25/12/2023
Until a year ago, I was a trainer with a very force free approach. I didn’t believe there was a place for aversives in dog training. I didn’t have a dog that required them. Lucky me!
Until I got this chap. My very much adored kelpie, Evo. Bred to move HUGE flocks and herds of livestock out in rural Australia. A hard-headed dog, with a mega independent streak.
I worked hard with him. I’m a trainer. I laid my foundations, as I have done successfully with my other 4 dogs before him. They worked, to a point. And then, they didn’t.
I was fully prepared to give him a breed-appropriate outlet. Alongside the other work I give my dogs, I have my own sheep, meaning I can work my own dogs regularly on stock. However, my small flock of flighty sheep was far too jumpy for him to work, and he was becoming dangerous out and about in any sort of proximity to sheep.
So, you may say, just keep him on a lead! Problem solved. Well, not really.
Management can and does fail. I have heard it from countless clients. I have had it fail myself.
I also live, with sheep on my property, and surrounding it on 3 sides. Everywhere we turn, there are sheep. There’s no avoiding them.
Keep him on a lead in the garden? We have a large garden and keeping him on the lead would be unfair. He’s an incredibly active, working bred dog, who would end up spending his entire life on a lead.
We also encountered prey drive issues out and about, particularly around deer. His recall was fantastic, but once we moved, our walks were either full of deer, or sheep and he could rip a long line out of your hands to chase something particularly tempting.
So, I decided to bite the bullet and e-collar train. Controversial, particularly online.
But, the absolute best thing I ever did.
The alternative solutions I had suggested were:
Keep him on the lead - I buy good quality leads, but they have failed on me before
Move house - we’ve moved to a dream house, not an option
Avoid places with sheep etc - hard when they’re in the garden
Long line - he could still pull a long line out of reach
Train him - he was trained to a very high level and we had reached the limits via force free methods.
Management fails.
I went through the process of conditioning him properly to the e-collar. I spent ages ensuring I got it right, he understood what was expected and that he knew how to switch it off. I invested in a pricey bit of kit, and I went about it by the book.
It’s transformed his life.
He can romp around the garden, he can walk through my sheep without batting an eyelid, he can walk off lead on the hills and he can enjoy walking in the forest even when deer run out in front of us.
For him, that wasn’t ever going to be an option without it.
Nothing was more reinforcing than chasing.
And it was going to get him killed. He’d have been shot, or hit by a car, or lost. All because I wouldn’t open my mind to using different tools.
Am I suggesting every dog requires one? Absolutely not. But there are MANY cases where they save lives. It’s both saved and enriched his.
He’s happy, he lives his best life. He hikes everywhere with us, he’s well mannered and fully reliable off the lead. He knows the rules, and that’s the key.
He’s not suppressed. He can still go off and be a dog. He tears around the garden with our other dogs, he sniffs and does dog things. But he’s safe when doing it all.
I see a lot of judgement towards these tools from people owning dogs who would never require these tools. That’s great. And that’s also not a problem. But it is completely unfair to demonise the use of a tool which you haven’t taken the time to fully understand. I was 100%, without a doubt, against them before I took the time to understand how they worked and how they were used.
It’s imperative that they’re used with a trainer well versed in using them. It’s also crucial that the equipment used is good quality and not something cheap from Amazon or eBay. It’s an investment, but one that is so necessary for a lot more dogs than you might realise.
Take the time to understand others’ points of view. There is truly not a one-size-fits-all approach in dog training and my change of opinion has opened up a whole new world for all of my dogs ❤
Photo by Saffy Leyfield Photography
