for or against shock collar

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doglover4ever
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2015 5:42 am

for or against shock collar

Post by doglover4ever »

Hi



after joining this forum which I have got a lot of good advice about what breed to get we did decided on the shih Tzu however my husband (he's a dog groomer) has now told me that he would like a breed who would be able to go running with him in the morning. as he runs for about 40mins every morning before work so we have come to tow breeds a Dalmatian or a German shepherd. anyway while we are still deciding we joined a GSD forum and I have not posted on there yet but i was reading some of the posts and came across this one http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/ge ... ing-2.html

why on earth are they advising to use a shock collar. :x

to me it seems like they are giving a quick fix solution and I thought you can train a dog the quit command like in this vid of Victoria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6npqMvu6Oqs in the vid it show you that she teaches a command to the Labs to be quit and it worked I think it is at the 17min 40sec mark

I have also noticed they are not fans of Victoria Stillwell as they don't believe in positive training.

what do you think? my vote is against them as I think they are cruel to the animal.
ckranz
Posts: 1028
Joined: Thu Sep 11, 2008 12:18 pm
Location: San Diego CA

Re: for or against shock collar

Post by ckranz »

There are 4 quadrants of learning. Positive reinforcement is only one of those quadrant and the others are equally valid methods of learning. Can a dog be trained with a shock collar....yes it can, my question is does it have to be. Is there a reason one must inflict pain and discomfort to identify incorrect behavior? Some argue that these devices (shock collars and prong collars) cause no pain or discomfort but fail to understand how these devices work. They also fail to grasp the basics in how positive reinforcement training actually works. All they see is "click" and fix. They commonly ask about carrying food around for the rest of their dog's lives. They are focused more on what a dog should not do, rather than what they should do.

They see positive training as permissive...and some positive trainers based trainers reinforce this attitude with comments about the wrongness of saying "Nooooo" to a dog.

Positive trainers set themselves up for success. There is not intent for failure and we judge our dogs to be extremely reliable in a particular behavior before we add or change criteria. If we move too quickly, we ignore the unwanted behavior and return to a more controlled situation to rewarding the desired behavior. There is no permissiveness as the failure is on the trainer and not the dog.

Overtime, rewards become more randomized, delayed and even changed. Food is common because food is a basic thing that a huge percentage of dogs will easily work for. Other things can be used as rewards as well:
Play....plenty of dog use tug and fetch games as rewards.
Work...many dogs enjoy working so much that being able to engage in work is its own reward
Touch....Some dogs love attention and your touch in favorite spots
Real life rewards: Going out, or Coming in, Dinner bell behaviors, etc.....off-leash time vs on-leash time.

So getting back to your question. I am most certainly against shock collars as there are other means to effectively train your dogs that do not involve inflicting pain and discomfort as a means of punishment. I will concede though that through such measures you can train a dog...I just do not see the "need" for being a big cruel mean Ogre to our sweet 4-footed partners.
doglover4ever
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2015 5:42 am

Re: for or against shock collar

Post by doglover4ever »

Hi

thanks for your reply.

I fully agree with your post. I suppose you can train a dog with a shock collar but not a route I could take myself as I feel sick when I see dogs with them on as I feel so upset for the poor dog. and we have positive methods now.
edfroncz
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jun 24, 2015 8:39 am

Re: for or against shock collar

Post by edfroncz »

I think I would say it a little differently . Adversive methods such a shock collars are LEGAL. And people do achieve some measure of success using them. But just because they are legal or produce results does that mean that they should be used? I could think of many situations other than dog training where that answer would be no. I could think of many situations other than dog training where that answer would be no

Ed
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