Wow, Top Animal Behaviorist Say’s It OK To Use A Shock Collar, Go Figure

I don’t know how many times I started writing a post about all the debates surrounding this whole positive vs dominance or negative reinforcement, behavior modification training. Right of the bat let me tell you that positive reinforcement will accomplish the behavior goals you are seeking the vast majority of time. It’s a small percentage of the dogs out there, that have to be educated… ahh, lets say a different way. I feel I should remind you that even though it’s a small percentage of dogs that need some type of negative reinforcement to modify those undesirable behaviors, we’re still taking about millions of dogs every year. Oddly enough that kind of coincides with the millions of dogs being euthanized every year, in animal shelters or at the dog owners veterinary clinic.

We have here at spirit animal sanctuary about 90 dogs, and even these guys who were suppose to be the worst of the worst, behaviorally wise anyway, you know for biting, fear aggression, human aggression, animal aggression and food aggression ( yea, I don’t say, “resource guarding” for toys, treats, bones or food). Even these dogs responded positively to my positive reinforcement techniques, most of them anyway, some of them I had to get the message across by acting more like the big bad wolf.

Positive reinforcement works almost all of the time, but almost, is not good enough when a dogs life is at stake.

Alright I’ve kept you wondering long enough about the title of this post, well here it is. The book is called, ” Domestic animal behavior for veterinarians and animal scientists ” By Katherine A. Houpt, VMD, PhD, Professor of physiology and director of the Animal Behavior Clinic, Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine in addition to being a diplomate of the American College of Veterinarian Behaviorists. ©2005 Blackwell Publishing.

In Chapter 1, page 20 under behavior problems excessive barking in the second paragraph, Ms. Houpt in her book mentions a couple of positive reinforcement methods that may help alleviate the dogs barking before going onto a more adverse or negative methods, when the positive approach doesn’t have the desired results.

She mentions trying a water gun or lemon juice squirted in the dog’s mouth, before talking  about a citronella collar and finally an electric (no bark) shock collar. And finally she mentions as a last resort, a cordectomy (debarking).

So you see,  even one of the most respected animal behaviorist on the planet, is essentially telling you that sometimes you need a little something more than positive reinforcement to stop unwanted dog behaviors.

You can read it for yourself at this link. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZFQAs8Ag1zoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q&f=false

The Spirit Dog

© copyright 2010 a.s.papszycki

Nervous Dogs and Barking

How to tell if you have a nervous dog, or a reasonably confident dog.

A reasonably good indication of a nervous dog, is a dog that barks a lot. If you have a dog that barks at everything he sees, hears or in some instances barks at imaginary things, odds are very good you have a nervous dog.

Now because of the different personalities involved, some nervous dogs when they bark, will only give a couple of barely audible woof, woofs. That will sound similar to heavy huffing or breathing, as apposed to barking. In this instance it is imperative that you know how to read a dogs body language to correctly assess his displayable behavior.

Then you will have the nervous dogs that will not bark at all. This is an attempt on their part, not to draw attention to themselves by being still and quiet. An Ostrich sticking their head in the sand if you will. ( By the way, Ostrich’s don’t really stick their head in the sand. )

A more confident dog will bark to a certain degree at a noise or if he sees something, but he will not carry on like a maniac half possessed, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark.

And then you will have the confident dogs that will not bark at all.

Since you can have a nervous or confident dog, bark. Or a nervous or confident dog, not bark. You can see how confusing it can be for the dog owner to figure out the difference. And what will make it more confusing for the dog owner, is the sad fact that a rather large percentage of dog training professionals can’t tell the difference either.

THE SPIRIT DOG

Related Behavior Stuff

Your Dogs Safety, Phantom Dog bites and children

Dog problem behavior prevention

Dogs Happiness

COPYRIGHT©2008 A.S.PAPSZYCKI

How to stop dogs from barking, when you’re not home.

Alleviating Nuisance Barking

by THE SPIRIT DOG

I was just reading some dog training advice on this subject (dogs barking when your not home), in one of those question and answer forums. The answers people were giving , although well meaning are really not going to help the individual dog owners out to much.

Here are  two examples of the given advice, and why they won’t work.

1. “Buy a Kong toy and stuff it with peanut butter or something, to keep your dog busy while your not home”…… I don’t know about you, but unless that Kong is the size of your refrigerator, the dogs going to finish eating whatever you stuck in there in like two seconds. Then what’s he going to do, start barking of course. ( This believe it or not is one of the most quoted ways of quieting a barking dog when your not home)

2. A different kind of advice is, “Play with your dog just before getting ready to leave, this way you tucker him out enough so he’s quiet”…. Again the problem with this is, that even if you had the time and were able to get your dog to run around like a maniac for a couple of hours prior to you leaving. He’s going to be fully rested and ready to go again, in a very short period of time. And when there’s nobody there for him to play with now, what’s he gonna do ? That’s right start barking again.

This second method of keeping your dog quiet while your not home, although not as popular as the Kong method. Has it’s own devotees. The mistake with both of these approaches to this particular problem, is a fundamentally inadequate understanding of the canine mind. Both of these methods rely on what is a relatively new terminology in the dog training world, called “Redirection”. Or more appropriately, trying to trick your dog into forgetting, that you are leaving.

How to stop dogs from barking, when your not home.

Even if you had the correct training approach to quieting a dog down, there still would be approximately ten percent of the dogs out there that would bark, if you weren’t home. So how do we solve this nuisance barking problem when your not home, that’s probably causing a lot of friction between you and your neighbors. And god forbid, might lead to you eventually leaving your dog at an animal shelter were he’ll have a better chance of being put down than getting adopted.

Use modern technology to solve your problem, a no bark collar. And it has to be one of the electronic no bark collars, that gives the dog a little shock when he barks. The other two types of no bark collars the citronella spray collar, that gives your dog a spritz of citronella when he barks or the collar that makes a high pitched sound when the dog barks, are pretty much useless.

On rare occasions the citronella collar will work for an extended period of time, but don’t count on it. While the no bark collar that’s suppose to make your dog quiet by emitting a high pitched frequency, is just a total waste of money.  And forget about those high frequency bark deterrent devices you mount on your wall, or outside.

Both those collars ( citronella & high pitched frequency ) will initially work because it’s something new, that distracts the dog from barking. This is why they may work for a week or two, until the dog gets used to them. But in most cases the dogs stop being distracted by them within a couple of days, hence the barking continues.

So do yourself and your dog a favor, and use a no bark collar that gives your dog a little shock. You may be saving his life. They are very effective, and the dog learns real fast to be quiet. For those of you that like your dog to bark when your home, don’t worry. If you take the no bark collar off of your dog, he will start barking again. They learn that when they are wearing the collar to be quiet, at the same time they also realize when they are not wearing the collar.

( notes ) To be effective the no bark collar MUST be very snug. If it’s to loose it will not make proper contact, and the device will be useless. This is the same principle that’s applied to the invisible fences. And you must remember that, electronic shock collars are routinely used to discourage seeing eye dogs and handicap assist dogs, from chasing things ( cats, squirrels, other dogs).

Using a shock collar is the humane thing to do, killing a healthy animal under the guise of humane euthanasia is not.

THE SPIRIT DOG

Additional Articles

How to be your dogs, Alpha Dog

Hi, My name is Brewster and I’m a Nervous / Fear Aggressive Dog

How to stop all dog aggression behaviors

Copyright © 2008 alan papszycki