{"id":1306,"date":"2023-01-09T16:08:37","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T00:08:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinroy.com\/?p=1306"},"modified":"2023-01-09T16:10:33","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T00:10:33","slug":"shock-collars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinroy.com\/?p=1306","title":{"rendered":"Shock Collars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am in a mood. In NO<\/strong> world should you shock your dog, period<\/strong>. And lately even some \u201ctrainers\u201d are using them. Shocking your dog is not \u201ctraining\u201d in any form. It\u2019s abuse and absolutely unnecessary<\/strong>. It\u2019s not an \u201ce-collar.\u201d It\u2019s not a \u201cvibration collar.\u201d Here it is: if you shock your dog, you don\u2019t love your dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t tell me it\u2019s on \u201cvibrate.\u201d Humans cannot be trusted to leave the shock collar on vibrate\u2014I\u2019ve been shocked twice by a human who wanted to show me how low the vibration is. Even if you were to use an actual vibration, why? It\u2019s a punishment and not<\/em> training. Teaching an animal to avoid making a mistake isn\u2019t teaching what is right to do. Train your dog!<\/em> Using such a device means you are desperate for control, but control is not out of reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I realize that many humans are at a loss. They don\u2019t know what to do anymore, and they look for people with more experience for a fix for their dog\u2019s behavior, and they are taken advantage of. If a \u201ctrainer\u201d offers to use a shock collar to change behavior, they clearly do not have enough knowledge and experience. People send their dog away for \u201cboard and train\u201d and hope magic will happen. If magic happens while the dog is away, that dog has shut down<\/em> because they\u2019ve been shocked. No one is using a \u201cvibration\u201d at that facility, I promise. I\u2019ve even seen cigarette burns on the ears of a dog who went to a \u201ctrainer.\u201d In Southern California, where I am, there are very few facilities that do board and train in a positive way because a couple weeks are not enough to change behavior for the better. And humans who don\u2019t know what else to do send their dogs sadly to learn more about aggression and negative punishment. Aggressive dogs especially are likely to get more<\/em> aggressive if that is what is being taught.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Punishing the dog for ineffective training by humans is completely unfair! If we haven\u2019t communicated effectively and helped the dog understand our goals, zapping them is wrong wrong wrong. You absolutely can make solid changes by consistent, kind, reward-based training, and why wouldn\u2019t you? Make a fresh start, pretend the dog has no idea what you want (he doesn\u2019t), and start training anew. Don\u2019t listen to some neighbor who suggests a prong collar. Dog training is much like child psychology, and you wouldn\u2019t slap a torture device on your toddler because you\u2019re too lazy to teach her to stay with you in public. Frankly, if you shocked me once, I\u2019m never ever staying with you or coming when you call. I recently saw photos on a site of the \u201ctrainer\u201d using both<\/em> a shock collar and a prong collar. What in the world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Punishing dogs seems to be on the rise! I can\u2019t believe how backward things are going. A new client recently told me that even using a shock collar (her term) did not fix her four-month-old <\/em>puppy\u2019s problems. Guess what? Rewards have. He has turned around. We\u2019ve only begun to tap into the intelligence of dogs. They are sentient beings who are usually more intuitive than their people, and just because we have thumbs, we somehow have the upper hand. Most dogs don\u2019t choose their humans, and it\u2019s unfair not to give them the best, kindest life possible. Life is short but especially so for dogs. Please please choose kindness and find a positive trainer. Your dog is not a special, more difficult case: all<\/em> dogs can be helped by positive training or damaged forever by punishment. Quick fixes do not work. Training a dog is half the fun of living with a dog. If you\u2019re not having fun training your dog, you need to find a new trainer. Please find an actual trainer at https:\/\/apps.apdt.com\/eweb\/DynamicPage.aspx?webcode=TrainerSearch<\/a>. Or please get a turtle instead. Thank you for listening. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am in a mood. In NO world should you shock your dog, period. And lately even some \u201ctrainers\u201d are using them. Shocking your dog is not \u201ctraining\u201d in any form. It\u2019s abuse and absolutely unnecessary. It\u2019s not an \u201ce-collar.\u201d It\u2019s not a \u201cvibration collar.\u201d Here it is: if you shock your dog, you don\u2019t love your dog. Don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,93,89,26,1],"tags":[70,95,97,96,42,94],"class_list":["post-1306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dog-behavior","category-positive-training","category-puppies","category-training-tips","category-uncategorized","tag-aggression","tag-aversive-training","tag-board-and-train","tag-compulsive-trainers","tag-positive-training","tag-reward-based-training"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinroy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinroy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinroy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinroy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinroy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1306"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/robinroy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1311,"href":"https:\/\/robinroy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306\/revisions\/1311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinroy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinroy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinroy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinroy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}