Why I e-collar trained my dogs.
I’ve been in the world of dog training for over 6 years now. And for the vast majority of that I would have happily labeled myself an R+ trainer. For those unfamiliar with the dog trainer terminology, that’s a trainer who chooses not to use any corrections when training dogs. Essentially you aim to achieve everything with the dog through only the use of positive reinforcement. Having joined the world of dog training a bit later in life, when looking for places to learn and a group of trainers to become a part of it felt absolutely the right thing to train with all the feel good ethics (and marketing) that goes along with calling yourself an R+ only trainer.
After all, I recycle, I buy as many ethical products as possible, I’m a vegetarian and I absolutely don’t believe in using punishment like smacking with my human child! So why on earth would I step away from those ethics with my dog? When the industry is so polarised, you are almost forced to choose a side as a trainer, especially a new to the game one who has no real experience themselves with which to make decisions on. Am I or am I not cool with using what I believed to be a straight electric shock (it isn’t btw) to stop a dog from doing things I don’t want? Of course not…I’m better, smarter and have zero need to do such things. There are many very successful trainers telling me I don’t need to and will in fact mess up my dog and be a failure as human being if I do - so no thanks.
So with a very high prey drive dog I spent nearly 3 years working towards a recall reliable enough to let him off the lead around wildlife. Honestly, I pretty much got there. Which you may be surprised to hear given the title of this blog! With the use of motivation based R+ training, many many hours of relationship building, endless work on self control and arousal management and becoming an instructor in the most popular ‘positive only’ system for prey drive, Predation Substitute Training (a very good training system that works for plenty of dogs) I had achieved recall in some very difficult situations, including calling both my Terriers off hunting behaviours at distance and at least one live chase of deer. I had proudly posted videos on social media and been a big believer in using management (a lead) in places where you weren’t sure your recall was up to it and allowing freedom in suitable environments the rest of the time. And for a long time that worked quite well and I still think it’s a great way to manage a high prey drive dog if you are firmly against tools AND you have the time and means to provide them with enough freedom outside of tricky environments. If you and your dog are happy, then it’s not a bad way to live at all. I did it pretty successfully for several years.
So why then? Why would I decide to make the leap to using an aversive correction to control the dogs if I had a pretty successful life already? Well, here’s the downward spiral we went on, which in truth took about a year that led me to where we are now, which *spoiler alert* is off lead freedom, lower arousal and happier dogs. Not to mention a significantly happier me. I genuinely look back on the last 3 years with Elvis particularly and realise that if I‘d got out my own way I could have done this a lot sooner and had a lot less stress, happier dogs and not to mention spent less time and money on training courses. I digress.
So over the last year the environments I had felt comfortable letting Elvis off the lead had become less and less, for several reasons. The number of ignored recalls were increasing as real life presented all be it infrequent but increasingly it seemed higher temptation things to chase. With 2-3 minute trips off after pheasants being totally normal, I pretty much brushed them off as fine because he always came back and I could usually call him back if I needed to. The deer chases that presented themselves - even in environments where they were very few and far between - became more common and the incidents where he would go and chase for ten minutes plus were becoming more regular. Maybe once every few months. Again I sort of brushed them off because for the most part the recall was good and although I wasn’t perhaps that prepared to admit it I was heavily managing the environments we were in, luckily I have access to lots of deer fencing and fairly open places where I could use my own well developed hyper vigilance (thanks neurodiversity, you got my back here) to spot problems a mile off and mitigate them. Then over the space of a few months coming in to spring he went AWOL for over two hours, twice. Chased a Deer and then got lost in some forest edging the open areas I always walked in on both occasions. Having been on a cycle of trying to restrict access and increase motivation on multiple occasions I had never truly succeeded. It lasted a while at best.
Bearing in mind, this isn’t a dog that wants for anything. He lives with a dog trainer that runs classes in two dog sports, one started specifically FOR HIM to take part in. He has the best diet, is in peak physical condition, gets more exercise than most dogs and has an abundance of both mental stimulation and rest. At this point I knew there was no more training I could do, I’ve done it all. I’ve taken the courses, booked the top trainers in the UK for 121s and had their advice. Frustratingly I’ve helped train other peoples dogs to a better standard then I was achieving with my own. At this point I’m out of ideas. We are now restricted to some very limited environments and on lead everywhere else. Then to top off our issues through no fault of our own we have two incidents with him on lead where other dogs attack him in a short space of time. Unfortunately due to multiple factors Elvis has always invited trouble with other dogs, sometimes it’s his fault, however on both these occasions it wasn’t so his arousal levels on walks started to ramp up rapidly.
Then the final nail in the coffin. My fault - I let him get too far ahead of me in a very safe environment for the most part, unfortunately on this occasion a group of dogs were just around the corner. He didn’t charge in, he didn’t do anything. Just froze to the spot and totally zoned out shooting in to crazy high arousal and ignored, or more likely just did not hear his recall. The group of 4 dogs containing entire males (his issue and previous attacks have been by other entire males) surrounded him and in one of those horrible slow motion moments I saw one of them get too pushy with sniffing him and then bang, a scrap breaks out. Nobody was hurt, it was all noise BUT at that point I knew I can’t let this dog off the lead anymore unless I can see for bloody miles and I know there’s nothing for him to chase. The perfect storm of real life has well and truly screwed me over, despite the fact that for the most part in the large majority of situations his recall is good, better than most pet dogs I’d say BUT because of the dog he is the consequences of failure are too high. Lots of pet dogs ignore their recall but the consequences are a two minute jolly in to the woods or an over friendly hello to another dog that’s unwelcome. With Elvis it was two hours lost in the woods if I happened to be lucky enough to find him or a fight - or in the right set of circumstances both could easily occur, although thankfully never did.
So I’m now looking at my young, independent, drivey little Terrier and considering the prospect of keeping him on a lead for the next 10+ years or until he’s too old to run off! Now this might be a touch controversial to say but Flexi leads (which I actually like to use in many circumstances) are where the Terrier spirit goes to die. The number of unhappy, frustrated, overweight and under exercised Terriers who have simply lost the will to live that bumble about on Flexi leads for exactly this reason is high. I was not prepared to watch the life slowly drain out of him. Sorry if that’s hit a nerve for anyone with a Terrier confined to a lead by the way, my intention is not to criticise or shame you, they may not be that unhappy, but I can promise you a lot are, and they would all be happier off the lead (there I said it). I’m considering if I can put EVEN MORE effort in with R+ methods and rescue the situation BUT HOW? With what? I can’t see what else I can do and the sum of his experiences combined with his genetics are now too great in my opinion. I didn’t invite any of this stuff but it happened anyway and so here we are.
So now it’s time to face the elephant in the room. Take a closer look at the other half of the dog training industry who say they can get my dog off the lead with an e-collar and not shut him down, scare him or suppress his nature. It’s something that’s been at the back of my mind for quite some time and I’m now feeling that if it’s that or have hold of a lead every time we step out the door for the next 10 years….well I owe it to him to give it a go. My previous prejudice should not stand in the way of his freedom. I chose this breed, brought this little idiot in to my life and no one else is going to solve this for us. So I started to stick my head in to all the learning I could on e-collars, the why, the how and researching the different ways they can be used.
After thinking it all through I settled on the path I was going down. I would be using it for recall only and yes I was going to use it as a ‘correction’, for the purposes of this blog you can take that to mean a level high enough to make him change his mind about the behaviour he was involved in and chose the alternative I was asking for. I was going to put him through an unpleasant experience in order to set the boundary that he may not ignore his recall. Here’s why - Elvis is a dog that will push any limit you put in front of him. He’ll track a deer for two hours over 10km (I’ve seen him do this on his tracker), he’ll happily step up to a fight with a fully grown entire male Great Dane (yep seen that too), he is not the sort of dog that will simply take a new sensation as a cue to recall that works as distance to ‘interrupt’ his prey drive. It would have been extremely naive of me to think that. If that was the case, his already very reliable positively trained recall wouldn’t let me down in the limited but significant situations it had done already.
It is still my opinion that if you aren’t needing the e-collar for a correction (with a pet dog for recall, sports dog applications for behaviours are a bit different) then you don’t need the collar at all. Use a whistle, it’s that simple. Because a lot of folk will tell you they just use the collar that way, modern collars start at a very low level and they aren’t unpleasant at all. It’s just a tingle or a new sensation that you pair with a reward for an outcome with your dog. But like I say if that’s all you are using it for then save your money and train a strong verbal or whistle recall, simple. Again I digress.
So I now know that’s what I’m doing. I need to consider the following, making it as fair as possible, giving him the knowledge of what to do about the correction when it comes and making sure I do everything possible to minimise the amount I need to use to get the desired outcome of him not ignoring his recall in the future. I can hear a lot of you thinking now - she’s openly saying she’s going to put the dog through an unpleasant, potentially painful experience and she’s fine with that? What a terrible person! Well you definitely could look at it that way. Or you could look at it that by putting this boundary in place, by giving this one rough lesson I could open up his freedom, his world, provide him with a wealth of new experiences for the next 10+ years of his life all the while avoiding the frustration and day to day low level stress that will come from keeping him on a lead. I know from previous spells of restricting him to long lines for training that he tolerates it at best, but was never truly happy and always showed low level stress signs at the restrictions. This was one or two nos to open up a whole world of yes. And *spoiler alert* it worked exactly how I wanted it to. In fact nothing I’ve ever done with Elvis training wise has gone as smoothly. Why? Clarity and clear communication - he got the message and from then on in, everything was easier.
So here’s a very brief run down of what the process looked like. I started with a dog who already had great engagement, a lot of value in recall and lots of time spent working on arousal management and self control. He also has pretty good disengagement skills and is getting all his necessary needs met in all areas of his life, or at least the very best I can reasonable provide. And this is absolutely the gold standard for using the e-collar in this way in my opinion. At the bare minimum your dog needs good value in recall, decent self control and their needs met as much as possible to make this a fair thing to do. So with that all done the collar is used on the lowest level the dog can feel it to make the association with recall. You feel this sensation, you recall. All done under management of a long line so that the message is received loud and clear. Stim = recall. There’s a process of level setting, using Both positive and negative reinforcement to make sure the dog has this down, fully understands the assignment and can do it in lots of different situations. The more proficient your dog is with training and recall in general the easier this will be. I took a few weeks with Elvis, just in case - but truthfully he was plenty competent in a few days. I just hedged my bets.
I also chose to use the whistle as the recall I attached the correction to. So that at no point would my voice carry any threat, that said lots of people use a vocal command with zero issues. I just know I’m clearer with a whistle and it’s loud enough to always be heard and it takes the likelihood of me cocking it up out the picture a bit. In retrospect I probably didn’t need to but it was a help to me at the time, because at this point I’m still in the unknown and not 100% convinced this is going to work the way I hope it will.
So now he understands the game, all he has to do when he feels that stim from the collar is recall and it switches off the instant he’s heading back to me. So now the long lines off and I wait for him to find a reason to ignore his recall, knowing at that point I need to have the guts to push the button and give him enough stim to make him choose the recall I’m asking for over the chase of the wildlife he’s found. I decide to go for 15 levels above his working level. So for context anyone who has some knowledge, he’s on a micro educator collar, which is smaller and less powerful that the standard mini educator and his base level is between a 6 and a 15 depending on the environment. So the moment came, he found a pheasant to chase, a lowish level prey and he blew off his recall. The first higher level tap stopped him, he definitely felt it and he definitely didn’t like it, but he also chose to continue the chase. The second tap at the same level he recalled and was rewarded handsomely for doing so - to my mind he knew then it wasn’t a fluke or a one off. Ignoring the whistle now meant an unpleasant consequence and he took the message loud and clear. He then continued on his walk, a little less full of it than before but essentially absolutely fine, no panic, no shut down and no major stress signals.
That was nearly 6 months ago and since then I’ve had to use the collar on a higher level once. On the working level a handful of times and the remote remains in my pocket untouched for weeks on end. If the next 6 months continues on the same I may consider not having it on him at all, unless we are in very challenging environments. He’s not shut down, he’s still very happy to chase things and is still his sparky cheerful self. With one crucial difference. He doesn’t ignore his recall. With that in place he now has the freedom to run when he wants, dig, jump on critters in the hedge and sniff whatever the hell he likes. We have opened up our world from one or two walking spots to many and explore the local forests daily. He’s recalled off deer, rabbits, other approaching dogs and many many slow and vulnerable red squirrels. He’s safe, he isn’t going to get in stand offs with dogs and I am no longer a hyper vigilant maniac waiting for the next incident to occur. Arousal levels are way down on walks, he doesn’t actively seek chase in the same way at all. He’ll take it if it presents itself for sure but he’s stopped looking for trouble in the same way which has had the effect of settling his nervous system in my opinion and making him a calmer, happier dog who is far more in control of his own actions. I don’t nag or micro manage, we just have one clear boundary that will not be crossed and because of the way it was done he wasn’t shut down, confused or overly stressed by it. No, he certainly didn’t enjoy it but those two clear nos have led to an uncountable amount of yes that he would not have had otherwise.
If I could go back and do this 3 years ago - I absolutely would. And yes, despite the fact Beattie my other dogs recall was much more reliable than his and she only ever chased around for a minute or two after deer, she has now been trained the same way. She won’t be the dog that runs after the rabbit in to a road and causes an accident making the local paper, like I’ve seen several other Terriers do. She’s also been told, no you can’t ignore your recall. Because of that we are all happier, I’m calmer, they are calmer - we can go anywhere we want in the countryside and the wildlife, livestock and other countryside users are safe from Terrier madness and for me, most importantly they are both free to do *almost* anything they please. Our world’s have opened right up, I’ve started taking them trail running with me and I’m not pre planning every walk to make sure it’s suitable for the dogs, I know it is. I don’t regret a thing.
So to finish this I extend an open invitation to anyone to join me on a walk with the dogs. If you aren’t convinced I’m telling the truth, if you believe me to be evil and my dogs to be unhappy or shut down then come and see for yourself. If you can convince me I’m wrong or there’s a better way to do things, I’ll listen. I’m nothing if not open minded, it’s how I ended up here in the first place. I live in Peebles in the Scottish Borders and I walk them every single day, twice a day. I’d also like to extend a huge thank you to Linnea at Walk and Train Edinburgh for helping me with the whole process, being my backstop with questions and listening to my mildly panicked voice notes when I doubted myself and what I was doing.
Finally get in touch if you think this is a path you’d like to go down, I’m here to help with zero judgement and we can train with or without the use of an e-collar.
