Well said Lou. E collars get a bad rap from people who misuse them or do not understand them. They are a tool. And like any other tool they can be used correctly or incorrectly. Give me a sharpened prong collar and I can put 99% of all dogs into avoidance. I can do the same with an E collar. Used correctly and it can be a useful tool for some situations.

It has always been my understanding that IF you are angry... the training session is
o-v-e-r and should be over BEFORE your emotions get involved. There is no room in dog training for anger.

I don't understand how the e-collar can lessen the stress to the dog? I've seen dogs that are collar smart. They are aware of when the shocker is on & when the dummy is worn. Please enlighten me as to how an electrical zap can lessen stress.

I agree with Rob on the emotion topic. A common argument I am seeing is that the collar will remove the emotion of correction. However, if you are angry, it is time to stop the lesson. Just as you may pop the dog too often or hard on a prong, what is to keep you from shocking your dog more often or at a higher level?

Or is it guilt that is removed? In my experience, the dog knows when it is wrong, and the correction is accepted. No need to feel guilt, I am only being firm, but fair. We correct and move on.

I have only touched upon two emotions...am I missing any?

Catherine wrote: First let me say I'm a novice at this. I use a prong collar on my pup and as long as I correct her unemotionally she is fine. Where I get into trouble is when I correct her in anger or frustration.

***** I’d suggest that anytime you’re getting angry or frustrated that you do something simple that the dog does really well, praise him exuberantly and then knock off training. Remember that the dog thinks that he’s responsible for every emotion you have. If you’re angry or frustrated the dog thinks it his fault. So he’s going to go deeply into submission to try to appease you. This results in all sorts of things happening that we don’t want such as clinginess, slow to obey (because it’s difficult to show appeasement signals and move fast), in short the dog is going to be fixated on you. If you’re trying to do bite work or scent work, you’ll have a problem.

Catherine wrote: I don't understand how you evaluate whether an e-collar is less stressful mentally on a dog if you're doing leash corrections correctly.

***** By watching the dog. If you’re using an Ecollar properly the dog’s attitude will be happy. If you’re using an Ecollar and the dog gets mopey you’re not using it properly. If you’re using ANY training collar and the dog gets mopey, you need to back off on the level of correction and destress the dog.

Catherine asked: If a dog can't be corrected with a prong collar, isn't something wrong with that dog or the bond between the dog and handler? I would think that if the bond and communication were there, the dog would obey without an e-collar.

***** I don’t think that the method or tool used in training has anything to do with the bond between the dog and the handler, unless it’s misused, of course and then it can cause all sorts of conflicts. I’ve seen lots of dogs come up the leash at the handler after a sharp correction. That’s a pretty good sign that there’s a problem in their relationship. I’ve never seen that happen with an Ecollar.

And then in another later post she added: However, even if the e-collar is less stressful, how does it promote a better bond and better communication with your dog? If you do correct properly (fairly, with no emotion) and have a bond of trust and respect with your dog, a dog isn't damaged mentally.

***** Problem is that it’s often difficult to correct without emotion. In your first post you mentioned occasionally having a problem with it yourself. Since the Ecollar is less stressful the dog is less likely to feel intimidated by your emotions when they’re a bit off of the perfect “happy” handler that we’d all aspire to be.

Catherine continued: Also, if the bond or trust isn't there, isn't it true that the dog is less likely to obey?

***** I don’t think that there is a cause and effect relationship between the bond between the dog and the handler and the dog obeying a command. I can take just about any dog and get him to obey after a few leash corrections. Most dogs, unless they’re on a contrary command will sit for just about anyone that tells them to. It won’t be as fast or as pretty as if the command came from you and it may take several commands, but most of them WILL sit. There’s an example of obedience with absolutely no bond.

***** I don’t care how strongly a dog is bonded to its handler, if it’s a highly driven dog and the drive object (a bird, a ball, a decoy) is present, most dog’s desire to obey leaves completely or at least lessens.

Rob said: It has always been my understanding that IF you are angry... the training session is o-v-e-r and should be over BEFORE your emotions get involved. There is no room in dog training for anger.

***** I’d certainly agree with this. But as I say above, don’t just end the training session. Do something the dog does well, praise and put him away so you always end on a success.

Rob asked: I don't understand how the e-collar can lessen the stress to the dog?

If there is no conflict between the dog and the handler, stress is pretty much eliminated.

Rob wrote: I've seen dogs that are collar smart. They are aware of when the shocker is on & when the dummy is worn. Please enlighten me as to how an electrical zap can lessen stress.

***** I wonder what the term “collar smart” really means. If a dog was “collar smart” wouldn’t he obey all the time because he knew that he could be stimmed anytime??? But we don’t see that. What most people refer to when they use this term is that the dog obeys ONLY when the collar is on. If this is what you refer to then you’ve seen poor training. I don’t use dummy collars any more. I’ve found dogs that can tell the difference between the dummy and the real collar.

***** This phenomenon is not limited to ANY training device, rather it’s common to them all. But people only say “collar smart” in reference to the Ecollar. If you regularly use a chain collar but are having a problem and so you put on a pinch collar and then, when the dog is performing, you take the pinch off, you’ll see that the dog has become “pinch collar smart.” He’ll obey ONLY when the pinch collar is on. Yet no one ever says that about the pinch collar. They limit it to the Ecollar.

***** Many trainers will encounter a problem, such as a dog that won’t out. So they put an Ecollar on the dog and try to blast him off the bite, using the highest level of stim available. This usually works but as I’ve written elsewhere, it’s almost guaranteed to cause more problems. The dog won’t bite again. He outs before the command comes. His bite is weak. He typewrites on the bite. THIS IS BAD TRAINING. I call this “building a mountain and then climbing over it. Why use a training approach that causes three new problems for every one it fixes. By the time you’ve gotten the dog back to normal biting, three weeks has gone by and now the out and call off are gone again!!!

***** And here’s why. Sometimes you get a very tough dog that powers through the bite. He thinks that the pain he’s getting is coming from the decoy!!! How do you make the decoy stop hurting you??? You kill him. You bite HARDER. And if you do that, at some point the stim will stop. Either because the unit shuts down as most modern high–quality units will or the trainer realizes that it’s not going to work and stops trying. You’ve just taught the dog that if he powers through the pain, it stops. Now you’ve created a monster.

***** When I’ve come across a dog that won’t out or do a call off I’ve fixed the problem in less than an hour in one training session, using very low levels of stim. AND with no negative effect on the rest of the dog’s work. After that, it’s a matter of repeating the training until the dog is habituated to calling off or outing and then your job is done. (Of course all training needs reinforcing at some point).

***** Ecollars have gotten a bad rap because of incompetent trainers, not because of the Ecollar itself.

It appears to me that often different training methods are chosen more for the trainer's benefit than the dog's.

Oops, that was sent too quickly.

Its just my opinion that we're shortchanging the dog if we use e-collars and its a shortcut. I don't think its a substitute for good handling. I'm not trying to imply I'm a good handler - still lots of things to learn.

Thanks for the information though.

First let me say, I love using my e-collar. I love seeing my happy little dog running to me from across the park, tail wagging, leaving distractions to get to me. I love seeing him heel along with the proud carriage of a successful, happy, trained companion. He has freedom that would have taken two years of training to get with methods I used before the e-collar. And this is very important to me, living in an apartment.
On the other hand I respect the feelings of those who want to protect their dog from unkind methods. When we speak of "misuse" of the e-collar, I thought we were speaking of the oldtimers who fried their dogs in the field, because technology wasn't what it is today. I thought we were talking about ignorant "so called" dog trainers, and ignorant handlers and owners. But I'm finding that we are also talking about those trainers who have a reputation, and are supposed to know better. I've seen some horrendous misuse of the e-collar recently by those who are supposed to know. So to those who say, "I'll never use an e-collar on my dog", my hat is off to you. Because you're the kind of person who will not abuse it if you ever do change your mind. Do keep an open mind, because it can make your life with your dog so much easier. And remember one thing. The collar should be used as a negative reinforcer, not a punisher. The reason dogs are happy when trained properly on an e-collar, is that they've been taught how to succeed. They understand the collar, and have control over it. They even make it a game sometimes to beat the correction. Their sits and recalls and everything become speedy when they understand the command and its relationship to the mild discomfort they feel. Anyone can make a mistake and cause vocalization once in while, just like with any other tool. But if a trainer is causing vocalization constantly, something is wrong, and I wouldn't listen to them no matter who they are. Happy training whatever method you choose.

I never simply quit working my dog if I get irritated, that was not my meaning. I should have been more specific.

Lou wrote***** I don’t care how strongly a dog is bonded to its handler, if it’s a highly driven dog and the drive object (a bird, a ball, a decoy) is present, most dog’s desire to obey leaves completely or at least lessens.

I can't agree with that. If the foundation training is done properly, if you & the dog have done the work & are bonded & as a handler you give the dog the command. Then the command is obeyed. Maybe someone's approaching on the street & you tell the dog it's okay... then that's it... the dog obeys.

If the dog is more into the ball/bird/decoy than he is taking direction from the handler I would think there is a communication gap that no collar is going to fix. A dangerous gap if the dog is a protection dog. It's all supposed to be about working with the dog. If he's not working with you... then it's back to the beginning until you're both communicating with each other.

In a perfect world, Rob, I would agree with you. But it's not a perfect world where our dogs are concerned. And when the distraction is more attractive than the handler, you can bet you'd be awfully glad to have an e-collar to get your dog's attention, and possibly save him from tradgedy.

Even though its not a perfect world, I agree with Rob's points. If a handler and dog are truly a team, won't the dog be more attentive to the handler rather than the distraction?