Psychology of effectively using training collars?

[mduggan]

This has been a very informative post. Thanks to all who have shared their knowledge, and experience.

[Reuben]

Uglydog brought up a key point that to me is just as important as timing with the shock therapy.

She mentioned that the dog must not know that the handler caused the pain.

Any time we discipline a dog we must do it in a calm and neutral manner so that the dog knows that you do not like his behavior and that it is not him that you dislike. This way the dog will trust you and is not afraid of you. The dog will know that you like him and that goes a long ways....

Just observe the mama dog when she is weaning her pups. She will give a pup a good nip and the pup will run off sometimes whimpering like it is hurt real bad and the mama dog doesn't chase after it or even gives any attention. I discipline my dogs in the same manner and it works for me.

[josh hennes]

The comment on not vocalizing at the time of correction and the reason why are spot on.  The idea of using maximum stimulation right out of the box is off the mark in my opinion.  I want the dog to learn with as little trauma as possible.  I have a dog 'Bully' (plott) that is quite sensitive, a four or five is all I have needed with him.  He has a litter mate that 15 (max) is not enough.  Excessive punishment is just that.  In addition to trash breaking I also ensure my dogs are not going to tree fight. The excitement at a bay is often enough to trigger game possessiveness, I will look for face barking at the youngest ages, usually on a 'trainer' in a rolling cage, and light em up with out saying a word.  Again, you want them to behave when you are not around, not just when they can hear you.  I too set them up to learn, I take them to where some deer are, and if they act as if they know the deer are there, they will get zapped, always without verbal correction.  If they feel they will be corrected at any time by the boogeyman if they misbehave, then that is as good as you can hope for.  Once they are trash broke and will come to their name, an annual refresher is all they have ever needed.  That Bully dog is always off the lead when I am walking and he will range out about 100 yds and then come around and check in with me and he's off again, all from his early training with the e-collar.  My collar also has a 'tone' function, and Bully comes to that as well as he does to my voice.

I use the Innotek ADV-1000, they have been awesome on the warranty.  The battery was all that was bad and they took really good care of me, and had history of the previous calls I had made to them.

[firemedic]

Man Noah.....you got a lot of info here bud.....hope it helps. Kinda makes me a bit hesitant to add my little 2 cents worth. I have a Tri-tronics trashbreaker II ultra....2 mile range but never tried it that far. Great tool as has been stated. I've only used it on grown dogs that are hog dogs but couldn't resist the urge to run a deer. I've had good success with it, I took the dog in question to my deer lease and was lucky enough to spot some deer in the field,....oh by the way there are NO....I mean NO hogs anywhere near this place. Got the dog out on a lead, walked out to where the deer had left from and when she wanted to pull toward following them I popped her on 3, unit has 5 settings. This made her back up a bit and shake her head, but she again wanted to follow.....popped her on 4 this time and that did the trick...made her squall and run back to me. So far this had hopefully done the trick on the deer for her. She never was bad after them, but would run one and be gone maybe 10 minutes if it jumped right up in front of her. I might add that this dog is extremely smart, and learns super fast, so it might take a bit longer for most dogs to get the idea.  I really like my Tri-tronics....got it off Ebay from Valley Supple I think it was. Hope this helps you out some bud....good luck with it.