By Shelley Crawford –
This is my first time ever blogging. I have a dog training business that I run from my home. I have a decent size house, nice shady backyard, pool, etc. It’s a great job to supplement my other job running a small high end landscaping company. I began the dog training business with the mind set my body wasn’t going to last forever doing landscaping. And well, frankly it’s hot in Florida pretty much all year round. I plan to just write about what ever training issue I’m currently working on.
I have a black labrador puppy in training for 2 weeks. This dog has to be crossed with a bloodhound. This puppy is 4 months old and aptly named “Kiddo”. Kiddo is a very sweet dog. Great Lab. temprament. His major malfunction is a puppy related issue. Everything his nose touches goes in his mouth. I feel he has to have Bloodhound in him because his hind quarters aren’t “lab” shaped and kind of droop down like a bloodhound. His ears are oversized for a lab. I’m training this rescue dog “on leash”. The owner scraped all her pennies and dimes together just to get the dog to learn the basic commands. Smart owner. One less dog that will have to be re-homed.
I began working the commands on a flat collar. When I knew he knew the commands I switched to the prong collar for corrections. He’s such a soft dog. I hook the leash to the swivel and the safety ring to soften the corrections. He still needs minimal correction. However, I was constantly having to correct him as his nose is always touching the ground in true bloodhound style. If something touches his nose, it goes right into his mouth. So, I decided to use the e-collar. I got him used to wearing it. The really odd thing is his correction level on the e-collar is a 4. He’s on a SitMeansSit e-collar I got from their website. The correction levels go from 1-8. I was so surprised that this soft dog needed such a high level of correction. Whereas my 2 year old Boxer (who was a pill to train) is only a level 1 correction. I realize that the lab is a puppy and puppies are like 2 year olds. Everything goes in the mouth. So far, the “Leave It” command coming along nicely after just 2 days. I even have him sleeping on a bed in his crate now whereas before he would shred anything made of cloth.
I suppose one of the best things about dog training is I get to have a new puppy for a couple of weeks then send it home. Good luck training everyone.
Stay tuned for Kiddo’s first car ride in training.