Dogsey

Who says anyone has won? I merely asked for a civil reply to my civil question. If you cannot or will not reply I will conclude that you think I may have a point but don't want to back down or admit that in exceptional cases in exceptional hands an e collar can be useful.

To demonstrate how open minded and reasonable I am I will argue against the use of e collars. In the wrong hands they are a diabolical tool. My hubby is a zoologist and did months of study and reading up on the pros and cons .. there are far more cons than pros. I fully admit that. But in exceptional cases they have a place. Ben was an exceptional case.

Now with Tai I concur we could have prevented him killing the escapee chickens hiding in the hedgerow just by keeping him on a lead until danger was past. Back then we rarely had Ben and Tai on leads ... both were obedient and under control. We had sorted out Ben's recall with the e collar, it seemed sensible to sort out Tai in the same manner. And we did. Took the short, easy route. We knew that Tai was a robust 45 kilo malamute wolf cross, no way was he going to be traumatised by our choice of quick fix. I see no benefit in spending years trying to achieve something that took 1 second to fix.

On the right dog in the right hands for the right reasons I would have no hesitation in using it again .. ban or not.

As you are determined to carry this on at all costs, let me answer your 'query'

"So our outstanding success with Ben was just a fluke"

It was a major gamble and one you had no way of knowing beforehand what the outcome would be. Your 'outstanding success' was hardly that. As I remember, you used the collar because Ben tried to get to the sheep you sometimes encountered on your walks. A simpler solution would have been to attach the lead at that stretch of the walk and would have been far less of a gamble.

Ben, bless him, was hardly an outstanding success. Even after the collar use, he got away from you to maul other dogs - or am I mistaken?

"If the use of the e collar was so painful, so damaging, my hubby would not have lived to tell the tale"

Of course he would because Ben was away from him when he gave him the 'one' zap that led to 'success'. Therefore, the connection between Ben, the pain and the person was not made. Painful? A one off occurrence to success means that Ben was either too scared or too hurt by the collar to risk repeating his actions. You were very lucky that he made the correct association. It could very easily have turned out very, very differently.

I apologise for being so blunt, but you did insist

Maybe a little off topic, but Eddie Beagle and one of our neighbour's JRT's absolutely hate each other, and will fight through a solid boarded fence. The noise was so dreadful that a trainer friend suggested that I should put a citronella spray collar on my boy.
This worked instantly, and it only took one decent spray to make Ed ignore the Jack, and come away from the fence. However, the downside was that my formerly happy hound hated having the collar fitted, and trudged dejectedly around his garden whenever I put it on him. It was sad to see him so unhappy.
The collar has never been used since, and I now believe that to the finely attuned nose of a scent hound, - Ed was highly capable tracking dog - this was a really unkind thing to do. There was a simple solution, which was to just keep the two apart. We now try to never let him into the garden at the same time that his nemesis is in hers.
I'm inclined to think that there could be an argument to ban the citronella spray collars as well as the e-type ones.

I did insist and no need to apologise at all. A very interesting reply which I will try to respond to step by step.

We used an e collar once ... not to stop Ben chasing sheep ... it was Tai who did that, not Ben ... no, the reason we used an e collar on Ben was to get him to recall to our sides so that we could leash him. Ben had a nasty habit of pinning some dogs .. those dogs who in his eyes were being unruly in some way. All we wanted to achieve was a prompt recall so that when we were taken by surprise we could immediately leash Ben and prevent him from a possible attack.

As responsible dog owners should, we knew our dog, we knew what made him tick, we knew he would instantly "get" the correction of an e collar. There was no gamble, we knew as we knew with Tai it would work. Wolf crosses are extremely intelligent and we knew that this would work else we would not have used an e collar. We would have confined both dogs to a life on the lead instead of a glorious life of 20 mile bike rides across England, along canals, over hill and Dale off leash. Sometimes they were leashed onto hubby's bike via a Springer but they both had years of off leash walking and running.

My Ben was absolutely an outstanding success .. once we understood his raison d'etre for pinning other dogs. He never mauled ... mauling means inflicting injury and Ben never did this .. he would pin other dogs and terrify them and their owners with horrendous noise ... which was all just sound and fury, no bitin g, but nonetheless totally unacceptable behaviour. As you may know we eventually stopped him doing this not with an e collar but by always making sure he was leashed around other dogs and calming him if he kicked off which he very rarely did.

He was a star for the last couple of years and I will defend him to the hilt. We did miracles with that dog, and I am incredibly proud of what we achieved with him WITHOUT an e collar ... the e collar was merely a tool to establish a good reliable recall so that we could let him off leash when it was safe to do so.

You are so wrong about Ben's fear leading to an attack. Ben knew perfectly well the zap came from OH ... he would have attacked OH had he been hurt or frightened. Please allow me to know my dog better than a stranger. He immediately got the message and accepted it. I remain so proud of him. He had been so badly treated in the past and he died in my arms a truly happy dog. God bless Ben.

I agree with you Carole 're the c. Collar ... Ben would have absolutely hated that, he had an amazing sense of smell probably even greater than a scent hound. It would have hurt him for a prolonged period of time whereas an e collar is a split second zap less painful than the static shocks I regularly get off the lifts at work!

As has been said many times before when discussing Ben and the e-collar we have to leave it where we agree to disagree

Actually, Carole, I'm wondering and hoping if this

"The training devices deliver up to 6,000 volts of electricity or spray noxious chemicals to control animals' behaviour"

means that they are going to include citronella collars

Fair enufski but I don't believe in giving in ... I think you have given in because you have failed to convince me or anyone that the use of the e collar was anything but a resounding success ... it was not a gamble, it was very carefully researched and thought out. Ben would jump for joy every day whilst we were putting on his collar ... hardly the response of a traumatised dog!!

If you say so, Gnasher. If you say so