phases of remote collar training

The phases of remote collar training are the foundation to helping the dog understand this new language of the remote collar. I like to explain remote collar training in terms of teaching the dog a new language because it is extremely similar. Buying a plane ticket to, let’s say Italy, and moving there doesn’t mean that you can speak Italian. But learning the verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives and how to put an Italian sentence together will. In much the same way, we must first teach the dog the meaning of the remote collar sensation at the most basic level (like learning the verbs and adjectives) and then graduating the dog through the higher levels of understanding (like now learning how to put those verbs and nouns together into a sentence) for it to be usable information that makes sense to the dog. And this information is the guidance that allows us to communicate with the dog in any context. In the beginning phase, I am overlaying the continuous sensation at the perception level (the lowest level tingle that she can feel) over top the recall work that we’d already done on leash. Once she understood how to be guided by the continuous sensation, I was able to phase out the leash and then to move into the next phase which was prompts. So rather than giving continuous help to complete her recalls, I’m asking her to do more of the work on her own with just a prompt (tap) on the remote collar as I say the commands. Eventually, when the dog fully understands the command with the prompts, we’ll move into the final phase in which we phase out the prompts and the dog is doing all the work on her own unless she needs some extra reminders to help her stay on track.