Basic Obedience Help

[HKeith]

I was working with my Lab this afternoon on "come" with an e-collar. I have been using a check cord for the last week while working with her on it. She knows what the command means as I have shown it to her many times. I started with her on a check cord, I would page her collar and then tell her "come", she readily complied. Every 4-5 times, I would call her without paging just to see if she was getting it. I then moved on to calling her without paging, if she did not immediately come I would page her and give a tug on her check cord. She started to regress so I switched from paging to a low level of stimulation. For the first few repetitions she was compliant. After a few more she started to freeze when I would stimulate her and I would have to pull her check cord to me. Am I doing something wrong or is she just being stubborn? This was her first time with a live collar, I have been putting it on her daily though so she gets used to it. Any help is much appreciated.

[whoadog]

Are you using tone or vibration for the page? I am also trying to understand what you are actually doing, are you calling her without the page, as you said, or are you paging her without calling.

As for the first time with a live collar, you are asking your dog to adjust to a lot in a very short time by using both the page and the stimulation. My take is that your dog is not being stubborn but is confused about what is going on with the thing hanging on her neck.

[CDN_Cocker]

Strange way of introducing a collar. Not an effective conditioning method IMO. What program are you following? You're using way too many things. Forget about the page function till she's conditioned to the collar. Here - nick - here

[HKeith]

By page I mean vibration. She is used to having the collar on her neck. She is probably a little overwhelmed I guess. At first I was paging her then calling which she did well with. I then moved onto calling her and when she did not come I would page her. How is this a strange way to introduce the collar? I am following the Hickox method.

[CDN_Cocker]

Forget about vibration, you're doing too much. How come you're not following Lardy or Evan Graham for your lab? I would go with a more retriever specific program.

[HKeith]

I don't want to come off as an asshole and I don't mean to be offensive but you say that "I'm doing too much"? I kinda asked for some help in my original post so do you have some suggestions or further explanation? I have read Evans book and a few others and watched numerous videos. I'm sure everyone will go crazy when I say this but I am tailoring everything I have seen and read into a personal training routine.

[CDN_Cocker]

I don't think you're coming off as an a-hole lol. I just mean forget the pager/vibrate function for awhile and condition the dog to stimulation/pressure. I am not against the pager function... once I had my dog conditioned to the collar I taught him to recall when I hit vibrate. Very handy when the dog can't hear you in heavy cover. I think with collar conditioning though you can't tailor it... you need to pick one and follow it through. And I think for a retriever you might be better off using Evan's or Lardy's method of conditioning. Hickox has more of a focus on pointing dogs which are sometimes trained a bit differently. I do not have a lab, mine is a spaniel, but I followed a retriever program and I think the retriever guys definitely have it figured out. I think the best command to condition to initially is "sit". It's an easy one... "Sit" and if it doesn't sit you can do a leash correction along with collar correction at the same time and repeat sit. Just seems to make the dog understand the collar quicker. Once it's conditioned to sit its very easy to move forward and condition to other commands. The dog will connect that the stimulation is the same as "no" if it didn't do it or didn't do it quick enough.

[HKeith]

Haha thanks for reassuring me. I'm not saying that I will be the next great dog trainer but they all had to do their research, pick and choose what they would use, and tailor it to form their method. I have an ESS also and I want to be on the same system when it comes to their basic obedience. They both respond promptly every time to sit so there wouldn't be any need for correction, so I moved on to the command that gives me the most problems.

[birddogger]

I don't want to come off as an asshole and I don't mean to be offensive but you say that "I'm doing too much"? I kinda asked for some help in my original post so do you have some suggestions or further explanation? I have read Evans book and a few others and watched numerous videos. I'm sure everyone will go crazy when I say this but I am tailoring everything I have seen and read into a personal training routine.

I am not going to go crazy , but IMO, it would be hard for a beginner to try and combine several programs into one without confusing both the dog and handler. Experienced trainers can develop their own methods to some extent with good success, but my suggestion to you is to pick one method and stick with it. With that being said, I would also choose Evan's methods over the rest of them, with the type of dog you have and following to a tee his method for conditioning to the e-collar. BTW, it does sound as though the dog is confused and has not been conditioned to the collar properly. I am not being critical here, just giving my honest opinion and trying to help.

Good luck,
Charlie

[CDN_Cocker]

Well the early stages of training an ess and lab are the same so you're in luck. That is good sit doesn't give youa problem.... Even more reason to start there because they understand it. Is he a quick sitter or does he take his time a bit? Walk around with him and randomly tell him to sit. Every 3rd or 4th time nick him after you tell him to sit. This will teach him to sit quicker and help him to understand that the pressure from the collar comes when he does not comply or comply fast enough. Only Nick on every 3rd or 4th one though unless he doesn't comply -then that's a nick as well.

[Pastor Brown]

Lots of great advice here, glad I joined this forum!

[HKeith]

I appreciate the help everyone. They both sit as soon as they are told no matter what.

[HUNT 24/7]

Sounds like she doesn't understand what is expected of her & is in turn, shutting down.

[EvanG]

I was working with my Lab this afternoon on "come" with an e-collar. I have been using a check cord for the last week while working with her on it. She knows what the command means as I have shown it to her many times. I started with her on a check cord, I would page her collar and then tell her "come", she readily complied. Every 4-5 times, I would call her without paging just to see if she was getting it. I then moved on to calling her without paging, if she did not immediately come I would page her and give a tug on her check cord. She started to regress so I switched from paging to a low level of stimulation. For the first few repetitions she was compliant. After a few more she started to freeze when I would stimulate her and I would have to pull her check cord to me. Am I doing something wrong or is she just being stubborn? This was her first time with a live collar, I have been putting it on her daily though so she gets used to it. Any help is much appreciated.

From your terminology it would seem you've read some method or another. But this does not sound like an effective approach. Consider the Smartwork program.

(click on picture for video)

Interested?

EvanG

[aulrich]

x2 on pick a system. I tried using the DVD that came with the collar and youtube, it makes it way harder. A month with the system and we really turned the corner on the OB.

two mistakes I made were
1 collar not tight enough
2 don't over stim - my dog would not vocalize and not shut down, but he was clearly not happy and if I continued he would have shut down.

Now he see the collar, he knows something fun is going to happen.

[gonehuntin']

You can't tailor a system for yourself when you don't know how to train a dog. Follow Smart Works and you'll be amazed. Don't short cut it, don't change it, follow it.

[HKeith]

UPDATE

Working with the lab today and she was excellent! I'm pretty sure the problem was that it was her first time with an e-collar. The second that I would call her she came running. There were a few times I needed to stimulate her because of distractions (neighbor walking by) but other than that she did very well. She was starting to become a little sticky towards the end of training but that was about the only major problem i faced today.

[cjhills]

go slower. Pretty soon the only thing she will listen to is the collar. It is called training, not forcing...............Cj

[HKeith]

UPDATE:

She's like lightning now! When I grab the collar to put it on her she gets excited. Seems like we are off to a great start.