Remote controlled collar ?

[Ari_RR]

By accident we ran into a gentleman who had some sort of an electric collar on his dog.. There is a remote control in the hand of the dog handler, and when a button is pressed on the remote - the collar vibrates (no shock, just vibration.. or so he said). The way I understood - with proper training the dog responds to the vibrating collar better then to a voice command, especially in a noisy environment full or distractions, or when far away... So, this thing is supposed to help with off-leash control...

I must admit that his dog seemed to stay close to him.

Has anyone heard of such device or methodology ???

Cheers
Eugene

[ladybug1802]

It is a shock collar...plain and simple. he is just trying to make himself feel better about using it, and probably make it sound less harsh to you! They often have several levels of shock, and the lowest level is a 'vibration'.....which essentially is the lowest level of shock.

The dog stays close to him because he is so scared to move away for fear of getting a shock....the dog probably has no idea WHY he gets the shock.....the man probably presses the button if the dog is too far away for his liking, for example, or he wants to get hios attention, but the dog wont know this. So the dog could well associate this pain with whatever he was doing or looking at at the precise moment he got the shock (which could be something to do with people, thereby eventually causing him to be fearful of people) but will not understand why he is getting the shock. Its not training.....its an awful tool and shoudl never be used.

There was a dog on IMOTD once who's owner had been advised to use one of these on the dog as a puppy! As a consequence the dog was very fearful aggressive and had a bald patch on her neck from the shock. Awful things.

[Suzette]

Actually, I read your post and researched it and there are indeed collars that emit a sound and/or a vibration with no shock whatsoever - it's not even an option on the models I researched. I still wouldn't use one personally, but I will be interested to hear what the behaviorists have to say about these collars.

[Sarah83]

They're not necessarily shock collars, vibrate only are available. I know a couple of people who use vibrating collars with deaf dogs. One uses it as a clicker, vibrate = reward. The other uses it as a "look at me" command so they can get the dogs attention at a distance and give a command. I have to say I'd consider a vibrating collar with a deaf dog having seen how these people use them. Some dogs may be uncomfortable with the sensation, both these people said they introduced the vibration slowly and with lots of rewards and their dogs certainly don't seem to get upset or stressed about the vibration.

They're not a magic tool for recall or anything though. You still have to do the same work you do with any other recall command. And unfortunately a lot of "vibrating" collars ARE shock collars that have a vibrate option.

[ladybug1802]

Ah I stand corrected...sorry! Ok so yes I can see a reason to use them with a deaf dog maybe....but I still wouldnt want to use one. They say its a vibrate only...but even so, if it a strong vibrate it can still be painful.

[Ari_RR]

Hmm... Deaf dogs aside, my initial reaction was that this sounds like technology instead of good old fashion training.. But then, with vibration only kind of collar, which helps to get dog's attention, I can't find any solid reasons why this is bad or harmful if the dog doesn't get frightened by vibration... Let's see what other comments we get.

[emmabeth]

If the dog doesn't find the collar aversive (and like rewards, it is the subject who decides what is rewarding, what is neutral, what is aversive)... then I think they are just ill thought out training.

Teach your dog to WANT to be with you, and manage them properly off lead (frequent recalls, lots of interesting stuff to do) and you should have a dog who checks back with you frequently, is happy to return and is always listening out for you and what you might say.

Rely on something to distract them.. like a collar, which unlike your voice or a whistle, has the potential to fail mid-use... something that doesnt have a clear cut positive connection (because it isnt the cue, it is the precursor to a cue and that cue may not always be the thing the dog wants to do the most).... sloppy and the long way round I think.

And that is IF the dog doesnt find the collar aversive - I know I would find being randomly buzzed, even if i t didnt hurt at all, even if the sensation when i was expecting it, felt quite nice, would make me jumpy as heck. With me such a device would rapidly BECOME aversive due to its (to me) unpredictable nature.

Most people are not likely to know (or even consider this!) whether that would apply to their dog or not.

[Muttley@Dastardly]

Don't have first hand experience regarding the remote controlled part but am not altogether comfortable using these sort of collars as it seems to be the reverse of positivity & does not seem to exert any long term effects :-/
Have borrowed an air collar,have bought a sound/vibration collar & have had a carer use an electric collar on my dog.
All of which appear to do nothing towards solving the long term problem.
All of which grab his attention in the short term but do not (in my opinion) teach.
It's like smacking a small child. It will stop that child from carrying on with what they're doing at that time yes.....short,sharp shock......but it will not teach that child to stop re-enacting the undesired motion :-/
They get de-sensitised very quickly & without consistency,move on!
The more time I spend immersed in the dog psyche the more I relate to the child psychology!!

At the end of the day...rewarding the good & ignoring the bad gives the best long term effects.

This is where Classical versus cognitive come into play perhaps?! But how to apply....this is the question! x

[Nettle]

From a trainer/behaviour point of view, IMO we get best results working within the animal's natural parameters of comprehension. Reward/no reward is basic stuff, but like Emms, I think any random sensation that comes with no warning out of nowhere (so far as the dog is concerned) has the potential to really screw up a dog even if used as a simple attention-getter. Neurotic or highly sensitive dogs could well develop unfortunate and unwanted behaviours as a coping mechanism.

But of course we also have to allow for the lowest common denominator - the human who misuses the tool. Whether from ignorance, clumsiness or malice, there is huge potential for misuse and with misuse comes abuse. Yes anything can be misused, but while dogs are able to manage the kind of misuse that comes from such items as choke collars, anything that can't be seen and apparantly comes from nowhere at random is outside their understanding and therefore their coping mechanisms.

What we seek with modern training is to achieve the desired results with every dog we train, leaving no undesired results.

[Dibbythedog]

Some dogs may find the vibration too powerful and scary as the collars dont too have many settings eg low and high so they aren't necessarily kinder than shock collars, some USvibe collars have more settings but they arent cheap .