Sampson EC Conditioning W/ Leash Walking

The biggest compliment as a trainer? A dog who is thrilled to work and learn. This looks different for every dog, but it is always the end goal. The happy tail, relaxed ears, and loose body tell us all we need to know.
We understand that many people have concerns about various tools and methods in training. However, the dogs can't lie. Here is Sampson and his owner working on some e-collar conditioning.
What you are watching is Sampson working on an e-collar that has levels ranging from 0-100. Sampson is working on level 1 here. Our goal is for Sampson to understand that each time he feels the e-collar he needs to change something. This produces a dog who becomes more sensitive to the e-collar and will respond to it on low levels during times of high energy or distraction. This allows us to use the e-collar to enforce commands and stop behaviors from a distance, without creating pain or fear.
The conditioning you see us doing here will also result in a silent recall. This silent recall means that anytime the dog is at a distance, whether he can see his handler or not, when he feels the e-collar stimulation, and it is not followed by a command, he will go to his handler.
Now to answer the questions we know some of you are asking.
"But isn't an e-collar designed to cause pain?" Nope! An e-collar is designed to allow us to communicate with our dogs at a distance. Whether it causes pain depends on the training done. The way we condition our e-collars is done so we can correct with as little pressure and as much understanding on the dog's part as possible. This is why we never recommend an e-collar be used before obedience training has been done. This is why we don't teach new behaviors on an e-collar. This is also why we choose to take time to condition our e-collars, a process that happens simultaneously with other parts of our training and takes at least a month.
"Will my dog always have to wear an e-collar?" Nope! During the training process, we instruct clients to maintain as much consistency as possible by having the dog wear their e-collar the majority of the time. However, there will be something called an intermittent stage of training where tools will be worn but not used, worn and used, or not worn or used. The intermittent stage is also used with rewards (food, treats, praise, play, and toys). This intermittent stage allows us to prepare the dog to work without the e-collar (or any tool or reward) in the future.
"If an e-collar is such a great and humane tool why is there so much controversy?" This can be summed up simply: poor education and lazy people. Unfortunately, e-collars have developed a bad rap because of people using them in inhumane ways. Sometimes the poor use is due to a lack of education and sometimes it's due to laziness. For many dog owners or a bad trainer, it likely feels easiest to buy a cheap, poor quality e-collar, throw it on their dog, turn it up high, and hit buttons until the unwanted behavior stops. Let us make this clear, that is unacceptable and this tool should not be utilized by uneducated owners or uneducated professionals.
Bad training is not defined by the use of a tool. Good training is not defined by the use of a tool.

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