You're gonna need more than that

and this bit?

"Flame throwing and provocative signatures - NO"

Which only goes to show that any method if applied incorrectly can cause problems. Mind you I do get annoyed when those who use treats (which I do not have a problem with) denigrate other methods as a 'quick fix'. Usng food to get a behavior seems to me to be about the easiest thing in the world - as I said, something that I do not have a problem with - yet when other methods are put forward with the suggestion that they bring about reliability quicker people are never shy about denigrating it as a quick fix.

Everbody knows that their own method of training takes time and commitment - except other people's methods which are always assumed to be a 'quick fix'.

PRACTICAL questions about e-collars:

1.  if it is only a low-level stim that is used, why don't the dogs just get used to it or desensitized to it and ignore it? In the past when I have used (other kinds of) low-level aversives my dogs would almost always eventually desensitize to it. I would then increase the level of the aversive and it would work for awhile, then the dog would get used to it as well and eventually ignore it and go back to doing what he wants. Does this happen with e-collar training? Do you have to keep increasing the level of aversive to prevent the dog getting desensitized to it?

 2. What are the practical disadvantages of e-collars or of the method? (for example, with positive reinforcement methods, time is a big factor.)

3. Are there certain types of dogs or personalities of dogs that are not suited to it, or is it a one-size-fits-all?

This topic is about the failings of treat training Schmoo, not the success of e-collars. There are plenty of e-collar posts for your questions, I think like many of you e-collar fanatics you have inadvertantly failed to notice this topic subject.

I am also very surprised you are asking any questions at all on the net, in your first post you claimed you have been to a sit means sit training and education class, those classes are for the purpose of giveing potential clients as much information as possible or as they need as well as answering phone questions.

Sit means sit is quite an expensive course and if you feel you need to come onto the net and get free, basic, info because they have not given you the basic info I suggest you look around the US at other e-training opportunities, I mean if your going to pay hundreds ( I think over a thousand ) of bucks then you should get your moneys worth form those who you are paying, thats what you are paying for.

Maybe go see if you want to have a look at this guys courses if sit means sit is not what you want, alternatively have a go with treats, failing those two get a goldfish. www.martindeeley.com.


Thanks (any response one-collar thread reply please).

Hi Schmoo

As Denis is clearly avoiding your question, I think it can be answered in one really - e-collars don't just have umpteen settings just for when the dog goes into different drives, it's so you can turn it up a notch when he has desensitised to the level of pain it's already set at. Obvious really isn't it?

Sarah, you've hit on a problem that can and does occur with lure and reward training. The dog  can associate an action with getting a reward so repeats the action. It's the very thing used to get the behaviours we want in the first place, but dogs are clever creatures and don't always make the associations we'd like them to make

In both cases, the need to turn up the level/show a treat, occurs because the training hasn't been progressed. Lure and reward and e-collars are simply training aids. The problem with any training aid is that the HANDLER can become too reliant on them and so the training never progresses.

There are a few differences. however. Your dog has associated a set of actions with getting a reward. If that reward stops, the dog will try harder and harder for a while to get that reward (the level and instances of barking will increase) and then, clever fella that he is, will realise that his actions aren't working and the behaviour will extinguish. Dogs don't waste their time carrying out actions that aren't productive to them. You can speed up that process by rewarding an alternative and (to us) more acceptable behaviour.

When using painful aversives and not progressing the training, do you think the removal of the 'threat' will do anything other than show the dog that now 'all bets are off'?

Yorki, who tried make money from 'behavioural visits', is on one of her e-collars are the safest training aids there is relays.

In context this is what Yorki is talking about -
That figure has to be seen in the context of freak occurrence, its not true but even if it were it mentions two dogs.

So, even if it were true it can be compared to other freak occurrences such as lightning strikes, those figures are, about one human hit my lightening in three million according to the Met Office, which just about makes the odds of anything happing with anti bark collars far less than the chances of being struck by lightening, because of the 5 year period, and not the annual 1 in 3 million as used by the met office.

So e-collars, based on Yorkis refererence, have less chance of causeing an incident than being struck by lightning.

More commentry below for those who wish to read it further, admin on the site made the post and admin on the site also made up my name, as a guest user and made post under my name - well anyone who wishes to beleive dishonest people fine, but, very few people trus liars -

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Yorki quoted a post from the following link
Part of which read
“These boys came in because the owner had put E collars on them to stop them barking when the collar activated with these boys they nearly killed each other, the owners could not separate them the collars were going mental and they had one hell of a fight, they had lived happily together for five years, we tried to retrain them but if one barked the other went for his mate we had to rehome them separately”
http://www.dogclub.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2051.15

What Yorki has failed to point out is the fact that the same poster is also an admin on the site and the same site came up once in a google search I was doing as being owned by a well known behaviourist.

In the same post the site admin or mod made up my name and used it to make a post under my name –admin were totaly dishonesty from post 1, note that under my name it says guest. – I was posting on that site as globaltraining and anyone reading globaltrainings style can se straight away it’s my style.

The site admin and mods are simply liars and the so called ‘case’ cannot be relied on as factual for the simple reason the site admin is totally dishonest.

The name and post below is made up by admin – note it says guest, no one can post there as a guest, you have to join and verify by a link sent to your email, only admin can post as guest status – dishonesty from the begining.

Denis Carthy- « Reply #1 on: December 17, 2005, 03:59:49 PM »
Guest
“Well Thank you GT for your continuing support for my site & training methods
If everyone used E collars to control their dogs there would be no badly behaved dogs
Denis Carthy”

They wrote it to claim the site link I gave as globaltraining was my site or some other obscure reason, it never was.

I countered the post on P2, reply 13, only one person could have answered the question I asked under my user name ‘globaltraining’ and ‘globaltraining’ was me, needless to say the admin who misused my name for their own dishonest purpose never attempted to answer it, below:

globalTraining« Reply #13 on: December 17, 2005, 07:53:41 PM ».
Denis Carthy
If everyone used E collars to control their dogs there would be no badly behaved dogs

GT
All very well saying that but there are over 100 models on the market they cannot all be the same so which make and models would you like to see everyone useing and what are your reasons for that choice? just in case someone goes out and buys the wrong collar for their needs.

BUT – lets just say the post was true, what would it prove.

There are well over 1.5 million collars have been sold and used in the UK, around 75-80% of those since the late end of 2003, the return rate on collars due to dissatisfied customers is less than 1% what Yorki is saying is that there is a remote possibility that something might go wrong, with two dogs once every 5 years or so out of every 1.5 million uses, a one in 1.5 million chances to 2 against something happening every five years.

That figure has to be seen in the context of freak occurrence, even if it were true it can be compared to other freak occurrences such as lightning strikes, those figures are,  about one in three million according to the Met Office per annum which just about makes the odds of anything happing with anti bark collars far less than the chances of being struck by lightening, because of the 5 year period, and not the annual 1 in 3 million as used by the met office.

Surely there are two types of treat (reward) training ... treating to reward good behaviour, or treating to reward the cessation of bad behaviour.  It would seem to me that the first is a much better idea than the second.

Clearly, if your dog barks, then it stops and you treat, the dog is going to associate the initial behaviour (the barking) with the treat, rather than the subsequent (the stopping) - so perhaps that's not the way forward in that instance.

However, if you're teaching your dog to heel, sit, stay etc, then you are only treating the desired behaviour (if the dog doesn't comply with the command, the dog doesn't get a treat).

I've watched show handlers, particularly in the obedience ring, and most do reward acceptable behaviour with treats, and refrain from punishing unacceptable, instead ignoring it.  Actually, this sounds like sound advise for toddlers as well (though I suspect a toddler would respond less well to grilled liver than a spaniel...).

So what's the problem?