How to Use a Shock Collar Correctly

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How to Use a Shock Collar Correctly

• by Fun Paw Care
• http//www.funpawcare.com/2012/11/09/how-to-use-a-
  shock-collar-correctly/

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Considering using a shock collar?

• But at what expense?
• Stress to your dog and quite possibly
  your dogs life!1

Stress is as debilitating for dogs as it is for
humans.2  As dog trainers we constantly clean up
and repair broken relationships, poor behavior
and shoddy training advice given by uneducated,
abusive, and outdated traditional dog trainers.
3
What does it mean to be a pet parent?

• Friendship
• Trust
• Love

• These are all violated and dissolved when someone
  forces you to do something, incites fear, and
  puts you in pain

4

• Friendships and relationships are about
  empowering one another, not disempowering someone
• Disempowering someone is abuse
• Bullying is the antithesis of sacred
  relationships and weakens the bond you share with
  your pets.
• When was the last time you got bullied into being
  someones friend? Did you want to be around that
  person?

• Someone with great power does not lead by force,
  someone with great weakness does.
• Force always attracts men of low morality.
• -Albert Einstein

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It is illegal to use and sell pain inflicting
devices such as shock collars3

• There is never an instance where teaching through
  pain and force is warranted
• Pain, force, intimidation, and bullying leads to
  shutting down, learned helplessness, and
  generalization4
• Instead, use positive reinforcement
• techniques
• Rewards
• Engagement
• Fun
• Interest

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Does it matter which method works better?

• Lets play devils advocate for a moment and just
  pretend that outdated, traditional dog training
  worked the same or even better then
  force-free positive reinforcement dog training.16
• Of course that is patently false and has been
  repudiated by decades of scientific and
  behavioral research but for arguments sake lets
  entertain this notion.5 
• The real question becomes at what expense are you
  willing to achieve results from your dog?

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At what expense are you willing to achieve
results from your dog?
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Stress Manifestations on a Dogs Health and
Behavior

• We can all agree that stress is a killer!6-7
• Stress causes or contributes to everything from
  high blood pressure, hair loss, depression,
  neurological damage, psychological damage,
  cancer, heart attacks, and just about every life
  threatening disease known to human kind.
• Luckily, stress can be measured.

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How to measure stress

• Cortisol is the hormone that increases when
  stress levels increase in the body and the limbic
  system helps regulate and measure that level of
  stress.
• Your adrenal gland secretes cortisol and sends it
  spiking higher when the body or mind is stressed
  out.
• When this occurs all of the previous mentioned
  health ailments and countless behavior
  manifestations occur.

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• Now, lets take this a step further. At the risk
  of being anthropomorphic, dogs have roughly the
  same sentience of a 2-3 year old child.18
• When humans use shock collars, choke chains
  and/or pinch collars on their dogs or kick, poke,
  punch, alpha role, force, dominate, smack or yell
  at their dog, science shows that cortisol levels
  spike and stress ensues.9
• The negative consequences induced by stress are
  all avoidable.9
• Nothing made by brute force lasts
• -Robert Louis Stevenson

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The dangers of electronic collars, punitive,
painful, and forceful dog training methods

• Punishment makes the conditioned fear response
  (CFR) worse and other behavioral problems
  manifest often times with graver consequences and
  more intense occurrences.
• Punishment does not work to heal nor addresses
  the underlying fear and emotion the dog is going
  through and only throws the homeostasis more out
  of whack.
• There is a direct correlation and relationship
  between punishment, shock collars, choke chains
  and prong collars to increased behavior
  problems.10
• There are innumerable dangers that result from
  using punitive, painful and forceful dog training
  methods. Some of these methods can lead to death
  of another human or dog.11-12 

Fear feels bad to all species and given the
choice dogs, like humans, try to avoid these
feelings.17
12

• Dominance, choke chains, prong collars and other
  forceful training methods are worthless at best
  and deadly at worst as scientists explain,
• training approaches aimed at dominance
  reduction vary from being worthless in treatment
  to being actually dangerous and likely to make
  behaviors worse.13

13
Dog Human Analogies

• If you are trying to teach a toddler or even an
  adult how to behave or learn a new skill, would
  you kick them in the ribs, use a choke chain,
  dominate them, stare at them, pop their harness,
  or grab them by the collar and force them to the
  ground?

If you said yes to this question, you are likely
reading this from prison.
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• There is a reason this crude, uncivilized,
  abusive style of dog training or teaching is
  not accepted in civilized societies and why we
  also do not teach our children or adults to teach
  or behave in this fashion.

As a result, these methods are condemned and not
sanctioned by any educated, moral ethologist or
dog trainer.
15

• What is encouraged is the preferred method and
  industry standard for teaching animals
  force-free positive reinforcement, and the least
  intrusive, most humane treatment of teaching
  possible.

16
If you have gone to the dentist, visited a
doctor, taken any over the counter medicine, then
you believe in science.

• Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is also a
  science, just as the field of medicine.
• Your innocent, loving, loyal, sentient being, and
  best friend deserves nothing but the best. Just
  as your children are taught by the least
  intrusive, least abusive, most pleasurable way of
  learning possible, so should your pets.
• We do not support and recommend that others
  boycott organizations that save dogs just to
  subject them to abuse while hiding under a veil
  of ignorance. 

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Here are some more analogies for the skeptical
(If you say yes to any of these questions, do
not pass GO and proceed directly to jail!)

• Do you smack your 2-3 year old toddler in the
  head or squirt them in the face with a water
  bottle when they are scared or are not listening
  to you?
• If your toddler was deathly afraid of water and
  couldnt swim, would you get them to stop being
  scarred, crying, shaking and protesting and teach
  them to love the water by picking them up and
  throwing them in the ocean?
• If your 2- 3 year old daughter was scared of the
  dark and even more terrified of bats, would
  leaving her alone in a cave with bats flying
  everywhere cure her of this fear?
• Do you expect your toddler to understand French,
  Spanish, English, Mandarin, Cantonese or Swahili
  and all of the accents and dialects? Would that
  be a reasonable expectation for a parent before
  attempting to teach a child linguistics?
• If your toddler didnt understand the answer to
  your question or answers incorrectly, would
  holding them down on the ground forcefully,
  looming over them starring into their eyes
  confrontationally, being aggressive, poking,
  punching or yelling at them make them understand
  any quicker?

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• All of those scenarios are proven to cause
  cortisol levels to spike to very high levels.
  Levels at which shut down occurs and where
  operant conditioning (learning) cannot occur! 
• If someone pulled out a shotgun and held it to
  your head and then tried to teach you a new
  theory or behavior how do you think you would
  react or perform? (before or after you wet your
  pants).
• As previously mentioned, stress is bad for the
  mind, body and soul and something we have the
  ability to mitigate.
• Force and mind are opposites morality ends
• where force begins.
• - Ayn Rand

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The answer is clear!

• Its not about what dog training method is most
  effective or achieves the quickest results
• Even science shows that force-free positive
  reinforcement achieves the fastest, long term
  results in the most humane, effective and
  efficient way possible.

• I would NOT abuse my dog for any reason!
• As responsible pet parents it is imperative to
  teach at a dogs own pace and in as much comfort
  as possible, not on your time or to win a dog
  sport competition.

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• Scientists try to be as objective and
  unanthropomorphic as possible but making these
  analogies to your children portrays an important
  and visual understanding that makes everything
  more relatable.
• No rational, caring, intelligent, loving, humane,
  veterinarian or rescue organization would ever
  recommend doing the aforementioned to a human and
  may even be locked up for abuse if they tried, so
  why is this acceptable to do to an innocent dog
  or cat (or any animal)?

• Pet professionals and dog guardians should take
  an oath to care for their pet until death, in the
  most humane, efficient, pain and stress free way
  possible. 
• Being a guardian for a pet is a privilege, not a
  right or entitlement.

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• There really is no argument to use anything other
  than force-free positive reinforcement dog
  training and the debate has been over for
  decades.
• Those stuck in the past are doomed to repeat past
  atrocities.
• Life can only be understood backwards but it
  must be lived forwards
• - Søren Kierkegaard

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• Absolutely, without exception, I oppose, will
  not recommend, and generally spend large amounts
  of time telling people why I oppose the use of
  shock collars, prong collars, choke collars, and
  any other type of device that is rooted in an
  adversarial, confrontational interaction with the
  dog.
• - Karen Overall, MA, VMD, PhD, Dipl. ACVB, CAAB
• Until these devices are illegal, consumers must
  protect themselves and their dogs by looking
  beyond the marketing messages of those who profit
  from their sale and use. It is not necessary to
  use electric shock to change behavior. It is not
  necessary in humans, in zoo species, in marine
  mammals or in dogs.
• - Jean Donaldson

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• 6. http//link.springer.com/article/10.10072Fs121
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• 7. https//www.youtube.com/watch?featureplayer_em
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• 15. http//www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/p
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• 16. http//www.livescience.com/40453-dogs-follow-f
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• 17. http//books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-393-7053
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• 18. http//www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sund
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