Off-Leash Loaf

Meatloaf continues to grow and flourish in her role as a barn dog. A far cry from the shaking, sedated shelter dog that wouldn't play with toys!

And in her role as my best buddy

She comes with me every single day to the barn. For the first six months, unless all the horses were put up and the indoor was closed, she was always attached to either a responsible human or the wall. But a couple of months ago, after her recall was pretty solid, I got an e-collar for her to start playing with off-leash.

She used to poop in my truck when I first got her, because I think every car ride prior to us ended in her going to the vet or yet another shelter, but now she holds it in juuuuuuuuuust until we get to the barn parking lot every single day, lol

 

If you're heading to my comment section to tell me how cruel I am for putting an e-collar on her, imma stop you right there. It's the best quality-of-life improvement I've ever made for this dog, besides pulling her from the shelter in the first place.

Meatloaf was in the high risk shelter (before the county shelter I got her from pulled her) for a reason. The barn is the only place she can safely be off-leash, but for reasons I've shared and also reasons I will never share, I need an emergency brake on her if she's going to be off-leash.

Dingo in the sawdust bin, choosing to be at my side

 

We've taken this slowly - SO slowly. After I knew she naturally respected the horses, after her obedience was solid, we introduced the e-collar in the indoor arena by establishing perimeter boundaries. If she ignores my recall request, there's a series of escalating actions - I repeat the recall in my "shit's about to get real" voice, then I vibrate her with the tapping function of the e-collar, then I shock her on a very low stimulation. From there I can increase the stim as necessary, but I never have to. In fact, I've only had to actually shock her twice on the lowest settings, her recall is so good.

"Parking it" off-leash where I put her and told her to wait while I turn horses out

It has, as I said, been the best thing I've ever done for her. She generally stays where she can see me while I'm doing chores. She still gets tied to the wall while people are riding or while certain horses are out in the aisle, but outside of that she's off-leash almost the entire time we're out there, and is truly exhausted every evening.

Sacked loaf

I could not be happier to finally have a barn dog, and it makes me so happy to see her so happy after the extremely rough start she had to her life.