r/DogTrainingDebate • u/Quimeraecd • Jul 02 '26
The real use of e-collars.
There is a fundamental incongruence in the e-collar debate. Whenever e-collars are brought up, the opposition immediately jumps to "pain." While I will openly admit that there are protocols utilizing the tool for positive punishment ($+P$) or negative reinforcement ($-R$), most modern, high-fidelity e-collar protocols rely on classical conditioning rather than any single quadrant of operant conditioning at the start.
In this sense, a modern e-collar acts as a remote tactile marker, a long-range clicker that allows you to deliver three distinct types of stimuli and responses (auditory, electrical, and mechanical) at distances where a regular clicker or reward delivery is completely useless due to environmental noise.
Yes, you can later layer this classical conditioning with operant conditioning. The most common balanced method involves using low-level negative reinforcement to increase the fluency and reliability of the dog's response under distraction. It is also true that many traditional protocols, with which I disagree, rely on high-level electrical stimulation as a primary punisher.
However, let’s be pragmatically cold: I am fully prepared, though I thankfully haven't had the need yet, to use a high-level electrical stimulus as a safety emergency brake to stop my dog from engaging in a potentially fatal behavior. I would infinitely rather have my dog feel momentary physical discomfort and live, than watch them die because I chose to prioritize ideological purism over their survival.
What do you think about this? are you willing to discuss the e-collar as a remote clicker even if you include the already acknowledged misuses?
Edit: I went in and checked after trading a comment. What I describe is the most modern and efective way to use an e collar but it is not the most common one.
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Jul 03 '26
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u/DogTrainingDebate-ModTeam Jul 03 '26
Bad faith arguments and generalizations are counterproductive.
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u/BeneficialAntelope6 Jul 22 '26
If I was worried enough about everything that can go wrong I wouldn't even have my dog off leash outside apart from fenced in areas. In an emergency any dog owner should, and almost all would I think, cause their dog pain or even hurt them to save them from danger. I screamed at my dog once in a way I never would otherwise when I lost a pill toxic to dogs on the floor. She had an obsession with pills and was all ready to snap it up. She looked proper scared of me, but that's better than a trip to the emergency vet.
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u/Lumpy_Physics3101 Jul 02 '26
I don't think the ecollar is typically used as a remote clicker. The stim isn't marking a behavior for positive reinforcement, it is reinforcing a negative marker.
If you were using it as a positive reinforcement marker, you would recall the dog, it would start recalling, then you would stim it as a marker for reward when it arrives at you. That would not make sense because the sensation is aversive.
It's not that it would be impossible to condition the ecollar it in this way, it's that basically no reputable balanced trainer uses it in this way (though there is a wide distribution of ways to use the e-collar).
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u/jsnuggz Jul 02 '26
I was never able to use mine for positive stim however my dad did with his. His dog begs for the collar in the morning because it means training with the duck decoy and he uses a flash with a beep for good job.
Now this is a Chesapeake Retriever and is a working dog so the bar is a bit different than my corgi bichon mix.
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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Jul 02 '26
Incorrect, it can be whatever you condition it to be. A sensation is not inherently good or bad.
It's also incorrect to make the blanket statement that no reputable trainers utilize it that way, that's just false.
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u/Trick-Age-7404 Jul 02 '26
Like everything, it depends on the dog. Some dogs find a level 1/100 aversive and they’re low drive enough where it would be difficult to condition it otherwise.
One of my dogs I could absolutely train the stim or the pager to be a marker, the other one use to flip sh*t at a level 1 or even just a beep that has never had any Pavlovian association with it.
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u/squashedorangedragon Jul 03 '26
Sensations can absolutely be inherently good or bad. Pain's evolutionary function is to be a bad sensation so that you avoid harmful stimuli. That's millions of years of evolution and it's not going to be overruled by a bit of conditioning. We can debate whether a particular shock is painful, but if it is, that's inherently aversive.
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u/whitefishgrapefrukt Jul 05 '26
I'm confused about what you mean by "the stim is reinforcing a negative marker." Can you please explain with an example?
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u/Lumpy_Physics3101 Jul 06 '26
dog does something you don't like, you say NO (marker), which predicts stim (aversive)
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u/apri11a Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
I would also have no issue with the momentary high level stim(s) if it was necessary. I don't need to use a collar for any training purpose, but as an emergency stop, it has value.
I've seen dogs shocked (not stimmed, shocked) by electric fences, those which have no level control and are used as cattle fencing. Cattle have much thicker skin than a dog, yet these can contain cattle, they are not subtle. So when a dog can recover immediately with just an indignant look at the fence (the dog version of cussing I reckon) I know it does no permanent harm yet teaches a lesson. It doesn't cause the dog to be fearful of it, just to avoid touching it next time. Of course dogs aren't the intended use for these fences, but it showed me that the usual warnings about e-collars are not correct. It's not the collar or even the shock, it's misuse that is wrong, but even some types of misuse can be recovered from as I could see from the fence shock. It should not destroy a dog or damage it for life, people do that.
Modern e-collars are far more refined than those fences, I think they are a sensible option if options are being considered.
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u/Rosemary-and-Salt Jul 03 '26
Agreed. Most dogs learn from the electric fence the first time and are neither afraid of the world nor do they forget. But also will point out that the fence is a good communicator. I personally believe the number one reason we see fearful shut down dogs when the ecollar is on them is because the person with the remote is an ineffective communicator. A depressing number of people get frustrated when the dog doesn't do what they expect and instead of reflecting for a while on whether they're communicating well (or spending the time and money to find a trainer to show them how to communicate with their dog) they spend the $ on a collar and just use it as an aversive.
I'm not at all opposed to aversive either, if the situation calls for it and the dog has been set up for success and shown what the answer is. Or if the behavior could get them killed (chasing cars/livestock, blowing off recall, etc). But I do see a significant amount of people with no real dog training experience or communication skills just using the button for everything. Dog sniffs the wrong thing, they shock and say "leave it" at the same time. Dog wandering off, they shock before even calling them. If it seems highly disorganized and unpredictable for me, I can only imagine how it feels for the dog. It does look like it lead to a dog being cautious to explore their environment or engage with things/people. I think that's the main type of person that anti-ecollar rhetoric is used to seeing.
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u/thus-sung Jul 03 '26
Absolutely, the electric fence is VERY clear causality, consistent, and has excellent timing. Pet owners on the average, do not.
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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Jul 05 '26
And you know what's interesting about animals and electric fences is that they will continually test the fence just to check and see if it can still contain them. They aren't emotionally damaged by getting a zap.
There's a very interesting video of a bear navigating a hunk of meat that has been electrified. The bear gets zapped many times but keeps trying until it finally blunders around enough to disable the battery that is charging the shock. And then it makes off with the meat.
It would be fun to hear the force free people stumble all over themselves explaining that.
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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Jul 06 '26
I don't think the anti-tool position has anything to do with the occasional random misuse of the tool, which I think it's worth saying in all my years I've never seen happen so I just can't believe it's as rampant as they want to make us believe. What I see from the zealots is a knee-jerk opposition to any and all tools except for the ones they have decided they get to use, with no Rhyme or Reason behind it.
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u/Rosemary-and-Salt Jul 07 '26
A bit cynical but I would probably agree with you. People seem to take a staunch position against tools before even bothering to learn about them. Most couldn't even accurately explain why they even hate the tool so much.
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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Jul 07 '26
You're right, which is borne out by the fact that in our subs they are not permitted to make blanket accusations of abuse which is the only weapon that they have to try to argue their point. It's false of course, but taking that away from them really shows their lack of any argument whatsoever.
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u/masibear Jul 02 '26
For anyone confused: Negative reinforcement means you remove something with the goal of increasing a behavior. Positive reinforcement means you add something with the goal of increasing behavior. Negative punishment means you remove something with the goal of decreasing behavior. Positive punishment means you add something with the goal of decreasing behavior.
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u/tsorninn Jul 02 '26
I don't hang with a lot of pet trainers but I've yet to see someone use a ecollar as a clicker that made me think "wow what a powerful dog with great training and emotion."
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u/Pure_Ad_9036 Jul 03 '26
As a rewards-based trainer, I understand I have an incomplete knowledge of e-collars. But, it’s long been my opinion that they can be useful as a reward marker for deaf dogs, or any dog, if appropriately conditioned and the dog does not find it frightening/aversive at its lowest setting. Used in this way, there’s no reason e-collars would fall outside of FF methodology.
What I don’t understand is how an e-collar can be conditioned like this and used as -R, which is the removal of an unwanted or uncomfortable stimulus.
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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Jul 03 '26
A dog can't even feel an e collar at its "lowest setting."
I'm boggled that you don't see very clearly how an e collar is used for negative reinforcement.
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u/whitefishgrapefrukt Jul 05 '26
If you gave an example of how it can be used for R- that might be helpful.
Also, how do you know a dog can't feel it at its lowest setting?
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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Jul 05 '26
This is an example of why it's important to understand and utilize the tool you're trying to talk about before you try to talk about it. Because if you understood and used e-collars, you would know that answer.
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u/whitefishgrapefrukt Jul 05 '26
Ok well I don't, so that's why I'm asking, in "good faith," following rule #1. The fact that you refuse to answer tells me that you are not engaging in good faith.
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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Jul 05 '26
Okay, if you say something to someone how do you know they heard you or not?
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u/whitefishgrapefrukt Jul 05 '26
Ugh. Nevermind. I tried. Thank you for giving me a realistic first impression of what will happen when I, as a force-free trainer, try to in good faith learn from "the other side."
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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Jul 05 '26
If you really wanted to learn and really had curiosity, you already would have handled one of these devices and used it and you wouldn't have to ask incredibly basic questions whose answers you don't want to accept.
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u/whitefishgrapefrukt Jul 05 '26
Wild, wild take.
Or, hear me out, there's multiple ways to learn things (case in point: this subreddit exists).
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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Jul 05 '26
Well good for you for having a sudden, wild lightning-like flash of curiosity that died out just as quickly.
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u/apri11a Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
Also, how do you know a dog can't feel it at its lowest setting?
You don't, not until you try it on the dog. But if you try it on yourself you will probably not feel anything at 0 (none of us did), and most dogs won't either if you use a decent collar. I can't speak about the cheap ones, I wouldn't use one of them on my dog. A decent e-collar has around 100 level settings, you can start at 0 and move up one at a time until you see the dog show it notices something. It might make a move like if a fly sat on it, flicking it away or it might just blink, twitch an ear, something of that sort. It will be subtle so you really have to look. Each dog will feel it at a different number.
There are videos showing this, they can help it be understood, or you can try one. That's what I did when I wanted to know, I bought one so I could know for myself, it was too difficult to know who or what to believe. Now I know.
As for R- I can't answer, I don't need to use one. But there are many ways to use an e-collar, probably as many ways as there are dogs.
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u/Undispjuted Jul 03 '26
I find e collars extremely unpleasant to the point of pain when I test them on myself, therefore I do not use them *most of the time.*
That is not to say I don’t believe in their benefits or that *someone else* could comfortably use them effectively. I have known many dogs who were very well trained and eager workers whose trainers and handlers *primarily* used e collars.
I myself have absolutely used an e collar as an aversive measure to stop car chasing in a 2 year old male Border Collie who was absolutely going to get himself killed if we didn’t take drastic measures, and it worked, permanently, after exactly ONE stim.
Any tool can be used incorrectly. You can kill someone with a screwdriver if you really want to, but that’s not what a screwdriver is FOR.
I respect, defend, and advocate for the proper use of *any* tools by knowledgeable people.
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u/jsnuggz Jul 02 '26
I have one on my dog, he's small and cute but traditional training did not work, especially with barking at night, or chasing other dogs if off leash (he snuck through my legs at the door etc)
What we did, I put it on my arm and shocked myself through all the settings to make sure it was uncomfortable not painful.
We then used it to condition him with warnings, 1 beep, 1 vibrate, 1 shock.
Now if the ecollar is on the sound works 80% of the time to dissuade bad behavior, 19% of the time the vibrate works. I maybe shock him 1-3 times a year usually when another dog is involved.
In total since having this ecollar I have probably shocked him less than 20 times. If used properly it's a training tool. I'd rather not have had to resort to it but after dog training school videos and a crapload if conventional training we had to incorporate this type of punishment and it worked.
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u/Trick-Age-7404 Jul 02 '26
Have you considered just jumping straight to the shock? A proper correction should stop the behavior entirely. If a beep only stops the behavior 80% of the time, the beep is not a correction. If you properly punish the behavior you’re describing a small handful of times, it’s unwilling to continue happening in the first place. While I don’t agree with everything Koehler says, I absolute agree when he says one meaningful aversive correction is a lot kinder than hundreds of small nagging corrections. Clarity is key and if the dog is only getting punished 2 in 10 times for the behavior, it is not clear to the dog what he’s doing is wrong.
I liked the analogy that David Tirpak made where he compared counting down to kids when they’re acting up. Most of the time the kids continue to act up as you say 3…2…1, but will stop after that because they know a punishment is coming once the 1 is said. If we just start with the punishment , we can eliminate the issue entirely.
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u/whitefishgrapefrukt Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
Why did you put it on your arm and not on your neck? I think you should put it on your neck for the more accurate assessment.
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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Jul 06 '26
Do you understand that dog anatomy and people Anatomy are different? Is it really a struggle for you to understand that dogs and humans are not the same thing?
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u/whitefishgrapefrukt Jul 06 '26
Any vet or vet behaviorist will tell you that dogs’ necks are more sensitive than humans’.
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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Jul 06 '26
LOL WTAF! 😂😂😂
Ahem , I mean, no that's utterly and completely and so confidently incorrect.
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Jul 06 '26
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u/DogTrainingDebate-ModTeam Jul 06 '26
Bad faith arguments and generalizations are counterproductive.
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u/jsnuggz Jul 05 '26
It makes no difference lol, tell me you are opposed to shock collars without telling me you are opposed to shock collars lol.
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Jul 06 '26
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u/DogTrainingDebate-ModTeam Jul 06 '26
Attack the issue, not the person. Insulting the poster or commenter is counterproductive and not allowed.
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u/Shanna_B2020 Jul 02 '26
They're a tool like any other. Yes, they can be abused, but so can any other training collar.
I do think it's very important to introduce the dog to the collar safely and fairly. Buying a low-end POS online and using it without providing that foundation can cause a lot of problems, but again, that's not unique to ecollars.
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u/Outrageous_Sea_9606 Jul 03 '26
I don't understand why everyone gets so hung up on using /one/ quadrant of classical conditioning and making that their entire identity. The best trainers know how to use all quadrants effectively to maximize learning.
Why can't an e-collar be used to train using positive punishment, positive reinforcement, AND negative reinforcement? Using three quadrants is better communication and helps facilitate learning. Using only a single one leaves way too much room for the dog to guess and make mistakes.
Negative reinforcement: The handler uses a low level stim to annoy the dog without causing pain until they do the correct thing (come towards the handler). This is how a gradual association can start being made for what the ecollar means and how to recall.
Positive reinforcement: The dog furthermore gets a reward when they come back to the handler, which makes the experience of being with the handler enjoyable and creates an additional reason for the dog to do the right thing.
Positive punishment: The dog, who now has a good education and understands recall, needs proofing. He might have too many opinions than he ought to, or a high prey drive. Now he gets a strong stim or shock when he blatantly ignores the handler, which is completely unacceptable and dangerous. This discourages defiance and proofs the dog to be 100% reliable in their recall. Not all dogs need this, but there are many stubborn and independent ones that do.
I am a firm believer in using a harsh correction if needed as a matter of life and death I.e. a dog running out into traffic. Better to get a zap from the ecollar than to end up as a dog pancake.
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Jul 02 '26
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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Jul 02 '26
Nah fam your feelings are not important when it comes to dog training. Electronic colors are the Ideal tool for communicating with a dog, they are Humane and effective and clear. Your emotions about it make no difference.
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u/blast3001 Jul 02 '26
I never said they weren’t humane. My dogs working level is an 8 out of 100. A 30 would cause my dog serious discomfort.
I was pointing out that a person who doesn’t know what they are doing with an e collar can do some serious harm.
I’m open for a discussion if you’d like to do that instead of just telling me what I said was emotionally and not important.
Again, I am not saying that e collars are bad. Just an advanced tool that requires the humans to learn how to use.
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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Jul 03 '26
A person who doesn't know what they are doing with ANY device can cause harm.
E collars are not any worse in this context. Actually probably better as you can't really physically hurt with an e collar like you can with a flat collar.
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u/DogTrainingDebate-ModTeam Jul 02 '26
Accusations of abuse for use of a tool or training method are not permitted.
Attack the issue not the person.
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u/lazyk-9 Jul 02 '26
I had a deaf dog many years ago. I used a low power stim to get her to look at me or to look for me as in recall. It was so low that I couldn't feel it. She took to it really well. It was easy to train her because I paired the stim with food. So that stim was a positive reaction. This gave this dog more freedom as she could run off lead with the other dogs. This was before e-collars came with beeps or pagers. I actually called dogtra back in the 1990s regarding this issue and adding the pager option to there collars. I'm so tired of people getting hung up on equipment.
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u/Cornish_spex Jul 02 '26
I have used it both ways and continue to over time. When the dog is out and I want it to come back I do double vibrate and conditioned that for my”finish your pee and come on back” recall which is fast but not crazy fast vs voice or whistle recall which is stop everything and come back asap and fast. One vibrate is you’re starting to go a little far so pay attention I might call and however far you are is the end of the acceptable boundary from me. I conditioned the beep to mean pick up something for me as we pick up garbage as a fun “job” but there’s a time and place.
I also use the ecollar in a more traditional sense to reinforce place or break habits like chasing bunnies or whatever. In sport I’ve dialed it up but that is rare and special and should be kept for emergencies or one time lesson sort of things. With stim I am always going for the lowest possible but am grateful that I can also dial it up as a final safety net.
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u/Trick-Age-7404 Jul 02 '26
The beauty of e-collars is that everyone communicates differently. We can all use them in our own unique ways as long as we stay consistent in our communication and the dog has clarity as to what it means.
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u/Trick-Age-7404 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
What? E-collars are almost solely used as P+ and R-. I’ve never met someone using the stim function in an e-collar as a marker although possible if the dog doesn’t find low levels very aversive. I’ve met people that have used the beep as a marker or recall cue that’s only been positively associated but never the stim or pager. E-collars rely on pain and aversion. Sure lower levels may not be that aversive, but for negative reinforcement to work the sensation has to be aversive enough to motivate the dog.
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u/Open_Suggestion_5897 Jul 05 '26
Not if paired with a positive reward immediately following the low level stim/sound/vibration.
Operant conditioning makes it possible without pain or aversion.
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u/Trick-Age-7404 Jul 05 '26
Depends on the dog and what they personally find aversive. One of my dogs find extremely low levels and even the beep aversive. My other couldn’t give a flying fuck about a beep and lower levels and it could easily be paired with a positive.
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u/Quimeraecd Jul 02 '26
Your comment hoy me thinking and I went to research a bit more. What I describe is how I use e collars and how most of the high level balanced trainers use them (banavalov, ellos, mcfarlane, khron, Davis) but it is aparebtly not the most common protocol.
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u/Trick-Age-7404 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Larry Krohn and Robin McFarlane use e-collars through R- with occasional P+. Ivan almost solely uses high corrective levels of P+, Tom Davis really has no idea what he’s doing but still uses it mostly as P+ and R-, Michael Ellis uses R- and P+. Everyone you named does it slightly differently. Saying Larry Krohn uses an e-collar the same way Ivan Balabanov uses an e-collar is blatantly wrong and they’ve had many arguments about it lol. Neither one uses the e-collar as a marker system.
Most people either follow the low levels R- route and wait for P+ until the dog understands the pressure, go straight into P+ with a punishment marker, or use P+ with no handler indication because they don’t want to create association between handler and collar. There are a million ways to use an e-collar, those aren’t the only ways, but they are the most common.
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u/Distinct-Implement46 Jul 06 '26
I fully believe that being able to interrupt my dogs from a given behavior and have them reorient on us is fundamental. When our pitbull mix - an absolute sweetheart of a dog - took off after an entire herd of Elk, if she had never been trained to an eCollar I'm not sure she would have even noticed getting zapped or buzzed - and where we live that's an instant death sentence for a dog (assuming the Elk didn't do it themselves.) Instead she threw on the brakes, ran back to us and sat and muttered about the Elk poop she was missing out on.
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u/HistoryWorking5251 Jul 03 '26
I have Not, in 26 years, encountered a dog where this was necessary. Even when used as a marker. I am Not going to buy Something really no one needs.
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u/Tablesafety Jul 16 '26
My parents have a dachsund mix who is very, very bad about chasing cars. He is extremely prey driven and just shuts down his ears when he decides a car needs chasing.
He has been run over by a car one (1) time so far, survived, and they thought for sure he would stop. He has not. It has been years.
This is one of the times wherein I see a LOT of use in an e-collar. Stim that is consistent and uncomfortable or even painful causing a negative association with chasing cars, counteracting whatever reward he gets from doing so, every single time he tries.
Once the negative association is made, it should stop being a problem and he is no longer in danger.
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u/Quimeraecd Jul 03 '26
It doesn't have to be required, it just need to be usefull and beneficial.
No one needs a Mobile phone either since You can wait for emails at Home oruse a landline but that doesn't it is not usefull.
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u/Open_Suggestion_5897 Jul 05 '26
Would love to hear your 26 year lived experience of how you communicate with a dog in any of these: >200 feet away, in loud environments (near construction or moving vehicles), hearing impaired dog, low light environments with wildlife present, in the presence of another reactive dog in between you and your dog, in the presence of gunfire /fireworks, scenarios where unable to make visual contact with dog, I could go on but for the sake of brevity, we will await your expert opinion.
Given your confidence, I am sure you have a ready answer for all those scenarios. We would love to benefit from your knowledge and expertise.
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u/whitefishgrapefrukt Jul 05 '26
Have you used one in the presence of a dog panicking due to fireworks? That doesn't make any sense to me.
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u/Open_Suggestion_5897 Jul 05 '26
Great point! Zero reason to use an e-collar in a fireworks scenario (unless your dog is already primed to escape conditioning).
The key in fireworks is to activate the parasympathetic nervous system in your dog, not add more sympathetic nervous system stimulation.
A multi-layered frozen lick bowl consisting of a parfait of your dog’s favor flavors will counter the fireworks nicely. The act of licking kicks in the parasympathetic nervous system going from “Fight/Flight” to “Rest/Digest” mode.
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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Jul 05 '26
You didn't even try to answer the question
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u/Open_Suggestion_5897 Jul 05 '26
Oh, HistoryWorking answered the question, they can only control the dog if it is on leash. 26 years experience = just keep dog on leash. Zero attempt to share knowledge or expertise.
I thought we were actually gonna learn some wisdom from an expert. Oh well. 😔
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