“Train up a child in the way
he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” ~ Proverbs 22:6,
NKJV.
It’s more than just a bible
verse, and I am hoping it applies to puppies as well as to children. We had a
large, rather untrainable dog before who, although lovable, was a going
concern. If let outside without a lead, Cody would dash off to parts unknown. We
are hoping that Fergus’ electronic collar is effectively teaching him his
boundaries so that he won’t run away if left untended. The funny thing is, we
never had to use these techniques with our dogs when I was growing up. We just
told them to stay and they stayed. We never had one injured on the road, and
none of them ran away. They visited the neighbours occasionally, sure. But they
always came home.
Cody was terrible at walking
on the leash. He would pull me so hard that he would choke himself and have to
stop to catch his breath. I tried stopping and rewarding him with treats, along
with a number of different commands to get him to stop pulling, but it never
worked. I felt it would be unfair to introduce a choke collar at his advanced
age, so I just put up with his shenanigans. It took all my strength to hold
onto the leash. It was quite a workout. I couldn’t walk Cody much during the
winter, because more than once when he tugged me along the ice I lost my
footing and landed on my face, in the middle of the road.
Fergus is getting big,
strong and brave and he too loves to pull on his leash. It’s time to nip this
situation in the proverbial bud. I have been doing my research online and in
the dog owning community and I think I have a solution. It’s called the Halti.
Basically it’s shaped much like a horse halter, with which I am very familiar.
You slip one loop up over his ears and the other around his muzzle. The lead
attaches to a ring under his chin. If he pulls on the lead, it tightens the
loop around his muzzle, which makes him slow down. I’ve seen the Halti in
action and it basically turns a wild, human-tugging, zig-zagging beast into a
well-behaved canine sauntering along directly beside his master. This is our
goal. The only problem is that Fergus hates his Halti.
I’ve tried putting the Halti
on him every day for a short period of time so that he can get used to it.
We’ve had it two weeks now with very little improvement. He used to spend a
great deal of time trying to scratch it off his face but now he is resigned to
just lying there, chin in the grass. He won’t get up and he won’t walk with the
Halti on. So I turned to the Internet for help.
It seems I have been going
about this all wrong. I watched a video on the dog halter and the trainer advises
you introduce the device gradually, with copious amounts of treats. First you
coax the dog to put his muzzle through the halter, and reward each time with a
treat. Then you pull the halter up over his head as he puts his muzzle through
the halter. Now you introduce the instruction “get dressed.” Again, more
treats. Finally you buckle the halter on him and reward with – you guessed it –
still more treats.
I think that woman handed
out approximately 52 treats during the course of the two-minute video. Clearly
I will be stocking up. I am wondering if there is such a thing as a treat card,
like a coffee card where you get a stamp each time you buy a pack and your
tenth one is free? Because if there isn’t, perhaps there should be.
We went back to the pet
store today, Fergus and I, to ensure the halter I bought him has been properly
fitted to his five-month-old head. The clerk witnessed his paralysis after the
halter was on, and declared he was acting out in protest. We headed to the
drive-thru on the way home, and Fergus was introduced to Tim Horton’s plain
Timbits. I had to show him there is an upside to what he seems to perceive as
an extremely humiliating experience.
-30-
email: dianafisher1@gmail.com
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