Can Electric Pulse Collars Be Used Humanely

[DesertDobes]

I've used one in the past for snake avoidance however I must not have been doing it properly because the dogs know when they are wearing the e collar and when they are not- when they aren't wearing it, they still want to hunt although I incorporated a control word which sometimes works without the e collar. My e colar has a page function and they hate that worse than the low level stim which I was surprised at.

Where I live now we have a bad cane toad problem and I'm thinking about using it again to train the dogs to avoid them.

[darlingdog]

Shaking my head in disbelief at just how many of you think an e-collar is ok to use on dogs. Its NOT ok ! Poor bloody dogs.

[Tazar]

I don't see how an e-collar can protect a dog from a snake. No e-collar can stop any wild animal from pursuing a dog.

[JulesP]

I don't see how an e-collar can protect a dog from a snake. No e-collar can stop any wild animal from pursuing a dog.

You are trying to stop the dog going near the snake.

[huski]

I've watched my neighbours dog start out as what you would expect from a normal, high energy border collie cross pup and slowly but surely turned in a D-D and D-H aggressive bundle of nerves and energy from one of these devices. Whether they're used 'appropriately' (which I don't believe there is a humane application for e-collars - lets put one on your neck and pump it up) or not; it's just an excuse for being a lazy trainer and being half arsed in your approach to the keeping of dogs.

Want your dogs to stay with you off leash? Use a long lead and proof your recalls in as many environments as you can. Want your dog to stay in your yard? Get your property fenced appropriately. I don't see how an e-collar can protect a dog from a snake. No e-collar can stop any wild animal from pursuing a dog.

Why is it just e-collars that people think can be mis-used?

If the collar is being "pumped up" and causing the dog distress it is not being used properly. Abuse is in the user not the tool. End of story.

I've seen terrible fall out from many different methods and tools being applied incorrectly and dogs being abused in many different ways none of which involved the use of an e-collar.

Modern e-collar training means that you use the collar on the lowest perceivable level to the dog. Put the collar on yourself on this level, most people can't feel their dogs working level.

I have seen easily 100 dogs trained with e-collars, I know many more owners who use them, I have never seen it produce anything other than really super results and happy, confident dogs.

I prefer to train a recall in drive with my dogs, but there are many reasons why this isn't the best option for every dog and owner and the reality is that e-collars provide a fast, easy way for many owners to train a super reliable recall in what is often a significantly shorter time frame.

If people want a super reliable recall on their dogs and want to use an e-collar properly I see no reason why they shouldn't do so.

Edited August 5, 2013 by huski

[huski]

I think I will have to bite the bullet and be fair to him and do my own research .. I would say he knows the ins and outs of it and he has watched quite a few working dog training videos with this ..

Like every training tool it is In fact the person using it that determines wether it is inhumane or a good training tool .. I guess I have been focussing on the negative .

Definitely do more research, I find that people who are hesitant or scared of e-collar training relax and feel very confident about using them once they learn how to do it properly.

Like anything, you need to understand it and know how to use it properly to get the best results.

[megan_]

.

Edited August 5, 2013 by megan_

[Jumabaar]

Another life threatening situation where an aversive is used. I personally think its quite similar to using a e-collar for snake aversion training.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8640207.stm

Dr Webb's University of Sydney colleague, Stephanie O'Donnell, trained 30 quolls - feeding them pieces of dead toad that were laced with a nausea-inducing drug.

"After they ate it, they started to get a little bit crook (ill)," he said.

"The animals didn't vomit - just pawed at their faces for a while and then got back to normal. But the next time they were offered a toad they ignored it."

Dr Webb and his colleagues then released the quolls into the wild with radio collars so they could monitor them.

"In the wild, they did encounter big toads and they ignored them," said Dr Webb.

"You could see they were interested in the toads because they were big and they were hopping around. Some of them followed the toad for a while. But most of them just sniffed it, and then thought - yuck, you're no good to eat - and walked away."

"But it's such a powerful form of learning that the taste and smell of the prey can really override the other cues [such as the visual cue of the sight of the toad]."

I would much prefer a short zap to the pain, confusion and suffering that dogs go through after a snake bite which can last days, and can be fatal.

[OSoSwift]

If it saves dogs from being bitten I am all for it. I have seen many snake bitten dogs and other animals.

It is a small aversive compared to a whole lot of pain and suffering and they may not survive.

[snake catcher]

Its strange the emotion this subject has bought up.

It almost like a religious ferver that the anti collar side argue..

And another thing, snakes do not pursue dogs..

Sorry guys.. been a long day and Ive been suffering fools for most of it

Edited August 5, 2013 by snake catcher

[Christina]

Can't say I agree with using any kind of electric shock no matter how controlled to train an animal. There are other ways not involving physical punishment.

People cannot always be trusted to be controlled when frustrated either.

My dogs were taught stay & leave it.

When I first moved in this house 9 years ago I was outside with 5 dogs reading a book at the table. A snake slithered past & I almost died. The dogs went towards it & I yelled stay & leave it & they all froze. The snake went under the house.

[Nekhbet]

It wouldn't be that hard to be licensed to use one, like they do with guns.

Have you actually seen how little it takes to get a gun license? One open book test basically telling you not to point the tubular open end at your own face.

You use E-collars in conjunction with prey training to get super performance. It's not an electric shock at all since the pulse does NOT course through the dogs whole body like an electric fence which is using the animal (or you) to close the curcuit between the fence and the ground. Try an e collar on your hand, most people who try them cant believe how little they actually feel.

There are some idiots out there who use e-collars to get a harder bite in protection. Frankly I think some of those people need the collar strapped around their nuts. Saying that they can get the same thing from using other types of collars or other equipment so it's not the collar, again it's the douche handling the dog.

There are other ways not involving physical punishment.

Are you willing to bet that on a dog worth tens of thousands of dollars in time, breeding and training? I wouldn't. Particularly in dogs that are not just pet temperament either.

Here is a dog trained a combination of prey drive and e-collar. This is Bart Bellon, a premier sportdog trainer.

[DesertDobes]

I had a dog die after being bitten by a snake while I was not around to intervene, she suffered a very painful and traumatic death which included internal hemorrhaging and her internal organs shutting down while on a 2 hour drive to a vet. I'll do whatever I can to ensure that a dog of mine never has to endure that again and now we have to worry about cane toads which don't even have an antivenom to give them a chance at survival.

[Kavik]

Completely OT but that is a gorgeous and completely awesome dog Nekhbet!

[Weasels]

Is there any evidence that a dog trained with an e-collar is more reliable than a dog trained without one?

[Cosmolo]

Bart Bellon is awesome. We went to a seminar of his years ago and learnt alot about e collar training methods- he was exceptional.

[huski]

I like that video a lot, that dog is very cool. I can't remember if it is that one or another video that shows it walking backwards on command over dozens of meters.

Watching the video above should also demonstrate how e collar training can be used without ruining a dog or making it scared or taking its drive away.

IME 99% of people who are strongly opposed to e collars and go on about how cruel they are have either a) never used one or come within a mile of one or b) never seen how they are used properly.

E collars aren't mainstream training tools in Australia. Most average dog owners don't even know what they are and they aren't widely available or even all that easy to buy here. There are a lot easier and cheaper ways to abuse a dog than spending hundreds of dollars on a remote training collar that you actually have to look for to purchase.

[huski]

Is there any evidence that a dog trained with an e-collar is more reliable than a dog trained without one?

I don't know of any studies done myself, But from experience whilst I do think you can get a reliable recall using drive or strictly rewards based training, this isn't achievable for every dog and owner, for a range of different reasons.

IME I find that when it comes to training a reliable recall I don't know of any other method that will give you a reliable recall as quickly or easily as you can get when training with an e collar.

ETA: when I say reliable recall I mean that the dog comes every time. The first time. As soon as the command is given.

Edited August 5, 2013 by huski

[corvus]

Another life threatening situation where an aversive is used. I personally think its quite similar to using a e-collar for snake aversion training.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8640207.stm

Dr Webb's University of Sydney colleague, Stephanie O'Donnell, trained 30 quolls - feeding them pieces of dead toad that were laced with a nausea-inducing drug.

"After they ate it, they started to get a little bit crook (ill)," he said.

"The animals didn't vomit - just pawed at their faces for a while and then got back to normal. But the next time they were offered a toad they ignored it."

Dr Webb and his colleagues then released the quolls into the wild with radio collars so they could monitor them.

"In the wild, they did encounter big toads and they ignored them," said Dr Webb.

"You could see they were interested in the toads because they were big and they were hopping around. Some of them followed the toad for a while. But most of them just sniffed it, and then thought - yuck, you're no good to eat - and walked away."

"But it's such a powerful form of learning that the taste and smell of the prey can really override the other cues [such as the visual cue of the sight of the toad]."

I would much prefer a short zap to the pain, confusion and suffering that dogs go through after a snake bite which can last days, and can be fatal.

Taste aversion is a little bit different from other forms of aversion training. Literature suggests it is a case of one trial learning, usually, and the effects last a long time without further exposure. In contrast, avoidance learning with a shock collar is a not necessarily going to produce a conditioned aversion. There's a recent study on dogs in NZ with Kiwis that suggests some aversion training protocols will fail for various reasons. The dogs tend to need more exposures and re-training later on. A study on coyotes, for example, successfully trained coyotes to avoid lambs, but it only held for about 4 months. Personally, I wouldn't like to depend on any training to protect my dogs from snakes. We depend on supervision and staying away from the bush in spring and summer. Erik in particular is powerfully curious about snakes, but so far has recalled off a few of them without any problems. However, if I don't see them I can't recall. Last year we had one go literally under Kivi's legs on a trail. Fortunately he didn't notice, but there was nothing to do but hold my breath and try to quietly get his attention so he would look at me but stand still until the snake had gone.

For anyone interested, Emily Blackwell and Rachel Casey did a series of studies for DEFRA in the UK about electronic collars recently. The reports are available online. The results were interesting. In particular:

Significant differences were, however, found in data collected from e-collar and control dogs undergoing standard training tests with and without dummy e-collars. These included a difference in the change in salivary cortisol between tests. E-collar dogs showed an increase in this measure in comparison to control dogs trained using largely positive reinforcement approaches. There were also behavioural changes between these two tests that were consistent with changes in emotional state. E-collar dogs showed an increase in a composite behavioural score which incorporated duration of time tense, inverse of duration of time relaxed, and duration of time attentive to owner, whoever was conducting the training, when compared with all controls (and also when just compared with the positive reinforcement sub-population). These training tasks were designed to replicate the context where e-collar training had occurred in the past, and indicate a shift towards higher levels of physiological and behavioural arousal in the e-collar dogs. These findings suggest that the experience of a stimulus is sufficiently aversive in at least a proportion of dogs for them to experience negative emotions when trained in the situation which may predict collar use.

From here: http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Default.aspx?Menu=Menu&Module=More&Location=None&ProjectID=15332&FromSearch=Y&Publisher=1&SearchText=training+aids&SortString=ProjectCode&SortOrder=Asc&Paging=10#Description

[Nekhbet]

A study on coyotes, for example, successfully trained coyotes to avoid lambs, but it only held for about 4 months.

Who came up with that? Train a wild animal not to go for an easy meal :laugh: a hungry stomach conquers all.