Shock collar??

[MaddoxsMom]

I have heard several sides of the compulsion debate both here, and among pepole I know outside of this forum.

My first experience with compulsion was from a young trainer that was totally opposed to it, he said it promoted a "slave" and not a "partner". Another argument I heard was that the dog was OK while wearing the collar, but still displayed the original behavior problems when the dog knew he was not wearing it.

So, since my first impression was that they were bad bad bad, I just thought that about compulsion in general. It was not until a woman that I know at my former work who had 3 large yellow labs explained to me that it was very effective in that the dog experiences the compulsion as a result of unwanted behavior, and the key ingrediant is that the dog does not associate the compulsion with the handler. All the dog knows, is that when he displays the unwanted/bad behavior, a magic force somewhere out there corrects him for it.

She said this was a very effective tool because of this, and many dogs (with the correct use, and responsible user) could very easily be turned around and corrected of all unwanted behaviors.

Now, I have been told that no matter how responsible the handler, this is still a totally unwanted method for tracking , because the dogs will "pretend" to be tracking, while all the while not be tracking anything, and he is useless on the tracking field.

I don't know how these arguments stand with some of you out there, Im not very experienced to make the call whether or not it is a good tool or not, because I have never had any personal experience with it, but I think becuse of the skill level of some of the members here who condone it, it may not be such a bad thing if used correctly.

Logan