I was talking with a good friend of mine in a diffrent area. We were BSing about dog training etc. The topic of e-collars came up, and he pointed something out to me. What he observed was a very intresting thing. All of the dogs that had spine trouble were dogs that were handled with an e-collar for a large percentage of thier life. I too after having him tell me this looked at dogs in my area that had spine degeneration problems and all of them were dogs that were trained with the e-collar for over two years.
Now I am not talking about a level 2 shock, but normally a level 4 or 5 will hit a dog and the dog will tense up. The electricity goes through the nervous system of the animal. Anyone that works with electricity, or has been shocked at some point in thier life, at some time, for whatever reasons, knows how it kinda paralizes your body and you tighten up. The majority of us go on and that is that. But what I found intresting is why so many dogs have a common condition and the only thing that they have in commmon that I know of is the e-collat training. Could it be repetitave shocks damamges the spine over an extended period of time?
A German trainer, about 7 years ago, told me that the "electric, is not so could for the spine , it kills it". I said oh. But maybe he has a point. I was intrested in what others have observed, or maybe now will take note. There is no science to back this up, just an observation.

Not outside the realm of possibility.

Of course there are always other factors. Working dogs get neck and spine problems from the physical stress of the work. (i.e.- collar pulling during agitation, hitting sleeves and suits, running, jumping, etc.) GSDs, and others, are also genetic for spine problems.

Throw all that in and then any other factors and who knows. I don't think the e-collar is the worst of those things for the spine of the dog.

I agree Van Camp that there are a number of things that are the contributating culprits in spine probelms. See if anyone else replies.

Weight of the dog would also play a big role.

Well getting any form of electrical shock can do damage to lots of things in the body. (Man or Animal) Since they're quick zaps I wouldn't think it would be as much of a factor. I'd heard that these tools are much more advanced than before and even before the hunting dog community has been using them for awhile, I bet we would hear something by now. Especially now that there's so many animal rights people and vets as well that show all forms of things that aren't accurate I think we'd hear about it more. I could be wrong, but not sure. I guess we'll see.

When I say we'd hear something by now, I mean on a large scale, articles, etc.

VanCamp said "Of course there are other factors"
My first akc obedience competition dog, a great working Kerry Blue Terrier, had to be retired early because of my hardheadedness and stupidity.
This was 20 plus years ago and I was still training with Koehlor (Spelling?) and Blanch Saunders Methods. I jerked that poor dog around so much I messed up his neck. In three years of competing, Rocky never flunked one exercise. He was the top ranked Kerry in the country in 82. He taught me,finally, that a dog will do anything for you if he is having fun. Duh! I hope I'm still learning

I agree that one would suspect that this would have been brought to light by now; but again look at the dog food industry. Then when you consider how long that it has taken for the dog food scandel to become known to the general dog public, it is not that all surprising. Look at tobbacoo. E-collars are not used in comparsion to dog food, when you are talking about numbers. I have not seen them that widley used before about 5 or six years ago. Sure they were out there but not to the scale we see today. Quality and price have both improved.
As mentioned with the other contributating factors that go with spine trouble, it would be hard unless done in a controlled envoirment to have noticed any damage that was caused by the e-collar, if in fact any damage was caused at all withotu a study as there ARE other things that cause spine problems.
What I found intresting was that all of the dogs that were e-collat handled had noticeable spine trouble after six years of age. This is in two diffrent areas. Diffrent envoirment, diffrent diets, diffrent decoys. Knowing what we know about electricity it is worth I feel a study. The only dogs that I can comment on is the German Shepherd and the Malinois. Maybe it has something to do with the genitcs that these animals are pre-disposed to spine trouble, I don't know. I think though that when you stop to think about the system of e-collar training, it does give food for thought. I am not suggesting that we hang-up our e-collars, but heavy e training might be damaging. Maybe it has nothing at all to do with any spine troubable?

O.K., if we assume that it is the e-collar, what is the percentage of dogs with the same problem in the Retriever community? Not a problem I have heard of there.

THe other point to consider id theat the dogs that are e-collar traied tend to be worked more and harder than the the dogs that aren't. The prime motivation for most e-collar trainers is to improve scores on dogs that they are working in compitition. I would also assume that they are also going to be more dedicated to getting their dogs worked than people that don't use them. That would seem to be a more likely cause of the problem.

I too would like to hear something from the hunting community. That would be intresting
As far as the hard core e-collat people I don't know I thought that too, but how come the people that trained with the prong did not have the same problem and they were very active trainers.
Some of the dogs that had spine trouble that were e-collar trained were not owned by hard core working dog trainers, just hobby people that trained a few times a month, but were heavy with the level of stimulation.

This is a great topic to add to my list of Ecollar myths. “Ecollars cause spine damage.”

Unlike tobacco or dog food, Ecollars and their effect on every aspect of a dog’s life have been studied at veterinary universities since the tool was invented in the late 60’s. They’ve been looking for short-term damage, mid term damage and long term damage. They’ve NEVER come up with anything.

One poster said, “Well getting any form of electrical shock can do damage to lots of things in the body.” I wish you’d tell that to the people who three times a week hook me up to a TENS unit and make the muscles in my shoulder jump around like crazy before I start the rest of my physical therapy.

Of course this statement isn’t completely accurate. When you’re talking about doing damage to the human body with electricity you’re talking about a couple of things. One is, stopping the heart by passing a current through it. Of course the medicals often use a Defibrillator to stabilize a heart that’s beating too fast. An Ecollar can’t either stop or stabilize a heart. But wouldn't that make a great scene in a movie? The heroine's heart stops from an electric shock, and the hero runs to the nearest dog park rips an Ecollar off some dog, runs back to his GF and jumpstarts her heart! But maybe I've been hanging around Hollywood too long.

Another form of damage is 2nd and 3rd degree burns that result from the electricity passing through the body. These usually occur at the entry and/or exit point. An Ecollar also can’t do that.

Another form of damage can occur when electricity forces muscles to contract such that they become sore. This probably could occur with an Ecollar but would take a concerted effort of repeatedly pressing and holding the button for quite a few minutes. Even the high stimulation level people don’t do that.

No one uses Ecollars more and at higher levels that the people who compete in retriever trials. There, every single top competitor has used Ecollars for the past 10-15 years.

If this myth had the slightest ring of truth to it PETA would be all over it.