electric collar

In today’s post, I want to address the topic of weakness. Now, we like to believe that we’ve evolved to a level where we don't pick on the weak, at least as adults. As an adult, I know that . As a kid, I definitely picked on those who were weaker at times and got picked on for being weaker at others. But as we mature, we like to think that we’re beyond that. Hopefully we are!

In this post, I want to address some of the challenges of the electric training collar. Those of you who know a little about my company know that we use these collars with most of our clients. We do this because, done correctly, the collar allows us to get to an advanced level of off-leash obedience quickly, while being very humane and easy on both the dog and the owner.

With this post I want to talk about overcoming fear, perhaps in a manner that you aren’t familiar with. While I have written about this subject in the past, I want to cover some new ground. Today I had my last private session with a particular client before they start coming to our group sessions. This client had gotten a two-year-old rescue dog whose history and background was totally unknown. When she first got the dog, she was scared of everything: sounds, people, and even her own shadow. Since she was an exceptionally nervous dog who didn’t like to cuddle, her owner really wished that she would bond more with her. A lot of owners want physical affection from their dogs, and this dog just wasn’t into that. I can still remember sitting in our first session and taking about this issue. The client asked me: “What can we do to get her to want to bond with me? How can we help her get over this fear?” She had tried many things that you would naturally do, like giving the dog lots of treats. Unfortunately, however, the dog’s fear was bigger than her desire for treats. In a moment of fear, the challenges she faced overcame any of the need she felt to get a treat. In our first session, I told the owner that I wasn’t sure what would happen, but that I hoped that as we worked through obedience training, she and her dog would bond naturally. Today was the last season in our Transforming Your Dog In Sixty Days Program. We’re essentially two months into the program, so I asked this client how her and her dog had been bonding recently. Her response? “It’s great! She wants to please me now, she wants to work for me and cuddle with me. She’s excited when I get home.” Not only that, but she’s not afraid of people and situations she used to fear.

Today’s post covers a topic that’s become controversial in recent years: electric training collars. These tools, sometimes referred to as shock collars or remote collars, are often accompanied by a lot of debate. The bottom line, however, is that they’re incredibly useful tools. My company does a lot of great work with the e-collar. The question I receive often about the e-collar is simple: “Why do you use it?” I usually get this question from two competing groups of people. The first of these groups is comprised of trainers who use treats and toys (and hugs) in order to get results. When they ask this question, it’s normally with the implication that I’m a monster. The second group that asks that question is just asking because they’re interested and wonder why I use one. In today’s post, I want to spend some time talking about why I love e-collars, why I believe that they’re the most humane way to train a dog, and why they’re so much misunderstood. At the root of my love for this tool is the fact that any healthy and humane dog training program has to have some element of consequence, both negative and positive. A positive consequence might be a treat or a pat on the head. But a good training program also includes negative consequences. If you run into a dog trainer that says that isn’t the case, then leave! They’re not informed about the latest research into how dogs learn. Some sort of physical consequence has to exist for any living creature to learn. If we understand that truth, then we want to use consequences that are easy on us and easy on the dog. We want something that is leveraged; in other words, that produces a great result for a little effort. We want something that is fundamentally humane and fair. When we put all these things together, we get the electric collar. Back in the day when the electric collar was new—around 20 years ago—they had three levels: high, higher, and highest. They would blast the dog with a literal, and very painful, shock. But technology has changed a lot in the past two decades, and today’s e-collars have various levels of intensity. When I let people feel the e-collar, they’re often surprised because it doesn’t feel like a shock. People often assume that these collars produce the zap you’d get off a live wire or the fence around a cattle yard. But it’s not a big jolt. It feels more like a tickle or a pulse. These tickles are annoying or itchy to the dog, though. For 99% of the time, that’s all the consequence that you need. At its best the e-collar is pleasant because it’s giving the dog attention, and at its worst it’s only slightly aggravating. Since we already know that we need a negative deterrent, why wouldn’t we make it the easiest one possible? That deterrent is the e-collar.