Yesterday I tried out the vibrating training collar on Delilah.  The DVD says you have to let the dog wear the collar for a couple of days before using it, so they don’t become “collar smart;” meaning they only respond when the collar is on.

Delilah wore the collar on Saturday and again yesterday, so last night we decided to try it out.   It played out something like this:

I said, “Delilah down.”

Delilah just looked at me.

Again I said: “Delilah down.” I pushed the beep button.

Delilah turned around and said, “Did you hear that?”

Sampson said, “What?”

I said, “Delilah down!” I pushed the vibrate button.

Delilah turned around and said, “What the eff was that?” and she ran to me and stuck her head between my legs.

Sampson said, “What?”

I said, “Delilah, down” pushing the vibrate button again.

Delilah pushed her head further between my legs, leaning into me.

I walked into the living room and threw the remote at Chet.

“It’s useless” I said, “She’s afraid of it. All she does is run back to me.”

That was when we had our “Aha” moment.  Maybe this could work after all, maybe it would bring her back to us when we were hiking.  We decided that we would not use the collar to reinforce her basic commands (as recommended with the instructional DVD) instead we would only use it for bringing her back to us when she runs off!

We decided to try it tonight on our walk.   I put the collar on her when I got home, so she had it on for at least an hour before we left.  As soon as we hit the path, she took off, I wasn’t quick enough and by the time I hit the button she was out of range.

Using the remote was trial and error, eventually we figured out the correction had to be almost immediate.  As soon as she started to deviate from the trail, I said, “Delilah no” and hit the beep, I really only had to use the vibrate option a couple of times.  By the end of the 25 minute walk she was responding  to my voice about 85% of the time.

So on a scale of 1 to 10 I would rate the recall command/training process at about a 7, which isn’t bad for our first time.  As for the collar itself I would have to rate it about a 3.  It was $42 and is very cheaply made and has a very limited range.   If you are interested in using a beeping/vibrating training collar, I would suggest you save up your money and choose something other than this.

Comments

comments