Thanks for coming back to read part 2. Here is the rest of Max's story...
Max’s lunging/chase behavior is so ingrained, so practiced that when we first took him to the trainer, he lunged in the car. He then broke both a choke chain, I had on him at the time, and a chain link chain. The trainer said that was a first for her. We got him fitted with a gentle leader and harness wrap that really helped the situation. The gentle leader fits around the dog’s nose and mouth so that when you pull the lead, the dogs head comes along, a nicer way than straining the dog’s neck. Max has heavy breathing, probably from his time before he came to us when he was chained up. Anyway, from then on, we worked hard for a year and a half, getting Max, under control and getting his eye contact. His eye contact now is so good, he looks to us whenever he wants to do something (almost anything) and he is very bonded to Brad. He waits for him by the door to arrive home each and every night. He still gets out of control when he gets it in his head that he needs to “get to something”. We can never tell when this will be. For the most part, he does brilliantly, he will walk at a heel, and he will follow commands. He does what we ask him. But he’s a big, heavy, strong dog. He can still pull me down and sometimes it takes everything Brad has to keep him under control. If he sees another dog and he wants to greet it, his mind is the only thing that can stop him. Just like getting a kid to refocus, sometimes we can turn him around and sometimes we can’t. Even after all of the training classes, Max has lunging/chase issues. I thought about returning him to the shelter. I just couldn’t do it. I know that if we returned him, they would euthanize him. The trainer said Max was the most improved dog she had seen in a long time and she loved telling stories about him, how he broke two restraints the first day, how he lunged at her horse. He improved so much that he passed Canine Good Citizen the third class of the session. We were proud of his improvements and yet…he still continued to lunge and chase. We decided our last recourse was to get a hunting training collar, a shock collar.
The shock collar reminds Max that he isn’t doing what he should be doing. We got the collar about a year and a half ago; we didn’t talk to the trainer about it since we knew what she would say. We knew that Max would get an electric shock that would hurt. We knew that we shouldn’t use it. But we were desperate and we knew that we wanted Max to be a member of our family and if that were true we needed him to be able to get along to go along! The shock collar uses both a beep and an electric current. It is possible to just beep the dog or to just shock the dog. It didn’t take Max long to learn that the beep would be followed by a shock. He is a fast learned. Now we almost always use the beep, which redirects him. He calms down and shifts his behavior. I have to admit that once in a while if the situation gets agitated, say if another dog is aggressive or is excited, the beep will not work, and he gets a shock. But for the most part, now he only gets a beep. It still is what it is… a shock to his system. It’s painful and it seems to me to be like some form of punishment that we ruled out in the 1800’s. It’s my dirty little secret. Now, I’m thinking about it a lot, thinking about where to go from here. How do we get the collar idea to continue to work for Max and yet not use it anymore? Brad has gotten use to the idea of using it whenever Max goes out. I don’t like using it and so don’t take Max outside much; it’s my own issue, the guilt, the fear, all wrapped up in one. Max has learned so much, he is such a good dog, he loves Beeks and he loves being with us, I want him to have a “good enough life”, as my hero, Temple Grandin would say. I’m wishing, hoping, wanting something better for Max, where he can be with us and doesn’t need to be connected to the collar. Maybe just a beeper, maybe just the collar, but turned off. How can we show Max, that we know he has improved, that we trust him? He has done what we asked of him. We,(Brad and I) have gotten comfortable with the idea and security of the collar that we may be holding on to it as a crutch and not allowing Max’s behavior/growth continue. Are we settling? Am I being too trusting? When Max was in dog class, his trainer said that Max was a dog that would never be able to be without a leash. Maybe she is correct. Max does well at dog parks (believe it or not, he doesn’t bother other dogs in that situation). It’s breaking old habits, and observing triggers, moving in new directions. Basic therapy. But… Maybe we are the ones that need to be weaned from its use. Are we not allowing the growth to continue out of laziness(?) , out of fear.
Well, there it is. My dirty little secret, my confession, my wish it weren’t true story. I’m sure, I’m confident that Max’s life is better now, than when we first got him. And I’m absolutely positive that he’s the dog for us, all of us in this family. He has been a really good role model for Beeker and he’s taught me how to be more patient. I know that Max’s training is not over, neither is mine. We may have a ways to go, but we have come such a long way as it is. I just have to keep in mind that we must not use the collar as a security blanket without facing the next behavioral challenge,...good behavior without its use.
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