by Margaret Radisich Sleasman

Created on: February 11, 2010

This story could be called adventures with electric dog collars; however, it falls under the category of life lessons learned from a dog.  The dog maybe did not teach the lesson, but if it wasn't for the dog, there would have been no lesson to learn.  All husbands take note here, because those of you willing to go to any length to make your spouse happy, may want to draw the line here.

My good friend acquired a very small dog; she was visiting the local shelter and her eyes locked with very sad brown eyes of a mixed breed.  With a little attention, the dog responded with panting and tail-wagging so she decided that was the pet for her.  Unfortunately, animal shelters do not tell you the bad habits of animals that they adopt out, the stories are always that the people had to move and could not take the dog with them making the situation more pitiful than it actually was.

It seems that this particular dog was very outspoken in a doggie sort of way and never ever stopped barking.  It barked when it was happy, sad, mad, hungry, and any other reason that floated into its tiny brain.  My friend was beside herself as what to do and her husband was angry (since he was on shift-work and could not get any sleep) the neighbors were also getting increasingly verbal towards them, and threatened to call the police. 

The husband went to the local pet store and purchased a collar that was not only guaranteed to stop the barking, but would not harm the animal in any way.  He happily brought his purchase home thinking he did his good deed for the day and his wife would be pleased.  Not so, she sprayed him with words that he did not know she even knew and he was in trouble.  What does a man do when trying to make amends?  In this case, he was going to prove to his wife that “in no way would this collar harm an animal,” and offered to put the collar on himself to show her that his heart was in the right place.

After putting the little AAA batteries in, he carefully put the collar on his neck and invited her to press the shock button.  She did, and he felt nothing.  “Maybe the batteries are in wrong, no, they are correct; well here we can adjust the power of the shock, maybe it is not strong enough.”  He moved the power up to medium dog and felt a little buzz, but nothing that would bother him.  He was in the process of telling her that, “See, it definitely won't hurt the dog,” when she moved the power up to big dog.  ZAP… A minute or so later, he woke up on the floor unable to control his arms or legs let alone to speak.  She was standing above him, smiling and all he could do was pray that she wasn't out for revenge for every mistake he made in their married life. 

My friend figured he had learned his lesson with one ZAP and didn't pursue the matter further, of course she was satisfied with the test, which proved to her that this collar was NOT going on her pet and she planned to hire a “Dog Whisperer” to train her baby.  In the meantime her husband took the collar back to the store trying to explain the reason for the return with stuttering, incomprehensible language as he wiped the drool from his numb lips.  They did hire a “Dog Whisperer” who trained the dog and the barking has stopped, the neighborhood is back to normal, the husband is no longer in trouble, my friend is happy except for her husband's occasional drooling when he is under stress.

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