Collie Man I agree with you about the "necessary evil" thing. There are things that people do to dogs in the name of training or behavior modification that, while definitely "not nice", are not exactly inhumane either. (that word is a very loaded term isn't it!)
A good example is what you described with the shock collar and the snakes. This is a very specific procedure called "snake proofing" the dog. It's done in parts of the US where poisonous snakes are common, to protect the dogs.
I've considered snake-proofing my dog because we have encountered rattlesnakes when out hiking. The closest call we had was last summer, it was pretty scary. We were late ending our day-long hike and it was dusk which is when snakes get more active in summer. I heard the rattling sound but it didn't occur to me that it was a snake, instead silly me I thought "boy the crickets sure are loud today!" Then I saw my dog staring at something in the grass beside me so I turned to see what he was staring so intently at and that's when I saw the snake less than 3 feet from me and it's tail was rattling!! yikes! apparently we had unintentionally cornered the snake near some rocks so it had no where to escape and thus was getting ready to defend itself (which is what the rattling means). And with the tall grass I hadn't seen it earlier. I jumped away and instinctively grabbed my dog lest he was thinking of trying play with it!! (he loves to play with rope toys, he might have thought the rattlesnake was a rope toy!) I thanked my dog for alerting me to the snake otherwise I might have stepped closer to it or on it!!
So I have considered snake-proofing my dog, which would involve using a shock collar set on a pretty intense level as it's meant to be very painful and scare the daylights out of the dog. Even though I do not like shock collars, and I do not like to see people using them for obedience training even though in an obedience application it is set on a much much lower level, I would consider using a shock collar on my dog for snake-proofing if rattlesnakes became more prevalent in our hiking areas.
I researched the topic a bit and discussed it at length with two of our trainers to see if it's something I should do, but my trainers did not have experience doing it themselves. you need to be a specialist for that and I can see why, as one can really mess up a dog for life if the timing is slightly off or the set up isn't done just right.
many people think shocking the dog at such an intense level is completely inhumane and completely cruel. However, I think it just depends on the individual circumstances and how it is done and how often it's done. If it's done only once or twice and in order to protect the dog and with the proper set up so it doesn't cause other fall out, then I think it is humane. It's not by any means a nice thing to do to the dog, but in some rare circumstances it's the lesser of two evils (the greater evil being where the dog gets bitten by a poisonous snake because they are so prevalent and dies a slow agonizing death). if done properly it should only take a couple of shocks to have a lasting impression on the dog for the rest of his life, it's not like the dog would be shocked over and over again. But if done improperly, or even in some circumstances even if it is done properly, it can have disastrous fall out consequences, like the dog instead becoming phobic of the surroundings like being on grass for example or something messed up like that.
well I guess that, considering that it was my dog who alerted me to the rattlesnake and not the other way round, that if you asked him he would probably think I should be the one to undergo the snake-proofing!!
