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Re: [RC] [RC] Remote dog collar - Deanna GermanI got one originally becuase my ACD would chase and nip the horses.? (She was a rescue at year old, so missed some critical training and socializing months).? The collar was a last resort....and even on the strongest shock, it did not deter her....the heeling instinct was just too strong.... Karen Put the collar on your arm first, then test it. I used one on my shepard when she would run the pony. I was told to make sure she was corrected the first time, make sure the pulse was strong enought to get her attention. It did. She yelped for at least 30 seconds. I felt horrible. It stopped her from running the pony, putting him through a fence or getting her head kicked in. For other correction, trying to eat other dogs, I made sure the shock was much less, just enought for a reminding tickle. Beccy -------------------------------------------- We use an e-collar regularly to train our field retriever. Despite almost always agreeing with these two posters on many issues, I have to admit these two posts made me squirm. A dog must be "collar-conditioned" in conjunction with training. Beccy put the collar on the dog, used it and it worked. But, good God, the dog yelped for 30 seconds? With all due respect, if this is truly the case, the collar was mis-used in an inhumane way and you have a very forgiving dog. I know you said you felt horrible and it's because your subconscious was trying to tell you something. The past is the past, just learn from it for the future. E-collars are a way for the handler to reach out and touch the dog from a distance and to reinforce what they already know. The dog must already know what the desired behavior is and be able to perform it (or inhibit bad behaviors) and the e-collar is there to remind him that you CAN reach out and touch him for bad decisions or failing to perform the desired behavior. If the dog was yelping for 30 seconds, I'd say you did a little more than get his attention! I'm sitting here wondering why your dog doesn't have a good enough recall that you can call him off of chasing the pony and the other dogs at a short distance. 'Twere it I, I would introduce inhibiting chase behavior on a leash with a metal slip collar and work up to a long-line and a buckle collar (no slip collar as you could really damage the dog's neck). Yes, it takes longer, but how often with horses have we learned that there's no such thing as a training short-cut? Karen put an e-collar on her dog and it didn't work despite being on the highest setting. Again, the dog was not collar-conditioned. Even in a very bold, driven dog, the highest setting is rarely, if ever, used when the dog is trained to understand what the e-collar is all about. Introduce the concepts first, make sure the dog understands what is wanted and can perform (or inhibit himself) and only then move to a device like an e-collar. To use an e-collar, FIRST, get a good collar with variable settings, an instantaneous button and a "continuous" button (in reality, it has a safety feature that turns it off after 10 seconds). SECOND, you put the collar on yourself so you know what you're doing to the dog. Then you put it on your dog and gradually turn up the settings and "nick" the dog with the instantaneous setting until you get a reaction. For many dogs, just a twitch will do. THEN, you collar condition. Collar conditioning involves teaching the dog what he can do to turn the annoyance off or prevent it. This assumes that they know a command like sit that they can reliably (meaning in ALL situations) perform. For example, you tell them to sit, hit the continuous button, then release when they perform the sit. Then you teach the dog how to prevent the annoyance (a nick or continuous stimulation that follows a bad decision or failure to perform a behavior), again using a command they already know. Progress through ALL the commands they already know. (Sit, down, come, heel.) If you can't do these things, don't use the e-collar. You're not playing fair. There are books and videos devoted just to e-collar training dogs. It's an excellent tool in educated hands. But to equate it to horses, what you have in your hands is a curb with 6-inch shanks! When using a device with such potential for harshness, the animal and the human need to have a very good understanding of how it works. One more observation -- often (not always) horse people who have competition horses and are very picky about their horse's behavior have dogs who are slip-shod trained i.e. the dog isn't a competition dog so they don't bother with proper training or containment. It works the other way too -- people with competition dogs who also have horses put up with some really bad behavior from their horses that they never would put up with from their dogs! I don't get it. OK, go about your business and I'll just avert my eyes and bite my tongue. Maybe I'll go get stuck in the sand again. Deanna =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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