2 e-collars does not equal abuse........ - Page 4

"The e-colar companies advertise it as a normal training tool for OB,  I have seen that lady on Me or the Dog through them away."

The lady on "Me or the Dog" is a complete idiot and I challenge her or anyone of her ilk to train a dog to to *anything* reliably, under distraction, with only cookies.  I've watched her show, seen her throw away e-collars and also chastise a trainer competing on another show for "scaring his dog into performing" because he used corrections and strong inflection in his voice when his dog made a mistake.  Bottom line, I absolutely promise that the "Me or the dog" lady could NEVER train a dog to an OB or tracking title using her methods and I'm not even going to touch protection.   Only thir success are televised and interesting enough, none of them seem to actively compete in any venue where they might have to PROVE their training abilities.

E collars are the MOST humane training method available when used as intended.  They simply cannot harm an animal like a choke or a prong.  Most people squawking about Ecollars are being disingenuous - referring to them in a highly prejudicial manner as "shock collars."  This would be fair to use when referring to collars used 10-15 years ago that had one (or maybe 2) levels that were very high.  Today’s good collars have from 18 (Tritronic) and 100 (Dogtra) levels of stim, some so low you cannot even feel them on your own hand or neck. (One of my dogs response to a stim I can’t feel myself on my hand…)  My current working dog uses levels between 2 and 5 (depending on drive level she is in) on a Tritronic G500 pro.  level 5 is still a tingle on my hand (actually more like a TENS machine stim (used on humans for THERAPEUTIC purposes)  and causes NO PAIN.  Most appropriate Ecollar simulations cause a distraction (like someone annoyingly tapping someone else on the shoulder) up to a mild irritation, in the same fashion that you would be distracted by a fly the repeatedly lands on you during a walk.  These are appropriate levels of stim for most OB training.  Would I go higher for a memorable correction related to a life or death situation?  If needed sure, but such corrections are very rare and would be pretty harse regardless the method, prong, choke or nothing at all but your voice and presence.

Anyhow, most of the people decrying the use of "shock collars" are showing their ignorance of the tool.  They are the same idiots who'll be part of Ecollars being banned, to only put us back in training techniques to the slip (choke collar days) when dogs were truly physically injured by correction.  I would like to ask each person, how many dogs have you titled and wear?  (no points at all for “going to title my dog” or “working on it right now” – you either have of you haven’t period.   Until you have, you really have no idea of how difficult it is or whether your dog can succeed based or your training or not – practice, no matter how “real” is not the same as trial)

So, o Ecollars get misused?  Certainly, like any other tool.  The point being that the "tool" using the collar would be the same one abusing his dog whether the with the Ecollar or something else. 

Having said all of that, I've got serious misgivings about dogs so "hard" they have to have Ecollars attached to their bellies.  We as a

Having said all of that, I've got serious misgivings about dogs so "hard" they have to have Ecollars attached to their bellies.  We as a species always tend to seek shortcuts and adhere to a "if some is good, much more is exponentially better" philosophy in life.  Same goes with breeding dogs.  These breeds are becoming so out of balance with either civil drive/aggression (for the PPD/K9) crowd, and/or prey (for the sport) that these over the top training methods are in part now becoming required, due to what I would call the unstable nature of the dogs. (dogs so out of balance they lose focus and cannot be controlled by other means)  People need to consider, man has formally been training dogs to bite since at least the late 1800s.  No one until the last decade or so saw fit move from multidimensional dogs to these civil monsters or prey demons of today’s age.  They required dogs that could do more than just bite.  Now, either because of laziness in developing dogs (lets crank them out in a matter of months vs. development over a period of a few years), lack of trainers ability (developing balanced dogs with control and confident aggression is much harder than just making a dog mean and willing to bite anything), or simple short sightedness (having come from law enforcement background, really most incidents require little more than a dog to bark  to resolve) as how much biting/fighting ability do we really need .  In today’s sue-happy society, isn't a dog that cleanly engages and just as cleanly releases more than enough?  Why is "more" (more aggression, more fight) needed?  For the one exceedingly rare perp strung out on PCP or mentally ill?  The reality is that anyone so jacked up or mentally deranged that he is fighting a dog that has already engaged him and is on the grip, that is someone who is likely going to require more force, very possibly deadly force to subdue anyhow – invalidating “super dog.”  So , what do we need  really exceedingly "hard" dogs for?  I see their liabilities (can't trust them around anyone, even other officers) greatly exceeding their utility. 

So, in short, dogs that require such methods (IMHO) aren't anymore cut out for protection (sport or real world) then the dog that won't engage at all.  Therefore to have to use extreme training methods is abuse in my opinion.  It all makes me think of Mike Tyson.  I'm not fit to stand in the ring with Evander Holyfield, but if a person is so out of control that he bits the ears off of another human being in boxing match, he isn't either.  Same with cops.  When physical force is used to subdue a subject, it is only lawful to us the MINIMUM force necessary, escalating only in response to the subjects escalation.  Cops that cannot abide by this principal are deemed abusive, unfit for their role and weeded out.  I'm not sure why we're constantly striving for more accountability for our human officers, yet there is the is this drum beat of breeding the opposite direction for our working dogs.

-Calvin

 What did the asshole that wet the dog hope to achieve? It will not vary the stimulation in any way, shape form or fashion. That is a misconception. Don't believe me, call Tri Tronics. You change your contacts to match the dog's coat. If anything, not getting proper contact and wetting a dog to get the shock results in a lower stimulus. Electricity always takes the shortest path, and that would include traveling across wet hair, instead of making contact with the skin, resulting in no or low stimulation.

This guy was not necessarily an asshole. Back in the old days collars did not make contact as well as they do today. So we would wet the dog to make sure contact was made and the dog received the stim EVERY TIME. Trust me when I tell you that this was much better than the dog receiving intermittent stim.

I’m getting old.

Wish people would discuss breeding level headed dogs,  that can still 'perform'  and be valuable members of the family.
The few Extreme bred dogs have their place,  but not in society in general & probably arent well suited for 99% of homes.
With the right dog(s) E Collars arent necessary.  We managed for 90+ years without them just fine.

Does any body train without the the e collars any more?

Not anybody that does well.

Actually,  using an ecollar with a flank strap is not necessarily done because you want to put it on a more sensitive area of the body in order to inflict  pain or because a dog is too hard or aggressive.  You can speed up your recalls (for example), because  the  stimulation is uncomfortable and  the dog reacts by moving away (forward)  faster. 

Keep in mind, there is a world of  difference between a little discomfort and  causing actual pain.