I have to say after flicking through this thread I am totally confused. Maybe its just me

I honestly cannot see why using high value treats would cause stress. Excitement, happiness and the dog knowing the person they love best is happy yes. Stress no

My dogs absolutely love working with me and earning their reward be it food, ball, play, praise.

I also have a limited experience of the shock collar method. We did once volunteer to do the kitchen for a local seminar with a trainer coming from abroad. The dogs there were trained with shock collars and electric sleeves. I did not see one happy dog. Nervous, cringing robots is the only way I can describe it. It was very upsetting.

Ha... this from the man whos little dog is scared to move in the wrong way for fear of being zapped.

As I said before, your methods do not work and you posted the proof of that......end of!!!!!

Granted some dogs need a free run each day not just going at the owners pace but that can also be achieved without an E-collar.

Your not meant to get it Abbie That would be to assume that there was a logic behind anything that AP posts

I interpret that as not wanting the affection from them just a dog that will do whatever it is told and make the handler look 'in control' because its doing what its told? If you didnt want them to be dependant..

Adam, have you read any modern books on training through positive reinforcement and tried it properly at all?

I guess so....bit incomprehensible to me.

Why should a dog have to suffer a restricted lifestyle because its owner isn't very good at positive training?

E collars are very simple to use, much easier that purely positive methods, they are also transferbale from person to person, so the dog obeys all family members not just the one whos done it all.

The proof that positive doesn't always work is all around you!

Adam

Adam, basic learning theory:

Positive reinforcement = adding something the dog finds pleasing causes the behaviour to increase

No ifs, buts, or grey areas. If it instead caused stress, the dog would not learn. If lowering the value or changing the reinforcement caused stress, no learning would take place so, quite simply, it would no longer be positive reinforcement.

If you find you are seeing stress signals, then something is going drastically wrong. I'm surprised that, as a trainer, you are seeing this in your own training.

Can I ask, when you introduce variable reinforcement, what do you do immediately after the behaviour is presented (the time when the reward has previously been forthcoming)?

Adam, if you take a look around yourself you will realise there will be people who train using an E-collar and it dosnt work, if they cannot get timing right with a clicker, think of the damage done with bad timing and an E-collar!

If they get stressed and start buzzing away instead of shouting how much more damage is that to the dog?!

Someone with bad timing, bad tone, bad body language but has patience will still have a better dog than someone with all the above and no patience to spend on training effort.

What could be more simpler to use than a whistle? And guess what? They are transferable from person to person.
Easy to train as well.

I know which one the dog would choose if it had a choice!