How To Avoid E-Collar Mistakes

04 Jul How To Avoid E-Collar Mistakes

Electronic collars have been hailed as
being one of the best tools that can be used to handle and train a patrol dog. However,
when misused, it can quickly become a tool of torture with very harmful
consequences on your dog. In this short article we will walk you through some
of the mistakes that dog owners make with an e-collar and how you can avoid
repeating these mistakes.

Insufficient
Training on How To Use An E-Collar

Many issues are likely to crop up if the
dog owner or trainer is not well versed in solid dog training techniques that
incorporate the use of an e-collar. Some issues that might arise when an
electronic collar such as the dogtra collar is misused include:

• Handler aggression from the dog
• A dog that fails to engage
• Inconsistent performance by the
  dog
• A dog that will not search
  properly

Thankfully, with proper training for the
dog owner, many of these consequences of abuse can be corrected in a few
training sessions. However, if the abuse has been going on for some time, it
can be hard to modify the behavior in terms of technique, time and repetition.

Creating
E-Collar Dependency

An e-collar is not a dog-training tool that
should be used in isolation from other training tools. When this happens, you
can be sure that your dog will only behave when it has the collar on and be
inattentive when the collar is off. This is known as ‘collar dependency’ and
should be avoided.

To prevent collar dependency, we recommend
that you have the dog wear the collar at varying times for a couple of weeks
without turning it on. Most people who use an e-collar to train their dogs
subject dogs to high levels of stimulation as soon as they introduce the
electronic collar to the dog, which causes the dog to only behave when the
collar is on.

Not
Taking Time To Understand The Stimulation

Most people who overuse the stimulation of an e-collar on their dog, don’t
do it because they are cruel people. Very few people understand what the
stimulation (especially on the higher levels)offered by an electronic collar feels like.

This is primarily because they have not
tried putting on the dogtra collar themselves to find out what it feels like.

If more pet owners would try on an
electronic collar and shock themselves then they would understand what it must
feel like for their dogs and hopefully reduce their overuse of an e-collar’s
stimulation feature. There have been studies that show that abuse of an
electronic collar leads to aggressive behavior in dogs.

Using
E-Collar As A Temporary Fix

We discourage the use of an e-collar as a
short term fix to a problem. Training is a continuous process and an e-collar
shouldn’t be used to make up for missed training. Dogtra collars should be used
consistently during training for the best results. When it comes to e-collar
dog training there are no quick fixes.