So far, Mother says I’ve been doing beautifully with positive training. It’s gotten to a point where I learn things is a minute and I am even able to relate what Mother is doing with her hands, with my paws – she scratches the floor with her finger, I’ll dig at it with my paw. Mother isn’t interested in only making sure I execute every single command she gives. She wants to develop a thinking dog. She wants me to use my brain and not just be conditioned to respond to cues. She wants me to want to do things out of my own accord.

Mother hopes people will give positive training a go FIRST before jumping the gun and using tools which may be completely unnecessary (or which may not? Who knows, but at least you’ve tried it and can say, hey, it just doesn’t work). Don’t take the “easy” way out. So many sensitive dogs shut down from harsher training and then piss off the owners even more.

What’s worse is that not everyone who uses the collars know how to. They’re told by unqualified people that it works to solve X problem or they read it somewhere, then they go to to pet store and buy the tool and use it improperly on their dogs. One of my dog run friends has an electronic collar strapped to its neck at the dog run. You can see where the fur and skin is fried from the box. Not everyone uses it at the lowest setting. And most of such people don’t use it for training, just to correct bad behaviour. Not enough education all around.

You and Mother have done the leg work, the research and the studying up on training methods and how they work and why they work and how dogs learn, etc. From there you two pick what ways best for your charges. Not everyone does that sadly.

Incidentally, we solved the problem of getting me more attentive simply by handfeeding and requesting eye contact before each bite. Simple and very effective. Within a week of that, I was way more attentive to Mother than some of the other dogs on prongs. Barking in class? All due to stress – no scruffing or jerking of the leash necessary. Just a good run in the morning at the dog run and lots of socialisation before class. Mother had to think about my problems and figure out what would work and reschedule things and spend more time working on me, but it worked! And I’m happy, don’t get hurt or shut down or get totally stressed out.

I’ll give you that the trainer sounds like a moron, though.

Also, just so you know, don’t assume that a electronic collar would make a dog bark, simply because a no-bark collar did so. Modern ecollars are incredibly adjustable and should be set on the lowest level at which the dog shows a response (like an ear twitch, head shake, etc). They are NOT used just to zap the dog whenever it’s not behaving, either.

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And good to know you are fine after the stinging incident. Bees are such horrible insects. Whenever I chase any insects, my mummy will scream and carry me away to the room and close the door. I don’t like chewing on insects but she thinks I will. Oh well. You know how mummies are like.

Yeah! We are training under the same trainer! You know what I like about Angela? She will feed me lots of treats before training me. And her bag smells of food. I like to put my head into her bag but I always get pulled out of it by Mummy and Daddy! Let me know how is the lesson! You will be smitten by Angela (treatsssss).

And a Merry Merry Christmas to you and your mummy!