Adam, can i ask if England follows wales lead & bans them with similar fines, will you continue to use them & break the law?

This is a very interesting thread and I have been following it daily.
Good points throughout from the fors and against.
I certainly see it from both sides. Tho I think that all of you that are against the collars are only looking at negative studies.........there are certainly positive ones out there if you chose to acknowledge (sp)them!
A lot of the collars have just a "bleep" noise setting, which can work incredibly well and can be just enough to distract from the unwanted behavior in question.

Adam...........ever felt in the minority???? lol
You raise some good points and fight your corner well.

As I said in my previous post, and still maintain my opinion, that in certain cases and situations the e collar can be a useful training tool.

We all have our own opinions . If some of you were to go on certain breed forums you would see very differing opinions.

Regardless of opinions it is now banned in Wales and hopefully will be in England and Scotland. The manufacturers are not happy and want to challenge it-----but then they would wouldn't they?

If other countries manage without it then I am sure eventually we will manage it as well.

rune

That's your opinion and that's fine for you but I fail to see how any type of 'shock' treatment can have positive affects on the animal it's being used on. Shock collars and the like are the lazy mans training aid. The only thing that benefits from the use of them is the person pressing the button.

It takes far more commitment and time to train a dog through positive reinforcement but any living creature will always respond more favourably to positive training methods. Plus the dog will understand what you are asking from it rather than the fact something deeply unpleasant happens to it that is has no way of understanding.

I learnt many years ago that not everyone holds animals in the same regard that I do. It makes me sad but it is the way things are.

Questions for the shock collar fans:

Would you use a shock collar on a toddler to prevent them from running away from you? To stop them touching the hot oven door? To ensure you could leave them in a room and know full well they would remain in the spot you left them in?

Good point ~ if they are as "painless" & effective as the users & manufacturers say they, why not use them for kids & lots of other animals?

Trainers of marine mammals around the world have been using positive reinforcement methods for years very successfully (& I'm very aware that a trainer was recently killed but this was to do with management/environment, not the training). They very quickly found that punishment & -ve reinforcement don't work ~ the animal avoids/escapes & ends up in conditioned suppression or learned helplessness.

The only reason they appear to work for dogs is because of the dog's innate requirement for social contact ~ isolation is a particularly hard thing for such social animals to cope with. So the dog has a whole repertoire of appeasing signals to ensure that it can get on with others of the same species. I wonder how many dogs show subtle appeasing signals the first few times they are shocked ~ but that probably go completely unnoticed by the person operating the collar?

Whatever the theory behind ecollars (& any other form of punishment), the fact remains that it requires the use of something painful to try to stop an unwanted behaviour. This is not kind, or ethical & there are so many studies (not just on ecollars) that show that learning anything by the use of aversives, is not a pleasant experience & has huge repercussions on the rest of a person or dog's outlook on life.

Adam ~ Could I please respectfully ask you to read "Coercion & its Fallout" by Murray Sidman? IMO it should be required reading for anyone studying animal behaviour or psychology & it demonstrates quite graphically the horrible effects that punishment & -ve reinforcement have.

I would like to see some studies for the opposite, and have asked if someone who defends the use of e-collars to show them, yet none have been given, the opportunity is there yet, nothing................. at best I can find ones that have pro's and con's of the use of e-collars, and ones that have determined negative findings.
I am open but in a way of looking at the welfare of the animal first and training second, there are so many alternatives to shocking dogs, I think if that is the method used, I would want a very good reason for them to be used and as yet, have only heard that it is quick in curbing behaviour and as Lilypup stated that is a poor reason for using them.
As for bleep's, as you say, are effective what need is there for an electric shock to be given then
I would quite happily be a minority in any situation where shock collars are being sold off as positive methods for training dogs, as yet there is no reasoning that I believe is acceptable for not using positive methods, or explaining to numpty owners they have a high prey driven dog that has been instilled in them for hundreds or thousands of years and need to understand dog's have instincts that we may not like but have to live with and if that means keeping a high prey driven dog on a long line or lead when around stock then that is better than shocking them.
So please show some studies as you claim are for them as I am still waiting, ten pages in to this disscussion


Good point Claire, I have asked Adam numerous times but alas no response to the question.

Emma

Just list your questions and I will answer them. Your post are so long (like mine) that I pick the relevant points and miss others, sorry!

Why should I need study's I know what I know and as I'm they only one here with practical experience of the tool I think that's most important.

Re toddlers, no I wouldn't. Toddlers don't have much prey drive though do they?


Emma and Lillypup

Re high drive dogs and stock. My experience is as followas. High drive dogs are also high energy dogs, therefore they need lots of exercise (more than the average owner and long line can offer) often these dogs live in a situation were theycould have a cracking lifestyle (lots of exercise ect) but can't because of the drive. By using an e collar you give these dogs the freedom they need to be fulifilled and keep them and livstock safe. Rehomiong is not an option for many dogs (rehoming centres put down 100s of perfectly good dogs every year) so the e collar alternative is a restricted lifestlye which leads to other problems. A some one who works with dogs everyday I've seen this happen again and again.

Wswige

You may dislike nr but it is the commonest used approach to training for animals around the world, all draft animal training is based around nr, ridden horses are trained with nr. Most large mammals (horses, cows, sheep ect) and handled and managed with nr.

Nr is the reason they work wilbar. Pure learning therory much like clicker training or food rewards. Social behaviour doesn't come into it.

Nr is argueable the most commonly used reinforcement in dealing with people to. Someone asks you to do something that could be experienced by you as pressure you do it the pressure goes away as they no longer ask.


Historically dogs were always trained with nr, look at the old school methods of ob or gundog training. It could be argued that these dogs were often as well if not better behaved than dogs trained with pr.

The sea world type comparision is ok but the reality is sea world animals live in small tanks with no competing motivators. I remember reading about dolphins trained to lay mines (now that's pretty unethical) who swam off when in the open ocean. Also it takes easily six months to train basic behaviours into these (very smart) animals. The behaviours that would be the equivilant of a sit.

I don't believe e colalrs cause pain. Why because I know dogs and can easily read sigs of pain.

Misflyn

I would use alternatives (spray or vibrate collars) but if an e collar was needed to save a dogs life then yes I would use it.
In parts of europe were they are banned people persit in using them, when the collar is on it's hard to tell the difference between it and a spray collar. When using the collar it's hard for anyone to tell when the sensation is being used (educational videos will have a dot on the screen when the dog experiences the sensation). Its also easy to disguise an e collar by fitting a thick leather collar over the top.

Adam

Toddlers may not have prey drive but they do run away and need to be taught to stay with their parents. Just as a dog needs to be taught the same.

I have only owned high prey dogs and yet have never used a shock collar on any of them. The picture you paint is of someone with lots of land that would let their dogs out to run free but not cross an invisible boundary due to the training received via the shock collar. The reality of most people here is that they take their dogs out for exercise as part of the reason for having them, is to enjoy this exercise together. My dogs are generally offlead and have I have trained them to stay reasonably close to me and to come when called.

I will never accept that shock collars are the way to train any dog. Or that without shock collars, dogs are being needlessly put to sleep. You don't seem to have any evidence to back up your claims either which is interesting.

That is a big assumption to make... because people disagree with the use of them does not mean they have not had experience of using them.

No...but they do not have a sense of danger either do they......even using an e-collar you will not 'stop' a prey drive - you will suppress it or possibly redirect it - stop it I don't think!

What about general avoidance signs that can often be the first signs of pain in a dog? Head turning, ear flicking.... avoiding physical contact.......these signs can be general stress indicators that you may see in training or the first signs of pain...yet many of these are what you will be looking for as confirmation that the collar is working.
As we cannot speak the same language we can never know exactly how painful something is - we have to go on the body indications.
I know my dogs - but even that took a while with Tass and her spine...the first indicator that she is in pain is the fact she would like her back to be scratched (a fairly normal behaviour for most dogs!)


How sad

Hello Adam

I am genuinely interested in your answer if you have time.

Bearing in mind it's heritage, what advise would you give to a Siberian Husky owner who approached you and asked for their dog to be trained off lead around livestock. Every breed club in the world advises against it.

All my guys live surrounded by livestock. Their negative reinforcement would be the farmers gun if I were naive enough to think they could ever be fully trusted.

Another question is (sorry for asking more, you have so many others to answer ) Do you think an e collar would have to be turned up to a higher level than usual to reach 'first sensation' bearing in mind the thick double coat of the northern breeds?

Take care Adam.

Seoniad.