Winston the Wonder Dog meets his match

I really never saw myself as the Hannibal Lecter of the pet world. Olof and I love animals and we are besotted with one in particular: our grand dog, Winston, who recently spent four months in our care. But after Winston failed with two treat-oriented trainers to curtail his leash and front gate aggression issues, we were forced to employ Hans Berserker, and his sidekick Ranulf the Lunge Meister (not their real names).

Let Inga Tell You. Look for La Jolla resident Inga's lighthearted looks at life every other week in The La Jolla Light.

I would like to emphasize that Winston is the sweetest dog who ever lived with people and really good with other dogs when they’re on our side of the fence. Opposite side: mortal enemy. Inside: love and wiggles.

Winston has no walk-by traffic at our son’s home but at our house, every time another dog walked by – which is like every four minutes - he would charge our front gate channeling his inner crazed pit bull. (Winston is not a pit bull.) Unfortunately, it was self-reinforcing. Since people kept walking (usually quickly), Winston would congratulate himself. “I, Winston the Uber Dog, have vanquished the enemy and kept the house safe for Democracy. Or something.”

The second trainer finally said to us that her skills were not up to Winston (we found it odd for a trainer to say this) and recommended a trainer that she would consider to be the Cesar Milan of San Diego. What we discovered the minute Hans Berserker showed up was that the translation was she didn’t use “behavior collars.”

I was appalled.  It goes against everything I hold dear to apply painful stimuli to animals. “I’m sorry,” I said to Hans as he slapped the collar on Winston, “but I could never consider a shock collar that didn’t have a warning button.”

“It does,” said Hans. “It’s called your voice. Which he isn’t listening to.” I was relieved to notice that one of the options was a pager – just a vibration. Fortunately, for the guilt levels of Olof and me, Winston seems to hate the pager most.

The first time Hans demonstrated the shock feature, I turned to Winston and said, “This is really hurting me more than you.” Winston gave me a dour gaze and responded in Dog, “Yeah right.”

But seriously, every zap of that transmitter took a day off my life expectancy. Both the good and the bad news is that the behavior collar worked really well when nothing else did. Still, one thing I noticed was that Winston behaved PERFECTLY when Hans was around. Walk Winston by Hans and one of his German Shepherd training dogs and Winston is like, “Dog?  Do I see any dogs? And I am so not messing with that big ex-Marine guy with the transmitter.” Winston was clear that Hans was the alpha male. He was equally clear that Grandma was the alpha mush ball.

Winston pretty much stopped charging the gate (unless it was a big black dog in which case the pain was worth it). The lunging at other dogs while on the leash wasn’t fully eradicated. Hans came back and brought Ranulf the Lunge Meister and several great big dogs for us to practice with. Hans immediately observed: “Once he’s lunged, it’s too late. You need to ‘alert’ him as soon as the ears go up.” In other words, he needs to be zapped when he has committed lunge in his heart.

Meanwhile, friends would ask of our son and daughter-in-law, “Do they know you’re electrocuting their dog?” We didn’t confess for quite a while because we knew they needed a temporary home for him. Meanwhile, my daughter-in-law’s mother who is not a fan of either dogs or Winston, queried, “How many volts can you give him?”

I will not say what it costs to engage the services of Hans Berserker and Ranulf and their fleet of scary if impeccably behaved canines, but as Olof has observed, for what we spent on Winston, we could buy a whole new dog. It has also taken some three hours out of my day actively re-educating our radio-controlled grand pet.

But he’s now back at home after his sojourn at Camp Grammy and Grampy. We really miss the little fur ball, especially his new improved non-pit bullish self.  I almost don’t know what to do with my time now, or what to do with a “behavior” collar. But as more than a few passers-by have asked, “Does it work on husbands?”

Related posts:

1. Sons vs. daughters: So maybe it’s a toss up!
2. Refusing to die by National Geographics
3. Let Inga Tell You: Burying your real estate woes with St. Joseph
4. Let Inga Tell You: It’s tough letting no good deed go unpunished
5. Let Inga Tell You: Yielding to the temptation to ignore traffic signs

Short URL: http://www.lajollalight.com/?p=50839

Posted by Staff on Sep 21, 2011. Filed under Columns, Let Inga Tell You. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry