Go ahead internets, spout your hate. I already feel like a failure for resorting to shocking my dog.
The thing is though, in the last month, we lost 3 pillows, 1 shoe, and rescued countless socks from the jaws of death. Forget reaching into his mouth to get the item out; the only safe way to do it is to get a leash, have him follow you around the house, and don't even look at him until he drops the item. Praise him like he's Jesus when he finally does drop the sock.
You'd think after years of that, the positive reinforcement for dropping the item should've kicked in by now. He still steals stuff and gets nasty when you reach for it.
And haters, I do exercise my dog. He gets playtime in the yard in the morning. He gets 30-40 min walk after work. He gets more yardtime before dinner. He also gets 10-15min indoor playtime where we either play tug or hide a toy and he finds it. Then on the weekends, we go to a park for 1-2 hours of hiking.
If anything, this dog gets too much attention, especially with a baby on the way. Yeah. I'm 29 weeks pregnant and my dog snaps when you reach for stuff in his mouth. Excellent scenario. This is a dog who passed the Canine Good Citizen test too.
So fine. I bought a shock collar. Hate me.
But you know, it's working. We had him wear it around the house for a week before we even put batteries in the remote. Just so he gets used to it and doesn't associate anything bad with it. I also do lots of praise and petting when I put the collar on.
The first time we shocked him was during one of his worst temper tantrums. He had already destroyed a flip flop and was guarding the pieces like a mama bear. He started growling even if you looked at him.
Set the stun gun to level 3 and hit the button. (It goes to 10, and yes hubby tested it on himself first. It feels like pins and needles at 3. Probably even less for the dog with his fur.)
The dog froze in place like, "WTF was that?!?" He still had the destroyed shoe in his mouth, so he got zapped again. This time he dropped it and headed off to his bed. Probably scared him, the poor thing. Anyway, praise all around for dropping the shoe.
The next time we used it, he had the same shoe. Since it was already destroyed, we left it laying around to use as a training mechanism. The dog gave it up again, but lunged when we tried to pick it up. Zap, zap, zap. This time he held onto it and just got zapped a bunch of times. Nothing. I didn't want to up the volume so I got the leash instead.
1 success, 1 failure. It's a work in progress.
We continued the training at the park. The dog is notorious for rolling in crap. Last time we were at this particular park, he rolled in crap 11 times. You'd think there would not be so much crap within 30 feet of the trail, but there is. Apparently the forest is just filled with crap and dead things.
Haters, I know the obvious solution is to keep the dog on the leash. That gives him barely any exercise though. I have a high-energy breed (vizsla) that needs to run and swim and sniff. The weekend outings are his stress relief. It also means driving home with your nose plugged, windows open, and an intense bath.
The shock collar worked great here. We had to turn it up to 4 to overcome the extra distractions in the woods. As soon as the dog dipped his shoulder, he got zapped. He stopped right away. No flipping on his back, no smearing crap in his ears. He just stopped and looked around. We called him back to us for a treat and the sucker came. This happened 3 times.
The collar also has a beep function to get his attention. We used the beep when he was eating grass (makes him puke) and when we saw other people on the trail. He watches other people to see if he needs to protect us and sometimes ignores us when we call him back. Beeping him was a way to snap him out of his people watching and get him on the leash again. Worked twice, great results.
Overall, I'm happy with the results of the collar, even if the inside training needs some work. I still need to accept the fact I'm one of those people who shock my dog, but we've been trying the positive reinforcement techniques for years with very little progress.
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