Bell the Cat and Shock the Dog
If you have an outdoor cat, please bell that cat. The domestic cat�is the major destroyers of songbirds, and, since cats come from Egypt, our local birds aren't genetically prepared for them. I don't care whether they are natural hunters - they don't belong here.
As far as turtles go, I use the training collar to�train my dogs off turtles when I am tramping through the woods and marshes. This might sound just a little wierd to do, but domestic dogs, along with car tires, are the main killers of turtles like our endangered Box and Wood Turtles and, once again, these dog predators�are not native to the northeast. A dog can kill a turtle with one bite. When they get near a turtle, I give them a good shock and a loud "Careful", and that seems to handle it fairly well. (Same procedure works for rattlesnakes in the south and west.) They learn after once or twice that�reptiles are surrounded by a magic electromagnetic force field, and leave them alone.
Training collars: Yes, we believe in them absolutely. Used correctly, they will save your dog's life, and help you�raise a dog that you can live with easily, without harming your dog one bit. Who wants a disobedient dog? Nobody - an untrained dog is nothing but a burden, whether in�suburbia, the city, or in the hunting fields.�And a dog that is a burden gets neglected, while an obedient dog gets love and company. Some dog trainers refuse to use the training collars to reinforce obedience training, but I think that is silly and overly sentimental: you cannot reason with a dog, and obedience cannot be optional.�Carrot and stick.
