Aidan

Stim is short for "stimulus" though, which is a technical term which means pretty much anything Food is a stimulus. A bell is a stimulus. etc "Tingle" perhaps? It's an electric current, most people know that touching a 9V battery is imperceptible unless you stick it on your tongue.

I do remember reading somewhere of one or two dogs found to have had a very adverse reaction to Citronella and I believe one of the dogs died from it. Something akin to an Anaphylaxis reaction. But perhaps that can happen with anything - like people and nuts. That would certainly be possible, it's contra-indicated for use by pregnant women for e.g. It does have a GRAS ("generally regarded as safe") classification, though. I just did a quick Google, and apparently scentless refills are available for citronella collars, good to know.

LOL .... I won't ask what you're doing on the carpet for its static shock to affect you so, Aidan. I trust the effect is enough to stop you, at any rate. Errmmm, let's call it "yoga"

There is (going by the smell of it) a Citronella bush growing on the front boundary corner of a house I often walk past. My boy loves sniffing along the usual "special spots" (dog pee corners etc) but he very obviously arcs away from that particular bush. Has done from day dot with no other known or obvious reason for it other than the fact that it smells of citronella. Does it look like this? http://www.oisat.org/images/lemongras1.jpg I would be interested to know if he does avoid it if it is citronella and if he has ever worn a citronella collar? As I said, it really hasn't been demonstrated across a population but there could be individuals who avoid it (not either of my dogs though!) In any case, I think we can all agree that it would be better if they just used plain water or something inert that no dogs in a population will find naturally aversive or an irritant.

Oooh no, getting a static shock from the carpet is nasty!

I think the collars themselves are aversive, but not because they use citronella. It's very easy to demonstrate that a substance is aversive across a population, and so far it hasn't been done except in insects. One thing about both citronella and e-collars for barking, salivary cortisol levels rise initially but then they drop back to baseline levels very quickly. The timing is so good the dog learns how to avoid the aversive then pays it no mind (does not walk around too afraid to bark, just doesn't bark). The story is different if the dog has a genuine reason to bark or the collar is being triggered by other dogs barking - then I would imagine (inferring from other data) that salivary cortisol levels would rise very quickly and stay there for a long time.

Generally, the collar will be less effective if the dog is highly motivated to bark. If a citronella collar or an e-collar at a low setting were ineffective, it would suggest to me that other steps need to be taken to address the dog's physical and mental well-being. There may still be a case for using more aversion, but just be clear that the dog is highly motivated to bark for a reason (either that or the collar was defective, and many cheap ones are).

The level of shock is much lower now, and usually effective at barely perceptible levels. It's still an electric current and always has been. I agree with Erny, the red marks were very, very unlikely to be burns.

Holy smokes, I can see why they would want to protect officers charged with duty of care for the public but there has to be a defined test of what constitutes a danger to the public.

Actually I have not found any evidence that citronella itself is aversive or that dogs dislike the smell. It is an insect repellent, hence the association, is my theory. One of my dogs actively seeks it out and has eaten citronella candles, and got it all over her playing with a garden lamp. I thought that would be the last time (you know, because citronella is aversive) but it became her favourite toy so I had to lock it away. I cannot imagine that getting the oil on them would be noticeably more aversive than getting plain water on them and I have no objections to their use when considered as part of a humane barking solution (that would always involve more than just using a collar). Avoid habituation (refer to Lindsay, link in my previous post) and avoid the dog becoming collar-wise (or not, depends on the problem, I actually want my dogs to become collar wise). Consider exercise, mental stimulation, the true cause of the barking, keeping the dog indoors and, well, there is a whole list of things... I'm glad you asked here and not at the pet shop!

Worth reading from Stephen Lindsay: http://tinyurl.com/msvxf5 I have to wonder why they insist on using citronella, probably because the market perceives it (falsely) to be more effective than just plain water or air.

Double-ended leash. Problem solved.

Little known fact, I'm actually a qualified Bowen Therapist (not practicing) and I would just do exactly what the vet has told you to do. As a powerlifter and rugby player I get muscle strains all the time, you just go light on them for a while and keep moving. Massage is nice, no need to do anything special, just work the area at a tolerable level to get the blood flowing and loosen it up a bit. Dogs heal pretty quickly.

Barbara Suckling (used to be quite well known dog trainer, now retired) told me she had mirrors stuck all over the walls of her training area to help with this sort of problem (and other problems).

It's true in my experience, it's a quicker, easier process to teach a dog to walk nicely at heel. Reactive and high-drive dogs (especially) should learn to walk at heel, when asked, with lots of distractions. But it's not the only position I would like my dogs to walk and I want them to be paying attention (not just with their eyes) when they are anywhere, not just beside me.

So do I. I see what Nekhbet is saying but it depends on a lot more than just where they walk. Some people and dog combinations will do better with this style though.

Social learning, some of you would be familiar with this because it is very famous: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCETgT_Xfzg

There's always a bit more than that. You can teach a dog to associate the reflex of shaking when wet with a command, but those operants (actually shaking) must be reinforced (by shedding water).

That's right, novel problem for the bird. The reinforcer is a small banana, for the record. Lots of operants emitted without a primary reinforcer. This is pretty old, I forget when (Kohler first demonstrated it in animals, not the dog training Koehler), but it is still taught and used in models of behavioural science. Perhaps these days we would look at things like Panksepp's model of the "SEEKing circuit" or EEG scans of the front brain and suggest that each step closer to the banana was an intrinsically reinforcing event? How might this apply to teaching loose leash walking (or teaching a dog to pull on the leash), for e.g.?

If you want a dog to walk fairly freely but not to pull, one way to do it is to make any tug on the collar a cue to come back to you. You can probably get the idea from this clip: http://www.positivepetzine.com/loose_leash_youtube Note that I click more or less as soon as Tess turns to me, this is important in the early stages. So is the high rate of reinforcement. Gosh, every time I watch that clip I notice new mistakes but funnily enough they all seem to pick it up.

Sabella was like this when younger but matured out of it. I often wonder if training and leadership take a bit away from them.

Insight Learning is sometimes given as an example of learning that isn't OC, but I'll let you form your own opinion of that after watching this:

OC & CC are not completely independent. This is a really big topic and not all the questions have been answered. OC is the best way we have to describe how operants are changed.

I just ask them to take stuff down, if they are a genuine website and not just trying to make a few cents on ad clicks they usually do. With the bazillions of pages on the internet it's not worth worrying too much about things like this and there isn't much you can do about it. If you have forms and agreements it can be better to have them as PDFs on your site instead of text, they are less likely to be copied and pasted.

Very experienced dog trainers who hunt always seem to have tales of leaving an item of clothing at the last place they saw their hound, then coming back the next day to collect the dog after it has spent the night in the bush. Just thinking out loud here, a down might be a better strategy for a hound. That way you could let them get back to the scent on a schedule of reinforcement. It could be taught as part of the article indication in tracking, thus giving plenty of opportunities for training in a controlled environment first.