A Huge Step in the Right Direction: Pet Edition

Don't call him pretty or he'll eat your children.

I understand that this post may cause people to hate my ass.  That's fine.  What works for some doesn't work for others, just like in that whole raising-your-children situation (see: breastfeeding, vaccines, cloth diapering, co-sleeping, etc.).  Sometimes, when people do things a certain way, they feel the need to lash out at them; or troll them with a bunch of websites to articles and research that supports their way of doing things.  Oh, but they'll throw the B.S. at the end that says, "Just trying to help! myself feel better about the way I do things!" or "Just so you know! that I know everything and you suck at life!"  Tough shit.  This is what works for us and I could give a damn about your research article unless it's one that agrees with my opinion.  ;)

Our dog, Dexter (also referred to as Dex, Dexy, Dexican, %&#(@%&@!), is just shy of 6 months old.  He is a great dog and has come a long way from that faithful Good Friday when I brought him home.  He knows some basics as far as training goes, is potty trained, and has a great little thing he does when it's time to eat (another story for another time).  We crate trained him, and now he'll sleep from about 10:00pm until whatever time I get up or feel well enough to get to him (ranges from 7:00am to 9:00am) and he doesn't make a sound.  He does great with our crazy ass toddler and is just a great dog.  Our biggest struggle was getting him to walk nicely on a leash.  He has always pulled ahead of us, sometimes to the extreme of only walking on his back legs because he was pulling so hard.  I did my google research and tried many different techniques with him over the past several months and NOTHING works.  He just doesn't give a shit.  I've seen him give me the finger as I tirelessly try a technique to get him to walk politely.  The worst is when we go to a pet store.  He senses our presence immediately and starts acting all batshit crazy.  He pulls, chases, jumps, steals things, and it's just awful (and a bit embarrassing...).  Jack's B.F.F. has two big ass dogs (a mastiff bigger than my SUV, and a newfoundland that could eat Adam in one bite).  He swears by training collars (NOT CHOKER COLLARS!), which I think you kind of have to when your dogs weight a metric ton (each).

Training collar is for dogs NOT husbands (like I originally thought)

  He told us that from day one and I just couldn't put my poor Dexy in something like that.  I, the first time dog owner, said, "That's crazy!  Dex is so small!  He doesn't need that!"  "I got this shit!"  Well.  I finally caved and bought one.  Dex is about twelve pounds now and surprisingly he needed the medium size.  Which made me feel comfortable in the sense that they make collars for dogs even SMALLER than Dex.  We tried it out as soon as we got home and I absolutely couldn't believe it.  He walked PERFECTLY and showed no signs of frustration or aggression towards his new accessory.  He just trotted along like he had been walking like that for his whole little puppy life.  When we approached something interesting (and not dangerous) we let him check it out and when it was time to proceed we called him first and he continued on with no problem.  I was so happy I could cry.  It's really frustrating and discouraging to walk a dog that sucks at walking on a leash when you try and try to train it, so I know this is going to make everyone a hell of a lot happier.  I've done a lot of reading on the collars and I feel comfortable in my decision, ESPECIALLY considering the results.  When Dexy sees it, he doesn't get all weird and pissed, he sits nicely just as he had done before for his leash and lets me put it on.  I cannot believe how extreme of a difference it has made.

So hate on, haters of the training collar, but ours is here to stay.