Express & Echo (City & East Devon Edition)
Luna has paid attention to gentle shock therapy
IT’S probably time for a quick catch up on our two farm dogs, as several readers have been in touch to ask how things were going. Probably fearing that my prolonged silence on the subject means I have rehomed them both and am blissfully canine-free. Let me tell you, I have been tempted.
As a wise person once said, never get two young dogs at the same time. Training them will be like breaking up a rave. And indeed, with Rose the collie (now three) and Luna the rescue dog (about the same age but who knows) it can still be really quite Ibiza here at times. Rose dashes at Luna, slams down her front paws and barks wildly. This, I have learned, is dog-speak for “You run and I will chase you. One, two, three: GO!”
Luna is marginally the more calm and mature of the pair, so she will sometimes ignore this provocation. But every now and then she too will let rip with wild bounding enthusiasm and the pair of them go beserk together. This is fine if it is in a field and really rather fun to watch. Not so much when it is in your sitting room and involves hurdling the sofas. But the rioting is less frequent these days. More often than not, I am to be seen taking the dogs for nice, well-behaved walks, like a normal person.
What was the key to taming them? With Rose, it was a lot of cajoling and praise, plus bucket-loads of treats. She still quivers with pent-up energy at the very sight of another human being if we meet people when out and about. However, she has stopped leaping at their faces to lick their cheeks. Most of the time.
Luna has been a harder nut to crack. For almost her first two years here, I rarely dared let her off the lead at all.
Until a friend of mine, who also has a rescue dog, gave me some very wise advice. He recommended trying what are known as “e-collars” or (slightly more emotively by the RSPCA, which wants them banned) “shock collars”.
These gadgets have a little radiocontrolled box with two metal studs which buzz onto the dog’s neck. Now, I was all for training Luna the nice way, with lots of yummy treats every time she came back to me when called. But it just was not working with a dog who (we think) is probably half saluki.
If she spotted something fluffy or feathery, her prey drive kicked in and she was gone.
To train using an e-collar, you put your dog on a very long lead and let them wander off. You then switch on the collar while calling them back to you. I have tested it myself on my arm. It’s an unpleasant buzz but not in any way comparable to, say, an electric fence (and I have been zapped by plenty of those in my time).
As soon as the dog obeys, you stop the buzzing. You do this for 10 minutes, every day, for six weeks. Let me tell you, it worked like a charm. Luna now has the most unbelievable, rock-solid recall.
At first we had the collar turned up to 90 (out of a possible 100) before she would take any notice of it at all. But now I set it at about 20. I also don’t do it up tight at all. It’s enough that she knows it is there.
The wonderful thing now is that Luna is free to have a normal life. She can run around the fields on the farm and through the woods, sniffing where she wants, exploring as she sees fit.
But when I call her, she comes back. I don’t even always put the collar on her as she is so much more trustworthy. Overall, I now probably “buzz” her no more than once a week, usually because she has come face to face with a pheasant.
There was some legislation doing the rounds earlier this year to ban e-collars altogether.
The bill has fallen by the wayside, which is where I sincerely hope it stays. I can see that, in the wrong hands, e-collars could be horrible for a dog. You can’t just put one on and assume the dog is now trained. It takes time and effort.
But as I have found, if you do the training properly, these very clever pieces of kit will give your dog a much better life.
At £300 or so, they are not cheap. But I am now seriously thinking of buying a spare in case ours breaks in the future, when they may no longer be available.
But I really don’t think they deserve to be outlawed, do you?