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Other then the martingale?

Does anyone here use a prong? Choke, halti, e-collar?

I am curious as to how people use different methods and collars. I know there are some of you using treats.

Anyways here is my situation with Guardian: we use the 6ft leash and martingale. I refuse to use a halti or prong. No treats either, as after much research I quit using them several months ago. Treat training and negotiating are wrong, plain and simple. As someone who has done extensive reading and observing (over the past few months) as well as talking to other people, I have decided that treats should never be used in training because they are an extrinsic reward and with that comes problems. As a psych student I decided to go and find some academic papers on this and found a lot to back up the position that treats overall are a bad idea.

I have also found articles written and halties and painful things like prongs.

However the e-collar (electronic) has really intrigued me. My gut reaction was "no...who wants to get electrocuted?" but after some playing around with this and testing one on my own neck I have found that it isn't painful. Rather it is tingly and strange feeling.

But I must come back to what I said a few months ago about the e-collar:

QUOTE:
It seems as if humans have decided that if we could create remote controlled televisions, toys, stereos, etc...that we should also be able to remotely control our dogs. Delivering obedience corrections remotely completely removes the aspect of "handling" a dog. Sure, the dog technically gets corrected, but it isolates the correction and does nothing to show the dog from where the correction came, which can easily amplify skittish behavior. Furthermore, it does nothing to build the human's postition as the alpha, as it is the leader who should be doing the praising AND the correcting. That is balance.

However I have heard that there are ways of e-collar training that do show the dog where the correction came from. I am curious if anyone knows about this.

In this world of remote corrections, automatic feeders, automatic water dispensers and completely unbalanced training systems, it is no wonder why dogs have manifested the behavior issues that they have. None of these things are natural or have any cause & effect rhyme or reason

I bring up the e-collar again because it is a piece of equipment that I think is good given it is in the right hands.

Guardian is advancing in his training and I started to have him in more fun related stuff-an agility class and maybe down the line something like tracking. My trainer prefers the use of a martingale or choke collar, even in these such events (although I am not sure about tracking). She permits no treats at all (not that I have an issue with that).

We discussed the e-collar and how it could be used on Guardian. I was hesitant for the reasons above.

However today I hired a private dog trainer just to educate me on this tool. He showed me how to use it and addressed several of my concerns. I did not hire my regular trainer as I felt it was better for me to go to someone who specializes in e-collars. He has been using e-collars for a few decades and has written many articles on the topic. It cost me $75 for one hour with him, but I thought it was well worth it. He gave me detailed lesson plans and lots of homework!

So my question is, anyone here using different equipment other then the martingale?

The trainer I spoke with today told me I should keep his martingale on him with the e-collar and then strap a leash to the martingale that way Guardian does not become "collar-wise" .

We had a trainer come to our house and their method was with a e-collar. I decided not to go with them because it\'s not in the budget right now and figured I\'d give brad\'s way a try. We haven\'t had many problems as of yet, thank goodness. The e-collar can be very helpful, every time my brother sees a hole in the yard he wishes he had one, since it\'s remote and good ones can work for 1/2m+. The trainer spent an hour with the dogs and it seemed to work quite well. The collar had over 100 settings too, so you\'re right when used proper its not hurtful.

The collar the trainers used was the dogtra brand. Is that the brand you are using?
One thing i\'ve seen on many websites is some lower quality ones can be triggered by garage door openers etc. I honestly dont know the truth to that, but its something to check into

The other reason I didn\'t go with the e-collar was not being sure about how effective the training is when the collar is off? My friends dogs seem to \'know\' what the collar means and they behave because they know what can happen. Granted you\'re right about the proper training of usage vs. abuse of power.

I have been using leash and choke collar. iTs what i\'ve trained all my dogs with, my last dane would behave when strangers came to the house if i put it on. It was an instant reaction, even tho he was well behaved normally I didnt have to worry the slightest with it on him. They just seem to \'change\' once they have it on. Thats why i wasn\'t sure if the e-collar would work?

*edit* I haven\'t seen Graham yet to try on the Large Martingale with my dogs. But soon I hope!

ShortStack wrote:

QUOTE:

The other reason I didn\'t go with the e-collar was not being sure about how effective the training is when the collar is off? My friends dogs seem to \'know\' what the collar means and they behave because they know what can happen. Granted you\'re right about the proper training of usage vs. abuse of power.

I have been using leash and choke collar. iTs what i\'ve trained all my dogs with, my last dane would behave when strangers came to the house if i put it on. It was an instant reaction, even tho he was well behaved normally I didnt have to worry the slightest with it on him. They just seem to \'change\' once they have it on. Thats why i wasn\'t sure if the e-collar would work?

*edit* I haven\'t seen Graham yet to try on the Large Martingale with my dogs. But soon I hope!

That is what they call "collar wise" and apparently it can happen with any collar. Even a flat collar. Dogs become aware of when it is off and on.

That is why the trainer suggested I leave on the martingale, slip on the e-collar, and attach the leash to the martingale. The dog becomes confused as to where the correction comes from-the leash or the air or you.

with Jazz i use a martingale collar, unfortunately not a hustle up product.. I have never used a choke or prong collar due to the fact I have always been told it could crush her windpipe or anything like that.

a comment on the e-collars. I personally haven\'t used one, but my grandmothers one dashie developed a \"water bubble\" sort of thing on her neck, from her \"voice box\" bark box, whatever you call it, from barking too much. Our vet told us that we could do a surgery, or try getting a bark collar to stop her from barking. we used it about 2 months at the most and its great, the bump is gone and she can even be around the house without the collar and she knows not to bark now.. if she does start barking, all we gotta say to her is \"stop barking or you get the collar back on\" and she knows exactally what you are saying and stops barking right away..

i think the e-collars are great when used properly, and if the situation calls for it.

edit; sorry if this doesn\'t make sense.. soo overtired

ahhhh ... that makes sense. the two collars dont interfere?

My dad's friend have a small dog and he got an e-collar for it after the dog took after a horse. Its calmed right down and has manners now, it had gone to two trainers previous to the e-collar. Although the owner didn't take the dog to the trainer, i think that was part of the problem

They do work for sure ... after all they are used for hunting dogs and usually those are some of the best trained dogs

We are currently using a choke chain on Dino , that is what our trainer has recommnded for Training, but we use the martingale also! Both work great on my dog! Our trainer perfers the martingale but some of us use both! I am waiting for my hustle up collar I just ordered! I do have a store brand martingale but i don't like it! It come loose , then when I do go to take it off I can't move it! GRRR! So when my new collar arrives I will be saying GOOD-BYE to the choker!

I use a martingale collar and very occasionally, I resort to using a gentle leader (no need to tell me how bad they are, I've already been "chastised" for it ). I did use a chain collar prior to the martingale one (where I went to obedience, you started with the gentle leader and then moved on to chain collar) and I really liked it. When my dog outgrew it, I bought a martingale collar because I started hanging out here and figured I would try it. The reaction I get from my dog is pretty similar to the chain one so I've stuck with it.

E-collars I'm sure have their purpose but I don't think they are necessary depending on the type of training you want to do. To me, it doesn't seem like it is really necessary for your purpose... Do you actually need this "tool" for the training you are doing? There are lots of dogs that do agility without e-collars...isn't there an alternative? It seems to me like using the e-collar might be like you're trying to do it the easy way...

And I find it hard to believe that the dog would not know when it's on or off but I'm probably totally wrong here!!!

Take this with a grain of salt...totally just my opinion...and yes, being a person that still VERY occasionally uses a gentle leader, I might be seen as hypocritical. But I guess in my defense, I didn't know there was a better way before I started using it, I trusted the training school I went to.

I wonder what Brad would think of e-collars?

Right away, I can tell you what he thinks of E-Collars..

This is a quote from him as i just called him just now to ask him what he thinks of e-collars:

QUOTE:

\"You should burn them, and stop relying on crutches and quick ways of training your dog. Get off your *** and do a proper correction, remember no one said it was going to be easy, but it is going to be worth it.\"

and i tend to agree, as our society i find we all want a microwave world... 1 minute on high and i can have a perfect relationship, 4 minutes on high and i can lose 10 pounds... we are always looking for a quick answer, fix, solution... however quick doesn\'t necessary mean permanent or effective... remember that when you are getting frustrated..

dogs will learn from us being consistent... not a quick fix...

Scott, that is exactly what I was thinking about e-collars. That and becoming "collar wise" as they call it.

As I said before, delivering obedience corrections remotely completely removes the aspect of "handling" a dog. Sure, the dog technically gets corrected, but it isolates the correction and does nothing to show the dog from where the correction came. Dogs are very intelligent animals and I think we sometimes forget about that. Furthermore, it does nothing to build the human's postition as the alpha, as it is the leader who should be doing the praising AND the correcting. That is balance and gives the dog an understanding, a logical sequence of events instead of "the correction just coming from the sky".

I use a Martingale only, and it’s fine. I tried using a halti on her a few times, but she hated it. It started to wear the hair off her muzzle. Put mole skin on it and it still bothered her and wore the hair off. I was like, ‘screw this’ and now the halti’s in the reject file LOL!

Someone suggested using an e-collar on Jessie for her recent problematic behaviour (her retaliating on dogs who nip her, etc. ). I say no way in hell would I use this. Peggy, as a psych student you know - the use of an e-collar is as much a neg. reinforcer as using treats is a positive reinforcer - same damn thing, just opposite lol... Regardless of whether it hurts or not, to me it’s still a ‘forced action/reaction’ method of training, and a lazy man’s one lol..

Unless you’re dealing with an extremely aggressive case or, as katie said, a behavioural issue having a serious harmful health effect on the dog, don’t bother..