Q: We have a very friendly 9-month-old neutered boxer mix. You can take a bone out of his mouth, pull his food dish away from him while he is eating _ there is nothing that we can do that will ever make him stop wagging his tail and looking at us adoringly.
However, we cannot stop him from running around the house like crazy and knocking everything over. He has sent lamps crashing against the wall into pieces. Outside he goes running after the kids and knocks them down like bowling pins and then runs over to lick their faces. We just cannot seem to get his attention when he is charging around like this to get him to stop.
One trainer we consulted said to use a shock collar and that will do the trick, but another trainer said that would make the dog aggressive and we do not want that. What is your opinion?
A: A lot of the problem with discussions about shock collars is the name shock collar. That word implies an electric current coming out of a collar around a dog's neck that makes smoke come out of its ears. The idea of hurting a dog on purpose is never a good one. However, these collars do not shock a dog in the manner described. I have put them on myself many times and I have gotten worse electric shocks from rubbing my feet on carpet and then touching a piece of metal.
So the correct word here is "training collar" because that is what you are using it for. You just want to get the dog's attention and give it a quick and instant long-distance correction, something every dog can understand.
If the collar is used to punish, the dog will become confused and upset and the training collar will do more harm then good. I have used them many times on high-energy dogs as you have with very good results and none of the dogs that I ever used them on ever stopped wagging its tail and looking upon me adoringly,
Q: My daughter just got a baby hedgehog and "Quilliam" seems like a cute little animal. I was just wondering how it compares to some of our other pets in intelligence as he seems to be as dumb as a sack of hammers. He does not seem to recognize us at all like our guinea pig does. Even our bearded dragon bobs his head when we come into the room so we know he recognizes us. So how does the hedgehog rank in intelligence compared to our other pets?
A: It is never fair to compare animals in that manner. All animals are as smart as they need to be to survive in the ecological niche that they evolved into. Take the little hedgehog for instance: It eats small insects in nature. In its native Africa, insects are easily found.
It is also covered in sharp spines that prevent most animals from eating it, so it really does not have to worry about any predators as a guinea pig or bearded dragon does. So when Mother Nature was giving brains out, she figured that the hedgehogs had as much as they needed and thus some other animals that had life a bit tougher got more.
Since hedgehogs do not need to see very well, they cannot visualize you across the room as the dragon does, and that is why Quilliam does not acknowledge you in this manner. The bearded dragon, on the other hand, needs to see far in the distance to spot its many predators that live with it in Australia.
Hedgies do have a keen sense of smell, so as you handle yours it will get used to your individual scent and familiarize itself with the smell of your hands. (They can tell the difference when a stranger is handling them as some hedgies will curl up into a ball when a stranger picks them up.) So your hedgie is doing the best it can as nature intended for it and, since they have been around for a long time, they are obviously smart enough.
(Email Marc Morrone at petxperts2@aol.com.)
