Denis Carthy

Herr Rotweiller I personally found some of the people within Delta to frown upon people who don't agree with their methodology Denis Dont know anything about either courses 'cause Im in UK. I do know if anything at all is not open to critisism then it can never progress, not in a day, or a week or century or ever.

The anti bark is the secure option, they start to work within about 3 or 4 barks. I recomend the Petsafe Delux, if you have not got that there then an Innotek, you'll never look back and the problem with be over for good as soon as you get it, they are problem free for the dog.

Lab Poodle I was putting it into personal context. I should have said "I won't have a breakdown if my dog drops a dumbell. Denis I was not thinking of you or for that matter the excercise - I thought the behaviours involved were ideal examples of how to illustrate the operant 'reward' - 'punishment' meanings. Summed up, Lablove, ALL behaviour, every milli second of it, of any animal, is split into one of two things - reward or punishment. Which one of the two is determined by the outcome/consequence of ANY behaviour. Taking that back to a dog running off into the environment instead of recalling for a treat: - coming back for a treat 'on recall' would be a 'punishment' to any dog which refuses recall, the reward behaviour 'to the dog' is to ignore the owners command and enjoy 'the consequences' of ignoring behaviour (running free - doing its own thing ), the consequences of ignoring leads to reward, (chasing, sniffing around etc,) and it is the 'do your own thing' reward which is a positive reinforcer for the dog to ignore commands. Put another way, which we all understand, without useing these grossly misused terms, the dog is being trained to ignore comands as it wants when it wants unless it experiences a positive punishment as the consequence of ignoring a command (reduces ignoring behaviours).

Lab and Poodle my dog might drop a dumbbell or similar, and for that I can't see a breakdown happening. Denis Just to take that one example in operant – At the point the dog is carrying the dumbbell, the ‘behaviour’ of carrying is a reward to the dog. - at a point it drops it the behaviour of carrying has become a punishment to the dog. - dropping the dumbbell is then the reward ‘behaviour’. - At the point of watching the dog carrying the dumbbell watching is a reward to the owner. - At the point the owner watches the dog drop the dumbbell, watching the drop is a punishment to the owner. Reward and Punishment are in fact 'functions of behaviour' which give the appetitive/favourable/desired consequence. Also, the value/intesity of static/fixed external rewards and punishements stimuli are not constant which is why one second something is a reward to the dog and the next a punishment, it is the change in behaviour which determines the 'value/intensity' of an external reward in relation to the total environment.

Denis Reward is any consequence any animal perceives as a consequence of its behaviour. If a dog breaks a command when offered a treat it means the dog perceives the treat is a 'punishment' compared to the 'reward' of freedom maintained by breaking a command. Once that happens it has 'positively reinforced' ignoring behaviour. In other words the 'consequence of the behaviour' of ignoring commands makes ignoring commands reward 'behaviour' -- 'punishment' and 'reward'. Lablover Denis, I am going to use the excuse, of just returning to the house, after spinning. I do not understand your reasoning. Could you please expand on the above quote? Denis Hi – Ugg – the way the words - ‘positive’ - ‘negative’ – ‘reward’ – ‘punishment’ as used in learning are from a theory known as ‘operant theory’ – in dog training they are the most misused words any language has to offer – its notoriously difficult to explain or teach because of the way the words are normally used e.g. ‘positive’ is always good, ‘reward’ is always nice, ‘negative’ anything is always bad, ‘punishment’ is retribution. – It attempts to give a language to any animals response to any external event/stimulus at that nano second in time, if it is interpreted in simple terms it means - ‘anything, any animal learns as a consequence of any behavioural response to any external stimuli’ - – Below is the TOTAL meaning of the words as used in dog or any other animal training/learning, they exclude the animals psychology, physiology and environment beyond the nano second it time of a behavioural occurrence. 1. Negative means ‘something’ is removed/withheld. Positive means ‘something’ is added. Extinction is said to occur when no negative or positive stimuli are present. | Negative Reinforcement = increases a behaviour (strengthens it) Negative Punishment = decreases a behaviour Positive Punishment = decreases a behaviour Positive Reinforcement = increases a behaviour Reward means: ‘any appetitive/favourable/nice (to that individual animal) consequence any animal perceives is the consequence of a behaviour’. E.G’s. A murderer knifes someone to death – he does not get caught, he is rewarded by the consequence of the act of murder, it might increase the behaviour. Two fighting dogs are fighting to the death, one dog kills the other, the behaviour of both dogs is ‘reward behaviour’ (they like fighting to the death, they will not run away). Punishment means: ‘any non appetitive/favourable/nice (to that individual animal) consequence any animal perceives is the consequence of a behaviour’. E.G.’s A murderer is about to knife someone to death – he sees a policeman just as he is about to stab someone, he is punished by being unable to carry out the act because he fears he will get caught. = Negative punishment – the reward is withheld via fear of capture. Two fighting dogs are fighting to the death, both dogs are separated by their owners, they still try to carry on fighting, they are punished because the owners have removed the ability to fight by holding them apart. = Negative punishment – the reward of killing is withheld via physical restraint. Sorry I dont have time right now to go into it further Lablove hope thatgives some legible explanation. To add, outside laboratory conditions it cannot be controled with a liveing animal, e.g. it excludes the psychology for one thing, food rewards are predominantly prey drive stimuli, pack drive stimuli are the mainstay of the relationship & obedience, you cannot take a dog to mating and expect him to tie because you offer him a treat to do so.

I think the word 'reward' has almost lost its real meaning in the context of dog training. OK, with a pup below 16 weeks I will 'lure' a dog into position e.g sit, down etc, but only in the very, very early stages, a few weeks old, that period is very important because its the imprinting period. The sit, for instance, I will lure it into position with a treat untill the second its bottom touches the floor, by that time I have allready positioned the food in my hand in such a way (often between thumb and palm ) that the food is not accesible to the pup. As soon as its bottom touches I instantly start to fondle and at the same time really excitedly vocalize "good" or anything you want to vocalize and then get it to play for a few secs - everything is done with excitement - when I break the play after a few secs I get up to walk away, as I am doing so I give the treat and say nothing, just move away. I do use food for many things but not to 'get the dog doing things for treats'. I keep this up until the pup is starting to move to the sit on the hand signal (hand going over its head to position it) command, this rarely takes more than 4 - 6 repeats. From that point I use big time fuss and lead into very short play, sometimes I might give a treat most times not, either way the pup is not expecting a treat, its best only to do this at that age once a day about 3 times per week. Reward is any consequence any animal perceives as a consequence of its behaviour. If a dog breaks a command when offered a treat it means the dog percieves the treat is a 'punishment' compared to the 'reward' of freedom maintained by breaking a command. Once that happens it has 'positivly reinforced' ignoring behaviour. In other words the 'consequence of the behaviour' of ignoring commands makes ignoring commands reward 'behaviour' -- 'punishment' and 'reward'.

Hi Steve nice to call in again and see the levels of education at their premium on this site, you cannot even talk about 'Corrections' on UK sites at all even without e-collars, Below was Lou’s last comment, I was banned probably around 50 + times on that site for supporting e-collars, including week end before last. It did not do much good that week end though cause the person did get an anti bark and saved neighbour problems and the dog maybe ending in rescue-the favoured option of the cranks here. Lou’s last comments after we both got banned last May. http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/bo...ow.pl?tid=68548 Ern So the UK are "gagged" in so far as e-collars are concerned? And 'discussion' is supposed to be the way to learn. Makes you feel like some people are concerned of populas education for fear of not getting their own way. A bit cowardice, IMO. Denis Yes it is a total ban, needless to say I caused havoc on the sites when they were on their campaign to ban them. Our government updated the Animal Laws over a two year period, finished last July. The ban campaign was massive BUT, they had never seen an e-collar, knew nothing about e-collars etc which could give only one possible result – they lied about them gave descriptions of collars of 30 years ago except those collars were not used in the way they claimed anyway. The false claims hit them in the face-I was UK specialist trainer on remote e-training collars on the government consultation on them in 2002, apart from the verbal I did a demo with two government vets with a Tri Tronics Pro 100. Of course before that they had been told the collars gave electric shocks, the dogs were burned, basically all the rubbish worth was saying there, brain damage fits etc – I submitted some papers after that in early 2004 as the bill was in its final stage of process, the purpose was to maintain and update facts and presence. After that consultation that was pretty much the beginning of the end for the cranks but they absolutly saturated the net and dog papers with all kinds of lies and false claims – I was rampant around the UK net helped by Lou Castle in spring 2003, but although could get little accurate info through we got enough and people slowly trying them-the irony is pet owners had never even heard of e-collars until the saturation campaign began and it was that saturation which publicised their existance/ The result was that not only did our government not make any laws on them at all they had had so many cranks and political extremists flooding them with phone calls and letters instead of restricting e-collars in any way the stiffened up the laws on animal extreamists many who are know known to them because of their e-collar ban campaign – so that’s it condensed. They are starting again and the Charity on the new UK web site is one of them, this time, they are starting something they will very regret. Ern Is the use of e-collars in the UK unrestricted? Or do some places allow only restricted use n Denis There are no restrictions of any kind and for some legal reasons which came dureing the campaign such a law would probably be illegal here, no restrictions on prongs pet owners have been brainwashed into thinking they are cruel, you cannot get them in the shops though I have a couple from pre-e collar days. In 2002 when I got involved very very few pet owners knew of their existance and there were very very few at all in the uk and 5 medium sized retailers + the odd one man band, I doubt very much if there were more than 3 - 5000 static pulse collars of all kinds in the UK then. The sales figures of colars sold by companies trading within the UK last July 2005 was 750,000 actualy sold in the UK by companies trading in the UK and there are around 50 medium sized comanies selling them and hundreds of one man bands around and heavens knows how many imported from USA, the dollar is low and many people have imported, I have only ever imported from US for my own purposes and apart from anti bark recomend people import them, the USA imports must be very high. Has anyone evr looked into the legality of the restrictions ovver there? your laws are different but it would be worth looking into, still I suspect Innotek already did that and must think it is legal there. Anyways really nice to drop by, I wish we had sites of this caliber in UK and any of you who feel like the odd post on our site would be more than welcome, not just e-collars anything. Good luck guys.

Are you guys still haveing probs with the infamous Dr Worth? we used his name quite a lot when we were fighting the cranks and political extremists when the tried to get a ban on e-colars here (uk). Dr Worth led the most luctrative collecting scam Aus ever had from 1996 to 2001, he must have netted $1000's collecting money to fight his campaing, which is what it was all about. When your RSPCA was ordered to pay $1000 to Innotek we used it quite a lot Wirths name was more famous here than there. Hey you guys are lucky, compared to us you dont have any cranks ranting over e's-well not on this site anyway anyway. As it happens, one of our anti e charities 'The Dogs Trust' has suddenly, unexepectectedly, found itself under an uncomfortouble microscope now we have the first and ONLY UK site which allows e-collar postings. My guess is - well guesswork of course - 'they aint seen nothing yet' http://s7.invisionfree.com/dogadvicetraini...p?showtopic=109

Amhailte "but traditional hour-long obedience classes can grow to be stressful and boring for some dogs. " | Denis I agree with Amhailte. I integrate obedience training into normal xcercise after teaching the action in a quite, as stimulus free place as I can get - I mix 1 min of xcercise and 1 min of play.

OK thanks for the V Forrel links and also the Vonhellos, I did not realize people had imported some of the Euro dogs to there. Is ear cropping allowed there?

OK got the picture on Sch, not much different in UK, in mainland N Europe there are clubs al over the place, especialy Germany where there is a club in almost every village. All show Dobes and I think many other breeds MUST have Sch1 before they can be shown at inter level, not a big deal I know but it does keep the drives balanced to some extent and all Dobes thorughout mainland Europe must have Sch1 to get a breeding licence, except Germany where they must pass ZTP. I am surprised the V Forrel has gone not least because he went to a lot of trouble, time and expense to get them there in the first place, I think he might have had to pay something for the prefix, its 1950s-60s German line and FCI registered (I cant find them so I assume they are no more). He had rare line combinations and many similar breedings produced many good service dogs as well as Sch, not many service since the collapse of communism and if Sch is not popular there not sure they would have been popular, most of them are not the best looking Dobes and some other things.

Hi myszka, I am interested in his lines, but I have not seen his web site for a couple of years. His lines interest me because they go back to some old German working lines and combinations. Maybe more interested in the results of his breeding because the guy who breeds them (cannot remember his name) studied (I was told) with Ottmar Vogell for a while and he is supposed to know the best combinations for working Dobes, although I thought from the last time I saw his site they were more SchH dogs. Do they have any reputation as far as work or SchH goes in Oz? (I am in UK).

Do any of you have a Von Forrell Dobe?

Akitagal originaly wrote I am reading up on dog training and am a little confused on this. Punishment Denis Is it all clear now?

Lablover I have read this thread, which has given me a headache. All these new catch words. I admit I am getting older and could only really understand K9 force. All this theory means nothing unless you can be put to practical use. Denis New, they are not new. Every time I read all the billions of texts specifically on dog training I have not once heard anyone correctly giving a realistic and easy for anyone to understand interpretation of OC punishment OR reward, except Steve or someone else here. It first came into being in the 1930s, but not as its generally used in ‘dog training’ conversations. Rather than go into length on what’s a very good post, someone, I think Steve, already said that the way/methods etc he trains it is perceived by the dog as consequence of a behaviour and that is ALL it means and if some people do not know how to apply punishments in a dog training programm, favourable to the dog, then that is a statement of limited knowledge of the person and not of something bad about the use of punishments. I will go one step further and state quite clearly, no animal, capable of learning, of ANY species, would survive without punishments, punishments are to the benefit of all animals capable of learning something. What has happened in dog training is that commercial interests, cranks and extremists have been active this past few years and have completely given a misinterpretation of the meaning of punishment AND reward to innocent pet owners who then pass a version of it on as some form of retribution by bad tempered individuals and which has no welfare advantage to the dog. Aversion is often mentioned, the way many pet owners have been indoctrinated with incorrect meanings to these and a few other words, it is THEM, the pet owners who have been exposed to these words, who show aversion conditioning behaviour not just to the use of punishment, but an aversion to learn anything about punishments favourable to the dogs welfare, its relationship with its human owner and resulting in a well trained well behaved dog which gets ample excecise as a result and easily obtainable recall when the dog is under pressure not to recall, which is all most pet owners want. Brainwashing is another appropriate term for the process of exposing vulnerable people to incorrect defintions of punishments and rewards, the problem is that they do not know what punishment means, it literally means ANYTHING and has NO specific definition beyond what I have written below. A positive punishment is ANY consequence/stimulus any animal of ANY species perceives/learns is a non appetitive/unfavourable consequence of a/its own behaviour, it might decrease a behaviour. A positive reinforcer is ANY consequence/stimulus any animal of ANY species perceives/learns is an appetitive/favourable consequence of a/its own behaviour, the behaviour might increase. Interpret that into a human behaviour and a murderer experiences the act of killing as appetitive/favourable and he/she might kill again for the reward they experience. So, as reward is the fashionable thing, then who is going to find the poor murderer another victim to save him the punishment of tedium by haveing to look for one himself. .

Amhailte No offence Dennis, and not trying to start a bunfight here, but I don't think your definitions of positive reinforcement/negative reinforcement are particularly accurate. In OC, a reinforcer (negative or positive) is something that increases the frequency of a behaviour, not decreases it. Denis Yopur quite right, glad you pointed it out, I knew I hadnt time between breakfast toast, phone calls and going out late I should not have ppsted, anyway I will delete it and come back when my imds free, intersting posts here though.

Deleted due to mistakes.

Denis This is why the words are used for commercial persuasion – ‘compulsion’ in any normal meaning of the sense is ‘force’ it means ‘punishment’, operant punishment means: ‘The animal itself perceives something is removed’,….it means NOTHING MORE THAN THAT. By physicaly placing a dog in a sit, in the very early stages of ‘teaching’, you have removed the dogs freedom of movement, BUT, used in a commercially persuasive way many pet owners ‘feel’ bad if you tell them “You should not ‘punish’ your dog”, they equate the word with retribution and cruelty NOT with its operant meaning. In a more common context, if a class of 25 school kids sit an exam and all 25 want and expect to be top of class and then only 1 pupil gets top, you have removed the ‘expectation’ of ‘status’ and other individual ‘good feelings’ from 24 kids. So in the operant sense, which is what 'positive trainers' claim they are, 24 of the 25 kids have been punished because their expectation of their ability and goal of being No1 was removed.

Denis Of all the statements on all the boards - you have sumed it up in one sentance - 'positive training' is a commercialy term for a 'product', it means nothing else, it's not a method of training, it's a product.

I just modified the above, it makes sense NOW!

Mind you I think Steves Mal has someone 'praying' out of camera range..yes I did write these below some time ago: What is Instinct, what is drive. In order to analyze and understand voluntary human behaviour psychologists worked out that some differentiation had to be made between involuntary and voluntary behaviour to attempt to understand and interpret the underlying motive behind given behaviour(s) and to understand the difference between learned behaviour, intelligence, habit etc. I am not sure who the first behaviorist psychologist was who defined and explained the difference between instinct and drive but I think I read Skinners or Mcdougals definitions. He first defined instinct and then separated them from ‘drives’ the later being the term used to describe to the underlying motive of ‘learned’ behaviour. The probable reason for this need to differentiate between instinct and create the concept of drives was a reaction by human behaviorist psychologists to the traditional Freudian psychoanalysts and others who ascribed all behaviour as instinct. An illustrative example would be a sexual fetish whereby someone experiences erotic pleasure by smelling a piece of rubber. Such tendencies are far removed from the ‘instinct’ of reproducing oneself in order to ensure the survival of the species, the sole purpose for sexual activity in a species, therefor a sexual fetish for rubber could not be the instinct to reproduce the species. The fetish for rubber is learned and not universal throughout the species, but, the underlying force is the survival of the species by means of copulation (in mammals ) and is universal throughout the species. Therefore the fetish is said to be ‘instinctive’ but not instinct, it is ‘learned' and 'acquired’ whereas instinct is innate, unlearned and cannot be modified by learning. The fetish was described as ‘drive’ having its base in instinct but altered by intelligence and learning, the 'degree' of 'learning abilty' is dependant of the species and the total of its environment. Dogs are unique because (a) they are a synthetic species (b) they are the only known animal, excluding the apes, which can form an emotional relationship with man and which is universal throughout the species. The above simple example illustrates what is probably the most important difference between instinct and drive i.e. instinct is innate, independent of any experience and cannot be modified by learning. Below is the generally accepted differentiation of instinct and drive. Instinct. 1. An innate behaviour universal throughout a species.( dogs do not all have a genetic predisposition to herd sheep, do not all have a genetic predisposition to go underground for prey, do not all bark etc, etc.) 2. The behaviour is independent of any learning experience. 3. It is unchangeable by experience and is not susceptible to a learning process of any significant degree. ( e.g. a dog does not have an ‘instinct’ to chase a stick thrown by a person, not all dogs will but some will learn ) Drive. Drive is a behaviour having an unlearned innate base, i.e. instinct, but drive is defined as being modified by the environment and learning, it is a ‘predisposition‘ which can manifest in many diverse behaviours and it is the underlying motive for behaviour, understand the drive in dogs and you will understand what we call might call its ‘mind’, in anthropomorphic terms. A more detailed paper on instinct and drives try the following web link: http://www.dogstuff.info/understanding_drives_denis.html

Denis Halleluja Myska – you mean they are trained to drive the Popemobile?

Denis No, not you unfair trading, the add and organisations are unfair trading, the add is one example. Denis. I did not badmouth them, I did point out some facts and link pet owners comments, those comments include one pet owner whose dog was PTS by someone who did not have the ability to handle the dog, only the abilty to charge around £40 to say PTS. If the facts I have linked and facts I have stated look bad it’s because the facts are bad, if you do not like the facts that’s that does not constitute bad mouthing it constitutes something you do not like and an emotional reaction to what you read. Denis I have written several posts on here and with quite a number of words, if you specify I can comment, if not what can say? Denis No need to thank me, you are better informed than before you posted and the info is free to all. Denis Here in UK around 2002 there only 5 significant retailers and only about 2 advertising regularly in some gun magazines, sales were quite small. There are dozens of adds in the same mags now. By last month there are now 50 significant retailers and dozens of small set ups. In the financial year 2004-2005 there were an estimated just under ¼ million static pulse stim collars sold in the UK in this past finacial year, compared well below 30,000 three years ago, they are accepted and popularity is growing by the day. I think you did not read the internal link I put down, they are not shock collars, it is the ability to cause a sensation by electrical means. If you do not want to learn then why not accurately inform as an alternative, I have not noticed accurate info from you yet.

Denis Do you mean you cannot think of a reason? Denis I am in UK, there is no confusion, there are no electric shock collars anywhere and no e-collars which are used like them anymore. Maybe you have not read the article at link 1 below AND the links I have pasted into it – an electric shock MUST enter the body or it is not an electric shock.. The article you read is a very subtle advert, APDC –APDT –Barkbusters - UKCCB and a few others are nothing more than commercial trade bodies selling commercial products, usually called ‘positive training’ ‘behavioural modification’ ‘therapy’ and a whole load of other commercially influential titles using subliminal, persuasive words and terms, such as ‘come to us’ don’t use an “electric shock collar” You probably have similar trades bodies in Oz, here we have things like ‘Federation of garage mechanics’ – ‘Society for philanthropic Bailiffs’ – ‘ Honest door to door salesman league’ that’s what APDC is, it stands for ‘Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors’ – Before even seeing one of them a naïve pet owners has subliminally absorbed the term ‘counselling’ and is thinking in anthropomorphic terms, he/she is then persuaded that their dog needs ‘therapy’ because it will not recall, because it ignores the owner and stuff like that. They always insist on an assessment visit in UK that averages £100 = $239.509 AUD and after that it averages around $116 per hour until the money, the insurance or pet owners patience runs out, whichever comes first, slowly pet owners here are waking up to it. They see a dog out of control for most of its life, $1000's spent on it to APDC and other equivilents untill the owner gives up, then, a static stimulation training collar is added as one of the training aids by a competant trainer (everything APDC - APBT - UKCCB says you should not do) to the dogs program and the dog is fine within a couple of sessions. I don’t have time to answer in full it’s Sat AM here and I am of out, but, APDC and APDT know nothing about e-collars, they are loosing money because of them and I estimate that within 3 years they will be lucky to commercially survive on any worthwhile basis and they, non of them, know the first thing about e-collars and their application except if you introduce a pet owner to a training category collar you will go out of business pretty fast, that’s what’s happening here in UK as pet owners slowly learn what they are. Now, as far as confusion goes- link 1 – Explains what static pulse is, an electric shock is entirely different, please use the links on the post as they are intended to give a much clearer understanding of static electro pulse. Scroll to – Denis Carthy. 24th May 2005 http://forums.dogzonline.com.au/index.php?...pic=26630&st=60 Link 2- This leads to my equivalent of the APDC & APDT commercial add you saw saying ‘don’t use a shock collar’ http://k9media.net/dogchat/viewtopic.php?t...8077d6d4fb9f5cb Link 3 – This is some feedback of pet owners of APDC and APDC here in UK. http://k9media.net/dogchat/viewtopic.php?t...690e08889ecfa6e I would like to know if Link 1 clears up your confusion of electric shock collars and a modern e-training collar? I assume that’s what you mean by confusion. If you are still unclear as to the difference between obsolete electric shock collars and static pulse collars, just say so. Are you under some kind of impression that you just give some kind of high level jolt or something? if so I would like to know your source. The subtle commercial advert you mention by the way is unfair trading.

Denis Understandable, it’s a long post and as new information comes to light the post developes in information and educational content. Denis Then the vet was either lying or he/she was talking about something 20 years ago and probably long before that; (A) There has been no electric shock collars manufactured for at least that time. The one exception was a German electric shock collar. (B) If they did see an electric shock collar used near another dog then what they saw was blatant misuse. Electric shock collars were not supposed to be used near other dogs, they probably would casuse displaced aggression, as would a collar and lead if jerked hard enough or a rolled up newspaper out of the blue. Many dogs who off lead show no aggression exhibit displaced aggression if on the lead, the obsolete or modern static stimulation collars do not eliminate the risks of on-lead displaced aggresion, rolled up newspaper displaced aggression, displaced flexi lead fly out aggression etc, etc. Displaced aggrssion due to a variety of training/dog aids has a vast spectrum and is not the subject, anymore than it is specific to any single piece of equipment, (lead-choke chain-newspaper-someone coughing-play balls, etc ). I only ever saw one remote electric shock collar, in Germany, and that was the late 1990’s. As far as I know they have not been manufactured by anyone for many years and the German one had no market at all outside Europe, static electro pulse collars took over the global market long before that. Going back to the 1970’s I did use a non remote electric shock collar and those collars have been obsolete anyway, probably at that time, for well over 20 years although the odd very rare one was stuck in some ones drawer long after that. I did manage to add one to some guys training schedule in the late 1980’s but it was nothing more than a miracle that the batteries had not exhausted, So no, the vet you mention has not seen any electric shock collar do anything for at least 20 years, unless maybe he/she was in Europe this past decade. Can you think of any reason why the vet would lie to you? Do you think you could get the vet/behaviourist to post on this thread if you asked him/her? Click links below for info on electric shock collars. Electric Shock collars and static electro pulse shock collars. http://p199.ezboard.com/fletstalkbreedingf...opicID=14.topic