Electronic Training Devices: A Review of Current Literature

Nonetheless, the authors of this study believe that for the general dogowning

public, using rewards exclusively in training may produce a more balanced and obedient

dog, thereby reducing the number of owner-relinquished dogs in shelters.

interesting quote. Anyway, I skimmed the posted article and I don't think any of the articles are truly applicable to how ecollars are usually used in training nowadays- no studies of "escape training" using low level settings at all. Some studies of "avoidance" training using medium-level settings are applicable to that technique.

I have not read the entire article yet. What I find sad is that 184 dogs were used and that part of the test was to have a human pet them while they were shocked.

 For me I would never use a shock collar for anything other than snake training. I studied it and thought about it and tossed it out. I simply cannot shock my dogs.

 Vibrating collars (no shock just vibration) are useful IMO but for me I will never know if shock collars are effective or not since I cannot bring myself to even try one.

dgriego

I have not read the entire article yet. What I find sad is that 184 dogs were used and that part of the test was to have a human pet them while they were shocked.

When I think of it in the context of using shock with animals, it upsets me too, as I would never, in my wildest dreams, place a shock collar on a dog. However, the scientific side of me also realizes that without some experimental evidence, we will never be able to accurately say what effects electricity have on teaching our animals, so there is some benefit to come from this type of study, as harsh as it seems. Otherwise it would always be anecdotal evidence.

It's like today how we grimace at some of the experiments of the past (I think of Descarte's time.....), but yet without that original work, as unethical as it seems today, we would not know the beginnings of what we know today, and we would never have made some of the gains that we have when it comes to both human and animal health and welfare.

Interesting points to make. Punishment, especially from the shock collar, has such a profound effect on the amygdala that it changes the brain function permanently.

Dogs raised with punishment develop other behavior problems, most notably, redirected aggression, and stress in the presence of the human with whom they identify the punishments.

And that while there's not a lot of difference in the success rate between punishment and reward for housetraining, sit, and not stealing food, reward training has a better response for all the rest of the behaviors.

And that dogs continually beset with punishment eventually quit responding to anything to avoid punishment, i.e., the dog shuts down.

I'm sure the science will cause a stir.

did you see the one where they had three groups, one got shocked when they chased the rabbit, one got shocked after a verbal command to recall off the rabbit, and one just got randomly shocked?  The random-shock group was highly stressed, the one that got shocked for chasing the rabbit wasn't anywhere near as stressed. And note that before they started punishing the dogs for rabbit-chasing they actually trained the dogs to chase rabbits. Talk about confusing for the poor dogs. No wonder they were stressed.