How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Shock Collar

A potential client called me up the other day. She was interested in off leash training but she was hesitant about the e-collar. She said she wanted her dog to perform commands because it wanted to, not because the dog was afraid of the consequences.

Naturally, no one wants their dog to be afraid if there’s an option not to be afraid. She said she had heard that positive reinforcement was better, and wanted a “fear free” experience for her dog.

Who wouldn’t love a fear free life? It’s…scary….to feel fear, and I’ll avoid consequences till the cows come home. If there was a way to show up late for appointments and avoid late fees, you can bet your bottom dollar I would show up late, especially if it meant catching a few extra ZZZ’s in the morning or having time to swing by Starbucks. Does that make me a bad person? No, it makes me a person who likes sleep and coffee.

But what if fear was actually a useful emotion?

Look out your window. Chances are, you’ll see a stop sign. If you’re old enough to read this, you know it’s not a suggestion. If you treat it like one, there will be consequences. You should be afraid of what happens if you don’t stop. Why?

Because if you aren’t afraid, you may die or kill someone else. This isn’t a difficult concept. Or at least, it shouldn’t be. In fact, we already have a term for it (in humans) - we call it “healthy fear.”

We use this term to describe the specific manner in which children regard a hot stove after touching it once. It also explains why most of us recoil at the sight of a snake in contexts other than behind a glass aquarium at the zoo. The sight of a spider scurrying across our feet. Are we afraid of the consequences of continuing to engage with the hot stove, the snake, the spider?

Yes, yes we are.

When a driver obeys traffic rules, its not because they’re afraid of cars, the road, or the stop sign. People don’t need years of therapy because they got pulled over for speeding once. For the most part, they grumble when they pay their fine and (if they’re smart) they stop rolling stop signs. Seems fairly straightforward when we apply it to humans, but for some reason this very same concept elicits major controversy when applied to dogs.

A Story of Two Dogs Who Wanted to do Exactly What They Wanted

A number of months ago, I dropped a dog off at his house after a Three Week Board & Train. While he was boarding with me, the owner and I had started private training with the other dog living in the house. Both of these dogs had had tons of off-leash recall work in the previous three weeks, and did great on their own with individual handlers, so we were comfortable allowing them to make some choices in a large field setting. The owner is quite outdoorsy, but was never able to bring the dogs on camping trips because they couldn’t be trusted to come back. They had no fear of running off. And why should they? They had never had any consequences for running off.

They stayed within a 50 ft radius for the most part, but when they started to drift out farther and farther, we decided to recall them. We didn’t want them getting too far out - they hadn’t earned that trust yet.

We called them. They ignored us. Uh-oh.

We both called out, “No, come,” and issued an e-collar correction. They both immediately turned on a dime and came trotting back. We rewarded them (with physical touch and praise). We immediately released them to go play, they played for 30 more minutes in a more appropriate bubble, and didn’t ignore a single recall after that.

Moral of the story? Positive reinforcement has value, but only contextually. In the living room, when you’re holding a treat, “come” has great value, because nothing else is going on and your dog likes treats. In an open field setting with the scent of live rabbits afoot, exploration became more valuable than the treats in our pouch, and that’s why they ignored recall the first time. The potential reward of a live rabbit was greater, in that context, than a guaranteed piece of dead chicken food pouch. However, upon the application of an adequate punishment, the potential reward became instantaneously less of a priority.

The Proper Role of Punishment

Can punishment be misapplied? Of course it can. You can punish in ways that ultimately don’t serve your dog or yourself. We want to stop specific behaviors in specific ways, and teach your dog that it has a choice. Just like you have a choice of whether or not to roll a stop sign, your dog has a choice whether to ignore known commands. This is why the training component (using both positive and negative reinforcement) is crucial. This is why I don’t recommend just strapping e-collars onto dogs and start pushing buttons.

Think about how long it took you to learn how to drive. First, you weren’t even allowed to get behind the wheel - you just weren’t developmentally ready. You had to be carted around everywhere and ask your parents questions about traffic rules from the back seat. If you were lucky, they answered your questions because they read all the parenting books and wanted to teach you about how the world works.

Then, when you were old enough, you had to take a summer driving course at your local high school, which was taught by a middle aged off season football coach named Dwayne. After that, you had to pass a driving test, in which you were forced to parallel park while a nice lady named Barbara in the passenger’s seat wordlessly scribbled on clipboard. If you passed (and not everyone did), you got a permit which could be revoked if you drove badly. When you finally earned the trust of society, and proved you were not a danger to yourself or others, you got upgraded to the real deal - a license! However, at any point during your lifetime , you could lose that license for a number of non-driving related offenses, like failing to pay child support or boating while intoxicated.

Done correctly, punishment can be an extremely effective tool to get people (and dogs) to follow the rules. However, the rules have to be established first. That’s what I specialize in - teaching your dog the rules.


Side Effects

People will say not to use punishment because there are side effects. Usually these side effects are conveniently labeled as “stress” or “emotional harm” so they happen on a level that’s internal to the dog and never clear to the owner. The implication? You’re fucking your dog up emotionally, even if you can’t see visible signs. Even if your dog looks happy romping around in that field, chasing after a ball and following scent trails for an hour….he’s secretly stressed out and bracing for a correction at all times. And it’s your fault.

Here’s the thing: not using punishment has side effects too. Never training a reliable off leash recall has a side effect of your dog being mainly housebound. In my mind, I think: Wouldn’t that fuck up a dog emotionally? If you also decline to use any sort of corrective collar, your dog will also likely pull on the walk (decreasing the likelihood that you’ll walk them). Have you ever seen the trenches that dogs create pacing back and forth between the same 40 ft length of fence line? If you’re willing to have that be your dog’s quality of life, be my guest, but don’t expect any rewards for doing it “pure positive.”

In the above example, I’m sure you’re wondering: Did the correction make them afraid of us? Afraid of fields? Afraid of rabbits? Did they both meltdown into a sad, abused puddle?

No, no, and no. It made them afraid of ignoring recall. And that, my friend, is what I like to call a “healthy fear.” There’s no way, at present, to sit our dogs down and explain what can happen if they run into the street. It would be awesome if we could, and have them obey just because they want to. Until such a day, I’m putting my energy into an activity that is actually useful for the world we all have to contend with every day - teaching my dogs not only that it pays off to listen, but that it also sucks when they don’t.