Sunny contacted me in April of this year after having been released from the hospital. She had spent several months recovering from a stroke and now faced the daunting challenge of being responsible for raising and training her Golden Doodle, Easy, who had now tripled in weight and size while she had been in the hospital. Easy had now moved from being a puppy to adolescence with boundless energy and had become so rambunctious that she was now concerned for her safety and that of her friends and caretakers. Hospital staff and friends had advised her to rehome Easy but Sunny could not face living alone without him.

When I first met Easy he was so excited that he started jumping on me and biting me with his whole mouth on my arm. He did not respond to any effort to get him to stop and settle down. He completely mauled me until I got him on a leash where I had to physically restrain him with all my strength. Sunny had bruises all up and down her arms and friends did not want to visit her anymore. I was also very concerned about her safety and because of Sunny's mobility problems I knew that this was going to be a real challenging training assignment. I recommended using an e-collar because Sunny could not physically handle an 80 lbs. dog that absolutely had no respect for her. My biggest concern was being able to teach Sunny how to handle Easy. I took on the assignment knowing that initially I would have to do most of the training of Easy and then make the transition to Sunny.

I first had to teach Sunny how to use an e-collar and make sure that she could manage getting the collar on him. Then I had to teach her how to keep Easy from jumping on her and guests and to be a better mannered dog. Once we got his home manners under control we went about teaching him to come and then to walk on a loose leash along with sit/stay. Sunny's apartment is situated a full story below street level so she has to climb stairs to get to the street. This presented many training challenges for us. We had to first teach Sunny a recall so that he would not take off and run up the stairs and then into a busy street. Which he had done several times before training started. We had to teach Easy to go out the front door, then up the stairs, then to sit at the top of the landing and then to wait for Sunny as she ascended the stairs slowly. Then he was taught to walk with her slowly out to the street.

It took several months to get this routine to work smoothly. The e-collar made this possible. It would have been almost impossible for Sunny to handle Easy with traditional leash and collar training. You can see a video of Sunny and Easy at YouTube. Also, you can read a testimonial from Sunny at Dogsquad.biz.