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Compressed air is finally here

This particular article has sat on the shelf for a long time waiting for Dr Roger Mugford (Company of Animals) to bring this product back onto the market. What is more important and more significant is that the importers of all his products, Purcurll in Valencia, say it is now available in Spain. If it is not in your local pet store, ask them to contact the company and order some for you as it is one of those must have aids to help correctional training.

My first experience of the Pet Corrector was when I visited Roger and he told me to close my eyes as he was going to fire mace at me. Fearing the worst I was surprised when I felt nothing more than a strong breeze blown into my face. It was then with a beaming smile, he told me it was only compressed air. It is harmless and is non-inflammable so we can group this with the citronella collars but please do not group it with electric collars, choke chains, spiked collars or any other device that creates pain to teach a dog.

People often say that they would never test a chock chain or an electric collar on themselves so they would never use one on their dogs. I would agree but citronella collars and compressed air I have tried on myself as a test and they are harmless.

My first use of the then Pet Persuader was on Winston when he would lunge at small children but only when he was on a lead. With Winston on my left and any small child walked past me on my right Winston would try to lunge towards them but met compressed air across his muzzle.

After six firings the next child Winston spotted he just looked round my leg to see if more air was about to shoot over him. He had stopped and then I spent five hours asking children to feed him so he became sociable with them and to this day, he only sees them as providers of food.

This was by all accounts a good and rapid result whereas using normal sociability training would have taken me longer to achieve. Though I could use the technique of copying a dog’s method of using a deep GRRRRUFFFF sound, I feel compressed air mimics this sound better than humans can achieve even for me.

Compressed Air is not a universal panacea for all doggy problems. It does though for ordinary dog owners give them a tool that mimics the dog language of saying “Stop Doing That Immediately” very well. This means that without years of experience of working with dogs most people will find using this very cheap product, will stop unwanted behaviour easily if used correctly.

The closest previous aids that distracted dogs from unwanted behaviour other than a Gruff NO was using an empty coke can with stones inside and taped up or the metal rings you throw on the ground to distract the dog or clickers again using food as an preferred choice of a dog to stop what it is doing.

Certainly, for dogfights, these were often of little use to dogs so focused on aggression and yet in many cases Compressed Air can stop such fights. If your dog is eating out of waste bins then firing compressed air will stop this even at a distance. If your dog is barking at the gate again once treated to compressed air across the muzzle, even firing it from inside the house will stop the dog barking. Once used and if you do not have a can handy, just saying a loud Pisssst also works well.

Problems like jumping up at people or puppies biting that have become more harmful as it has grown up, then again, compressed air can solve this in a few squirts whereas using the old standard methods of retraining would have taken much longer.

With smaller dogs, I find that simply firing the compressed air behind my back is sufficient to stop unwanted behaviour. Most medium size and larger dogs may initially need across the muzzle usage but then afterwards firing it at a distance often achieves the same result.

I do find that some larger breeds if showing aggression may take no notice of it at all; firing even across the muzzle does nothing to stop them. Some dog actually try to bite or attack the air which in a way does at least stop them doing what they were doing but it is only moving the aggression away from one thing to another.

Using compressed air is like saying “Stop Doing That Now.” The most important thing is not to use it like a weapon of mass destruction for inflicting chastisement on our dogs. This means when we use it and as soon as the dog stops the unwanted behaviour, you must immediately praise the dog. This is the same language dog’s use but the GRRRRUFFFF is only part of the language.

If a puppy is trying to bite an older dog or steal its meal or bone then the dog will rush its face towards the puppy, (natural instinct to survival rule is back off from anything coming towards you) and giving a loud deep GRRRUFFF bark/cough like sound. Added to this are body stances along with facial grimaces and curled lips that the puppy reads as STOP NOW. When it does, the older dog changes back all its body language to that of non-aggression so the puppy knows all is well so long as it does not do it again.

Some will try again and receive the same treatment but eventually following a few attempts the puppy gives up. For those of you have witnessed such language you will have noticed the puppy does not run off in terror. This is because the older dog’s body language has returned to one of being relaxed and no longer anger towards the puppy so it has nothing to fear of it chasing and attacking it. The mood has change back to tranquillity once more and this is the reward.

If we were to fire compressed air with the dog off the lead when it is doing something wrong, it could well stop then rush of and hide under the table. This has resulted because we did not change our demure immediately to one of praise and happiness once again similar to the older dog.

On a number of occasions, I have seen owners fire the compressed air and because they look in amazement at the change in their dog, they forget the praise. This means the dog thinks the owners are still angry and will go off and hide. This is when the owners then do the wrong thing, they chase after their dog to get it from under the table, but this to the dog looks like the angry dog is now chasing it with intentions of harming it so creating fear.

Having the dog on the lead this cannot happen but it is still necessary to use praise as soon as the dog stops the unwanted behaviour.

If I test fire compressed air as a demonstration to people and Winston is nearby, he rushes to me for a treat. All he remembers is when I use compressed air he stops what ever he is doing and comes to me to receive a treat.

In my work, I come across many simple problems that owners have been trying to solve without success and where compressed air has solved it almost immediately. If you have a doggy problem where you only needed to say to your dog STOP NOW and it would react in a favourably way then using compressed air may work very well for you.

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