Dogsey

I have anger and happiness, love and hate, vengeance and forgiveness in me. Humility gave me the choice to culture my good. When I was a kid I was confronted rather strongly on unacceptable behaviours if I portrayed them after I had been lovingly asked to change.
Ironically enough I was working for child services a few years ago when I was confronted by a "2 Year Bachelor Degree" weilding, single, childless, 19 yr old, only child, from a well to do family, female human. She had all these "written in stone" policies and procedures that essentially said my grandparents were unhealthy, abusive,self serving blah blah blah.....
I asked her how many times she'd had premarital sex and how many children she had borned.
I went on to tell her my grandparents(raised me) had raised 9 strong, healthy, intelligent, hardworking, friendly, well adjusted offspring and, as tradition bespeaks to us, 5 grandchildren.
I also told her " I'm married, have 3 children and have also raised other people's children."
After looking at me kind of strange for awhile she asked me what I meant.
I told her she has very d--- little to absolutely no right enforcing her "theories" regarding child rearing on me or anyone else that have a lot personal experience than she does.
My point you ask.....
I've expended energy reading and thinking about, reading and thinking more, and again and some more regarding these collars.
I have never used them on a dog or anyone/thing else.... so with me, the verdict is still out.
That said, I'm under the impression that most people who employ these collars are immature and lazy. Most seem to think these collars are a like oxy or T3'S, some kind of cure all used to correct all "unacceptable" behaviours as opposed to one behaviour at a time.

To ad, I stand that humans are not as smart as dogs, never-mind thinking we're smarter. "Bigger brains" does not necessarily translate to smarter. In some cases just more clutter(actually most cases!).

Interesting Musher! I can assure you though I am neither immature or lazy. Our e collar has saved my boy Ben's life. You have doubtless read through all my waffle about the why's and wherefore's.

You are right when you say that too people think they are some sort of cure all - they most certainly are not. But they have saved my boy twice, and that is good enough for me.

I don't think I am clutching at straws at all Gnasher - perhaps it is convenient for you to think that.

Twice now you have said you have 'saved your dogs life' thanks to electric shock collars. Neither situation warranted putting your dog through physical and mental abuse imo. In one situation the dog could have been kept on a lead (or long lead) - as many other people with similar breeds do - and in the other there are plenty of tools out there proven to keep a dog from getting at wounds.

Electric shock collars is an accurate description - they omit an electrical current, designed to 'shock' the dog through pain.

I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear - I just wish you'd throw the damn thing in the bin and train your dogs in a more modern, and acceptable manner - of which you are more than able of doing

Azz: you have never met me, or Ben, you maybe never have met or had any dealings with a northern breed, in particular a wolf cross northern breed. They are very different, believe me. I have owned dogs since I was 14, which is well over 40 years ago. I have had labradors, collies, golden retrievers, german shorthaired pointers, 2 crosses, an F1 wolf cross Czech wolfdog, chihuahuas, staffordshire bull terriers, english setters, bloodhounds - quite a good selection there, so I know what I am talking about.

Keeping any dog on a long lead is for me unacceptable, but keeping a northern breed or wolf cross in such a condition is totally unacceptable to me. That is my opinion, my choice, to which I am entitled. I do not accept that all northern breeds should be confined to a long line, or only allowed to run free in harness. That is my opinion, and I am unlikely to change it simply because I have achieved a good recall with my wolf cross Hal who was very much a Malamute in character.

My wolfie boys run free, including Ben. Without wishing to rake up the past, we all know the story of Ben and the success with the e collar in training him to have a totally reliable recall such that we could safely let him off leash when and where safe. However - we still have issues of aggression with some male dogs, black labradors and spaniels in particular, and although we never have Ben off harness or leash now unless totally and absolutely 100% certain that there are no other dogs in the vicinity, occasionally other people's dogs who are off leash are not so well trained as Ben, and come rushing up to say hello ... and end up being pounced upon by His Lordship! Fair enoughsky, you might say, that's the other owner's fault for allowing his dog to come into Ben's space like that. However, the law has changed now, and as we all know a dog that can be conceived as being anti-social towards other dogs, like my Ben, could end up potentially having to be put down by court order, were he to inflict serious injury or death on another dog, even if he was on his lead and therefore under control. It would in my opinion be totally wrong to use an e collar on Ben in such a situation - we have never used an e collar on Ben for any other reason but to reinforce a reliable recall, and latterly to stop him eating his backside away.

So this is why I say the e collar has saved his life twice ... firstly by enabling us to very quickly indeed train a virtually perfect recall, and secondly by stopping him eating himself alive.

I have trained many dogs in my lifetime Azz, some extremely challenging and difficult, sometimes due to their lack of intelligence, sometimes because of issues in the case of the rescues and most of them have been purchased as puppies, although there are several mixes in there too. I cannot think of any occasion or situation with any of my past dogs who I would have needed to subject to the use of an e collar. Except for Ben ... I don't wish to brag, but I truly believe that had we not been able to adopt him when his owner had his accident and ended up in hospital for weeks, he would have had to be destroyed - most likely because he would have badly bitten a human being. Not that we used an e collar on him for this, of course, it was entirely to be able to quickly train him to have a reliable recall so that he did not have to be confined to a life on a long line, something which I considered and still consider to be the height of cruelty for a free spirit like Ben.

I will never change my opinion about e collars in very exceptional circumstances, simply because I cannot deny the evidence of my own eyes.

Azz - did you mean to say that electric shock collars omit an electric current? If they did, we'd not be having this discussion - LOL.

Using a e.collar on a dog that has no recall is NOT expectional circumstances, there are plenty of dogs that stay on leads and live perfectly happy lives, maybe you should have taken on dogs that are known for bad recalls, and stuck to something less challenging ...you don't like being called cruel, but are happy to throw that accusation at others.

OK , it's not acceptable for you to keep dogs on leads, but it not acceptable to others when people use shock collars on dogs for their own ego either.

You don't like the responses, then it's simple, stop fuelling the flames.

No Jackie, I will not, because I know that with regard to my dog I am right ... simply because I live with him and see him every single day.

Today we took him at dusk up to the hills at the top of Northamptonshire. It was howling a freezing cold gale, and when we could see that we had the world to ourselves we let him run free and he hurtled around in mad circles sending showers of muddy water all over me and himself. He went loo loo as I call it for a few minutes, and then joyfully came crashing back to my side with a skiddy splashy halt. To keep a free spirit like that 24/7 on a lead is totally, totally cruel and wrong, that is my opinion and it will be my opinion to my dying day. There will be hundreds of people who will have a different point of view, just like there are hundreds of people who would like to see me dead because I have used an e collar on my dog. I don't care, they are entitled to their opinion and I am entitled to mine.

Jackie: you STILL have not told me any alternative treatment / action I could have taken with Ben to stop him eating himself alive, other than to sit up with him without any sleep whatsoever for a whole week or more whilst his perianal fistulas had a chance to heal.

O no, I forgot, sorry, I could grab the odd hour here or there ... an hour during which Ben would have probably lost a pint of blood and half his anal area.

But your dog is NOT a free spirit is he.....because you use an e.collar to curtail it .

My Jade has no recall, but it never crossed my mind to use an e collar to train it. Literally it never crossed my mind. She is leashed and perfectly fine. Granted she is a layabout and old, but still. Using an e collar to teach recall only because you don't want to leash does bother me.

Yes, it's a hassle to leash up my girl each time we go out, yes I wish she had recall so she could sometimes run free, but I'd never use an e collar to achieve these things. She is old and it set in so I could not train it, so I gave up and leashed, she's perfectly fine.

Can't say I agree that using an e collar for recall is okay. That does bother me quite a bit, gotta turn my back on that one.

It's a shame that you re not willing to keep an open mind :/ What are the odds of your dog being in not one but two 'exceptional' circumstances? How long will it be before it's three or four?

Plenty of Nordic breed owners manage to provide their dogs with fulfilling lives - whether they pull sled or get involved in other sports. Using a device that causes pain to stop a trait that a dog was bred for is inherently cruel imo - particularly when thousands of other dog owners tackle the problem humanely.

40 years of owning or training dogs doesn't really tell me anything about how well or how humanely you train your dogs. Your posts on the forum do tho

Anyway, I don't want to think I am picking on you - I just wanted to clarify that shock collars are indeed collars that omit an electric current (i.e. a shock) and mention that there were probably several other options for the 'problems' you had with Ben. I wish you all the best with your dogs, but do hope that you will at least look at other, more acceptable training methods and solutions to problems in the future