05/15/2025
⚡️THE $6,000 VOLT LIE: What They’re Not Telling You About “Low-Level” Shock Training
🚨This Applies Also To Vibration Collars
“It’s just a mild stim, like a TENS unit. Totally safe.”
No it’s Not!!!
Let’s walk through exactly what happens inside your dog’s neck when you hit that remote. Not just emotionally—but biologically.
Because once you understand what’s happening under their skin, you’ll see this isn’t a communication tool—it’s a nervous system atomic bomb.
You’re Not Hitting One Nerve—You’re Hitting a Highway of Sensory Chaos
When you shock a dog’s neck, you’re not delivering a clean signal to a single behavior center. You’re triggering a web of critical nerves, including:
Vagus Nerve (Cranial X)
• Regulates heart rate, digestion, and emotional calm
• Overstimulation can cause nausea, bradycardia, or collapse
Accessory Nerve (Cranial XI)
• Controls head movement and postural muscles
• Disruption causes jerking, reactivity, or defensive freezing
Cervical Spinal Nerves (C1–C5)
• Link to forelimbs and breathing muscles
• Disturbance can create stumbling, stiffness, or panic movement
Phrenic Nerve (C3–C5)
• Controls breathing via the diaphragm
• Overload causes panting, respiratory distress, or emotional shutdown
Auricular & Transverse Cervical Nerves
• Involved in ear, jaw, and neck sensation
• Trigger head shaking, pawing, scratching, or vocalization
And all of these are stimulated at once when you push that button.
Now Add This: The Skin Itself Is a Dense Sensory Organ
Just three layers under the skin sit multiple mechanoreceptors, each responding to different types of force. You’re not just shocking “muscle”—you’re shocking a sophisticated sensory matrix.
Pacinian Corpuscles
• Detect vibration and sudden pressure
• These fire off immediately during a shock burst
Merkel Disks
• Detect deep pressure and object shapes
• Overload affects body awareness and posture regulation
Ruffini Endings
• Track skin stretch and limb position
• Critical for balance and motor control
• Disruption here throws off the dog’s whole 3D awareness system
Now imagine all of these firing at once. That’s not “clarity.”
That’s impulse chaos.
Impulse Chaos = Trauma
Your dog’s brain receives:
• Vibration (Pacinian)
• Deep stretch (Ruffini)
• Sudden pressure (Merkel)
• Neck-region nerve signals (vagus, accessory, cervical)
All pulsing into the spinal cord and brainstem simultaneously.
The result?
Fight. Flight. Or Freeze.
The dog doesn’t get more “focused”—they get more hypervigilant, disconnected, or frozen. What looks like obedience is often just shutdown.
And Then Comes the Anticipation
Dogs are associative. After the first shock, they start bracing for the next.
This is anticipatory anxiety, and it’s biologically worse than the first zap.
The body floods with cortisol before the button is even pushed. The vagus nerve preps for threat. The limbic system locks into survival mode.
You’re not training anymore.
You’re rewiring the dog to live in fear of their own leash, collar, and handler.
Bottom Line: This Is Not “Communication”
If a therapist zapped you in the neck—triggering your breathing, heartbeat, posture, skin sensors, and head control all at once—you’d sue them.
You’d call it trauma.
Because that’s what it is.
And no, trying it on your arm doesn’t count.
Your arm isn’t your throat.
You’re not a dog.
And you don’t live in a constant state of trying to read the world without language.
This Isn’t a Training Tool. It’s a Nervous System Disruptor.
Stop calling it “low level.”
Stop calling it “just like TENS.”
Stop calling it humane.
Because when you press that button, you’re not sending a message.
You don’t send your location, you don’t sell the dogs problem, you simply add another problem up top of the existing problem your dog has.
You’re setting off a biological fire alarm inside a being who cannot explain their fear.
Addendum (not so minor):
Let’s not forget the hair follicle, a fourth mechanoreceptor often overlooked in these discussions. In dogs, each follicle is connected to three hairs, and their skin—especially in the neck region—is densely furred and highly sensitive. These follicles detect even subtle vibrations. Critically, the first nerve relay for this haptic input doesn’t stop at the spinal cord; it travels to a specialized nucleus just above it. In carnivorous mammals like dogs, this nucleus is larger and more complex than in humans or primates, meaning the same “low-level” input can trigger a heightened full-body response. When you activate a shock collar, you’re not just touching skin—you’re sending a chaotic signal through a neurologically supercharged system evolved for hunting, not handling pain.
(Dr. Sophie Savel, personal communication, May 14, 2025) thank you🙏
