Pepper and training on the fly

smkie

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#1
NOt the way i wanted to do it..but i had the collar on her just in case..and wanted her to wear it for a few days before we started the outlined routine. She had two walks from me with Vic and then Logan had picked her and VIc up and taken them running with him while he practiced for track, not light exercise for any dog. You would have thought she would have been tired right? HE had just dropped them off when i saw two men out in my backyard walking toward my shed. I found a new lock on my shed and was totally baffled yesterday as to how it got there. I don't keep my tools in there anymore since my lawnmower has been stolen once and my weedeater at another time. So i got up from my desk went out the back door and it was too late. I didn't even feel her go past me. I didn't even know she was out until i got back in. I grabbed the controller and my car keys went out and she was running across the street, i called her she blew me off, and i tapped the button, and saw no response. So i started the car (of course now she is out of sight) and started the circling routine,...letting the neighbors know i was looking for her, they always point one way or the other..when i saw her again I called her, she ignored me, i tapped the button, she blew me off and i thought maybe it just isnt' working. I turned it up one level. I found her down the block i called her she started off, i nicked the button, she turned and ran and jumped in the car window into the car. This isn't the way i wanted to do it, but the effect was still the same. It took all the fun out of her runaway game. I had her cheese waiting and ready for her and praised the dickens for her coming like a good girl. I have never had to lower myself to using a collar before, and i still don't like it at all, but a live pepper that can learn her lessons is better then a dead pepper on the road or a pepper being pts at the shelter because she has a boxy head and a tight little body. WE will still do the outlined training for it was logical and is exactly what she needs. I would rather NOT do this on the fly. Kelly called and i told her what happened, and she said YAY it worked! SHe said she struggled with Lady for so long, and Lady wasn't having any fun at all, and couldn't join in with the other dogs at the dog park because of her coonhound stubborness of running without reason. SHe made payments on this collar renting to own each weekend, she said it didn't take that long at all for Lady's bad behavior to turn around. I hope this doesn't either.
so round one, lesson one.
 

smkie

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#4
me too...i feel awful. She had been my velcro dog all day before this. :( still is but i feel like i betrayed her.If we had more time, if we didn't live in such a dangerous area with fast traffic and highways. if she hadn't had this so ingrained before i got her. But i guess thinking that way does no good either.
 

mjb

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#5
Seems to me you're doing what you can do.

My question is did you find out who put the lock on your shed, and did the 2 gentlemen in your back yard have reason to be there?
 

smkie

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#6
Yes i did. sorries i forgot that part of the story. THe neighbor passed away and his wife has had troubles and has vacated the property. The men that came thought that the shed belonged to her house instead of mine. THey were surprised to find that the lot of theirs was as short as it was and mine was that long! AT least i know i am not losing my mind, i knew i hadn't put the lock on there.
 

smkie

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#8
I do love her, i don't want to, i don't want three dogs. Even knowing that in the horror of the future it will be two, doens't make it much easier. Every bit of common sense says i have no business keeping her. VEt bills being my biggest concern, and i don't like messing with a heart that has so obviously been broken before. I bond with dogs quite strongly and in the past giving up one that i bonded with had tragic results with his trying to get back home. It scares me to pieces to think of that happening again. It has taken her soooo long to start behaving like a happy girl. SHe has grown on me tho, and except for this one behavior she is darn near the perfect lady. You all prolly think i am a complete idiot for letting her out like that..i am so toxic from this round of lyme treatment i feel foggy and dull and completly out of it. SO much so i had to stand there staring at a stupid lock and thinking DID I PUT THAT on there and have no memory of it? COuld have, that is the scary part. WHen i saw the two men out at the shed all i could think was WTf and i walked out that door without ever thinking Where is pepper...it was my fault. That is the reason i am leaning on the collar too, is i don't feel well enough to go through with her what i did with Victor. We pounded the pavement he and i in the beginning. We walked away his fears and his anxiety..his over the top energy. I can't do that right now. I buckled her collar on her this morning and i felt so guilty. I hope this is over quickly, it is ugly and not the way i want to train a friend.
 

Barb04

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#9
Smkie, I know you wouldn't use anything you didn't have to in training and for Pepper's safety. I'm glad she's back safe.
 

smkie

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#10
I don't even like choke chains. sighs. IT goes against all my principles. She is such a sweet serious, blink blink brown faced baby girl that has a wall up in front of her heart 10 ft tall. I wish i could have had her from the beginning and none of this would have been necessary. Instead of two hours of searching and following and trying to get her to come, she was in the car in less then 10 minutes on her own accord. A hard first lesson.
 

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