Part 2 of my response to Wryekin:
Your understanding of collar conditioning seems to be incomplete. You are describing, albeit a bit crudely, the final stage of conditioning, where the dog has learned to avoid the correction altogether by choosing to respond correctly. Of course no one is infallible, but the worst "mistakes" I see made with the collar are not unintentional errors on the part of the trainer, they are deliberate attempts to punish the dog via shock levels that are excessively high, to shortcut training, or to bully the dog into the desired performance. All of these are examples of abusive training and are disavowed by good trainers everywhere.
Yes, "distractions happen", and one of the most important qualities of a trained dog is that he will respond properly to commands even in the face of distraction. As for your dog "ignoring" you, do you not teach attention? Preventing a
behavior via leash and collar is fine initially, but it merely prevents an unwanted behavior, and does nothing to actually teach the dog anything except, in some cases I have seen, to bolt at the sight of the leash.
I am sure you didn't mean it when you said you "would prefer your dog fail" to "zapping him". Would you "prefer" he fail the recall when racing toward a busy highway? Really?
You are doing absolutely the correct thing to keep your dog safe via leash/check cord, but I wonder what has prevented you, buy your own admission, from teaching him a recall. Your prediction of Malcom's response to a collar correction may be dead on, but it could not happen if the dog was properly started on the collar, because the initial training is done indoors and distraction free on a 6' leash And you are absolutely correct when you say people who are lazy are abusive, refer to my shortcut comment above. Lazy people rarely do
anything right with regard to the unfortunate dogs in their care.
As to the demonstration you saw: Now this is the kind of nonsense that wads my undies right up tight, because observers take it as gospel and evangelize the bad rep of collars. The reaction you saw could not have happened unless:
1. The collar was defective somehow; I have used several different brands and models of e-collar, and have
never seen this type of defect, mostly a defective collar just quits working altogether. If this was indeed the case, the owner needs to get his money back and get the moths out of his wallet to buy better quality.
2. The shock level got turned up to high, either accidentally, or deliberately by some sadistic moron trying to "prove a point". The lowest level on my collars is barely detectible as a very slight tingle, and I know that from personal experience and from that of clients who wished to try it. When I collar condition a client's dog, they often ask if I am actually using the shock, because the only thing they see is the dog responding correctly; there is no vocalizing, thrashing around, collapsing on the floor, etc.,
nor should there be. I don't even know that a high level shock would produce the result you saw; I once saw a guy fiddle with his transmitter while the collar lay on his lap, contacts down. He boosted the shock level to high and pushed the button; there was no collapse involved, but he did slowly assume the fetal position in his chair for a bit.
3. I doubt this was true in the incident you observed, but I have occasionally seen folks voluntarily try the collar on themselves and way over-react, because
by their own admission they were anticipating something far worse than what they got. They felt pretty silly afterwards.
I don't understand your comment re: my lack of response to questions, etc. I repeat, I felt the best way to answer questions that were actually presented
as a question rather than a rant, was in the context of answers to the question I posed. I did
not "disappear" following Brierley's excellent response, I do have a life and I made it clear I would be back. Jeez, you accuse me of disappearing, and Malpeki expresses surprise that I am still here, y'all are a sure a tough audience!
In conclusion (YAY!) Wryekin, it is apparent that you and I have different goals for our dogs, and thus different requirements for their training. I do agree that sometimes people expect too much from their dogs, but I don't view my needs as overbearing, and my dogs seem to agree. I have dogs that are very high-drive (I had one bitch which suffered a massive coronary on a water retrieve. I got her out of the water and she lay there for a moment, then struggled to her feet and stumbled back into the water to complete the retrieve, while I stood on the bank bawling my eyes out. The only force involved here was the force of her genetic desire to finish the job. I have had dogs that would cheerfully kill themselves to complete a retrieve, and one in particular spent her entire 13 years in search of creative ways to commit suicide, and to take years off my life. The ability to work off leash, often at distance from me, is a requirement of both hunting and competition; reliable response to commands, even in the face of strong distraction, is
not an option if I am to have any hope of keeping them safe. And keeping them safe is
my responsibility, because they haven't a thought in their heads about their own safety. I have something with my dogs that many people will never have, a
true partnership; they have their job and I have mine (which is to transport them to the swamp, set decoys, pull the trigger then sit down and shut up while they do their
job!). There is no master/slave thing going on here, they would not tolerate such a relationship. I use the collar - properly - because it allows the dogs the freedom to do their jobs as they see fit, and because it allows me to keep them safe while they do it. It's just. that. simple.