Their Struggle Toward Socialization

by Trish King

Having a happy relationship with your dog means learning how to work together. If there´s a topic you´d like to see Trish cover, email editors@fetchthepaper.com.

You can see them every day on sidewalks, trails, and in dog parks: dogs with little plastic boxes around their necks, and people holding remote controllers. Some people are enthusiastic about these tools, while others condemn their use out of hand.

Like many issues, that of electronic equipment use is not as simple as it may seem. In fact, it’s quite complicated because there are several types of devices and varying levels of punishment. Three more commonly used devices are electronic collars, citronella collars, and electronic fences. Electronic collars emit shocks to control behavior. Commonly called shock collars or e-collars, these come in remotely controlled and automatic varieties. Citronella collars deliver a punishment, albeit not pain, and though people don’t generally think of them as e-collars, they are electronically controlled. Electronic fences are electric wires buried around the perimeter of a yard, and the dog is taught to avoid the wired area in order to avoid an electric charge from the companion device attached to his collar.

Electronic collars used to be fairly rare but that is no longer the case. Many pet stores sell them, and owners buy them, usually a_ er watching others use them. Collars most commonly address coming when called and barking.

Could I have a twist of lime instead?

There are two varieties of bark collar, spray and shock. Spray collars, sometimes called citronella collars, spray a citrusy mist into the air next to the dog’s face when he barks. The dog sees it, smells it, hears it, and sometimes tastes it. Most don’t like it and will learn that barking and the spray are linked. Some learn to whine instead, which is almost as irritating to people in the vicinity. E-collars shock the dog when she barks; the more expensive varieties emit a sound or vibration immediately before the shock to warn the dog so that she can avoid it. Some dogs accept the collar easily, while others become nervous wrecks.

Ouch! Ok, I’m coming already

The remote collar is used for training several behaviors but most people seem to use it for the recall. If
a dog does not respond to the “come” cue immediately, you press a button, and the dog is shocked (or sprayed, if you’re using the citronella variety). As soon as he turns to you, you release the button.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? It isn’t, actually. The difficulty is that you have to thoroughly teach the recall before you ever punish your dog when she disobeys. This takes work. Then there’s timing. It takes tons of practice to get that just right. Meanwhile, you may be hurting your dog to no good purpose. If you are considering using a remote device, start by going to a very experienced professional trainer.

E-collars cost from less than $100 up to several hundred dollars, and quality does make a difference. Some cheaper models are less reliable, and less hardy. I once had a client who had used an inexpensive bark collar only to discover one day the family dog, a Lab, had immersed himself in the family wading pool. The casing had cracked, and the poor fellow was getting a shock every couple of seconds. The more expensive e-collars have several levels of stimulation, from a small vibration on up. From a humane point of view vibrations do not pose a problem, and it’s sometimes all a dog needs to remind him to behave.

Don’t fence me in

Another very common electronic device is an electronic fence. These shock the dog when he gets too close to the hidden wire. A dog goes through training to learn how to avoid the shock. These fences are extremely popular in the eastern U.S. where many yards don’t have real fences. I’m not terribly keen on such devices for a number of reasons. A highly motivated dog who sees a deer, for instance, will submit to a shock in order to get to the deer. However, her motivation to return to the yard is substantially less than leaving it, and so she may not return. The invisible fence also presents no barrier at all to other animals, including other dogs, who can come onto your dog’s “territory” with impunity. Invisible fences can increase anxiety which can then cause other problems.

He doesn’t seem to mind

I’ve found that many people who use electronic collars don’t think they’re actually hurting their dogs. They may believe this because dogs tend to be stoic: dogs don’t tell you when they’re in pain until the pain is very bad indeed. Consider dogs who run and play when they have hip dysplasia, only to start limping or having trouble getting up after the play session is over. But shocks can be painful (just try it on yourself!), and pain, like all forms of punishment, has fallout. Some dogs become hyperactive and anxious, some no longer display the targeted problem behavior but develop others (like licking, spinning, and scratching), and in the case of the remote shock collar, some run away from the handler instead of coming back to them.

There’s no question that electronic devices work, at least temporarily. They teach dogs to avoid behavior that causes a shock. However, they can also sometimes create fear, and that can degrade the dog-person relationship.

Their use raises an ethical question: is it appropriate to use pain to train a dog? Some people just want results and are not interested in the dog’s emotional state during or after training. Many years ago I made a personal decision against using pain to train our companion animals, and I am comfortable with that most of the time. However, there may be circumstances in which a life is literally at stake (a dog who is so predatory that other pets are at risk, for example) when one should consider employing appropriate electronic devices.

Ground rules and drawbacks

Electronic equipment works by delivering punishment. When you punish a dog, you must meet several criteria in order to be successful.

• The punishment has to be the appropriate strength, enough to be memorable without traumatizing the dog.
• The timing has to be impeccable. It should come immediately after the behavior and preferably from the environment.
• It has to happen every time the misbehavior occurs. This is where we people have problems; we’re not very consistent.
• The dog cannot enjoy the reinforcement so much that he or she will repeat the misbehavior. For instance, you could punish a dog consistently for stealing food from a counter, but the dog might consider the food worth the cost and continue misbehaving.

Punishment also has very important drawbacks.

• It doesn’t continue to work if the punisher is no longer present.
• If the punishment is not strong enough it will backfire, and you will have to get more severe as time goes on.
• It can degrade or destroy the relationship between punisher and punished.
• It reinforces the punisher, which means that when you push that button, there’s a tiny part of you that may feel very good, perhaps justified, and that can be dangerous.