I'm sorry you think that I am neglecting you promarc, and I do greatly appreciate you taking the time to give me links. I will certainly look at them when time allows.

That's odd you are using their kennel name ?

You must live a sheltered life, I'm surprised anyone who is a fan of e.collars has not heard of him

By the time I employ the collar I have a pretty good idea of what a dog's threshold is, via observation of their reaction to accidental aversives of a random nature; it ain't brain surgery. In the case of the dog described, it was pretty easy to conclude that she had a high one the day I observed the following: She was not fully grown, and was done up to a 4' chain (read not enough slack to gain momentum and apply a lot of force to it), and she bolted. She hit the end of that chain so hard that she ripped the d-ring right out of a brand new, double-layer leather collar (no defects in the collar, she actually broke the nylon stitching and tore the leather), and stripped the threads on the quick link attaching the snap to the chain and separated the two parts of the link. She obviously took a very strong shot, it was a blue-eyed wonder she didn't break her neck; her response to that aversive was a very slight break in speed, and subsequent acceleration to mach 7. If I didn't already know she had a high pain threshold before that incident, I certainly would have after seeing this. I have tons of examples of this with different dogs, some of which involved an even stronger aversive this dog got: I already recounted one in a previous post re: the dog who lacerated her shoulder by deliberately bashing into barbed wire.

Dogs don't verbalize in ANY spoken language because they lack the necessary equipment. As I am sure you know, they do communicate via vocalizations and body language, and it is an absolute necessity that a trainer develop the ability to read and correctly interpret the dog's communications (see the quote in my sig).

I am not measuring pain, I am looking at the dog's response to it. Dogs with high drive often have high pain thresholds, I would be surprised if they didn't. Sporting dogs with low pain tolerance would not last long in the field, because they encounter naturally occurring painful situations all the time e.g., downed bird in a tangle of briars. Even dogs who are strictly pets experience accidental/unintentional aversives, have you never seen a pet get stung by a bee, or step on sharp rock, or twist a limb in a direction it was not meant to go? The amazing thing is, dogs actually learn from these bolt-from-the-blue aversives (i.e., they have no previous training in how to avoid them).

What happens with things like a bee sting is a hard lesson, and is what I would consider to be training via punishment, because the dog has no training to give it the ability to avoid the sting, and no choice with regard to whether it gets stung or not, and the message is not "Go do something I have taught you to do", it is "Stop messing with me right now"; the bee's gonna do what bees do. Punishment can certainly produce a response which interferes with daily activity, and/or is dangerous for the dog, e.g.,the dog that gets stung by a bee responds by bolting out of the county in fear when it even hears/sees a bee, or refuses to eat because the sting occurred near it's food bowl.

Yes, Nature has programmed dogs to learn via punishment, and it is a very simple, and harsh, method; do a behavior which is rewarded with a pleasing result, go ahead and repeat it; do a behavior which produces an unpleasant result, better think twice about repeating it. This is the point I was going in my post about dominance displays; the post was not about "dominance theory", but about how dogs are trained and learn within the pack. The misinterpretation of folks like promarc was perfectly understandable, because I got sidetracked and never finished the post, mea culpa.

Punishment training can be a very effective way to stop an behavior, but it is a poor and often destructive method for motivating/teaching a dog to do something, for a lot of reasons in addition to the one I gave above. My Alpha dog made this point abundantly clear to me early on, and he was the instigator of me developing the "method" I use today, God bless him.

Depending on the way you look at it, you could say " God pity him"

I can't believe it, have been off for a while and when I logged in again and looked at, that Threat is still going on?

Hey at all Dogsey Dog Lovers!

aint you already bored of all of that "discussion"
or are you bored and for that you are still on here?



and well firstlight, you are tougher than I really thought
you must be really very convinced about yourself and your opinion

just wish, I could meet you personally over here in Germany, WITH! your dog and using your e-collar

just one phone call, at the police and "our problem" already would be solved, without that I only had to talk with you only one word

you really think you are it?
but you are nothing
nothing at all

and right for this, you even need a weapon for your dogs
as otherwise, not once they would take you serious

you're really a poor sucker

but how was it already said earlier?
when knowledge ends, violent begins? or something like that?
so sad but just true

as aint it the weak people, who so often get ruled of their sick, narrow mind?

and they also, never ever will understand the word "respect", the difference of it, between "of being afraid of someone" or having respect in the meaning of dignity

...and before any of your annoying questions come up again (in case you didn't ignore my comment )

YES!
I did see dogs, who were just afraid of their owners and for that, they did obey them invariably, only because they were afraid!

because I can see the bodylanguage of them

but as well, I could see dogs, who did obey their owners, because they have respect of them and they feel loyal to them

and you will NEVER earn their dignity, by using an e-collar or to beat them or whatever!

DOT!

I'm not buying that at all!

How could you possibly have any idea? You have admitted you do not measure the physiological or phsychological effects the collar has on a dog.

You have no idea of any real effect this is having on the dog.

Some dogs will comply when abused and bullied - that's a sad fact. What choice do they have?

But it doesn't make the collar user - you - a good trainer and it doesn't mean they - you - have any relationship, mutual understanding or synergy with that dog.

I've not read the whole thread so please forgive me if you have already responded firstlight - but how would you train any of the dogs in the senarios you have give if an shock collar was not available to you.

As you may be aware they are banned in many parts of the world so, as a trainer, how would you go about dealing with the problems you talk of without an ecollar?

Good post!