I am glad you have got where you want to be.

However, I can never agree with the methods and again I reiterate - I do not think Ben was an extreme case who deserved this.

he yelped to express pain, physical or mental anguish. He came for reassurance from the disturbance and then that insecurity was reinforced with food rewards. Sorry I wasnt there but thats how it reades to me.

overprotective or insecure? Cant you teach your dog to have a sniff and go past if he is too confrontational with other peoples dogs? instead of giving him an electric shock?

If a dogs whole character changes suddenly or over a very short period of time after 'training' something completely unrelated then dont you think you should be concerned about that?

did you use the ecollar to teach him not to jump onto the bed uninvited?

how can he be running free if he will not run off, while not on the lead now?

and why are you allowing him out of your vision and how on earth can you say you dont worry what he is doing out of sight? especially when you said he dosnt run off anymore (in the same post) out of sight is running off!

Gnasher, I am trying not to sound 'off' I really am but what 'mission' was it you wanted to achieve here? For us to accept the use of an ecollar on an abused dog that had an iffy recall?

I rather think it is something to do with attention.

I agree. Gnasher makes the e-collar sound like Tinkerbells wand. Only those with half a brain know different.

I would NEVER allow the use of an e collar on a dog for something as petty as jumping on the bed. Totally over the top. It is as easy as whistling to train a dog like Ben to do anything - EXCEPT when you want him to come. I personally think it is because he was on a running line for the first 3 years of his life in the back garden, I don't know for sure, but I believe he was never taken out for walks, just kept on this running line whilst the owners were out at work. Presumably they brought him into the house when they came home, but I have no idea. I think this is why he just does not want to come when you call him. His father was similar, but because he had never been abused, he would eventually come to you, just in his own time. Ben will come back too, eventually, but in his case eventually means in about half an hour. In the meantime, he would run across the road, and run into sheep fields - empty back then, but now full of lambing ewes. We have no idea whether he would chase sheep, I think not, but he will get shot toute suite if a farmer sees him sniffing around in a field of lambs and ewes at this time of year.

With time, yes, I am sure you are all right, we could train him maybe to have a reasonable recall, but it would take hours of training per day, hours that we do not have. As it is the dogs take up at least 4 hours of OH's time every day, time when he should be earning money doing his picture framing, or trying to get business in.

I feel fully justified in doing what we have done. We would never use the collar for anything else - only for this one problem that we had. I am sorry that I cannot make anyone understand how bad it was.

OH says he is a joy to take out, and he no longer has to worry if he's going to run off at any moment. When he starts to look as if he might, he just calls him to come, and he does. Bearing in mind his breed - mal husky mix - I think that is amazing.

Hardly!! But the success rate has been magical

No - just the opposite!! If I were lazy, I would just keep him on the lead the whole time. That's a cop out.

Think about it.

Would you care to explain to me how a vibration can possibly be 1) cruel or 2) a cop out.

If we needed to zap him because he was running off then we would zap him. But over this last weekend, the vibrating pager was all we had to use to get his attention. He would then obey our verbal command.

I know you are just dying to criticise me just for breathing, but really Rune - do try not to be quite so obvious

I don't feel guilty about it, but yes, you're right, I would much rather that we didn't have to resort to a tool. I hate tools, I hate gadgets, but as we saw it we didn't have a choice. For us it was a last resort. For many, it would not be. Many people would just accept that they were never going to train their dog to have a reliable recall, and keep him for the rest of his life on a lead. I happen to think this is incredibly cruel, and I would NEVER condemn a dog to such a life, any dog, let alone a mal x husky mix like Ben. I cannot afford a rig, they are extremely expensive, in the summer admittedly we bike for miles along the canals at a fair old lick, so that they are cantering a lot of the time to keep up and therefore even Ben stays on track and doesn't try to run off. It is in the winter that we have the problem, he gets bored and runs off. If we were 30 years younger and could run for miles, that would be great, but we are too old and crockety for jogging!!

You will probably find there is a time difference between the 2 posts? Or I was talking about the past in one of them?