Positive only v. e-collar training-one story

I wanted to write to tell you about how my dog’s life was saved by electric collar training; I know these devices are controversial but I would like to speak out very clearly in favour of them.

I am not someone very familiar with dogs or animal training; in fact, my current dog (a West Highland White Terrier named Wesley) is the first pet I’ve had. My partner and I rescued him from a pound in South Wales—we knew nothing about the dog’s history nor even his age. He had a wonderful disposition but little to no obedience training, and we soon learned that he was very protective and territorial, barking at and even biting guests in our home on several occasions. His aggression toward people also extended to joggers in the park and people loitering near our home. On the other hand, he was a wonderful dog with us, his owners, never challenging us, growling or barking at us, and certainly not biting us. This fact convinced us that we should try to contact professional trainers and solve his problems with other people so that we could keep him as our pet.

As someone brought up in a thoroughly liberal environment, and as a vegetarian, I certainly wanted the most humane training programme I could find. I have now come to see that so-called “positive-only” trainers are at best well-meaning but ineffectual, and at worst con artists. The first ‘positive’ trainer we contacted came to our home for two hours, gave us several handouts about how to gain dominance over our dog (information which I had actually already read up on both online and in books I read before adopting a dog) and took £100 (GBP) from us.

We tried to implement her techniques and achieved spotty obedience as Wesley worked for treats when he was in the mood for them. On the other hand, her advice about what to do when guests came to our house—tethering him in the corner and letting him bark and growl often until he was sick as we ignored him for as long as it took for him to finally give up was detrimental and I believe cruel.

When we confronted this trainer about how ineffectual and disturbing this method was (it seemed very clear to us that Wesley felt cornered and scared being tied down and ignored as strange people came to the house), she looked perplexed; the only advice she could come up with is to put a board up in front of him so that he couldn’t see the guests, which of course was a way to avoid the problem rather than solve it. Afterwards, we tried to contact her for follow-ups and to report that the methods weren’t working, but she avoided our calls and never offered us a refund. I thought that I had put my dog’s life in the hands of a professional, an APDT member, but instead I was ripped off and treated unprofessionally.

Having been soured on so called professional ‘positive’ trainers and not knowing where else to turn, I looked for advice through books and on the internet. Much of what I read advocated treat-based ‘positive’ methods and simply said that you must have a lot of patience—that training can take months and months of consistency and determination. We went to a basic training obedience course and ‘stuck with’ training the dog consistently for over nine months—the methods we tried and repeated daily for months were as follows: spray of water in the face (both without him seeing it came from us and then with full knowledge it was coming from us); a shake bottle with coins; baking tins rigged to loudly crash down near the dog; pulling on a flat collar/leash; food and toy distractions; time-outs; and confinement to a crate. We did get results when it came to normal everyday behaviour, but we saw NO progress when it came to Wesley’s problem behaviour—if a greater reward was present (such as barking at/growling at/biting a guest or chasing a jogger), he chose to engage in that behaviour rather than obey my command for a food treat, or be bothered about water or a loud noise. I was at the end of my tether—I thought we’d have to give Wesley up to a rescue again and ensure that he could be placed in a home on a farm with very few other people around (a highly unlikely scenario), and I knew the likelihood was that either a new family or a rescue centre would have him put down. Another possibility I imagined was that he’d bite someone at some point who would sue us to have him put down. I joined an email group (the Yahoo Canine Aggression group) for owners of aggressive dogs and someone suggested e-collar training.

At first I was very nervous, and sceptical. There is much advice out there which aims to frighten people off e-collars. I read that E-collars were harsh and painful; those that admitted that the collars can be used on levels that don’t harm the dog still scared people by saying that they can cause ‘redirected aggression’; bottled-up anger; or debilitating fear and nervousness. I was very nervous about using one, but I thought it was my last hope, so I went ahead and got a reference to a professional trainer and UK e-collar specialist (Denis Carthy, a trainer who I believe is rather well-known) and bought a Tri Tronics 80M collar on his brand recommendation.

I now wish I had begun with this method and found Mr Carthy a year ago. First of all, I was astonished when Mr Carthy asked for NO PAYMENT AT ALL until we saw results—I am curious why other trainers are not confident enough in their methods to do the same, or to offer a refund if their methods don’t work. I was also pleased to find out that while Mr Carthy is very serious about dogs being taught to obey commands when they are issued, he is equally concerned that the dog spends the majority of his time being free to do as he pleases (as long as he is free from harm) and being happy in his owner’s company (and not just because I have treats in my pocket!). As for the collar itself, I tried it on my wrist at the same levels we used it on the dog, and it was mildly unpleasant but not painful. (In fact, my partner noted that as a child he had a prank deck of cards he bought at a joke-shop that administered a higher level of electric stimulation than the e-collar at working levels!). When we found Wesley’s working level it was clear he was not experiencing pain—in fact, if distracted by a ball or new smells he would often not notice the stimulation at all. The Tri Tronics has 5 levels of stimulation, and we have never turned the stimulation above level 2.

Wesley currently stops himself from biting and is now, after just three weeks of training, enjoying the company of guests who have now risked coming round—and he is ignoring joggers altogether. One unfortunate remaining problem is that some of our friends who he snapped at or bit in the days of ‘positive’ training will no longer risk coming round even though he has stopped any aggression. He has a happy disposition and is not subdued or fearful as so many fairy stories of e-collars suggest. He has been treated no differently to how he would have been in the wild (I watch lots of nature programmes), and he has a new lease on life because he can behave well in human society. If detractors claim that ‘e-collar’ is just a euphemism for a cruel electric shock device, they are wrong—and in fact I’d point out that the ‘euthanasia’ they may finally advise for dogs that don’t respond to ‘positive’ training is merely a euphemism for killing dogs that they give up on curing. I can honestly say that I believe in inflicting a few moments of mild discomfort (which is all an e-collar does) in order to allow a dog to live out his natural life with the freedom of running round parks and open spaces in safety rather than be condemned as a ‘dangerous dog’ and given a lethal injection.

I believe in banning animal cruelty; I only buy cosmetics and other products from companies that don’t test on animals; I don’t eat meat or wear leather; and I completely support the safe and responsible use of electric collars. And I think the ‘positive-only’ trainers should be legally required to admit the limitations of their techniques and issue refunds to clients whose problems they are unequipped to solve. In total, prior to Denis Carthy we have had two positive trainers one of whom played and charged for the dual role of behaviourist as well—both of them walked away with quite a bit of my hard-earned money and with my dog behaving worse than he had before they came into his life.

As a new pet dog owner who has been through nothing short of a scam, with our dog’s life at risk, my recommendations to pet dog owners are as follows. Unless you have a quiet, problem-free dog and you just want to teach him a few basic tricks, avoid APDT or other people professing they are positive trainers.

Find a trainer who is completely up to date and experienced on modern e-collar training, who has a working understanding of all other training methods as well and who will give you an educational basic training course. The methods we have been taught over these past 3 weeks, including the use of an e-collar, have put us in the position of being able to go out in the world with our dog so that any problems we encounter we can now deal with ourselves, and at home it is the same. I hope this letter can be of benefit to someone somewhere who might be in the position we were in 3 weeks ago, and if so, writing and posting this letter has been completely worthwhile.

C. T. Halberstam
Lecturer, Department of Theology
King’s College, London
Strand, London

thanks for sharing your story with us and i can understand why you rate them so highly but you will find alot of members on here don't share your opinion on e collars.

If it worked for you well done, thanks for sharing the story.
Dawn.

I just want to say that I completely respect other people's opinions on e-collars--but I wanted to share my experience for the sake of a balanced discussion and clearing up some serious misconceptions (that I shared up until about a month ago) about what ecollars are and how they can actually be used very successfully and be in the best interests of the dog.

C.H.

Not sure if anyone watched 'It's me or the Dog' last week, but there was someone who had a similar (if not worse) problem with their small dog too.

It wouldn't let people come in the house (had bitten many visitors) and wouldn't even let the husband near the wife! They too have a long list of people no longer wishing to come visit.

The professional behaviourist used a combination of compressed air, water spray and a bicycle honk horn along with teaching the owner how to treat the dog and show it it's place in the household/pack to completely turn the dog around.

I guess it goes to show with the right techniques you may not need to resort to shocking your dogs to rectify such behavioural problems.

Interesting. I agree with you totally about some of the 'positive only reinforcement' for the simple fact that the company I used to work for in US got at least 30% of its 'pupils' (the 4 legged ones) after prostive only methods had failed, the owners were told the dog was untrainable, the dogs were too aggressive.....etc.

I found your comment about having the dog tied up to the point where it made itself physically sick extremely disturbing, I thought it was common knowledge that if theres one thing that make a dog more aggressive its keeping it tied up for lengthy periods of time.

Personally I dont like e-collars, Ive never used one....I worked in the animal medical field for a long time and saw too many burned and swollen necks from them, Ive seen injuries caused by choke chains, by prong collars and Ive seen injuries caused by flat collars, harnesses, long leads, the thing is that any training tool, when used by someone who knows what theyre doing, should not injure or have a bad effect on them mentally.

The one time where I have seen e-collars used well is there is a guy out in California that does 'snake aversion' training, he uses them and after seeing more than enough dogs die from snake bites there then I see why he uses them....he ups the voltage but its pretty much gauranteed that the dog will not go near a snake ever again.

Flipper
The one time where I have seen e-collars used well is there is a guy out in California that does 'snake aversion' training, he uses them and after seeing more than enough dogs die from snake bites there then I see why he uses them....he ups the voltage but its pretty much gauranteed that the dog will not go near a snake ever again.

Clob
Yes but what needs to be remembered about snake proofing is that it is not an trainer alones job unless he knows quite a lot about the snakes in that particular environment.

If I were asked to proof a dog against snakes (we do not have the problem here) I would have to say no. I would need a snake expert of that particular area with me and I think, even then, the risks would still be too great for someone like me with no knowledge of any kind about snakes in any areas such as those where snake proofing is done.

I would need a good, in field course first, probably liveing in different snake areas for a while.

Denis Carthy

I admire your decision to share your story, as there are a lot of folk on this forum who will condem e collors out of hand, without really knowing enough about them to make a fair judgement. I myself have never used, or felt that I needed to use them, but I would consider using them in certain circumstances, such as with a dog chasing sheep, if everything else failed. In other words, I think they have their place.

I agree from your story that you made the right decision in your case. After all, the proof is in the pudding. I think a lot of people dont realise that a method of training which will work on one dog, will not work on another. I see an e collar as a last resort, which it seemed to be in your case.

It obviously will be misused in the hands of some people, albeit unintentionally, and thus it is very important to get expert advice before attempting to use one, but only after all else has failed.

People that watch TV programs on dog training, and believe what they see are kidding themselves (in my opinion) I think a lot of these programs are edited to make it look as if the dog has somehow become a reformed charactor in a short space of time. I visualise the dog being filmed when behaving at its worst to start with, and at its best at the end of the show, to influence us to believe that the difference has been achieved by training. (or am I just being a cynic?)

How did I know when I read the title of this thread that Denis Carthy would be behind it in some manner

Call me cynical but I suspect that the OP and Clod are indeed one and the same

I'm afraid your reputation preceeds you Denis

This guy is snake expert, not a dog trainer, when he does his classes....he is set up in one area but from around March thru May every year he travels all over S.Cal and Arizona doing weekend classes and employs dog trainers to handle the dogs (he wont allow the owners to handle the dogs for this as the timing for everything has to be right)....and no snakes are injured either. Hes also worked in conjuction with vets as to the risks involved.

As for the types of snakes, theyre pretty basic, theres vipers and pit vipers....Ive known dogs that wouldnt go near a coiled hose after going through his course, some that would avoid a long worm!!!

It wouldnt be necessary in UK, like you say there arent any venomous snakes there. The reason I dont have a problem with the way he makes use of e-collars, Ive never had a dog brought in after one of his sessions that has been dying, he has a good reputation and to my knowledge hes never left a dog demented, Ive seen the swollen necks and burns but both are fixable and the dogs are back to normal usually within a couple of days, with a snake bite, depending on whether its a viper or pit viper strike could leave the dog either dead or with vets costs of anywhere from around $500 to up in the thousands, one small vial of ant-venin costs between $400 - $500, if you have a small dog thats received a strike from a Pit Viper then your going to be looking at a minimum of around 3 or 4 vials (larger dogs usually dont need as much although the last one we saved was Pit Bull and she went through 3 or 4....the guys bill was over $3,000 in vets fees...and we probably knocked off at least $1,000, another thing to keep in mind is there is no such thing in US like the PDSA, a lot of vets out there especially emergency only vets want all the money up front or at least a good percentage of it....if you dont have the money then you would have to put your dog to sleep in some cases (usually not with most viper strikes), unfortunately we dont manage to save most of them from Pit strikes...mainly due to the owners thinking that it must have been a dry strike if no swelling develops so thy dont even bring them in until its too late.

People have been trying for years to invent new 'snake off' type devices and kits, I dont know of any that work well, theres a product call snake-away that is available in some States, from what Ive been told about it its effective and will keep snakes away from your property but there are a couple of problems with that, some people have acres of land out there, it would cost far too much, you have to keep putting the stuff down....I think about twice a week....or after rain, heavy wind etc. The other problem is its not legal in California.

What I dont like about shock collars is when they are used repeatedly, its not so much the physical injury its more the psychological injury, Ive worked with dogs in shelters that have had these used on them, they really can send them round them bend. Like I said, any training tool can be dangerous if its in the hands of someone who doesnt know what he/she is doing with it.