08/30/2018
Time for a bit of honest reflection about the shock collar. Call it what you want. Bark collar. E-collar. Remote training collar.
I'm going to call it a one-way trip to the bank for the makers, who are rubbing their hands together making money hand over fist for something that fails.
Tuesday morning, a dogue de bordeaux in my neighbours' garden came barrelling down towards us as I walked my three back home. There was an audible beep from the very recognisable collar and he stopped dead at the gates. The gates open into their horse field which is sealed off by 1.5m high posts around which there are two layers of electric fencing. I will say my heart skipped a beat.
This morning, the dog sees us from outside the house. He races to the boundary and I hear the beep. I guess he does because I'm a distance away. But he doesn't stop. He just keeps running. Into the horse field. I'm praying the electric fence is on (first time I've ever prayed an animal will get shocked) because he's coming at us at such a pace that he isn't going to stop. He comes to the electric fence and he kind of ducks, but it catches him anyway and he yelps. He's now limping as he runs the last 50m towards us, yelping and barking, and growling.
I now have three dogs on leads and a dog racing towards us who is not going to back off. He outweighs my biggest by 20kg or so and now he's MAD. He's furious and angry and hurt and he's still coming.
Luckily, my super duper super social Flika saves us. I'm running my other two to the next neighbours and get them behind the gate. Luckily she has proper fences. I get Tilly and Heston inside and Flika is off in the mayhem. She capers off and intercepts the furious dogue de Bordeaux and, God love her, she starts her flirty circling. He's stopped dead in his tracks as my flirty 14 year old girl does the unexpected.... she tries to play with him. I make a slip lead out of her lead and catch him, marching him back up past the horses, Flika still trying to play with him, and up the driveway to the gate.
Only thing is that bloody collar beeps. He stops dead in his tracks. I try to take the collar off but he's neck sensitive and I'm trying to pull at the catch. I'm yelling for the neighbour to get his arse out of his house and the DDB has planted himself squarely. No coaxing and no cajoling can get him to approach the gate, not with that blessed beeping every time he gets near. All the rage and territorialism that fuelled his escape has now gone.
Eventually, I wrench the collar off. But he still won't approach the gate.
In the end I have to take him back to my own home, secure him in the chicken pen, retrieve my own dogs, including my Mighty Interceptor, put them safely in the house, go up to the neighbours and knock on the door - they come out completely oblivious to everything - and I hand them the collar.
"Your dog is in my chicken pen," I say. "He won't come up your path."
They're mortally embarrassed.
Frankly, I don't care less. I've had to walk past their property worrying about the security of that electric fencing and the electric collar and hidden electric sensor system. I'm not rude, but I'm angry.
Now I don't deal in what ifs and could haves. It's a main road. You don't need me to explain what could have happened. If I hadn't had Flika extricate herself and intercept... if I hadn't got him on a lead... if he'd been aggressive towards me... if I hadn't been quick enough to get to my neighbours' gate... if my neighbour's gate had been locked...
But let's be honest. Luck and the super interception saved the day. I can't speculate about it would have been a bloodbath or even a real fight. I'm not going to say the dog would have bitten or that there would have been a fight.
Nope.
What I will say is this: that electric system failed this morning. It failed twice.
He's not the only dog in the village who has been let down by a shock collar.
The bark collar fails to stop the breton spaniel over the way from barking. It's so useless in fact that he barks less without it (mainly because he's less wound up without the added stimulation) and I managed to convince his owners that he'd bark less if he couldn't see out. They put up a screen and guess what? The dog barks less. Now my dog also barks less. That's kind of cool. The DDB also barks less, and so does the breton down the road.
But the makers of these devices don't tell you how often they fail and how often they let dogs down.
If my box of magic stuff (food, toys, functional reinforcers, internal motivators, natural drives, praise, contact and environmental reinforcers) fails, dogs in my charge are always in a safe enough environment that nothing really bad happens. No dogs get lost. No dogs are injured. No bites occur. No dogs get hit by cars.
But what happens when that 'failsafe' electric shock system fails?
Your dog starts barking. Not a catastrophe.
Your dog escapes. And then they don't want to go back home. Now depending on why you don't want them to escape, that could mean various things: dangerous roads, dangerous animals, being a danger to animals, being a danger to people.
Don't put your trust in devices when the stakes are so high. I don't, with my bits of ham and my squeaky toys.
Yet loads of people trust these devices, when I see time and time that they fail.
Why do they fail though?
Let's first talk about 'punishment' as it applies to behaviour. If we want to reduce a behaviour like escaping, poor recall or barking, a shock collar is one way some people use to get quick results.
The problem is that it has to be horrible enough for a dog to think "woah, I don't want to do that again!"
And to pair it up with a warning tone, you need a few times of it being paired. Pavlov didn't ring his little bell once and find automatic salivation. So you've got to have a history of shocking your animal. That means you can't trust them straight off.
But also, the effects of punishment diminish over time. In fact, the horrible side of science proved that rats will work for shock if the rewards are great enough. How crappy is that? Shock a rat and follow it by something intensely pleasurable and it will link the shock up with the pleasure and choose to shock itself.
Unethical science at its worst.
But what it tells us that you can't have your dog follow the shock by something that it really wants. So if your dog is escaping to play, to chase or to have fun, the power of the beep and shock over time will diminish and also they will just turn into cues of great stuff.
So that's why they fail for pleasure seekers.
What about aggression like the territorial DDB (who was just doing his job by the way, in lieu of having actual instruction from his owner) Well, do you think you'll like the crappy thing MORE or LESS if every time you see it you get a shock? Will it make you feel better or worse if every time you see the crappy thing that you hate, you ALSO get a shock?
And it makes you more fearful. Fear often fuels anger and aggression (because a territorial dog is afraid the other dogs will impinge on its turf or will threaten them) and so what you have is a dog whose shock collar is little by little losing its magic power and then - bam - the shock pales into significance compared to the crappy thing.
Our shelter has a local pound attached, responsible for around 200,000 people's pets. How many strays come into the pound with a shock collar? Yes... a fair few. They fuel aggression and fear... they are unsafe and their capability diminishes over time, and relying on them to recall your dog or keep your dog in an unfenced property is just insanity.
What I want to know is what my neighbour will do next. Two shock collars? A chain in the garden? And all the time, all the dog needs is a secure run that would cost less to have created than all his expensive gadgets.
So if you rely on shock collars, think about the potential consequences if it fails.
And if you're thinking of investing, remember that they fail far more often than anyone will let on. If you don't believe me, I'll send you our photographs of the collars we've removed from unclaimed dogs in the pound this year.
Amended: don't forget, if dogs' feet leave the floor when they jump over a fence or invisible boundary, they're no longer earthed and the shock will also no longer work. A dog that can clear a physical tape or slide under it would also be an issue. And yes, if your electric fencing is connected to the mains, if your power trips or you have a power cut, it's another time these 'devices' fail us.
Or...
Invest in some great training and a bit of environmental management instead.
