Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone here train with an E-collar?

I never have and never would even consider it. I think they do more harm than good. With patient consistant training and positive reinforcement a dog can be trained to do just about anything.
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Bob

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.

I have one but won't start training with it until next week. My dog has severe separation anxiety (abandoned twice!) and I believe it is the ideal solution for her. It just has to be since we've tried everything else! I bought the collar from my trainer where my shepherd/husky has been for the last five weeks getting professionally trained. The collar is part of her overall program. The idea is simple... put the dog in circumstances that trigger the anxiety then administer a shock to discourage the behavior along with positive reinforcement for good behavior. My dog shows anxiety immediately if I simply walk around the corner so it should be fairly straightforward to fix.

I tested the collar on myself to make sure it wasn't too painful and am satisfied it is not cruel unless you were to crank the level all the way up. I'll report back here how it goes in case others are interested.

Yes! Mine is on it's way. But in the mean time I have been making sure that he will know what I am asking of him, he is doing really well, but it gets difficult for me to enforce commands when I start to teach at a distance so I think that it will come in very handy in this area. I am going to make good and sure that know how to use it first though. I am glad it comes with an instruction DVD.

By all means post back I'd be very interested!

-My Diamond

Great.. did you get it yet? Off-leash training is the other area my trainer wants me to use the collar for. However, my dog responds pretty well to just voice and treats so probably won't use it much for that.. although it's nice to have for emergencies like if she ran towards a busy street or something.

So here's an update... first a little about how it works. There's a knob that controls the shock intensity level and goes from 0 to 100. I set it to just below 20 and my dog responds fine. It can be tricky making sure her fur doesn't get in the way of the contacts. May need to trim a little section of hair on her lower neck. There are three buttons; One that just vibrates like a pager, one that gives a quick shock, and one you hold down. It's important to keep the collar on at all times even when not training so they don't learn to only respond when the collar is on. Charge it at night every other day or so.

It is definitely improving her separation anxiety. I close the back door blinds most of the way but open enough to still see the outside patio through a reflection. I leave the house and drive around the block then sneak back to where I can watch her. When she demonstrates anxiety I hold down the shocker for about a second and she stops and walks away. After a few times she lies down inside her kennel, which is great. She's still somewhat nervous while lying there.. but it's a definite improvement.

I'll give another update in a week or so. Would love to hear your experiences as well.

Yep I have the collar now, it's a TriTronics Sportbasic G3. What kind is yours?

I haven't started using it yet though I am still researching how to train with it..and making sure he knows the commands before I start using it to renforce. I think I will be able to use it shortly for 'heel' and 'sit' he is doing really well on the those the past few days. Still working on come on the checkchord.

I do find training is a lot harder this time of year (burrr!) sometimes we just have to forget the training depending on how windy/snowy and cold it is.

My Diamond

I just tried my E-collar out today on "heel" and "sit" it works great! Had the stimulation set to about 2 otherwise he didn't even notice *laughs*. As a result his heeling turns have gotten tighter and I wasn't having to keep checking him back to heel. He got the stimulation if he was lagging behind (during heel) or forging, and when he didn't sit.

I found that a nick worked for the lagging and held the continuous button until he backed off if he was forging. I used a nick if he didn't sit.

At the very first I conditioned him to the collar by pressing continuous then let up when he obeyed the command after doing this then he was able to understand the nick.

So far I am very pleased with it. Keep me posted with your progress