Definitely on a lead! Yes.

Wys
x

Ohh dear, no one can be that desprate needing to resort to animal cruelty to try and train their dogs. This sounds like one very confused and messed up dog, and if you ask me in the long run that collar will only add to his already number of 'issues'.

Its also sad to see a member that has been part of a 'dog loving' forum for so long resort to such methods..Anyone that needs to use pain in order to get a dog to stop doing something, should not own the dogs in the first place.
Time, patience, love, trust and understanding your dog is all that is needed to get over bad behaviour issues - when in the hands of a loving owner.

A true story that may be of interest and which I feel may be relevant.

When my Border Collie was much younger, his favourite place to settle was on the marble hearth (not as bad as it sounds, the fire was never used, but was attached to a back boiler). One day, he yelped and moved away from the hearth. We thought he'd pulled a muscle or had lay in an uncomfortable position. Later in the day, the same thing happened. To cut a long story short, there was a fault on the electronic ignition for the boiler so when he touched the fire, he got a shock. He avoided his favourite resting place for a couple of weeks, then one day, although wary, he gingerly moved into position and plonked himself down.

The shocks had provided a massive physical aversion, but that physical aversion that initially changed his behaviour only lasted a very short time. No doubt if the the shocks had repeated and repeated and repeated, the behaviour of laying on the hearth would have become extinct, but it didn't so................

The point is, e-collar training for all the guarantees given by trainers using them, doesn't last unless it is reinforced with the shock often.

Apart from the obvious welfare implications of using physical aversions to train, there is always a very big danger that the training will fail at a time when the owners have become both complacent and less vigilant.

Way too many opportunities for failure and fall-out which is why, of course, numbers backing the proposal of a complete ban on them are continually rising

Fab post

Gnasher- How often are you prepared to let your OH shock Ben? As he will have to do it again to reinforce the "training". Are you prepared to have to shock Ben yourself?

Ben has already gone from coming straight back when he was shocked to now coming back in his own time and that has only been since thursday,not even a week yet.

That's exactly how the 3yr old dog we took on reacted when he realised he was no longer wearing the shock collar (used by his previous owner). Within a couple of weeks he was completely ignoring the whistle!

That's a brilliant example. I'll remember that when telling others yet another reason ecollars don't work ~ thanks.

So for the shock to instil so much fear that the learning effectively "burns" the neural pathways in the brain for the event (called "engrams" for anyone interested in the physiology), I would guess it would need to inflict a lot of pain & shock, so hardly what the ecollar users call a "mild stim" then

Single event learning would have to be highly traumatic for the dog (similarly with any animal species).

The problem, of course, is that you can never be sure if single event learning has taken place as it's possible that a behaviour may re-emerge at some time in the future

The trainers who use the collar to give milder stocks for training are using many more shocks. If you think about how we train using treats/toys etc. A single giving of reward wouldn't work, but by repeating the training regularly, learning does take place. Similarly, e-collar trainers repeat regularly.

The difference, of course, is that predominantly reward-based training is a much pleasanter experience (for all concerned)

prior to this what work has been done with the dog by your OH and yourself to gain trust, teach rules etc in a positive manner?