Is an e-collar safe for my dog if it doesn’t hurt me?

This is our second article in our E-collar series. We learned that some of LOMA's clients were convinced to use an e-collar on their dog by putting it on themselves first to see what their dog would experience.

This question seems to imply that if a dog's owner doesn't experience pain with the e-collar, then the dog will not experience pain and that then makes it "safe." The question also implies that the collar's only harmful effects are painful. We will explore both of these implications.

An e-collar is not used for punishment. It is only used to get the dog's attention. When we talk to clients, there is a lot of confusion about how the e-collar works. Scientists use the word "punishment" with a very clear definition as the addition of something unpleasant to discourage behavior. In general though when people talk about punishment, the definition is much less clear. We will examine the statement above to see how this fits with current research and science related to animal learning.

Colt’s owners initially reached out to a trainer who used an e-collar. For several months they pursued this approach without success. …Colt remained very fearful of many everyday things like getting into the car, passing people on sidewalks and loud vehicles outside the house. In fact, Colt’s anxiety appeared only to be getting worse and one day this resulted in a bite to a visitor….

… jumping, soiling in the house, barking at the kids, running out the front door? We get questions like these from clients every day… You might be surprised to know that when we start building a training plan for our clients, we focus first on what the dog can do instead.

She said they had their dog, Dawn for close to three years and that the Dawn has hated her husband for almost that entire time. She described Dawn as growling as soon as her husband pulled into the garage, and then Dawn would bark at the husband when he entered the house. After a few minutes, Dawn would finally slink off into a bedroom and avoid her husband. The clients were at their wits end and not sure they could continue living with a dog who seemed to hate the husband.

She said her puppy was often trembling and looked very scared so she was calling to ask if there was anything she could do to “snap him out of it.”

One of my own dogs had to be hospitalized during the critical socialization period… She had debilitating fear of common neighborhood sights and sounds, such as leaves blowing across the sidewalk or cars passing on the road. She would flatten herself on the ground and not move.