Cow Breaking

TexasHogDog dont take anything i say as an insult, i refuse to do such. More of my personal opinion. All trainers will make mistakes its human nature. With the kid analogy we can look at it two ways. First If the parents just haul off and give an ole fashion whoopin for the child doing something wrong. And Secondly, first the parents scold the child then progress from there to spanking. In the first analogy and the one you gave, the child does not know what he is doing is wrong because he has never been told. The second analogy the child was told something was wrong and punishment progressed from there. In my opinion the first analogy is BAD parenting, with the second being my prefered method. This all tranlates to dogs or any kinda livestock. I believe in being a trainer and haveing a dog understand what i want from him and not to be just scared of something. So if i am using an e-collar, 1. i scold first 2. scould with low setting correction 3. might have to give minor correction on a dog with a switch.(carefull not to get outta control) In this number three you can progress levels. This method is just what i use many have their own ways of training, but this one i have better results with. Something i know to be a fact is in livestock. Put them in a hot wire fence, when they get a zap it scares the devil out of them. Don't believe me just watch their reaction. But when the powers off and they have figured it out they will be leaning all over that fence. My reason for saying this is dogs will revert back to something if they were just scared off of it, just like cattle and horses. I don't want to have to run an e-collar on my dogs forever. One month maybe two depending on how you hunt is all i want an extra collar hanging on my dog. Like i said this method works for me. I'll give you an example. Keep in mind I said ALL trainers make MISTAKES. Several months ago i had a pup run right up to about 200 head of cattle that were bunched tight. This pup was kinda boogering at the cattle so i gave a scold and light correction. The pup backed up but wanted to get in those cattle. So i caught myself and put the shock collar down and watched that dog. Finally he made his way through the cattle and bayed a 200# sow 15 yards on the other side of the cattle. Thats why i want my dogs to be able to understand what i want and go through cattle to find hogs, and not be so scared they won't go near them. This dog knew he was not supposed to bark at cattle but knew there was a hog on the other side, hence the booger barking. When his confidence built up he went and did his job. Now that same pup i can turn him out off my truck with 250 head of momma cows running over my truck trying to get feed, and that dog not say a word or even bother looking at the cattle.