A lot of people think an electric collar isn't very painful, especially at low levels. To an extent, it does depend on what type is bought. However, that aside, I thought it would be interesting to give this link which shows Welsh AMs trying one type of ecollar at the lowest level.

You may need to select the video. It takes a few seconds to come up :)

http://www.itvlocal.com/wales/newsextra/?player=WAL_NewsExtra_15&void=191445

Couldn't get it to play with Firefox.  But, I do believe that anyone considering using one of these collars should try it round their neck before using it on their dog!

It worked for me in Firefox -I just got a message saying it would work best in IE but it still loaded fine.

If it's anything like static shocks, I can imagine how unpleasant it is. I keep getting shocks form car doors, and also from our tumble drier when I empty it, and it is SO nasty, it is in many ways far worse than outright pain. I dread emptying the dryer because of it. (See, it's taught me something! <grin>)

I tried an electric collar (on myself) and I didn't find it painful at all, it was an odd sensation. But I'd still never use one on my dogs.

> If it's anything like static shocks, I can imagine how unpleasant it is.

This is the point ^ those don't bother me but are awful for MarianneB. Until you try the collar out on a dog how do you know if it'll find it incredibly distressing or a minor distraction?

The collar tried on me gave a shock about 3 x the strength of a static shock, thats on its lowest setting.

Yep peope who tried it didn't describe it as equal to the mild static shocks we get but more as a bolt or spike being shot rigth through their arms which could setill be felt at the end of the day...and that on the lowest setting!

I actually tried the remote spray collar and one of mine found the reward beep deeply distressing! it was not possible to teach him to associate the beep with a reward because he was so scared of it. The actual spray he didn't care a hoot about!

I've never felt an electric collars shock, there is no way I'd use one on my dogs BUT I think there is a place for them, if used by people who really know what they're doing and for certain thing (not you normal training).
I've seen them used on TV to get dogs to stay away from snakes in America, (where an everyday walk can put the dog in danger of being bitten & killed by a snake bite) I think in that sort of situation they can be good, but should not be available to the public.

Personally I don't mind static shocks (I don't like them, but I don't find them painfull), for some reason if I wear a specific pare of shoes & sit in a plastic garden chair shuffling my feet I can 'charge' myself up, I then just need to point at my OH and I can send such a static shock to him there is even a blue spark!! I can do it from over 1ft away!! :) He gets frustrated because he can't do it back :) 

Agree totally with belgian bonkers, before trying it out on the dog, try it out on the owners first, in my opinion they are cruel and barbaric.

If used correctly for the right reasons by someone who is trained to use them    electric collars have their place and are not cruel, IMO.

I find the intimidation and choking and forced restraint techniques used by the likes of Ceasar Milan to be far more barbaric and potentially far more damaging to a dog than an electric collar used correctly. 

IMO the major problem with ecollars is that anyone can buy one and use one for any reason; so once again it's a people issue. 

In what training activities is it necessary to inflict any sort of pain surely there must be another way.

> In what training activities is it necessary to inflict any sort of pain surely there must be another way.

As I mentioned above, e-collars produce fantastic results for getting dogs to avoid deadly snakes. I would much rather my dog got a zap from a collar and learnt that snakes were bad then have him bitten (not that is needed here, but in the US snake bites are a problem for dogs).
Negative association is a very poweful thing, not something for standard training, but to teach a dog a life-saving lesson I think it is worth it.

I suppose living in the UK that thought had not crossed my mind however would not a Master Collar or clicker training work just as well. Also of interest, do you have to find a sample of each snake your dog may come across and 'train' him that this particular creature will give him pain and does it not sometimes have the result that the dog is taught that this creature is a pain in the neck therefore I should attack it first.

Using pain to train in this instance would require a very experienced trainer I would have thought that just as a Master collar or a clicker needs the handler to be trained if you are to get the best results but in the case of the Master the dog is not hurt only surprised and with a clicker only pleasure or antisipation.

> Also of interest, do you have to find a sample of each snake your dog may come across and 'train' him that this particular creature will give him pain

I doubt it, I can't see that a dog would get close enough to a snake to distinguish what sort it was after learning they shock you with an e-collar (the whole point of using an e-collar i suppose). An yes it would be best to only use an experienced trainer - the sort of trainer that has caged snakes with him to do this safely.

I don't know if a Master collar would work - the dog would associate the snake with a squirt up the nose - not as stong an association as from an e-collar.

I have never used an e-collar, I do not encounter snakes on my walks but I have allready said I think if my dog needed to learn to stay away from snakes, I'd rather him get a harmless zap from a collar than a venom-loaded bite. Everybody knows that fear is probably the hardest things to overcome in a dog - if your dog learns to fear snakes with the use of an e-collar it is a life saving lesson learnt.

> dog is not hurt only surprised and with a clicker only pleasure or antisipation.

hardly the response you want in your dog if it happens on a deadly snake :(

> hardly the response you want in your dog if it happens on a deadly snake

You miss understand the pleasure and anticipation comes from the dog doing as it has been trained, i.e. leaving the object alone. Think training snake avoidance may be a little difficult any way........first find your snake, the poor dog may wear one of these collars for years before encountering a snake and if or when you did need it the battery would have run out.

>> dog is not hurt only surprised and with a clicker only pleasure or antisipation.
> hardly the response you want in your dog if it happens on a deadly snake :-(

Does it matter if your dog enjoys avoiding the snake?

Electric - dog sees snake, thinks pain, avoids
Clicker - dog sees snake, thinks reward, avoids, gets reward

> first find your snake, the poor dog may wear one of these collars for years before encountering a snake and if or when you did need it the battery would have run out.

the idea is you take your dog to a trainer who allready has snakes available for the purpose of the exercise, the dog wears the collar, encounters snake in controlled manner, gets a zap, is led away from snake, encounters snake again gets a zap = job done in 1 session.
The idea is for the dog to asociate the sight of a snake with the need for the dog to avoid it, it does not need to have handler in sight for this response to save it's life once the lesson has been learnt.

I don't suppose it does matter how you teach a dog to avoid a snake, as long as the association the dog has with the snake is fail-proof.
Aniticipation of reward is not always enough to over-come curiosity especially when the dog is off lead and out of sight of the handler, how many dogs, honestly when off-lead and out of sight of the owner, would see an animal and run back to the owner for a treat insead of having a sneaky sniff of it first/without getting close to it- 100% of the the time?? With a snake the dog has to not go near it to keep out of strike range, getting close and not touching it isn't good enough.
To teach a dog via clicker-training, would require mutliple sessions in which the dog would have to be in close proximity to a snake which would also get the dog used to seeing a snake (and hence, nothing to be wary of). In the case of an e-collar (used by a profesisonal), the dog need only see the snake for 2 brief encounters in 1 session - the snake remains an alien encounter that has a stong negetaive impact.

Do you think a dog trained to avoid something in a cage would recognise it as the same thing it would stumble across under a stone? And even if it did I still can't see why a cruel training method would be used when other would work just as well if not better.

Tell me do you have to sensitise the dog to every snake it might encounter, no problem here because there is only one problem snake and that is more likely to be trod on rather than deliberately attacked, in fact, I would have thought that would apply to most snakes.

> Do you think a dog trained to avoid something in a cage would recognise it as the same thing it would stumble across under a stone? And even if it did I still can't see why a cruel training method would be used when other would work just as well if not better.

I have never used an e-collar, I don't intend to use one, I would not advocate it's use other than by a trained proffesional and my dogs are not likely to encounter a deadly snake, all I know is that I have seen the fantastic results on TV. Only 1 dog needed to be taught with an e-collar and that was enough for the other dogs to pick up on his reaction and stay away from a snake to.

> Tell me do you have to sensitise the dog to every snake it might encounter, no problem here because there is only one problem snake and that is more likely to be trod on rather than deliberately attacked, in fact, I would have thought that would apply to most snakes.

I have allready said I doubt you have to sensitise the dog to every snake it may encounter - the dog doesn't get close enough to a snake to distinguise what species it is when taught with an e-collar (how many people can tell the difference without a reference book?).

Tell me, if you were in an area that had deadly snakes, would you clicker-train your dog in the presence of an uncaged snake? or would you prefer to use a caged snake? or would you not bother as an accidental encounter would end in a bite reagrdless?

If you clicker-train snake avoidence is it 100% reliable if the owner/handler is out of sight, or does the dog associate the handler/owner with the pleasure of reward in which case the owner/handler has to be in sight for it to work?
My pup knows he's not to play with the cat he wont go anywhere near her if I'm in sight, he has been taught to stay away via reward based training - if I'm out of sight it's a different story - there is nobody around for him to please other than himself.

> Personally I don't mind static shocks (I don't like them, but I don't find them painfull), for some reason if I wear a specific pare of shoes & sit in a plastic garden chair shuffling my feet I can 'charge' myself up, I then just need to point at my OH and I can send such a static shock to him there is even a blue spark!! I can do it from over 1ft away!! :-) He gets frustrated because he can't do it back

PML!! "Mastiff lover casts magic missile!"

> PML!! "Mastiff lover casts magic missile!"

lol, it's great entertainment when we go to our friends for a BBQ :)

just told my friend about that, he says you should learn to do it like the emperor in star wars and shoot lightning out your hands- use the force mastifflover!

> Tell me, if you were in an area that had deadly snakes, would you clicker-train your dog in the presence of an uncaged snake? or would you prefer to use a caged snake? or would you not bother as an accidental encounter would end in a bite reagrdless?

you can used un-caged snakes :) you just need a snake wrangler:

http://www.uplandbirddog.com/snake/

but I haven't been able to find anybody that will teach snake avoidence with a clicker :(

> just told my friend about that, he says you should learn to do it like the emperor in star wars and shoot lightning out your hands- use the force mastifflover!

OMG PML - my kids would love it I could do that :)

not if you did it to them!

Sorry Mastifflover I really was not taking the subject of snakes seriously. I do find it hard to believe that people would train a dog to leave a snake alone because most snakebites are not from a confrontation but rather because someone or some dog has unknowingly trodden on one, they would be bitten before they had a chance to remember that they were not supposed to attack.

I do however think the use of pain for the purpose of training abhorrent.

A lot of dogs are bitten by snakes out of pure curiosity, if there is a reliable pleasent training method that can teach a dog they should never go near a snake then that obviously would be better.
I do not agree with pain/negative association for general training purposes, but surely an electic shock is a small price to pay for a dog to learn a life-saving lesson, but thankfully it is something us in the UK don't have to face.

I found 1 'snake-breaker' that started his company after his retriever alerted him to a snake 1 day, the dog was very curious and the owner was certain that if he didn't grab his dog in time the dog would have tried to get the snake as the dog had a habbit of retrieving anything it found for the owner :( With the e-collar the dog learnt that even the scent of a snake was something to get away from.
I imagine that some dogs can be clicker trained to reliable run to the owner when they smell a snake, but that sort of trianing isn't possible for a lot of dogs (otherwise every dog would be capeable of being a drug/bomb sniffing dog).

The problem is with these collars is that they are not just being used to teach things like snake avoidance.In the States some trainers use them for basic obedience training,heelwork,stays,retrieves etc .Just go on Youtube and watch some of the videos from Sit means sit or Heritage kennels and see dogs being constantly shocked after every command,e collars on puppies as young as 10 weeks,huge e collars on tiny dogs,dogs being shocked for glancing away from the handler.In one gundog training video the dog has been sent out to retrieve a dummy and is shocked on the way out(you can hear the dog yelp),the purpose of the exercise is to teach the dog to work through the shock-if it doesn't it gets an ear pinch!Before I saw these videos I had no idea that the use of these collars was so widespread.
It was interesting on the video on Lindsay's post that one woman said her arm still ached at the end of the day ,I wonder how some of these dogs feel if they're having maybe hundreds of shocks a day?

> Do you think a dog trained to avoid something in a cage would recognise it as the same thing it would stumble across under a stone?

I think I saw the programme that Mastiff? saw and I couldn't tell if the dog was avoiding the snake or the cage.

Proof that it worked was that the dog wouldn't go near the cage after being zapped, instead it recalled to its owner by going around the edge of the field. It looked like it was avoiding that particular place in the field and was worried about returning to its owner. The snake (and cage) were put in the owners yard and that particular dog still avoided it but again, has it learnt to avoid cages or snakes?

> Tell me, if you were in an area that had deadly snakes, would you clicker-train your dog in the presence of an uncaged snake? or would you prefer to use a caged snake? or would you not bother as an accidental encounter would end in a bite reagrdless?

I'd not train against snakes at all. I'd treat the deadly snake area as I would a field of sheep and either avoid it or keep my dogs on lead.

> If you clicker-train snake avoidence is it 100% reliable if the owner/handler is out of sight, or does the dog associate the handler/owner with the pleasure of reward in which case the owner/handler has to be in sight for it to work?

That question can be reversed... If you electic collar train snake avoidance does the dog associate the owner with the punishment of a shock and the owners needs to be in sight for it to work?

I'd say it depends on the how well the training was done (whatever method was used).

I do know someone who used one for a GSD (a sister to one of my GSD's) who chased cars. I guess that it  was better than the dog (and owner) getting killed, but I still had my own reservations about it. Apparently though, it worked

Kat

> That question can be reversed... If you electic collar train snake avoidance does the dog associate the owner with the punishment of a shock and the owners needs to be in sight for it to work?
>

Think you may have something there, when using a master collar it only works when the collar is on, without the collar, even if the trainer is there, the unwanted behaviour returns. So it is the wearing of the collar that stops the unwanted behaviour.

Not sure that explains what I mean but perhaps an example would. I used a Master collar to stop a young dog rushing at adult dogs and crashing T bone fashion into their sides. Whilst the dog had the collar on he did not do this unwanted behaviour, once the collar was removed he returned to trying injure both himself and the adult dog that was his target. So it was the wearing of the collar that controled the behaviour not the conditioning.

Do hope that makes sense ;-)

> I'd not train against snakes at all. I'd treat the deadly snake area as I would a field of sheep and either avoid it or keep my dogs on lead.

That's all well and good, but if you live in a country where snakes even frequent your own garden it's a little harder avoiding them :(

> That question can be reversed... If you electic collar train snake avoidance does the dog associate the owner with the punishment of a shock and the owners needs to be in sight for it to work?

No the owner doesn't need to be in sight for it to work, a snake needs to be insight for it to work - the shock is associated with the sight/sound/scent of a snake.
Have a look at the pictures in this link and see what the dog associates the shock with:
http://snake-avoidance.com/
http://www.winterkennels.com/

I've actually managed to find a place that offers an alternative to e-colllars for teaching snake avoidence - your dog can get bitten by a non-venomus snake!!!
http://www.zauberberg.com/?Dog_Training/Snake_Avoidance_Training

> I think I saw the programme that Mastiff? saw and I couldn't tell if the dog was avoiding the snake or the cage.
>

The one I saw was on Cesar Milan - the dog was rather small for a Mastiff - it was Daddy the pitbull, 2 zaps and he didn't want to be anywhere near that snake, he went round the edge of the field to avoid it.

And they would have you believe it does not hurt. Disgusting.

> That question can be reversed... If you electic collar train snake avoidance does the dog associate the owner with the punishment of a shock and the owners needs to be in sight for it to work?
>

why would the dog associate it with the owner? its remote, the dog can't tell its the owner doing it can it?

> That's all well and good, but if you live in a country where snakes even frequent your own garden it's a little harder avoiding them :-(

That's my point. I DON'T live in a country with deadly snakes all over my garden and never will so I can't understand why you're trying to convince me I must do this training with my dogs.

> The one I saw was on Cesar Milan - the dog was rather small for a Mastiff - it was Daddy the pitbull, 2 zaps and he didn't want to be anywhere near that snake, he went round the edge of the field to avoid it.

That's the programme I saw (and I was referring to you Mastiff-whatever, not the breed of dog). I'm not convinced that the dog was avoiding the snake, in the field it avoided going back to the part of the field where it had been zapped twice or more.

How do we know that the dog was avoiding the snake? He could have been avoiding the snake OR the cage OR snakes in cages? They didn't test it out on uncaged snakes, or on empty cages.

I've read lots of electric collar discussions and seen plenty of evidence that it can make problems worse by the dog associating the shock with something else in the immediate environment.

> That's my point. I DON'T live in a country with deadly snakes all over my garden and never will so I can't understand why you're trying to convince me I must do this training with my dogs.

I am NOT trying to convince you to zap your dogs with an e-collar to teach them snake avoidence!!!! I was using snake avoidence as a possible valid use for them.

> That's the programme I saw (and I was referring to you Mastiff-whatever, not the breed of dog).

If you can't remember peoples usernames, you just need to look at top of the posts they're posted :)

I watched that same episode when Cesar did the shock collar with Daddy and he had some other expert in to zap Daddy and I did notice that Cesar looked like he was going to burst into tears because he could see the charge going into his dog. He was with Will smiths wife some actress who had her one of her dogs bitten by a snake. 

I agree with Nova, I would also question how we (the owners) could see if our dog was encountering a snake?  My boys take off and sniff around and I'm not always within snake seeing distance!

There is no need in my opinion to inflict pain via electric shock to animals, I am also against prong collars and anything that can cause any type of pain. 

Each to there own I guess, but I do feel terribly sorry for the poor animals that these barbaric things are used on :(

> I agree with Nova, I would also question how we (the owners) could see if our dog was encountering a snake?&nbsp; My boys take off and sniff around and I'm not always within snake seeing distance

I gather that's the whole point of making your dog avoid them on it's own accord (ie. the sock collar, used at a place they teach snake avoidence), once taught avoidence with the shock collare the dog will activly avoid snakes with no need for the owner to promp it.

Like I said, I don't agree with the e-collar being used for general training, but with proper, trained proffesional use I can only see it being a good thing in the case of snake avoidence (they also use it too teach poisonus toad avoidence). I've had a good rummage on the net and can't find any other way thet people teach snake avoidence apart from 1 place that will get a non-deadly snake to bite your dog.
It seems like a small price to pay to teach a lesson that will save the life of the dog.

It puts me in mind if sticking babies with needles to give them immunity to diseases, my boys always cried for ages and had very tender reaction left on thier arms after every shot, that lasted a few days, it was so sore for them that if the area was touched they would cry in pain, but I never felt cruel as I knew immunity to disease was far more important than some localised tempory pain. There probably is a non-painful way to give babies immunity, but I expect that the injection is used for it's effectiveness, the same as an e-collar is (or appears to be) the most effective way to teach snake avoidence.
I imagine that bitches feel the pain of labour, this doesn't stop them being bred from. I know an e-collar isn't a natural proccess like labour, but left to thier own defices dogs would learn snake avoidence the hard way, some would die a painfull death, some would be lucky, recover after a painfull ordeal and the dogs would pass the knowledge onto thier pups.

I am not convinced that showing them a captive snake and then giving them an electric shock when they go to investigate will teach avoidance of snakes and more than it will teach them to avoid humans who put a collar on them.

The dog associates the shock with the snake, not the collar or whoever fitted the collar.

Heres a few sucess stories.

http://www.patrickcallaghan.com/test.htm

http://www.vipervoidance.com/SuccessStories.html

Would you like to link to other methods that have also been successful in aversion therapy, after all most of us would rather our dogs avoided sheep and electric shocks, snakes not being a big problem.

> Would you like to link to other methods that have also been successful in aversion therapy, after all most of us would rather our dogs avoided sheep and electric shocks, snakes not being a big problem.

Sheep are something that a dog can be kept away from - and if you found a sheep had got into your garden it is highly unlucky to be a mortal danger to your dogs!!!!

I am sorry, I thought the disscussion was about e-collars not avoiding sheep, I was using snake avoidence as a worth while use for e-collars, dissmissing that use becuse it is not neccessary in the UK is not a valid point. I said it would be great if there was a reliable alternative to e-collars for teaching snake avoidence but I haven't found any.

For things other than avoiding deadly animals then training is always usefull. I have allready said that I don't think e-collars should be available to the public or used for standard training issues.

I am not backing the use of e-collars for sheep avoidence, sheep, being a farmed animal, are kept in field, owners should be fully aware where sheep are and be able to keep thier dogs away from the sheep.
As for avoiding electric shocks, then I suggest you don't use an e-collar on your dog (the same as I don't), you make sure you don't give your dog a static shock yourself and you avoid electric cattle fences (that is a shock that will leave a pain in an adults arm for ages, let alone a dog).
I'm putting forward the argument that e-collars appear the most reliable training method in teaching dogs to avoid deadly dangers (and therfore there is a place for the use of e-collars), the way a discussion works is for you to put forward a solid argument against that not for me to find out how to avoid sheep.

The only argument there is so far for not using an e-collar is they are cruel and they can have the wrong association for a dog if not used correctly. I have given a situation in which the 'cruelness' of the e-collar is far out-weighed by the pain & suffering of a snake bite and as such it, appears to be a great way of ensuring your dog doesn't get killed where snakes are a problem. I have linked to success stories to show those that didn't think it worked that it does.

> I am sorry, I thought the disscussion was about e-collars not avoiding sheep

And I too am sorry but we were talking aversion therapy and most of us would be more interested in sheep than snakes - one could use an electric collar one assumes to stop a dog chasing sheep but there are so many better ways that do not inflict pain so why the need to do so with snakes. Do not disagree that it may well work but I am sure given that you have stooge snakes to hand you could teach a dog to avoid, providing they see it, any snake they should happen across.

But surely the whole point is to discuss if there is ever a valid use for an e collar, which is exactly what mastifflover is doing. She is not trying to justify its use for anything else, just saying that they do have 1 use, not saying that everyone should be using them.

Yes I understand but I am saying is there no other way to do the same job, and if not, why not when for hundreds of years we have taught dogs to leave things that we do not wish them to touch without an electrical discharge into the dogs neck and so far I can't see why it is needed for a snake when it is not needed for anything else, is that not valid. If not I am sorry and will leave you to talk about snakes and electric collars.

> so far I can't see why it is needed for a snake when it is not needed for anything else,

A dog only need get in striking distance of a snake in order for it to be bitten (they also use if for poisonus toad avoidence - wow, we have it easy in the UK!!!)

My dogs have been taught not to play with the cat, infact my 10 month old pup is pretty good at ignoring her now, this has been done without the use of an e-collar, treats as distraction/reward for required behaviour have really done the trick. BUT the dogs can walk past the cat like she isn't even there - great from the point of view that they shouldn't be playing with her, but if this method was used with snakes in mind, the dogs would be walking in striking distance thinking they were doing what was excpected of them (ignoring the snake).
My pup will also leave anything I tell him to (eg. horse poop), but this needs me to give him a verbal command he wont actively avoid things he encounters on a walk/in the garden that appear interesting.
I think we are lucky in that we don't have any deadly animal in the UK (excluding the Adder, which is rare and not that deadly compared to the US snakes), if our dogs were to ignore a command and sniff a sheep/cat/other dog it is not going to end in a venomus bite.

From the success stories I posted a link to, you can see the benefits of negative association the e-collar has for the dogs when it comes to snakes, dogs have allerted owners to deadly snakes therfore saving thier entire families from a deadly bite aswell as thier selfs, this would be an extremely difficult thing to teach a dog with positive rienforcement/opperant conditioning. The negative association means the dog will automatically avoid the snake with no prompting from owners.

The safest reaction a dog can have to a snake is a negative reaction - it should want to get away from it, if this can be done reliabley with a method other than an e-collar then that would be preferable.
I'll say it again, I don't think e-collars should be made available to the public, but with proffessional use for specific things other than standard training, I think they have a place and in the case of snake avoidence it definately is the lesser of 2 evelis - to be statically shocked or injected with venom.

I get the gist that snake avoidence is quite a recent thing ? It seems like a lot of the people who have posted sucess stories, only took thier dog to snake breaking classes after allready loosing a dog to a snake bite.
I know this isn't somthing we even need to think about in the UK but it really is saving a lot of lifes in the US and untill a better method can be found it can only be good.

As for using the e-collar for other issues (ie. re-call, barking, behaving around cattle, electric 'fences' to keep dog in etc..), I think it shouldn't be used, these are all basic training issues and I believe people use the e-collar as a quick fix instead of putting the effort in, wereas with the snake breaking it is a (or appears to be) the only reliable method. I think a selcet number of dogs could be trained to avoid snakes without the use of an e-collar, such as the dogs used in bomb/drug sniffing etc, but out of all dogs these really are the elite few.

I can't think of any other valid use for the e-collar, other than teaching a dog to stay away from mortal danger.

I do not agree with E collars, will never use one and think they are used because of peoples failings to train their dog.