Animals

OP here, if it was Ted Nugent I was partaking of, I would kindly ask her to turn it up.

Wow. This is HILARIOUS. 1) Yes, the collar VIBRATES and nothing else. I shelled out extra for the model that had no shock option whatsoever. The collar does not shock, it does not blast his ears. The second would be useless, since he’s pretty much deaf. I would never use either of those on a dog. Yes, I tried it on myself. I have far more powerful sources of vibration. Yes, I used it previously in training. He didn’t react like this. 2) Unfortunately, his previous owner left him in a crate and forgot about him, so that isn’t an option. 3) He’s good in the car and doesn’t always bark, only when he’s (a) in the car and (b) sees rescue vehicles or other large dogs. That makes it ******* hard to predict when he’s going to bark, and makes positive reinforcement pretty much impossible, since I can’t tell WHILE DRIVING A CAR if he’s seen something and not reacted. And how exactly should I give him a treat, praise, or affection when he’s in the back, I’m in the front, and he can’t hear me? 4) Next time you’re driving, shove an earbud into one ear and tell your passenger that at some point in the drive, they should turn on the MP3 player it’s connected to, which you have preset at maximum volume. Explain to them that this is perfectly safe, and will not distract you at a crucial moment in the drive or cause you any pain whatsoever. Now imagine this happens every time you get into a car with them, and you may understand why I’m trying to train it out of him.

Hi everyone, I'm the OP. I can't believe after all these years I finally got an FML published! I agree with all the comments that this is incredibly sad - for almost a week afterwards I was having flashbacks about the terrible sounds and the sight of blood and hair in the heater. The second the heater started shaking I knew what had happened and tried to turn it off right away. The squeaking stopped once I turned it off, but then I could hear frantic scratching which started to become slower and slower as the minutes passed. I still feel sick thinking about it :( My lovely and brave colleague came to help me (I live in China and we are all provided flats in the same building). He took apart the heater, got the rat out (he was wedged between the fan and the top of the unit), and cleaned everything for me. Unfortunately the rat was still alive when we got him out, so my very brave colleague took him outside and ended his suffering because there was no way he could be saved (and there aren't animal hospitals in China, at least in our area). As for getting a new heater, like I said I live in China, and the owner of the university I work at is really cheap. So I'm working on it, but don't see them shelling out the money for a new heater unfortunately.