Roxy is a 3 year old Australian shepherd retriever mix and is as smart as you would expect. She knows her commands inside and most of the time, follows them. However, outside, whether the back yard or a dog park, all bets are off. She would run and not come back if off leash. We have been working on this with a long leash but as distances grow, I am wondering if an e-collar would be beneficial. She is not a hunting dog, but things like recall, and stop on command would be very nice out side and at distance. I would love to be able to take her to the nearby lake, etc. and have her off leash and know she'd come back.

Her background: We got her at 9 months old, and she had been on the kill list twice, returned twice for barking at night to go outside, and with 2 different fosters because her first had to leave the country unexpectedly. So it took a while for her to realize we weren't getting rid of her. After basic and intermediate training classes, she is tons better, just needs work on following commands outside and when around distractions. Thanks!

Here she is relaxing


And here she is watching over a friend's kid we were babysitting

I would get he commands better while she is inside the house. Obviously make the jump from inside the house is too much and she is learning that she doesn't have to obey you so I would make sure she always had a long line on. It takes time and patience to build up to that level of reliability under high distractions. I would keep working on the long line until she does well on that and when I say well I mean she only needs to be tugged on 1 out of ten times. I would also not make the jump to such high distractions so big. Work on inside the house, then outside in the yard, then walking down then street etc. Also what are you giving the dog to motivate it to come back to you under such high distractions? The higher the distractions the bigger the reward.

A shock collar could be beneficial but also mess things up very quickly. It still would take some patience and a little creativity.

I use one on my Jack Russell. She has a bad habit of nipping at the horses and cows heels. I figure at some point she is going to get the devil kicked out of her. The collar has 6-8 settings and I've never used over the second setting. I tell her "no" before and as I shock her and she learned real quick to stop. The problem is she also learned to behave when she has the collar on. When wearing it she won't pay a bit of attention to the horses.

A collar wise dog, very common, very easy to prevent.

Don't mean to highjack the thread, but would be interested in learning how.

Geet the e-collar. It works, even on the lowest settings.

I would take the advice of MS1454. If the dog will not listen and sit or come on command in the house and in the backyard how the dog will know what you are asking it to do with an e-collar on.

It has been my experience that I only give a command ounce then I will enforce the command. If the dog is running loose and you yell come and the dog dose not you are in big trouble. I would start small and go back to basics. Start on a leash and work the command come from 6ft. Ounce the dog does that I would progress up to a long line and then I would move out to the dog park or the lake somewhere with distractions and work her with the basics again. Ounce I know I have control with distraction then I would take the leash off. I would not set my dog up for failure so when I took her off leash for the first couple of times it would be brief and I would lavish the praise on her when she did right. I would slowly increase the time off leash and the distance we are working apart as she improves. Just remember it all takes time and each dog is different.

I hope this helps.

She already knows her commands and most times follows them. She'll always follow them with the e-collar.