Annie is sleeping through the night! I am sleeping through the night! Annie is finally in a place where she is able to settle in her crate, in a room by herself with the door shut. She gets stirred up a little when my personal dogs get excited about going outside, but as long as I’m home she is able to settle. However, when things get quiet she starts to worry.
When do things get quiet? When I leave the house and when I go to bed. I need to leave the house on an almost daily basis to take dogs for walks, but thankfully with my husband working from home, he is able to give a correction when needed. (Another bit of good news: Yesterday was the first day that Annie did not escape from the kennel while I was gone!) The good thing about this is that he sits in his office and quietly does computer work, so in Annie’s mind nobody is home and the e-collar correction she is receiving doesn’t have a person behind it. This is going to be helpful when she goes to her new home (which is probably several months away).
At night when things get quiet, she has been waking me up several times. Two nights ago, I decided to take the e-collar off of her and only had to get out of bed twice within an hour after going to bed to give her a bonker correction. Last night I was able to stay in bed, only giving her a verbal correction over the baby monitor. Yay!
Yesterday evening I was thinking about how well she was doing, but I had to stop and remind myself that there would probably be a regression soon. That happened today. While I was working with my board and train dogs, Annie had a down right fit. Throwing the bonker (what was working earlier) just brought out her aggression. I hadn’t put the e-collar on her yet, so after she had calmed a little, I decided to go ahead and do that. She had really escalated to the point that even the e-collar wasn’t doing much for her at sensible levels. Once she calmed (it took about 5-10 minutes), and stayed calmed for a while (another 10 minutes) I took her out of the crate and did some obedience work with her. She spent about 15 to 20 minutes at the end of her session holding the Place command, even going to sleep. I put her back in her crate and she went right to sleep. When it was time for me to leave the house, Aaron manned the baby monitor again. He said he only had to make a couple of corrections. This is big — And it means that this is another day that she did not escape. I am looking forward to the day when she is just able to relax.
As far as obedience training goes, Annie has done a little heel work indoors. We will be repeating that lesson one more time before taking it outside. She has also started learning the Place command along with learning what e-collar stimulation means – Finally! (videos below) Her working level is between a 1 and a 2. Boy is she sensitive! I truly hate that I have had to use the e-collar to correct her before teaching her what it means, but I felt it was necessary as she was hurting herself trying to get out of the crate.
I have discovered that Annie has some kind of metal allergy/sensitivity. The e-collar has been leaving contact sores. I know this is not from the stimulation, because her prong collar is doing the same thing. I have ordered comfort pads for her e-collar (this collar is an absolute necessity at this moment with the crate issues) and comfort tips for her prong collar. They should be in no later than Monday. In the meantime, the collars are only on her when absolutely necessary, and I have been doctoring her wounds.