 am in reply to: How to Train a Dog to Come when Called
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    hi Mike,

    So we got the dogtra collar as you suggested and have been waiting to use it. We decided to use it to strenghten the come command. Our black lab, buddy, is walked partially off leash on out 70 acre property. He has been doing well so far without the shock collar but there are instances when he gets too busy with the distraction to react to our come command. I would say he comes 80 % of the time. There are loads of things that keep him distracted such as dead snakes, sheep sculls and other fun smelly things which he finds. When distracted he will come eventually when he is done what he is doing but we want to get the instant response from him. Is it too much to ask???

    Today we tried using the collar on our walk and it worked until he found some bones. We used it on 20 and them turned it up until we saw a response in him up to 40. He didn’t come though, he thought that the shock was caused by the bone and he just jumped to the side looking at the bone as if it was causing the shock. We really didn’t like to see him jump ( sort of like you jerk in the video.. we did try the collar on ourselves by the way ) and are wondering if we are using it in the wrong way. Is it ok to see him jerk or does it mean that he is getting too much shock and we need to take a different approach?

    We have had him almost two months and have been using your methods with amazing results. We are working on other comands in phase 2 but decided he was ready for the collar with come and leave it…

    thanks
    Joanna

  • jokowalczyk

    Member
    April 1, 2010 at 12:51 am in reply to: need lots of help….
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    Thanks Mike, this is just what I needed to know.

    One more quick question.
    We live on 70 acres and I walk him few times a day to our river in the back. This is his off leash time and sometimes he does get into trouble and doesn’t pay attention to my commands. We also have off leash time with the kids outside in the afternoon and usually when I am doing something out there he is free. He will wonder off and come back but not always on my command.
    Am I causing trouble/confusion cause I give him this freedom?? Should I always have him on the leash when outside??
    thanks
    J