Rehomed a 5yo trained only on E-collar

[mdd2299]

Rehomed a dog trained on e-collar

So I’ve always wanted a french bulldog and I stumbled across someone wanting to rehome a 5 year old French Bulldog that someone was no longer able to care for. We were told he was reactive with kids only.

We then found out that he was aggressively trained with an e-collar. With every command, he was administered a “zap”. We were told to really “crank it up” if he did a particularly naughty behavior. Immediately after leaving from picking him up, we removed the e-collar and prong collar.

He’s very friendly in the house and seemingly just wants some love. He’s obedient without negative reinforcement and really appreciates the treats we give him. (We were initially told that he wasn’t food motivated and wouldn’t be motivated by treats or meals.) The problem is that outside of the house (as in, on walks), he is reactive to other dogs. He pulls and does everything in his power to get close to them. It seems as if he maybe does not know how to appropriately greet them, but he is really eager to say hello. He also is very distracted outside of the house.

Is it possible for us to train him to pay attention to us outside of the house and train out some of that reactivity and train some good dog manners? Or is he less trainable because he is only used to prong/e-collars?

 

[sistersunshine]

@mdd2299 I feel bad that dog had to deal with owners that don't know how to use an e collar properly.

With a lot of patience, you should be able to train your reactive dog using positive reinforcement. Try not to rush the training process. Look up videos by zak george, and Kikopup.

 

[lmccloud]

@mdd2299 Absolutely! My dog is the exact same way — he’s leash reactive and a frustrated greeter. However, once he gets to the other dog he’s a model student.

Things that have helped me: researching how to assist frustrated greeters. Clicker training, so just start small with calling his name then when he looks at you, click, treat. Tell him to sit, click, treat. The engage/disengage helped a lot with his non-alive triggers lol so like bikes, cars, scooters. I never let him greet another dog or smell what he wants when he pulls or lunges and reward him (now) when he greets politely. I’ve found that teaching him “leave it” has helped tremendously.

I recently realized (like a fool!) that I needed to work on my dog’s impulse control. He needed to learn that if I say leave it, that meant inside, outside, for his favorite toy, at his favorite tree - at all times, leave it or wait needed to be listened to. This has helped so much - so has, “let’s go!”

It’s taken a better part of a year, but I started out with engage/disengage so we could get to being okay with seeing a dog across a small street. I couldn’t seem to get the distance shorter so that’s when I started implementing the above. He’ll tense, I’ll say “hey, leave it,” and he’ll ignore the other dog 60% of the time now, then when I know he’s going to ignore, I click/treat. Then I drive the point home by saying, “let’s go!” And with a liiiiittle pressure on the leash in the direction I’m going, he knows that means we’re walking away now. So when he follows that, I click/treat. This might not work for every dog but it’s helped me a lot. He has a high prey drive, hates squirrels and is obsessed with wanting to lick other dog’s pee so I’ve been using this a lot for those moments too.

My boy didn’t take treats at all outside for the first two months I had him but I learned he was super overwhelmed. I’d say depending on the amount of time you’ve had him, the stronger your bond gets the better. I’d start training within your home on a leash first, then in the hallway or driveway of your home, then I would walk a same two or three block radius for a few days and implement that there.

I’d also look into a good harness for him - if he’s a frustrated greeter with triggers, a collar might not be the best fit for his breed until he learns not to pull or lunge. I used a front clip harness for a while until he learned (soooomewhat) loose leash walking. I wouldn’t depend on it forever as it’s a tool to help teach no pulling but the moment you switch it out, they’ll start pulling again.

Unpopular opinion, but while I don’t think every owner that uses a prong collar is Satan reincarnate like most (I’ve never used one and likely won’t but my dog is 10lbs) - I really, really recommend burning and tossing that e-collar as far as you can. It’ll only damage your relationship and yes it takes longer to train without it but regardless of if it’s just a buzz or a low shock, it’s really a horrible thing to do to a pet - in my opinion. Every single dog - barring medically influenced or severe behavioral issues - can be trained. It just takes patience and consistency. It can be super frustrating and I’ve come home in tears more than once this past year, but it’s so worth it the moment something clicks for them and you see them working with you.

Good luck!

 

[joysianna]

@mdd2299 Aw that poor baby. Thank you for adopting him! I think with a lot of patience you will be able to get him trained using less aversive methods. He is in a new environment so he may be more of a blank slate that you realize.

Do you have experience with reactive dogs already? There are tons of resources on the the wiki. Also I personally really like zak George's inertia series. Start at video 1 and it should give you an idea of how to move forward.

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@mdd2299 High value treats. Loads of high value treats when he's calm around other dogs, starting well before his threshold. Treats stop the instant he gets too hyper and you leave the situation at once.

Also,make s mental walking map of every other dog's house and ask the owners if you can give their dogs tiny treats as you walk past - chicken or dried pumpkin- and use the calm friendly dogs as training tools. Greet, treat, move on at your leisure. It will also help the neighborhood dogs to learn people walking past are friends who don't need to be barked at - win win.

 

[dotti2]

@mdd2299 Jesus, what an awful way to use potentially helpful tools.
It seems like you’ve only just gotten him so remember the 3-3-3 rule- 3 days to detox from the initial stress, 3 weeks to learn your routine, 3 months to learn you’re his family. If you have a yard, I’d give him a day or two before walking him. Hand feed his meals if he’s on kibble to build engagement snd food drive and keep him on a leash or crated all the time, even in the house- this will also teach him to focus on you and help with the probable overstimulation he’s experiencing.
Once he’s more settled you can start working on formal training/counter conditioning/ etc. I’d also highly recommend contacting a reputable LIMA trainer, to help you figure things out and potentially to eventually help you reteach the prong & ecollar humanely (if that’s what you need or want).
I hope any/some of this helps! Good luck and congratulations on your new pup