[Muckdogs]

You see, this is exactly the problem when you (not you personally, but generically) put all the apples in one basket. Soooooooooo many folks think that the ecollar is the be all end all to behavior. As I stated ad nauseum in the thread in training, obvioulsy it is not. That said, it is a great tool that can not only be used to reinforce, but teach as well. Depends how you use it. I personally like the collar, but fully understand its limitations. IMHO, it is totally impossible to make any type of judgment about your dogs dominance or reactions without seeing it. To do so would be a disservice to the dog. I will make a few general statements about how I see use of a collar. First, my dogs wear a collar every single second they are out of their crates. this is my preference for a number of reasons. The important thing is that I don't think it is a bad thing. Second, the level of stimulation necessary for a dog varies. If your dog requires a 5, it requires a 5, end of story. Every dog has its own thresholds. That is why we take a lot of time to establish working levels when first employing the collar. Example -> my male Rott is a ecollar wuss. In fact, I use a dogtra 1200ncp, and mainly use the vibration pager instead of any type of stim. I get eh desired results from that. Contrast, my Malx bitch is tough and has an extremely high threshold. I tried a dogtra 202ncp gold because she is a smaller dog and I didn't want the huge 1200 collar box. Waste of money. Max stim (level 60) didn't even make her ears flick when in drive. Now, she wears a 1200 box and her working level is just about medium-high (probably a level 40 on the rheostat). I seriously doubt that a level 60 would really do much to her. But, she is kind of freaky that way. Third, your trainer is correct in that stimulating a high drive dog could make the dog lash out, or worsen the behavior. I have personally seen this with a couple of dogs that I can think of that got exponentially stronger the more stim applied. In fact, I have seen this type of thing where the dog had a dogtra 2000 and an old Trasher on at the same time. Nada. Only got stronger. That is why someone needs to independantly evaluate your dog in person. Words just don't do it.


Maybe it's just as simple as the dog got caught by surprise, not expecting a stim at a social gathering and thought that the guy he bit somehow was responsible for his pain. In fact, that seems to make sense to me if your dog was properly introduced to the collar (meaning not collar wise). He could have very easily thought the guy did something to him and nailed him. Either way, I have a hard time placing fault on the dog given this set of facts.