To be very frank, I would imagine the study leaders would be looking for trainers with many years' backup and documented experience* of using whatever methods they prefer, be it e-collar or positive reward.

If by chance Adam has been included, then I actually trust the judgement of the behaviourists looking on in judgement, who will see - as we all have - the various stress signals and unease that his dogs display.

I don't think we need worry too much on that score.

[* as opposed to someone who only a year ago was not confident enough to trust his decision to use an e-collar on his own dog.]

No but it doesn't mean pain, so far a pointless question!

Adam

Yes

Adam

Like I said before pain ect is distracting and slows learning down, so if all you want is the quick result you make sure the collar is at working level! Even if you care about nothing else but speed of learning, having it too high would slow the learning rate doiwn.

Adam

Im am so sorry but if you think that poor lab was keen then I feel sorry for the dogs you work with
That poor lab was breaking my heart with his stress, he was staying in the position she put him in but he was doing a whole lot of turning his head away from her, licking his lips, yawning and stress panting. His face was an a grimace very similar to your collie when working
I am not a dog trainer but a fairly inexperienced dog owner and that was totaly, heartbreakingly, blindingly clear to me
Compare to the video i put up where my dogs were in a stay as I went out of sight (again im not a pro trainer) they are focused and alert and happy, ears and head up


and yes you discussed the fence before - but my understanding of your training was that you never zapped a dog in full chase mode - that you built up the distractions slowly enough that the shock wasnt used by that stage - I was wrong

But what happens if you turn the dial up and the dog is so focused he dosent notice? I know when just playing Ben slit his paw open and he didnt even notice till we got home
So a dog can zone out a level of pain that is causing damage to them when focused
How high do these collars go? at what power does skin become damaged? - I have used TENS machines in the past and when it was just an annoying tingle I still ended up with red sores on my skin



totaly agree, it is heartbreaking that people at the end of their witts entrust their much loved pets to someone who clearly has no understanding or empathy

Yes it is very scary that someone has so much faith in the e collar that they cannot even see it could be missused (worse than how it is missused normaly) by someone who dosent understand the instructions

Actually, Adam, this quite misleading. Animals, all animals, have survival instincts. Part of that instinct is to avoid discomfort and pain. Apply discomfort or pain and switch it off when the animal is doing as you wish is a lesson that will be learnt to aid survival.

You train the dog that you (or the handler) is the safe place to be by applying discomfort/pain when the dog is away from that area. Dogs learn this as a direct result of the pain/discomfort being applied. All animals learn quickly to avoid pain.

What are we talking about here flesh and blood animals or inanimate objects I feel quite sick reading your posts Adam.

I am sure there is a place for you working with robots.

a short but typical adam dodgeball.

Will you do it?
You cant use food or toys only your magic ecolar

Heres a pup learning it with food reward


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aZY3...eature=related
If you do do it (& i HOPE you dont for your poor dogssake)
I will update with another vid of a older dog

I'm breaking my own New Year's resolution posting here (didn't even make till the end of January ) but I am worried by the term "working" level used by Adam, & I assume other ecollar trainers also use this term.

This seems to me like the term "stim" used to try to mitigate the connotations of administering an electric shock to a dog & to try to make electrocuting a dog more "palatable" to the general public. By using the term "working level", this also seems to have connotations of "normality", that dogs are experiencing just this level of shock, just enough for them to register & take notice of, so it's ok to use this level of electric shock.

Apart from going against all the rules of operant conditioning (which Adam either ignores or lends his own "unique" interpretation to!), you can't escape from the fact that giving an animal an electric shock in an attempt to make it stop doing something that it finds highly rewarding, & sometimes has a predisposed & classically conditioned response to, means that the shock has to be at a high level that hurts! This isn't rocket science ~ this is common sense, almost like bartering really.

If a person is doing something highly rewarding, or has a physical or psychological addition to something, then to make that person stop doing that thing, or to make that person fight against that craving for something, you have to offer either an extremely rewarding alternative, or threaten with (or use) an extremely harsh punishment. People that use positive reinforcement have no difficulty in understanding this ~ they will use highly rewarding things, & ensure that distractions in training are only re-introduced slowly & gradually, thereby allowing the conditioned emotional response & the physiological changes to also alter. So why do dog trainers that use positive punishmemt, i.e. electric shock collars, insist that they can train with a punishment that only "tingles", or only "stims". or is only on a "working" level? They can't, is the simple truth.

If punishment, in the form of an electric shock, is supposed to train a dog not to do something, then it has to be used at a level that overcomes the reward of doing the other thing the dog wants to do! So to stop something like prey drive (hugely rewarding, natural, instinctive behaviour) then clearly the level of electric shock has to be hugely punishing . This is not what the general public would term a "working level" ~ this means a high level of pain for the dog.

Then ecollar trainers go on to say that the dog will learn from the experience of being electrocuted What exactly will it learn? Only that it experienced severe pain. Whether the dog will make any connection between its own actions & the pain, or its own inactions & the cessation of pain, is anyone's guess. There could a myriad of other things that the dog could connect to the pain or its cessation, including the wearing of the collar, the presence of the owner, the trainer or any other rather inconvenient thing that happened at roughly the same time!!

And, as has been said so often before, the hugely damaging & stressful effects of receiving such pain, will mean that the dog is so overcome by this, that it will find it very difficult to then calm down enough to learn anything new. The dog's short term memory slots will be so full of the experience & shock of being electrocuted that it would probably take several hours for its physiological state to return to normal so that it would be capable of learning anything!

So rather than use the term "working" level, just be honest & say that the electric shock has to be MORE powerful that the dog's drive to chase sheep, or bite another dog (or in Adam's case with poor little Jacca, to remain standing or fail to turn left or right when Adam decides Jacca should do so!).