My dog, Sadie, has been getting pretty hard headed recently so I decided to get her a e-collar to help out with the behavior. I got it in today and was anxious to try it out. I have a PetTech (cheap, I know) one that can do sound, vibrate, and shock. We were going through sit/stay/come commands inside the home and she was doing good, so I thought I'd take her out in the backyard and see how she did. She saw a bird and darted towards it and then hung around the end of my fence line. I told her to come and she just looked at me. I gave her a sound and vibrate command at two different levels and neither worked. So, I thought I'd try out the shock feature. I put it at 10 out of 100 and you would have thought I would have killed her. She whined/barked a bit and still wouldn't come. I lowered it down to 3/100 and she still whined a bit, but she did come.

Ever since we came back in the home, she's been a totally different dog. No jumping/craziness. She was staying too close to the dining room table at dinner, so I told her to go and she went and laid down in her crate. Now, she's been sitting underneath my desk while I've been typing this and hasn't bothered me one bit. (very uncharacteristic of her) She usually is always prodding my arm with her nose and will even jump on my back or arm if I'm working at the desk.

I guess I'm a little confused about her response to the e-collar. I can't really tell if it was actually painful for her or if she just didn't like it and voiced her dislike by whining. It seems like whatever happened worked somewhat because she's been much calmer every since.

Any advice?

To me it sounds like you scared the crap out of her. It's not that it was that painful it's that without any cue or visual she could see something invisible manage to "bite" her in the neck in her own back yard.  

Most animals are very protective of their necks and with good reason with the jugular vein and the carotid artery right there it's a place you wouldn't want to have attacked.

The subdued behavior sounds like to me "I'm scared, I don't know what happened, I am just going to be small and quiet and listen to the humans to stay safe."

I personally don't use an e-collar.

However, I do have a friend who does and she did a lot of research prior to using it. The thing is anything you use to train your dog be it a flat collar, pinch, slip, or head halter. The whole point is that used correctly they help you to communicate with your dog. Most of those communications are very simple cause and effect so it’s easy for the dog to make the connection.  I pull there is unpleasant pressure I stop it stops.  Over time you can use this to train a heel as well as sit's, down's and recalls.

Treats are the same they are just a way to communicate. The dog does something you like gets a treat and learns to do that more often. Even the stop walking if the dog is pulling is the same thing it’s just a way to communicate to a species we can’t talk to.

I know this has gotten a little long but please stay with me.
I am by no means saying that a e-collar can’t make a good tool for communication like I said I have a friend who uses it wonderfully to communicate with her dogs and I know we have members on here who have used it with great results.
But it is just another tool to communicate but unlike the others it isn’t as black and white to the dogs what it means. It is best to train with it so that your dog understands that it is pressure similar to leash pressure. And that just like a dog can turn off leash pressure by coming closer or stop pulling they need to understand what is expected of them and that they can turn off this pressure too.

So with that being said I wouldn’t recommend just putting it on and then zapping her when she doesn’t do something. Like I said that isn’t great communication on our end and it training I feel like one of our big jobs is to do the best we can to communicate clearly with our dog.
Granted yes if you just zap her every time she doesn’t come she should eventually figure out that coming will stop it or at least if she comes running back to you it wont “get her” again. But that would lead to a lot of her being scared and confused while learning and I personally don’t think that is the best way.

I am going to contact my friend I know she has some video she has suggested to people before that show the basics of starting e-collar training for a recall. From what I understand they help walk you through it so the explications are clear to your dog.

I by no means think you meant to scare your dog. We all learn by trying things out and you will always wish you had known more when you started training. I should have those videos posted by tomorrow.

I use an e-collar and love it. You really have to train the dog HOW to respond to the e-collar. First step is to find the level at which they respond. The idea is not to shock the hell out of them but, rather, a little tap on the shoulder - "hey, you, listen up" sort of thing.

Using the e-collar for recall, the first step is to use a longish leash, give a stimulation and simultaneously pull back on the leash. Since she knows she does not have to obey your current re-call word, I would start with a new word. I use front for Ami - as in right here, in front of my feet.

You would need to train each command to the e-collar. I would suggest either the thedooddog.net videos (I think the you tube channel is training the dog way) or http://www.loucastle.com/recall.

Good luck.

Here are the videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2hZNP50FvU&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR5K830mhsM&feature=youtu.be

Some advice from my friend.
"Now since they have used the ecollar incorrectly, they may have to use really really really low levels during this exercise and pair it with food. Maybe even just tap it , food. Tap it, food and they do a recall. Make sure they have an educator or a dogtra. Everything else has levels WAY too high"

An excellent video on starting cold - finding the training level and introducing recall training. Highly recommend this for starting.,

https://thegooddog.net/training-videos/free-how-to-training-videos/learn-to-train-the-good-dog-way-how-to-train-e-collar-recall-pt-1/

I agree with Elise and Amy on watching those videos and reading Lou Castle's site. I am going to add a few things............The biggest mistake many people starting with e-collars is just putting it on and using them. You need to just get the dog used to the collar and not use it at all for a week or so. I agree with Amy on changing your recall, I use "let's go", however I would use long line only until your dog knows the recall. The e-collar is not used to train commands, it needs to be used in proofing commands they already know. How old is Sadie? This too makes a difference, if she is in her teenage phase then the e-collar may not be the wisest choice for selective hearing. I will also say that some dogs are not great candidates on the use of an e-collar. My gsd is very soft personality and is submissive in general, and she went thru the I can't hear you phase, and I knew she wasn't a logical choice on using the e-collar, it would have destroyed her personality. My husky mix is a good candidate because she has a dominate personality, she gave me the middle finger all the time, lol, it worked great for her. She sees me getting the collar and she is excited because we are going on an adventure. I personally would read everything you can, and or seek out a professional trainer who knows how to use an e-collar and can assess if your dog is a good candidate to use one. I would figure out the levels of stim first before using on your dog. I would avoid using the collar completely and train a new recall command, then after doing all of that, then have her wear the e-collar without using it at all for a couple of weeks, before starting on any training using anything, stim, vibrate, buzz. You can destroy your relationship, if she is young, I would wait, if she has a soft personality, I would wait, having a bad first experience I would wait. I am sorry if this sounds negative, especially coming from a person who uses one, but like with all aversives that can be used in dog training, there is a risk involved using any of these on the wrong dog.

So I have been looking into EColler training for a long time now. I like to go hiking and camping and I would love to have Ahsoka be off leash all the time. I have just been very hesitant on pulling the trigger on one. Ther is so many brands out there and so many different types. Do any of you have any suggestions on which brands are the best, or which brands I should stay away from? I have seen a lot of good things on the SportDog brand as well as the Educator brand. I need something that works long range in the mountains and is waterproof. Any help would be great, thanks all!!

I am about to begin utilizing the e-collar for my husky so that he can remain off lead on long hikes. I won't lie...I'm super anxious. I'm very happy there seems to be a lot of good info out there. I have gotten my 3 collar system and am just letting them sniff them. Tomorrow we will walk in them without using them and eventually in a week or so I'm going to take the dogs out one at a time and pair the collar with their recall.

I'm using this tool with the sole intent of making sure my dogs recall promptly and sit or heal at my feet no matter what is going on. They know come and sit well but when distracted they ignore me well!

@newborn I have several friends with sportdog and Dogtra collars. Everyone seems to like them. I wishwishwish I could get the tek 1.0!!! On my budget I had to get the Aetertek 216D. I'll let you know how it goes with it.