Did anyone else receive a really bizarre PM from Adam Palmer, thanking us for helping him hone his debating technique, and saying that now the forums have 'gone dead' that he's leaving? From what he said to me it seems that he understands the written word as badly as he understands canine body language, which is a tragedy for the poor dogs and the owners that he comes into contact with.

Hopefully he's telling the truth and has really gone. Fingers crossed.

> Hopefully he's telling the truth and has really gone

Fingers tightly crossed here :) :)

> Did anyone else receive a really bizarre PM from Adam Palmer

Nope, no PM from him here.

> Hopefully he's telling the truth and has really gone.

I wondered why I can now see his posts, clicking on his user name now brings up "user account doesn't exist anymore" - obviously can't 'ignore' a poster that is no longer registered!

Seems he has moved on. Good, but very strange.

LOL, JG you must feel very privileged to have a personal farewell :-D

He's been on another forum recently along with another member who joined pretty much at the same time with the same idea's on "training" as him. ¬.¬

I would worry that by starting this thread you are encouraging him to come back, stand by for another new poster telling us how wonderful he and his methods are :-(

He's gone????? For real???
Paaaaaaaar-Taaaayyyyyy!

Would think he no longer felt the benefit from advertising on this forum - I am at a loss to understand why he was allowed do do so for so long.

yes I agree - as soon as he wasn't being fed and given his own free rein of the forum things very quickly changed for him!

Opens sparkly to celebrate!  hurrah!

Best news I've had for a long time.

Good riddance

Good. I never replied to his topics as I didn't want to encourage him further.

I got that PM too.  For some reason he seemed to think that CD had gone quiet because of facebook (I may have felt compelled to explain the real reason, but I doubt he read it).

Nova - spot on methinks.  He did say he'd gotten plenty of business via PMing people and with it going quiet, didn't want to spend the energy on it any more.

Whatever the truth is good riddance - maybe CD will start to come alive again, it has gone very, very quiet.

> He did say he'd gotten plenty of business via PMing people and with it going quiet, didn't want to spend the energy on it any more.

Well if that wasn't an admission he was only on here to advertise, I don't know what is! Seems against TOS to me, and I hope if he does come back, Admin will refuse to let him in.

Admin will refuse to let him in. But will they refuse - it was clear he was posting to get business and to sell product and was allowed to continue until, one assumes, it was no longer working for him so he has now moved off elsewhere. He will now carry on dripping his nonsense there and continue selling of the back of another forum but possible not for as long as he managed it here as most will not stand for the blatant abuse of the rules as he seemed to manage here.

> He will now carry on dripping his nonsense there and continue selling of the back of another forum....

He may well do, but as he has been banned from at least two other forums in the last few months (two to my knowledge - maybe more) I don't think weight of opinion anywhere will support him for long.

I've had him on Ignore for ages, must say I never missed reading his posts.
It's nice that he is permanently banned from some forums.

No-one who behaves as he did, is going to be welcomed by everyday, sensible, normal people, whatever their view of methods.

I don't think weight of opinion anywhere will support him for long.
May be not, let us hope so but he managed to stay here for far too long. Now we do not know if he chose to go or was pushed but in either case it is far too late I hate to think how much damage he has done in his time on here.

May I suggest that, in the event he decides to grace us with his presence once more, certain people stop arguing with him and BUMPing his topic ever upwards on this forum.

His thread reached to nearly 200 because people kept on interacting with him...exactly as he intended.

You may feel that you were redressing the balance - you were, in fact, working for him :-(
As we now see...he moves on when he doesnt have the response.

I didnt recieve an email but to be honest i never replied to his post and just ignored him...

I think to ignore is the best way and have had him on ignore for so long I forget but I still feel the anger when I read or write about him and his appalling methods.

May I suggest that, in the event he decides to grace us with his presence once more, certain people stop arguing with him and BUMPing his topic ever upwards on this forum.

Couldn't agree more and said it a long time ago. I put him on ignore ages ago and never, ever read the controversial threads; to me the topic name might as well be "Don't read".

> May I suggest that, in the event he decides to grace us with his presence once more, certain people stop arguing with him and BUMPing his topic ever upwards on this forum.

I'm not sure about this. I think if every 'asking for help' thread ends when he posts a video link it looks like that is the answer. For the most part I ignored him, and I certainly can't be bothered with the hassle and delay of posting on the controversial topics board, but I have the greatest respect for the likes of Mastifflover who refused to give in and diligently answered every post and informed people that this is NOT the way to train your pet.

diligently answered every post and informed people that this is NOT the way to train your pet.

I am sure those who reply are doing it, in most cases, for the best of reasons, however if the forum management is happy to allow it any amount of sensible anti posts will not stop the drip of cruel misinformation but if they, the management,  are prepared to draw the line it can be stopped dead.

I agree with Chaumsong. 
Posters could wear themselves out, and I think some did, "debated" into the wind with Adam but it would not prevent positive messages regarding him appearing in Google. He works very, very hard on promotion. 

I for one gave up on trying to debate with Adam Palmer as it did no good whatsoever but only served to further his cause and to depress a LOT of us, thinking of all these poor mistreated dogs that we saw in the videos looking so unhappy. I'd much rather spend my free time giving advice on how to make dogs happy and well behaved as opposed to debating with somebody who would never, ever listen. None  of us HAVE to come here.

> to depress a LOT of us, thinking of all these poor mistreated dogs that we saw in the videos looking so unhappy.

And that's the most wretchedly disheartening aspect of the whole matter. The promoters of these tools either cannot or will not recognise the distress that they cause these animals; avoidable distress. One of the Klan I've had the misfortune of 'debating' with (a debate isn't possible with someone who simply dissects every phrase and twists your words to send the discussion off at a tangent) has even said that he doesn't believe that dogs feel emotions. As this has been scientifically disproved (but unless you provide a link to a website where this is down in black and white by someone whose opinion he trusts - ie someone who agrees with him) his whole stance is shown to be built on sand.

These are the beliefs and attitudes of the people who support shock-collar use. I've debated with them all in the past (even their total fruit-loop sidekick who's currently 'blessing' us with his offerings) and to be honest I'm not prepared to waste more of my life on them. It's incredible that people who clearly have so little knowledge about canine behaviour and body-language can set themselves up in business and fool gullible people into allowing them to damage their dogs. The sooner these abhorrences are banned, the better.

I think e-collars are a cruel method of training that is not needed and the people who use them are all either:

mis-informed (in which case this forum can educate them)
depserate (in which case this forum can support them)
poor trainers (in which case this forum can inform them how to improve or help direct them to a reward-based trainer for help)
lazy (see above)
Money-grabbing people that want to make a quick buck at the expense ofdogs welfare (in which case this forum can attempt to educate thier potential client base)
or a combination of those
Sadly some e-collar suportes will not have thier opinions changed but we can try to help inform thier audience of suitable alternatives :)

I can see why people are sick to the back teeth of e-collar promotors and why other forums ban such blatent buisness promotion BUT I can also see why you want Chamdogs INFORMATION exchange to be a place that can tell people WHY e-collars are not liked or needed.

I am very sorry that my persistent posting on the subject annoys others and can fully understand why. But I will not back down and allow the blatant advocation of cruelty in the name of 'training'.

It's a very strange stance you have taken here Mark,

Opinions differ, methods differ, but it has always been more than just that with Adam Palmer, you must know that? :-)

Rather than ban someone who you can clearly see was using this site to only promote himself and his wares, and also now admits it was to PM unsuspecting posters for business and also to hone in on his debating skills, (so as to now completely try to crush other sites without the lack of knowledge and writing abilities as some on here)

Instead of just getting rid of the blighter for using the site in this way you have come up with the idea in using CD as a weapon, to use the good people here to fight the corner of good trainer and have an intelligent debate.

But the people here have got fed up of saying the same things over and over for months and months, we all get fed up in re-repeating and with respect I love CD, I think we are wonderful the people on it are the best IMO on the net, but we are one site, and we are not a weapon and we can't help the other sites.

IMO it is far better and far less messier to just ban him as other sites have, then he has no voice at all, where can he speak from?

Thank you for your faith in us that we can talk someone to death but we can't.................

P.S. The controversial site worked fantastic and I know our mods are working hard with the Dennis's on the site, but like I said yes, your idea may have been a good one, but it was never going to work, it has always been more here than just freedom of speech, it was a business plan for Adam Palmer.

You only fight if you can win, you always had the power to stop someone promoting like this with a quick press of the delete button. :-)

Shock collars (I use that term because many in the veterinary profession use the term e-collar as an abbreviation for Elizabethan collar - the 'lampshade' used to prevent animals interfering with their wounds) are one of the few 'training tools' specifically designed to cause a degree of distress to an animal; it will only work if the animal doesn't like it. With that fact out in the open it seems apparent that people who choose to use it are either ignorant that they're causing distress to their animal or they want to cause distress to their animal.

They are therefore either unwittingly cruel or deliberately cruel, and permitting their promotion suggests complicity.

ecollars are a tool specifically designed to deliver pain and/or discomfort to a dog.  Ecollar trainers see behaviours they do not like and seek to stop them as immediately as possible; ecollars are a convenient, subtle (to the general public - i.e. not as obvious as, say, beating the dog) way to do this and very effective at doing it.

They do not seek to address the cause of the behaviour; equally, they either do not understand or do not care what emotional effect the ecollar has on the dog.

IMO they fall into two groups: those people who want a quick fix (customer/owner) and those people who want a quick quid (trainer).

I don't understand how anyone who thinks about how they work would ever consider using a shock collar.
Yes, the dog will comply with your wishes, purely to avoid the punishment. How much nicer to have a dog who does as you ask because it wants to please you and get its reward.
There is no comparison between a dog who happily comes to you, either for a treat or simply for love and words of praise, and a dog who reluctantly approaches to avoid the pain that would be inflicted if he disobeyed.

It is a barbaric approach to training and our best friends deserve much better treatment from us

People will continue to train dogs however they wish to train them, until the law steps in, whether they use praise and reward, a stick, a prong collar or an electric collar, unfotunately the dog has no choice in how it will be trained.

I know I can't do anything about those who use methods I find abhorrent, all I know is that when I look at my girl I'm glad that I trained her, I'm glad that she trusts me and that she belongs to me. I have no pricking conscience over the methods I used, for those who use other methods I wonder if they can look at their dog/s in the same way?

Carrington you made an interesting post

>I know I can't do anything about those who use methods I find abhorrent, all I know is that when I look at my girl I'm glad that I trained her, I'm glad that she trusts me and that she belongs to me. I have no pricking conscience over the methods I used, for those who use other methods I wonder if they can look at their dog/s in the same way?

Is this the essence of the debate about training with shock collars such as the ones Adam Palmer and similar dog trainers use ? Nobody is disputing the fact that they work, but it is more the fact they need to cause pain to be effective.

Well Mark, I was not asking that he be banned for being who he was but that he, like everyone else, should not be allowed to advertise his products and services. It seemed to me that by starting the special Controversial Stuff forum you were pandering to him in fact if not intention giving him a platform to further his business and his product. It is no good saying we could have argued back, members did until they were blue in the face but that did not and could not stop his endless advertising.

I am a dog trainer and have to say until today have never heard of this guy!! He's not made it as far as Manchester yet!! And would get short shrift if he did!!

Prong collars are banned in this country apart from blunted collars. E collars are already banned in Wales it will not be long before before they are banned here. But I agree that champ dogs should lead the way as the KC are trying to do.

Simple question I find usually resolves this matter, what happens when it doesn't work?? As with any training it won't work for all dogs. I know of a persistant sheep chaser who never responded to it and went on to develope serious heart condition that eventually killed her. It developed within 6 months of e-collar training, training that never did stop her killing sheep. I don't work with e-collars as point of principle so eventually owner went back to good ole fashioned line and treats. As where do you go when pain doesn't work? I have clients who have e-fences and the dogs usually find a way round them quickly enough. In most insistences it'sacase ofdog/owner relationship not quite right.

I have a prong collar,I use it in group as shock tactic for clients,works wonders. No one has ever taken up my offer to try it on their arm!! I use threats to train my owners!! If they can't get their dog back at the end of 6 weeks, then the dog just doesn't love them enough!! So it will have to live with me!! Same as I threaten to swop leads for cotton and fine anyone who snaps the cotton £50 a time!! All tongue in cheek but seems to work.

Trainers get lazy and start,for the sake of money, giving clients a quick fix regardless of how it's achieved. It's also exactly what a lot of clients want, a quick fix and be blowed to the dog.

Nobody is disputing the fact that they work,

Actually I WOULD dispute that. It's more a case of creating a temporary fix which essentially is a ticking time bomb.
http://www.dogdaysnw.com/doc/overall_collars.pdf

Love your post happyhoundgirl. :-)

Is this the essence of the debate about training with shock collars such as the ones Adam Palmer and similar dog trainers use ? Nobody is disputing the fact that they work, but it is more the fact they need to cause pain to be effective.

As pointed out they don't always work and are generally a quick fix. But, it is not to do with whether it works or not, it is far simpler than that. It is down to is it right to use them?

How can a civilized world have room for such methods today?

Just to really simplify it, it's not that long ago that slaves and servants were chained, whipped, starved and forced to work, through much fight, debate and law today we now get others to work for us by payment/wages. (Praise and reward) Yes a whipping would work, but is it needed, did pain ever need to be used?

If the human race has come to realise that you get others to do jobs and follow commands through reward, why should an intelligent animal like a dog be treated any differently. We know they will work and train for praise and reward, just the same as us.

When pain is used i.e tasers they are used as an aversive method, a punishment. How can anyone make that jump to them being something good to train a dog with? It leaves a nasty taste in the mouth of most of the civilized world.

> They now state quite clearly they promote only positive kind methods of training in the interest of dog welfare.

Good on them :-) The other board I'm a member on has always had this stance - discussion does still happen but it's very brief, short enough to explain why these things are a bad idea and that's it.  Promotion of them isn't allowed - someone will suggest something aversive and is very quickly countered.

If someone like AP were to go on there they'd be out in moments I'm sure.

> Trainers get lazy and start,for the sake of money, giving clients a quick fix regardless of how it's achieved. It's also exactly what a lot of clients want, a quick fix and be blowed to the dog.

Well that just about sums up the guy in question. Left Uni not more than a few years ago with a questionable degree that wasn't behaviour-based, and set himself up as a trainer with just the one tool in his box. Flocks together with extreme e-collar trainers from the USA who sometimes join him on forums where he's given enough rope. Is flooding all the dog forums he can with his self-promotion and won't budge til the Admin push. has skin thicker than rhino hide, and resorts to low insults when he feels he's losing the argument, including going through people's posts (sometimes from other forums) and dredging up criticism of their own dogs' behaviour.

Sound like the kind of person you'd like to see posting on any dog forum you'd want to be on....? Leaving aside the ethics of his methods, his persona leaves much to be desired as an asset to any discussion group.

>Well that just about sums up the guy in question. Left Uni not more than a few years ago

That's what I thought too, but if one of his latest postest videos was by him and he was doing his own commentary, he's not got a young man's voice.

> That's what I thought too, but if one of his latest postest videos was by him and he was doing his own commentary, he's not got a young man's voice.

Last year when he first joined various forums, he claimed he was 21.

I suppose one difference between AP and some of the banned posters is that he was usually polite to other posters. One banned former poster in particular who's being mentioned could be extremely sharp, well-intentioned or not. Being nasty to other board users is not usually very helpful.

Don't you think that is the difference between someone who cares passionately about something and someone who only cares about selling their products and themselves. Easy to control yourself if you don't really care, easy when your only interest is self advertisements as it would be self defeating if you became really interested in the of care for the dog.

I love this forum, its imo one of the best around (if not the best) however I was disappointed to see that Adam was not told to stop advocating shock collars are solutions to training problems. Shock collars are imo a form of abuse and should only be used in very dire situations even then there are more effective methods.

Adam joined another forum I frequent and started a shock collar discussion the discussion was allowed for as long as it took the mods to see it then it was deleted along with Adam.

Sadly on the internet people read something and think because another person has suggested it its a good idea and will buy the product and thats in this case another dog being shocked. :(

Off at a tangent slightly but I'm sure I remember AP saying once that E collars were absolutely guarranteed to work on any dog.

Hmmmm....I have a large breed dog that is as subborn and pig ignorant as they come and suffered a terrible attack by another dog last year resulting in horrific injuries to her shoulder exposing muscle and bone. It must have been so painful but not once did she show the slightest reaction to it at the time or whilst re-dressing it. This is the same dog that was up at the stables with me a couple of years ago and was stood under a strip of electric fencing with it resting on her back and didn't so much as flinch. Me on the other hand ran full pelt towards her only for her to look at me as if to say "good god woman..where's the fire"!!! And yes the fencing was on, I checked, and yes it gave me a right good wollop!!! It kept the huge stallions away but my girl treated it as a massage I think!!

It makes me cold to think for him to make the generalisation that they WILL work on every dog, just how powerful is he willing to have them??  Not a nice thought.

< Off at a tangent slightly but I'm sure I remember AP saying once that E collars were absolutely guarranteed to work on any dog.

That was his argument to me a lot of the time, and he reiterated by PM again - he kept saying that ecollars are really useful for stressy, nervous dogs and in his last PMs, went as far as to say they would be especially useful to dogs like mine, who are genetically predisposed to nervous stress and/or agression (this was after he'd again criticised my methods and claimed his were "clearly more reliable, given my posts on other forums about my dog's 'improvements'").

Fact is they won't work on every dog - I've explained time and time again why they would be only a bad thing for Soli but it was like talking to a brick wall, because it had 'worked' for his aggressive dog (never mind all the horrendous body language he couldn't or wouldn't see rolling off the poor little lad).

> Don't you think that is the difference between someone who cares passionately about something and someone who only cares about selling their products and themselves.

Yes, of course there's a difference. I don't think Adam Palmer or anyone else should be able to come on here simply in order to build up their trade. He was on my ignore list and I'm glad he's left.

So what exactly do you all think about e collars and the people who use them ?

Some people are desperate, don't know where to go for help, and use them hoping they will solve a problem. Those people are I'd say misguided, perhaps ignorant, probably worried. Usually they don't know much about how dogs learn, or how to train and motivate a dog.

Some people use them and promote them deliberately as a training tool - they use them to TEACH BASIC COMMANDS and I find that completey abhorrent. The dog is being punished before it starts. This is trained using positive punishment/negative reinforcement. Some trainers do not even use rewards such as food or toys, as they believe all the dog needs is to avoid the physical pain of the shock collar :( and that is reward enough. What a sad life for the dog.

I've studied many, many videos and discussions (including getting all the info from the debates where people were invited to write in to the debates for Wales and Scotland) and all of these have confirmed to me that shock collars really are not necessary, are often used abusively and that some people want to hurt the dog in the name of training, even though to most that is morally wrong.

People who say the collars do not hurt either have low level models, are lying, or have the skin of a rhino at it's thickest. I once saw the video of a Rottie being trained to hold a glove (using shock collar and forced retrieve method) and it made me determined to stand up for dogs and for their welfare.

I've also noticed that the promoters/supporters do not seem to have very good personalities - they are rude, enjoy personal attacks and belittling anyone who is honest enough to disagree with them. I think that says quite a lot about the type of person who may use a shock collar. Perhaps it also reflects why they can't train without one.

I am very sorry that my persistent posting on the subject annoys others and can fully understand why. But I will not back down and allow the blatant advocation of cruelty in the name of 'training'.

I quite understand why you do it Mastifflover. I have chosen to put them all on Ignore and that's a choice i made for this forum, but I have debated with AP and others on other sites.

The more I see and hear, the more it is confirmed to me that use of shock collars is generally abusive.

xxx

I believe as a trainer and as a rationalhuman being, no one method suits all!!! That simple!! E-collars cannot be guaranteed to work with all dogs, it's simple logic, nothing about canine behaviour can ever really be guaranteed. That's something proved to me time after time every week by the dogs I live with and work with.

As a far as NOT promoting e-collars I really can't see why anyone would object to it. Opinions are varied but in reality does anyone want to see this training method become a standard piece of kit for trainers??

Spray collars cause enough arguement and these I do work with, I will leave the owners with it only after a first consult where I assess the dog and only after 10 days of hard work on owners behalf using positive methods.Then I go back and see whether we really do need to use it, show owners the timing and leave it for 2 weeks. As if these methods really do work, a few blasts is all it will take. So no need for owners to buy it full stop!!  Which only backs up my theory that these things should not be on general sale. If training is going to work on the short sharp shock,it will only need a few blasts for it to work.