Article About Shock Collars Vs. Positive Reinforcement

[srdogtrainer]

http://www.shotgunlife.com/wingshooting/wingshooting/expert-dog-trainer-robert-milner-says-heck-no-to-shock-collars.html

I found this article and I thought I would share it. It is about someone who trained using shock collars/ prong collars for years and then changed and started to use clicker training.

 

[blacknym]

Nice to see a change of heart in people.

 

[Caiti]

Nice! Thank you for sharing!

 

[MaryK]

Thank you for the share. Good to see people are crossing over the word is spreading and will keep spreading that Positive Reinforcement is the only way to train!

 

[srdogtrainer]

Yes I agree! Positive Reinforcement is so beneficial!

 

[southerngirl]

Love this article.

 

[myraellen]

My friend would not use e-collars with any dogs, but she has something to ask about them. My friend thought that her questions might fit in this thread. Note: she might also talk about things that don't relate to her dog. She had read and heard horrible things about them and using them causes these things:
suppression, modification, shutdown and fallout

My friend had seen videos of them. She had seen only one video where the dog suffered from the e-collar. However, in many other videos dogs seems to be happy and excited to learn although they have e-collars. Not even those dogs that had behaviorial issues seemed to suffer from them. My friend had read that the dogs that have behaviorial issues should not be trained with e-collars. So my friend would like to know why the dogs that had been trained with e-collars doesn't suffer from them although she had heard and read that they would.

My friend has read about dog language and calming signals. She had read that when the dogs are trained with e-collars, they would get stressed and they would use calming signals. When she watched the videos, she expected that those dogs would behave that way, but no...
She wondered why those dogs behaved differently to what she had read.
She saw the videos on youtube but it was long time ago. Although it has been long time since she saw them, she remembers how those dogs behaved.


My friend has also this question: she has seen this tutorial:

Under the tutorial the trainer writes that the dogs that have been trained with e-collars should not be teached to do the actual behavior. Can someone tell more about it?

 

[kassidybc]

My friend would not use e-collars with any dogs, but she has something to ask about them. My friend thought that her questions might fit in this thread. Note: she might also talk about things that don't relate to her dog. She had read and heard horrible things about them and using them causes these things:
suppression, modification, shutdown and fallout

My friend had seen videos of them. She had seen only one video where the dog suffered from the e-collar. However, in many other videos dogs seems to be happy and excited to learn although they have e-collars. Not even those dogs that had behaviorial issues seemed to suffer from them. My friend had read that the dogs that have behaviorial issues should not be trained with e-collars. So my friend would like to know why the dogs that had been trained with e-collars doesn't suffer from them although she had heard and read that they would.

My friend has read about dog language and calming signals. She had read that when the dogs are trained with e-collars, they would get stressed and they would use calming signals. When she watched the videos, she expected that those dogs would behave that way, but no...
She wondered why those dogs behaved differently to what she had read.
She saw the videos on youtube but it was long time ago. Although it has been long time since she saw them, she remembers how those dogs behaved.


My friend has also this question: she has seen this tutorial:

Under the tutorial the trainer writes that the dogs that have been trained with e-collars should not be teached to do the actual behavior. Can someone tell more about it?

If you start a new thread you may get more responses! I will watch the video and answer your question when I get a chance, I don't have time right now.

 

[myraellen]

If you start a new thread you may get more responses! I will watch the video and answer your question when I get a chance, I don't have time right now.

My friend didn't want to create a new thread by herself because she is not so much interested in this topic. She would only like to have short answers to some questions. She has tried to find threads about e-collars. This is the newest she has found. Many other threads about this are quite old. You can of course link if there is some other thread after all where my friend's questions would fit better. So, can someone answer to those questions? Like we told, my friend would like to have only short answers to them.

 

[charmedwolf]

So my friend would like to know why the dogs that had been trained with e-collars doesn't suffer from them although she had heard and read that they would.

She wondered why those dogs behaved differently to what she had read.

Under the tutorial the trainer writes that the dogs that have been trained with e-collars should not be teached to do the actual behavior. Can someone tell more about it?

I'll try to answer your friend's questions as best I can but I am not an expert. If she/he wants to talk privately they are welcomed to message me.

A good trainer that knows what he/she is doing will greatly decrease any chances of behavioral fallout regardless of if it is with e-collar or force free training aggressive dogs. A trainer I work with is absolutely brilliant and I've never seen dogs suffer under him. Many people that claim "all e-collar trainers bad" don't realize that nearly all of them use treats/balls and other rewards in training. Hell, I've seen many of them using clickers and doing shaping exercises. It's not a one or the other type of thing.

Why did they behave differently? Because they had good trainers. I could give you both good examples of e-collar training and bad examples but I could also do the same with many clicker trainers as well.

Ah, Donna's video. I've seen this more times than I can remember. She's saying not to do this with a dog that has been e-collar trained because the dog might get shocked from it's wet nose hitting the light switch. Her own dog was apparently shocked and wants nothing to do with the light switch now because of it.

HOWEVER, food for thought an average light switch will cause a shock of about .5 Amps. Remember that. The average good quality e-collar will cause a "shock" between 0.000000001- 0.000000083 Amps. Tail twitch studies (showing pain tolerance in animals) have shown us that dogs have a tolerance towards 0.0002- 0.0008 Amps. I wouldn't want to touch the light switch either.
By the way did you know the human pain tolerance is between .5 - 1.25 Amps?

 

[myraellen]

My friend would rather discuss about this in this thread. She would like to have only short answers to her questions. My friend has a couple more questions.

I'll try to answer your friend's questions as best I can but I am not an expert. If she/he wants to talk privately they are welcomed to message me.

A good trainer that knows what he/she is doing will greatly decrease any chances of behavioral fallout regardless of if it is with e-collar or force free training aggressive dogs...//... Many people that claim "all e-collar trainers bad" don't realize that nearly all of them use treats/balls and other rewards in training. Hell, I've seen many of them using clickers and doing shaping exercises. It's not a one or the other type of thing.

Why did they behave differently? Because they had good trainers. I could give you both good examples of e-collar training and bad examples but I could also do the same with many clicker trainers as well.

You are saying that dog's should not suffer from e-collars. However, we told that:

My friend has read about dog language and calming signals. She had read that when the dogs are trained with e-collars, they would get stressed and they would use calming signals.

She had read and heard horrible things about them. For example in this article:
http://eileenanddogs.com/2012/12/03/really-just-a-tap/
She has also read her other articles there. That person writes that e-collars would cause pain to the dog. So, what do you think about that? You clarified e-collar shocks in Amps. However, my friend didn't understand that so well although I tried to explain them to her But it seems that you meant that the shocks are quite mild...

Not even those dogs that had behaviorial issues seemed to suffer from them. My friend had read that the dogs that have behaviorial issues should not be trained with e-collars.

or with any kind of punishments or corrections because it would make those issues worse. So, why not even those dogs suffer from them?

My friend is not saying that others would be wrong, she is just telling what she has read/heard. She is also asking questions.

 

[charmedwolf]

She had read and heard horrible things about them. For example in this article:
http://eileenanddogs.com/2012/12/03/really-just-a-tap/
She has also read her other articles there. That person writes that e-collars would cause pain to the dog. So, what do you think about that? You clarified e-collar shocks in Amps. However, my friend didn't understand that so well although I tried to explain them to her But it seems that you meant that the shocks are quite mild...

or with any kind of punishments or corrections because it would make those issues worse. So, why not even those dogs suffer from them?

My friend is not saying that others would be wrong, she is just telling what she has read/heard. She is also asking questions.

E-collars can cause pain if used incorrectly or if they're cheap e-collars or if you're constantly using a high level. That's true. The collar Eileen uses is from petsafe (crappy brand) which only has 8 levels. The high jump of each level will hurt if the dog isn't already trained to respond to the collar. The more levels the collar has the better. Dogtra has 127, Educator has 100. People have been trying to ban anything they don't like for a long time. Why? People don't like what they fear. The dog training community is very divided and this is just one of things that cause problems between everyone.

I'll try and describe the feeling of the one my fellow worker/trainer uses. The feeling is different for each person though. I have a rather high pain tolerance but I have a very good sensitivity. It has 100 levels. 1-7 I can't feel at all. 8-10 feels like a bug crawling across where the collar is. 11-20 feels like a what a fly buzzing by your ear sounds like (doesn't hurt but annoying). 21-30 is like an obnoxious fly that won't leave you alone. By about 31 if the collar is on a muscle, it can cause the muscle to jerk. I hate the feeling but it doesn't hurt. 31-64 is really really annoying. The muscles jerk and it's feel like someone poking you with their finger nails and gradually gets stronger as the levels go up. 65 is the number that starts to not feel good. Between 66-89 it feels "sharp" I don't really know how to describe it other than sharp. 90-100 hurts and considering the manual calls for high level in emergency situations only I'd expect them to hurt. This is a good video to watch if you want to see what it looks like at different levels and underwater. HERE.

Now, on body language and calming signals. Dogs exhibit calming signals in stress but what stress is important. It's is eustress or distress? Eustress is good stress. It's being overcome with anticipation of something good. Distress is bad stress. It's the anxiety of something bad happening. Have both you and your friends look at these pictures. And do you think the dog is giving calming signals because of distress or eustress. I'll put the answers at the complete bottom of the post.

Bad timing will make the behaviors worse with an e-collar (or any other corrective collar) because dogs become suspicious. If you correct at the wrong time, multiple times or at the wrong type of level it will make the dog think that the correction predicts something bad happening. It's the same as using Look At That only around other dogs with a dog aggressive dog. You'll soon have a dog that thinks other dogs are around when you say look at that.

Answers: Eustress, Eustress, Distress, Distress, Eustress