2 e-collars does not equal abuse........ - Page 5

Sue, that's absolutely correct. That is how they SHOULD be used...but you always will have the bad apples to get some sort of pleasure out of misusing a tool to cause pain.

I feel somewhat responsible for this thread b/c I was the one who told the original story. The case I mentioned had 3 e collars on, all Dogtras at 100. The dog was literally frozen in fear of another correction. Used properly, to speed a recall, for example, the dog does not freeze in fear; the dog knows what he's supposed to do and the stim makes him move faster...not shut down totally.

I am not talking about so much what they highlight in the photos.  I am talking about the fact that their reporting of a performance event is not really even part of their report.   NOT one score, reference to a performance, etc.     How do you attend a schutzhund trial and not get any scores?? 


Obviously, there are scores given at the trails.    If you are implying perhaps they are too low to be a bragging point, you may be very right.    However, some show people go to great lenghts to evaluate the scores from a prospective pair before breeding, some take the sch title as is.  To each his own.  After all how many of us pay attention to the GPA of the GQ/SI models?

On the other hand, perhaps they figure that if someones wants to know the scores they will look them up.  Again, each division highlights what is important to them, working dogs will highlight 3X sch 3 with 290 scores, Show people will highlight 3X VA

When you see three time VA and three time Sch3 stud dog advertzied, let me know, I really want to see him and his progeny!

Wouldn't it be a red letter day in the GSD world if that happened?

People don’t use the collar because they are lazy, anymore than people use a leash because they are lazy. Yes it can make training some things much easier. That means easier for both dog and human. Just because you do something the hard way and choose to be a martyr does not make your way better. Also before you open your gob about the e-collar you should learn why and how someone is using it. Some people use the collar for simple corrections and others are using it for corrections and information. For instance if you are teaching the dog a complex thing you can use two collars and have each one correct the dog for different disobedient acts. So If I am working bark and hold and a callout. I can stim the dog on the belly for getting dirty and stim him on the neck for disobeying the call out command. This is much fairer to the dog than using the neck stem for both things. And two collars really helps a softer dog because of the clarity it keeps. It’s not something you do because a dog is “hard”!

i am sure you are correct Chris. There are a million ways to use any type of training tool. One of my goals is to get out to more e-collar seminars. I am FAR from an expert. My example is what I was told from people with some pretty tough dogs, that trained and learned in Belgium, on how and why they use this technuiqe.

Chris I am sure you have seen the dogs that fight right through the e-collar.

Mystere,

What I do when I see it: talk to the people..... maye they just don't know any better....

Sue,
I got ya, I use it ,too. and correctly used i do not have an issue with it. but there are so many people out there, that do not know any other way or refuse to know a different way. and lots of times the right way is not the faster one to teach and learn things...
and most people do not want to take the time and make the effort. and too often the ecollar get's presented as a quik solution and the only way to teach certain things.
The ecollar has it's place in training, but should always be the last resort. IMO.

Chris I am sure you have seen the dogs that fight right through the e-collar.

 

Yes but I don’t think that has anything to do with hardness. The dogs I see doing this are dogs that have been trained unfairly and the dog does not understand why he was stimmed. When you do this to a high drive dog they basically just say “I have no idea what my handler is asking of me. Screw it! I’m just going to forget about the correction and do what I want to do.”  That is not what I would call hardness. I call that another broken dog.

I don't think an e collar should be used as a last resort.   There are ways of using the e collar from the very beginning where it makes perfect sense to the dog and yes as someone said, more humane than a prong or choker.   

I'm not that good with an e collar to be able to do so though....

Kathy

Sueincc, your post is underlined below........

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. 

I never thought of it quite that way, thanks for the clarification. It illustrated the point for flank e-collars well.

I am one of those that swore I would never use a pinch collar on my dogs until my trainer showed me the correct way to use it and this was after some very aggravating sessions with my large, extremely stubborn and very intelligent male. Trainer let me come close to dislocating my shoulder a couple times before he brought it up again (dog weighed as much as I did at one time, now I outweigh him, sucks)  and I am glad he did. Like my dogs, I do learn from my mistakes, I use them on all of my dogs and it is kinder than correcting the stubborn ones so hard (one good correction is better than numerous light corrections). I am also considering the e-collar () for recall.  My male has the recall off-leash down 99.9% of the time, just that 0.1% that drives me bonkers and he does it because he feels like recalling on his timetable.......he is very equipment smart and drives my trainer whacko........said Loki is a good dog to train other trainers on since he is so smart.

E-collars aren't bad, neither are prong collars. I use both and each have their place. As mindhunt found out, the prong collar is simply power steering for dogs - much better than using a plain chain choke collar or still worse, trying to control a very strong, very stubborn male with a flat collar.  The e-collar is a very versatile tool, but it's only a tool. The hard work of training still has to be done.

Flanking a dog to teach the out or give a correction for other undesired behavior is still done. I'm surprised nobody's in an uproar about flanking.