E collar i want to buy? is this ok

[Captbob]

Awesome post.. It's not a tingle. I was using one till over a month ago to 'manage' off leash distraction, rather than fixing my issue and just teaching a real come. I zapped myself with it before ever using it, I stopped at 4/10, and haven't gone above that ever. Mainly had to use it on 3, as 2 got no reaction, 3 caused occasional screaming.. which is why I used the audio sound mainly.. I am so not proud of it, Thankfully I didn't ruin my dog, and I don't plan to ever take it out again, I put it away for good, and with Sam's advice we are on our way to an awesome recall.

You are in denial if you think your dog is stupid enough to not associate the pain with you. Maybe they will maybe they won't, but mine sure knew the collar and remote went together. It's a bandaid not a solution.

Yeah it works for some people, but it's not the first thing to try, and not the thing to try without someone knowledgable's help.

If you are set and *have* to have one, pick a top of the line one. Lower priced ones can be unreliable on timing, delivery and from experience, the buttons can get possibly stuck. Nice.

I'm still upset I turned to one. And even a few months ago really didn't see the issue with it. I didn't have people willing to help me fix our issues though till more recently. Thanks Sam.

If you are stimming the dog to where it is vocalizing, you are stimming it with much to high a level. If the dog is "screaming:, you either have a defective collar, or you have no idea how to use it.

Every dog is different, and you will find that when demonstrating it to people, that each person will feel it at a different level . I had an 8 year old boy that wanted to try it last week that didn't feel any tingle till 40, and I feel it at 30, and my dog reacts at 25. The dog does not feel pain if used properly, it is more like the dog is feeling that you are tapping it to get it's attention. The dog is supposed to know that you are controlling the stim of the collar. Again, as I said before, you need to find a trainer that knows how to use the E Collar. If you are doing it on your own, it will probably not work for you.

http://www.extremek-9.com/article - remote collars and search work.htm

 

[Doberluv]

If tapping the dog gets his attention, then there are oodles of better ways to get a dog's attention that work a lot better than tapping his shoulder. That is most likely a justification for using an aversive such as electricity on a dog...to make the user feel better. I tell you what. It's balony.

Science tells us that in order for a behavior to change, something has to be good or it has to be bad. Neutrality does not change behavior. So, no one can tell me that it causes no pain or discomfort, no fear or bewilderment.... or it wouldn't work. And we know darn well it isn't something the dog works to gain as in reward.

Behavioral science also tells us that dogs have an uncanny ability to associate aversives with humans, whether they're standing right in front of them or not. There is also a very good possibility of the dog associating the pain with something else in his environment and not connecting it with the target behavior. What the dog is doing is shutting down because of avoidance. That is not conducive to learning because that causes a dog to fear throwing new behaviors to try. Dogs are guessing for quite a long time until they've had enough reinforcers for a given behavior. While they're guessing, they have to try things to find out if that is the correct response. Aversives tend to put the brakes on throwing behaviors.

I have never had a problem with any dog I've worked with in getting a terrific recall from them using proper positive methods.


Dr. Daniel Tortora lays out some rules for administering effective punishment:

"In order for punishment to have even a temporary effect on the future probability of the punished behavior, several conditions must be met:

The punishment must be immediate. It must interrupt the start of the behavior. This is to avoid the collection of any reinforcement by the dog.

The punishment must be sufficiently aversive to avoid adaptation. If you start small in an effort to be kind and then scale it up, you will build a "punishment callous," which will toughen the dog up. Never start small and get bigger:start big right off the bat.

The punishment must follow each and every attempt at the behavior and be associated only with the behavior: there should be nothing else to tip off the dog that he's about to get punished. When the dog is punished for behavior that has been unpunished up to now (and also has been reinforced otherwise it wouldn't exist in the first place), it is as though the dog asks himself, "What's different this time?" If it is the fact that you're in the room, his question is answered in spades. He learns to avoid doing the behavior when you're there. If the punishement is not delivered on a continuous schedule, it's a matter of time until the dog discriminates when the punishment does and does not happen."

Jean Donaldson:
"If you have the timing, availability and stomach for this, the punishment will likely buy you a temporary suppression of the behavior. You're also likely to have a dog that's too upset to do much of anything right after a punishment. Punishment is like carpet bombing. The behavior you wanted to target gets hit but so can a huge portion of the dog's whole repoertoire. Dogs who are punished a lot behave a lot less in general. What's insidious is that that is exactly what a lot of dog owners want. They want a general toning down of the dog. It is a sad comment on the human-dog relationship when we claim to love dogs and then attempt to behaviorally lobotomize them with thousands of leash jerks in the name of "obedience." The bland, behaviorless animal many people bond to can scarcely be called a dog. It is the ghost of what once was a dog.

This makes punishment in many peoples' minds a virtual synonym for 'training.'"


Personally, I don't see how anyone could do that to someone they claim to love. You wouldn't put it on a human child would you? Why is it OK to do that to a dog?

 

[Dizzy]

You said that "a sharp correction while on lead" doesn't get his attention to you, and I said - then i doubt an ecollar will either.

I stand by that.

 

[Dreeza]

If you are stimming the dog to where it is vocalizing, you are stimming it with much to high a level. If the dog is "screaming:, you either have a defective collar, or you have no idea how to use it.

Every dog is different, and you will find that when demonstrating it to people, that each person will feel it at a different level . I had an 8 year old boy that wanted to try it last week that didn't feel any tingle till 40, and I feel it at 30, and my dog reacts at 25. The dog does not feel pain if used properly, it is more like the dog is feeling that you are tapping it to get it's attention. The dog is supposed to know that you are controlling the stim of the collar. Again, as I said before, you need to find a trainer that knows how to use the E Collar. If you are doing it on your own, it will probably not work for you.

http://www.extremek-9.com/article - remote collars and search work.htm

thats BS.

I can ASSURE you that if all my dog felt was 'tapping' the E collar would be worthless.

My dog had special circumstances that basically left us no other realistic option other than the E collar. We hired a professional trainer who has trained 1000s of dogs with behavioral issues. He made it VERY clear that Oakley should think that we are helping him AVOID the shock, and that we are NOT the ones causing it.

And the shock level that was being used during his training DID hurt him...which is why it breaks my heart to think that Hedwig wants to unnecessarily subject his dog to that.

Just like Doberluv is saying, I am pretty sure Oakley would much rather continue chasing a bunny (his FAVORITE thing to do) than come back to me when I call him just cause I am 'tapping' him. Now, he does 'come' without the shock collar, since he has learned that in order to avoid the shock, that is what he must do.

Like MafiaPrincess said, I really hate that we had to turn to the E collar...but unfortunately, our mistake was adopting Oakley in the first place. We were not made aware of his aggressiveness and temper tantrums, and once we adopted him, it was pretty much too late. 'Returning' him to a shelter would have resulted in him being euthanized.

 

[Captbob]

If tapping the dog gets his attention, then there are oodles of better ways to get a dog's attention that work a lot better than tapping his shoulder. That is most likely a justification for using an aversive such as electricity on a dog...to make the user feel better. I tell you what. It's balony.

Science tells us that in order for a behavior to change, something has to be good or it has to be bad. Neutrality does not change behavior. So, no one can tell me that it causes no pain or discomfort, no fear or bewilderment.... or it wouldn't work. And we know darn well it isn't something the dog works to gain as in reward.

Behavioral science also tells us that dogs have an uncanny ability to associate aversives with humans, whether they're standing right in front of them or not. There is also a very good possibility of the dog associating the pain with something else in his environment and not connecting it with the target behavior. What the dog is doing is shutting down because of avoidance. That is not conducive to learning because that causes a dog to fear throwing new behaviors to try. Dogs are guessing for quite a long time until they've had enough reinforcers for a given behavior. While they're guessing, they have to try things to find out if that is the correct response. Aversives tend to put the brakes on throwing behaviors.

I have never had a problem with any dog I've worked with in getting a terrific recall from them using proper positive methods.


Dr. Daniel Tortora lays out some rules for administering effective punishment:

"In order for punishment to have even a temporary effect on the future probability of the punished behavior, several conditions must be met:

The punishment must be immediate. It must interrupt the start of the behavior. This is to avoid the collection of any reinforcement by the dog.

The punishment must be sufficiently aversive to avoid adaptation. If you start small in an effort to be kind and then scale it up, you will build a "punishment callous," which will toughen the dog up. Never start small and get bigger:start big right off the bat.

The punishment must follow each and every attempt at the behavior and be associated only with the behavior: there should be nothing else to tip off the dog that he's about to get punished. When the dog is punished for behavior that has been unpunished up to now (and also has been reinforced otherwise it wouldn't exist in the first place), it is as though the dog asks himself, "What's different this time?" If it is the fact that you're in the room, his question is answered in spades. He learns to avoid doing the behavior when you're there. If the punishement is not delivered on a continuous schedule, it's a matter of time until the dog discriminates when the punishment does and does not happen."

Jean Donaldson:
"If you have the timing, availability and stomach for this, the punishment will likely buy you a temporary suppression of the behavior. You're also likely to have a dog that's too upset to do much of anything right after a punishment. Punishment is like carpet bombing. The behavior you wanted to target gets hit but so can a huge portion of the dog's whole repoertoire. Dogs who are punished a lot behave a lot less in general. What's insidious is that that is exactly what a lot of dog owners want. They want a general toning down of the dog. It is a sad comment on the human-dog relationship when we claim to love dogs and then attempt to behaviorally lobotomize them with thousands of leash jerks in the name of "obedience." The bland, behaviorless animal many people bond to can scarcely be called a dog. It is the ghost of what once was a dog.

This makes punishment in many peoples' minds a virtual synonym for 'training.'"


Personally, I don't see how anyone could do that to someone they claim to love. You wouldn't put it on a human child would you? Why is it OK to do that to a dog?

Much of what you are describing in your posts, shows a lack of understanding about how a modern E Collar is utilized. If you would think of the stim as a "signal" to the dog that you want the dog to "come" for instance, rather than a punishment, like a leash jerk would be, then you will understand how the e collar works. When I stim my dog while I say "come", in training the dog, I use a very low level stim. No pain, just a tingle. If you can't get past that concept, you are either using a very old collar that outputs much to high a level of stim ( that is where they got the name, "shock collar" 20 years ago when they first came out) . If the dog does not turn to come towards you, then the exact same level of "nick" is used, but several times in a row. This is equivalent to tapping the dog with your finger , at first one time, to get it's attention, and if it doesn't respond, tapping it several times. Most times, when training the dog, the first tap will produce the results that you want. During distractions, multiple taps may be needed. This can be done from hundreds of feet away, as soon as 20 minutes or so after the start of training. The dog will usually come running towards, you, tail wagging....

If you are causing, pain, vocalizing, or anything similar, you probably don't know how to set the collar stim level, have a cheap collar or an old fashioned collar. Usually within a week or two, no stim is needed at all, and you can put the collar away.......The advantage to using the collar is that any signalling to the dog is immediate and therefore the dog has an instant marker of what it should and shouldn't do. I usually find that people that object to an E Collar, know very little if anything about how to use one or how they work.

 

[Captbob]

thats BS.

I can ASSURE you that if all my dog felt was 'tapping' the E collar would be worthless.

My dog had special circumstances that basically left us no other realistic option other than the E collar. We hired a professional trainer who has trained 1000s of dogs with behavioral issues. He made it VERY clear that Oakley should think that we are helping him AVOID the shock, and that we are NOT the ones causing it.

And the shock level that was being used during his training DID hurt him...which is why it breaks my heart to think that Hedwig wants to unnecessarily subject his dog to that.

Just like Doberluv is saying, I am pretty sure Oakley would much rather continue chasing a bunny (his FAVORITE thing to do) than come back to me when I call him just cause I am 'tapping' him. Now, he does 'come' without the shock collar, since he has learned that in order to avoid the shock, that is what he must do.

Like MafiaPrincess said, I really hate that we had to turn to the E collar...but unfortunately, our mistake was adopting Oakley in the first place. We were not made aware of his aggressiveness and temper tantrums, and once we adopted him, it was pretty much too late. 'Returning' him to a shelter would have resulted in him being euthanized.

You had a very bad trainer......and that is a shame, for both you and your dog. Just as there are bad trainers using many methods, there are probably bad trainers using E Collars. If anyone sees a dog that is yelping when an E Collar is used, during training, tell the trainer that they should stop immediately, and that you will find another trainer that knows what they are doing.

 

[Dizzy]

Much of what you are describing in your posts, shows a lack of understanding about how a modern E Collar is utilized. If you would think of the stim as a "signal" to the dog that you want the dog to "come" for instance, rather than a punishment, like a leash jerk would be, then you will understand how the e collar works. When I stim my dog while I say "come", in training the dog, I use a very low level stim. No pain, just a tingle. If you can't get past that concept, you are either using a very old collar that outputs much to high a level of stim ( that is where they got the name, "shock collar" 20 years ago when they first came out) . If the dog does not turn to come towards you, then the exact same level of "nick" is used, but several times in a row. This is equivalent to tapping the dog with your finger , at first one time, to get it's attention, and if it doesn't respond, tapping it several times. Most times, when training the dog, the first tap will produce the results that you want. During distractions, multiple taps may be needed. This can be done from hundreds of feet away, as soon as 20 minutes or so after the start of training. The dog will usually come running towards, you, tail wagging....

If you are causing, pain, vocalizing, or anything similar, you probably don't know how to set the collar stim level, have a cheap collar or an old fashioned collar. Usually within a week or two, no stim is needed at all, and you can put the collar away.......The advantage to using the collar is that any signalling to the dog is immediate and therefore the dog has an instant marker of what it should and shouldn't do. I usually find that people that object to an E Collar, know very little if anything about how to use one or how they work.

I think the point is, that if your dog is well trained enough to respond to a "tingle" then A) it doesn't need and ecollar does it?? and b) her dog does NOT respond to yelling and sharp corrections - so a "tingle" would be useless on her dog.

So aside from shocking it's brains out - an ecollar is useless anyway.

 

[Captbob]

I think the point is, that if your dog is well trained enough to respond to a "tingle" then A) it doesn't need and ecollar does it?? and b) her dog does NOT respond to yelling and sharp corrections - so a "tingle" would be useless on her dog.

So aside from shocking it's brains out - an ecollar is useless anyway.

Again, by what you are saying in your post, you have no understanding of how the collar works either. Have you ever tried one on yourself to see what " having your brains shocked out" feels like? I bet not......

 

[Spirit2010]

No, no, don't use it!! I have problems with my dog Hershey on recall too, and he is getting better! Just keep training him, and training, keep him on a leash at ALL times! I even have a problem with him chasing things, it will go by!! I promise. Just don't use any kind of shock collar for recall especially, make it fun for your dog to come to you, and they will come to you!! Good luck!

 

[hedwig]

what other methods are there then? you cant get his attention, what so ever, i have tried watch me, no, collar corrections, his favourite toys, and favourite treats but you cant get his attention what so ever.

he will drag you in front of a lorry to chase a bird, if you let him off in the fields he is ok if he doesnt see something but last time he ran 1 to 2 miles away and couldnt find him because its as if you dont exist, i have trained and trained and trained. put his prey drive into balls etc that didnt work either. i would give his recall, 10 out of 10 on garden, at the park on the field! untill he sees an animal. he goes into a trance and there is no breaking it.

i am saving up for lessons but untill then im stuck. i cant stand the thought of not letting him off its not fare!

i think he would listen to an e collar because he wouldnt have a clue what it was, its sudden and it would break the trance long enough for a recall. i will do my research first etc and only would use it in extreme situations such as the farmer is going to shoot him because he is chasing hares on his land.

 

[Dizzy]

Again, by what you are saying in your post, you have no understanding of how the collar works either. Have you ever tried one on yourself to see what " having your brains shocked out" feels like? I bet not......

No - I think that YOU are misunderstanding MY post.

If it is nothing more than a "tingle" then what use would it be on a dog that ignores a "sharp correction".

You may step off your high horse now, and join us common "no understanding" folk.

 

[Dizzy]

what other methods are there then? you cant get his attention, what so ever, i have tried watch me, no, collar corrections, his favourite toys, and favourite treats but you cant get his attention what so ever.

he will drag you in front of a lorry to chase a bird, if you let him off in the fields he is ok if he doesnt see something but last time he ran 1 to 2 miles away and couldnt find him because its as if you dont exist, i have trained and trained and trained. put his prey drive into balls etc that didnt work either. i would give his recall, 10 out of 10 on garden, at the park on the field! untill he sees an animal. he goes into a trance and there is no breaking it.

i am saving up for lessons but untill then im stuck. i cant stand the thought of not letting him off its not fare!

i think he would listen to an e collar because he wouldnt have a clue what it was, its sudden and it would break the trance long enough for a recall. i will do my research first etc and only would use it in extreme situations such as the farmer is going to shoot him because he is chasing hares on his land.

Keep him on his lead till you CAN afford lessons, or only walk him in ENCLOSED areas....

I know it sounds unfair on him, but is it really fair allowing him to get into this situations.

Buy a lunge line, and use that.

 

[hedwig]

my dogs weird he wont walk on a lunge line, bearly walks on a long lead???? he will walk next to me

 

[Dizzy]

my dogs weird he wont walk on a lunge line, bearly walks on a long lead???? he will walk next to me

Well, then settle for that.

What are your choices - use an ecollar that tingles him and has potentially NO effect (your own words stated he goes into a trance, and I doubt a tingle will stop him) NOT to mention you can't just plonk it on him, it takes a LONG time to train him to it.

Use an ecollar that is stronger and actually shocks him - which is bordering on the cruel side, and again, may not work.

Or leave him offlead and a hazard to himself.

Or walk him in enclosed areas or on lead till you can afford to get some help with training.

I know what I would pick.....

I can sympathise - to me walking my dog is about seeing her run about. But if I was scared she could disappear at any time, not come back and might get herself shot...... Bloody hell! She's be on the long lead. And we would work on recall solidly. Until she would recall ON LEAD with a distraction (rabbit, bird etc etc) she wouldn't go off. It would be horrid, but a lot less worse than seeing her full of lead, bleeding, or run over.

 

[Captbob]

what other methods are there then? you cant get his attention, what so ever, i have tried watch me, no, collar corrections, his favourite toys, and favourite treats but you cant get his attention what so ever.

he will drag you in front of a lorry to chase a bird, if you let him off in the fields he is ok if he doesnt see something but last time he ran 1 to 2 miles away and couldnt find him because its as if you dont exist, i have trained and trained and trained. put his prey drive into balls etc that didnt work either. i would give his recall, 10 out of 10 on garden, at the park on the field! untill he sees an animal. he goes into a trance and there is no breaking it.

i am saving up for lessons but untill then im stuck. i cant stand the thought of not letting him off its not fare!

i think he would listen to an e collar because he wouldnt have a clue what it was, its sudden and it would break the trance long enough for a recall. i will do my research first etc and only would use it in extreme situations such as the farmer is going to shoot him because he is chasing hares on his land.

The problem in this thread is that almost everyone posting negative comments about the e collar, assumes that all dog's can be trained using one method of training, which is absurd. Each dog is different, and requires slightly different methods to train. Some dog's respond to clicker training, and some don't. Some dogs need a prong collar to teach "heel", and some dogs don't The list goes on and on. So to make a blanket statement that E Collars are a bad method, especially seeing that the people making that statement apparently know very little if anything at all , about how to train with an E Collar, is misleading. Each new training method always gets put down, from prong collars to clickers to E Collars. Everyone thinks that their method is the solution for every dog, and that is simply not true.

For what you want to accomplish, an hour or at most two with a good instructor, should get you where you want to go. I would find an instructor, call them, and see which collar they recommend, before purchasing. Most instructors use either Dogtra 200s or one of the Tritronics collars, with the overwhelming majority that I have me recommending the Dogtra Products.

http://www.dogtra.com/

Here is some info on E Collar Training that will answer many of your questions, by someone that actually knows what they are talking about.

http://www.dobbsdogs.com/library/obedience/index.html

 

[Captbob]

No - I think that YOU are misunderstanding MY post.

If it is nothing more than a "tingle" then what use would it be on a dog that ignores a "sharp correction".

You may step off your high horse now, and join us common "no understanding" folk.

Sorry for the "high horse" routine, but I resent people ( one poster) starting out by replying to something that I post, with B.S. in front of it, particularly when it is obvious they have no idea what they are talking about.

As I said, in post #25, the initial command like "come" should be given with a very low level stim, which is determined with an instructor on your first lesson. This would feel to your dog, like the sensation a person gets, when you demo the collar to them. The remark that most people make, when I demo the collar while they hold it on their arm or wrist, is " Yes, I feel a little tingle" Very often the setting is higher than what I use on my dog. Now you wait to see if the dog responds, maybe a second or so. The response would be that the dog turns toward you and starts to move. If that is what the dog does, you encourage the dog to come all the way to you. If the dog stops 1/2 way and starts to go in another direction, you "tap" the dog again with the exact same intensity, but this time a couple of quick taps in a row. This is the same, as if you are at a party, and you want to get someone's attention while they are talking to someone, by tapping them once on their shoulder. If they don't respond by looking at you, you give a couple of quick taps using the same force. If they still ignore you, you tap with "slightly" more force a couple of times. The key word, is SLIGHTLY!!!.

After less than 30 minutes of this, with most dogs, the dog will run all the way to you on the first "tap". If there is a heavy distraction, like a cute dog that just walked into the dog park, you may need multiple taps or have to increase the intensity a bit to get your dog's attention. This would be like you seeing a movie star, and your friend is trying to tell you about something, and he has to tap you multiple times to get your attention.

Once the recall is "proofed" with the dog, under heavy distraction, then the collar is turned off, since it is no longer needed for this command.

 

[Captbob]

Well, then settle for that.

What are your choices - use an ecollar that tingles him and has potentially NO effect (your own words stated he goes into a trance, and I doubt a tingle will stop him) NOT to mention you can't just plonk it on him, it takes a LONG time to train him to it.

Use an ecollar that is stronger and actually shocks him - which is bordering on the cruel side, and again, may not work.

Or leave him offlead and a hazard to himself.

Or walk him in enclosed areas or on lead till you can afford to get some help with training.

I know what I would pick.....

I can sympathise - to me walking my dog is about seeing her run about. But if I was scared she could disappear at any time, not come back and might get herself shot...... Bloody hell! She's be on the long lead. And we would work on recall solidly. Until she would recall ON LEAD with a distraction (rabbit, bird etc etc) she wouldn't go off. It would be horrid, but a lot less worse than seeing her full of lead, bleeding, or run over.

How are you going to insure recall, when the dog is hundreds of feet away?

 

[hedwig]

i would start with seeing what affects me first and take it down a notch for him. and no affect put it put slightly.

 

[hedwig]

thanks for the web site i have saved it

 

[smkie]

i have had pointers in the past that were runners. VIc was a runner when i first got him. I know exactly how hard it is to teach a pointer (or any dog that is a runner) not to do it. FIrst you have to get their respect, teach them that they do not call the shots. That can't be done with an electric collar, it takes a zillion hours of obedience and hard work on recall. Part of the repsonsibility of taking a high energy dog in the first place. IT can be done without prongs or chokes or electricity. It has to be done with repitition and a ton of love. Good luck.It took me three years but by working on it daily after year one we were good on recall, by year two we were a hundred percent in border training (i have no fence) and by this year he walked three miles off leash with me last week.