This weekend, at Turkey's obedience class, they decided that because he only listens about 50% of the time when we correct him, we needed to graduate to a nastier collar.
The last time he was there, they issued the choke collar. On Saturday, the got medieval on his ass.
Enter into our lives the Herm Sprenger Prong Collar, German torture device for dogs.
Theoretically, I have a problem with the collar. It turns out that I am only about 80% hard-ass when it comes to training the dog. I'll correct him, but all I really want to do is let him crawl in my lap and snuggle. And that dog is a snuggler. Luckily for all of us, Turkey's other owner is 100% hard-ass. I think the dog does listen to the boy better than me, and I keep trying to use that as motivation to be a hard(er) ass.
It doesn't help that the only dogs I see in the park wearing those collars are pit bulls, dobermans, and mastiffs. So far, we've only used it on Turkey a handful of times, but he is actually walking correctly on the "Heel" command, and seems to completely forget (at least for awhile) his leash-ninja ways.
I keep waiting for all of the Goodale Park Dog Owners Unsolicited Advice Club to give me horrified looks and tell me how I'm killing my dog. Last week, we were sagely told that "Dogs kept on leashes are naturally meaner because they feel like they have something to prove to the other dogs." That was after the man's dog snapped unprovoked at Turkey. Yeah man, leashes. Dude, they like kill.
Comments