shock collar

Funny how some silly things can make you happy.  We have a dog named Charlie, a mix lab.  A very dumb dog if you ask me.  Can't learn any commands beyond "sit" and I pretty much gave up on him after a little while or a big while to me.  I think it is mainly because I miss how our first dog was, so smart and obedient from the start and it's just not fun to go from that to our new dog.  Charlie is pretty good with kids though, just loves anybody and as he's getting older he plays really well with them, with an occasional roughness.  Our kids love him too and they are entertained by him for hours some days which is great to see.  Kade is responsible for feeding him and our cat every day and I think it helps with feeling like this is his dog.  The main problem and I think the only problem we have with Charlie is that he keeps running away.    When we are not paying attention to him for a few minutes, there he goes on the road or across the field.  Mainly he just wants to go see the dogs of our 2 closest neighbors and he comes back after a little while.  I would have no problem with that but of course, we have to have one of those crazy neighbors and she said if the dog ever comes to their house again she's going to call the cops and shoot him too.  Wow, really?  The dog that wouldn't hurt a fly.  But whatever, I just feel bad for Charlie because that ended his days of free running around.  We tried the invisible fence and that didn't work at all.  He would just run through it, get shocked and then would be terrified to go back to the fence area after that which only encouraged him to run away as far from it as he could.  So now we have him chained up and just let him lose for a while when someone is with him, which really makes me feel bad but we haven't found a better solution so far.  Then about a couple of weeks ago Ehren and I were browsing thru the sports store and we came up to a shelf of dog shock collars.  We both thought, should we try this?  It is not a cheap thing so it wasn't easy but I thought let's give it a try.  Now, a few days after using it I feel like "why didn't we get this right away"?  I absolutely love this thing!  Finally, there is something that works when he's doing something bad.  If he tries to run after the school bus now, I just warn or shock him and he turns around.  If I go to the mail box Charlie would just go along and not just stay by me but would start running on the road ahead of me but now, with my remote in one hand I point to him and say "No, stay" and he just knows.  He actually stays back and doesn't try to follow us out there even without a shock.  I just can't say enough about my new toy.  It feels like we have a totally different dog.  He does have to get used to it more because after he does something bad like jumping on kids or going for the road and he gets shocked he gets all scared to do anything but I'm seeing he's getting better with that and is learning he can still do things after being shocked and when he's good we reward him.  I just feel good about Charlie being able to run around most of the day now without having to worry about where he ran now and did he visit the crazy neighbors.  So that is my story for today, the shock collar that put a smile to my face. I know, I am a pretty mean person taking joy out of someone's suffering and I bet there would be many animal rights people that would love to get after me but I don't care.  If it helps our dog have a better life with an occasional pain, I'm all for it.

our Fall walk with Charlie this weekend