Introducing E-Collar Corrections: The How and The When

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining: Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count. Thank you.

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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host, Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for Awesome free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things. Yeah. Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then they get one like, oh my God, what the fuck have I done? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet and I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I'd go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, the podcast hopefully giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, it's friendly. My name is Jack Lawrence. Max O'Neill, Down Under Dog Trainer. We're continuing our series on the e-collar, and today we are talking corrections when it comes to e-collar, because obviously we've spoken about the fact that e-collars is not just for corrections, but of course that is one of its purposes. Um, so Max, how do we start that process of introducing the e-collar as a form of correction?

Yeah, that's it. So like, if you've listened to the last few episodes, which we would recommend listening to before we get to this episode, listening to the e-collar episodes in order, we talk you through the process of how to actually train your dog on an e-collar. And this part's really, really important. It's important to correctly condition your dog to the e-collar. It's also important to go through a series of obedience—

Sorry, but a bit of behind the scenes here. I've just broken my microphone. Sorry, Max. It's just all falling apart.

He tried to pretend it didn't happen. He just played it cool. He's like,

But thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I'll snap my fingers and we'll be back to normal. And just like that, we're fixed. We're back. As they say, if you keep playing with it, it will fall off. That is true for microphones as well.

For many things.

Anyway, continue.

So with the e-collar, it's important we use it in a way where our dog learns it first and foremost as an obedience tool. That means, or that, you know, makes certain behaviors more likely to happen. And they understand that when they experience the e-collar, if they perform a task, And you know, they A, turn the e-collar off, negative reinforcement, and B, they also then gain some type of other external reinforcer— food, toys, play, etc. It's really important they understand that first and we don't go straight to aversives and corrections. When you generally hear about people going, oh, my friend tried an e-collar and it like really shut down their dog, their dog yelped and hid and hated it, and now they won't let them put the collar on, he shakes when he sees it— yeah, they probably didn't go through anything like what we covered in last episode, it would've just been straight to, you know, stick the collar on and quote unquote zap your dog for doing something wrong.

Mm-hmm.

And unfortunately that, you know, sort of approach is really common because, you know, people have a crack at it themselves, 'cause there's not a lot of good information out there, hence why we wanted to do this. But also people that you pay, as in professional trainers, will come to your house and do this exact thing as well. It is really important that your dog, by the time we get to the stage we're at now where we're actually starting to correct unwanted behaviours, your dog really and truly understands it so that we don't freak them out. You should also understand as well what levels your dogs respond to so we can understand the, uh, you know, the right way to go about this. So if we look at corrections, we're looking at making certain behaviours less likely to happen, and there's a couple of different ways we can do this, and we'll, we'll talk that through. So by now we should have a good understanding of our dog's working level, the general level we have on our dog when we want to make them, you know, say The level you'd use to make them come back on a recall if you needed to give them a little bit of a hurry up or don't get distracted or things like that. We call that our dog's working level. We've now got our dog's aversive level, the level they should want to avoid and not want to encounter again. So there's a very distinct difference, right, between the level we use to nag at them and the level we use to make them want to avoid a behaviour altogether. I always like to think of it like a, like a hot or a warm road. If I step on the road barefoot and it's pretty warm, it's like bordering on hot, but I can hack it. I'm more than comfortable to go, cool, I'm going to quickly run across the road to the shops. And then I'm happy to cross this road again. I'm not wanting to avoid the road altogether, but it certainly makes me wanting to hurry up and do the thing as quickly as possible to remove the heat from my feet, so to speak. Then if you've got a seriously, seriously hot road, let's say you step on it with your bare foot and go, oh wow, that's way too much for me to handle. I actually don't want to go on the road at all. That's kind of what our 2 e-collar buttons should represent to our dogs. One that makes them do the thing and do it properly and do it fast as possible, and another that they don't want to encounter at all. So to find that, you know, aversive level, we take our working level and we simply times it by 1.3, 1.5, maybe even double depending on the model of collar that you've got. If most people listening and most people that do e-collar will use the Mini Educator from e-collar Technologies. The one with the little yellow remote, that's what you've got for Kira, right?

Yeah. And you've got 2 buttons. You've got your sort of one I use for my working level. And then there's what they call the boost button, which just jumps it up by whatever level. Mine only jumps by 5. I mean, you know, you can change it, but that's what mine's set to. It jumps by 5. And yeah, that's the level I'll use if I need to correct.

Yeah. And most e-collars will have that same sort of system. They'll have a, you know, a standard button and a boost button, which jumps up a bit higher. And depending on the model of e-collar, most Most e-collars will have like a 0 to 100 level sort of thing. So that's why we recommend jumping up, you know, 1.3 to 1.5 times of what your dog is currently on. So once we've got that level, we can start to attach it to certain behaviours of our dogs that we want to eradicate and remove altogether. And this level should be enough that our dog goes, you know what, the juice ain't worth the squeeze. I could You know, in Kira's case, chase that thing. And I know that'll be hugely reinforcing, but I know the repercussion outweighs it. And if we kind of get our scales out for a moment of positives and negatives, we only need the negative to outweigh the positive. You know, the scales only need to tip just enough that the negative outweighs the positive where your dog goes, nah. And we always want to use as much as is necessary, but no more than we need to. For example, if Kira will happily respond to— what's her boost button?

Uh, so working level's 30, about 30. Yep. So boost is about 35.

Cool. So if Kira responds to 35, we don't, we don't need to go any higher. And that's where I see a lot of people go wrong is they go, oh, we really don't want a dog to do this. Let's crank it all the way to full. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Same in Kira's case. If she responds to 35, why would, why would we go beyond that? Yeah. So we've got our, we've got our boost level. You know, you, you can play around with your dog. I always recommend setting it up in a In like what we call like a controlled rehearsal. Pop your dog on the leash, maybe throw a whole bunch of food or something down that they— we don't want them to have, you know, chuck a big handful of cheese or ham or chicken. Have them on the leash where the, like, the ham is like just at the end of the leash where they can almost reach it. And just, you can tell them no, boost, boost, boost. And that boost should be enough that they go, yep, I want to come back from that thing and I do not want to go back to it. It all— but it also shouldn't be enough that our dog is You know, yelping or in any pain or anything like that. We just want it to be total discomfort where it's just, this is not remotely worth it. Simple as that. That's how we want to find our level. From there, in terms of how we apply it, there's a, there's a couple of different ways, and I'm keen to hear your, you know, your take on this and what you've done with Kira. But we can start to pair that correction, that no, and the, the e-collar, the boost button, with one of two ways. We can either pair it with our voice and tell that dog, No, correct our dog, this is coming from me. And that's just a standard correction. Or we can do what we call developing a superstitious association where we pair it with a thing or another or something that our dog doesn't think's come from us. For example, where we've done this is with cane toads. So early on when we first started Nelson's training, we went through all this. He was under a year old. We let him go and sniff a toad. I didn't tell him no. But I made sure he was focused on the toad. That was the only thing in his vision. He went right up to it. He might've even just booped it with his nose and he got his aversive level on the collar. I didn't say anything. So he doesn't think that I have an issue with him chasing the toad. He just thinks, hey, those things are magical. And if I touch them, I get in big trouble. So that's what we call a superstitious association.

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Have you done any of that with Carol?

My plan was to do it with the motorbikes because that's, that's why she ended up on the e-collar. Um, because obviously she chased the motorbike. So when I went out, I had her on the long line and she went after it. And I think instinctively I just said no at the same time as hitting the button, which is not a problem. It's totally fine. I don't mind her thinking, oh, that's attached to Dad. If he says no, I'm going to get this discomfort. Because that was the plan, because I heard all about the superstition stuff and I was like, oh, that's a really nice way of doing it, I think.

Yeah.

But yeah, purely just out of my own sort of like, you know, natural reaction to when she went to chase, I went, ah, no. And I tapped at the same time. So I'm like, you know what? It works. Yeah. But yeah, I think it's a really cool way to do it as well, especially if people are worried that, you know, the dog's going to have a bad association with that sort of feeling and it being attached to them or whatnot. Yeah. I mean, I know some people in the past, I actually was watching a video online where they were talking about this and they demonstrated it and the dog got a tap and it was like, oh, what was that? And then looked back to mum and dad and he went, you alright, buddy? Come here. And then he came running over and he's like, oh, I don't know what that was, but I'm safe with you. And he's like, yeah, we won't go near that again, will we?

Just gaslighting the shit out of the dog.

It wasn't me. Poor thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but yeah, no, with Kira, it's very much I've paired my no with the, the aversive call.

And there's a time and place and there's pros and cons of each. There's not one that's better than the other. It's kind of what suits you and your training and what suits the situation. For, for toads, the reason I chose it as a I don't want this to come from me situation, because at nighttime—

Oh, that's right. You're not there.

Yeah, because like, exactly, I'm not there. So I don't want Nelson to go, hey, Dad's not here. I'm going to go in on these things.

Yes.

I wanted to make sure it was the toad. For the motorbike thing, I actually think you made the right decision because we need to— with developing a superstitious association, the risk you run is causing an incorrect association where your dog thinks it's something else. So for example, because Kira's focusing on the motorbike, but she's always also nowhere near it, we don't want her to think, hang on, is it just me looking at these things that gets them? We don't want then every walk for every bike that goes past for her to go shit, shit, shit.

That's the other thing. Yeah. She thinks it's coming every time a motorbike, she's like, oh no, I'm going to get— Exactly.

So that's why, at least with something like a tow, we could wait till he's touching it. So Nelson will go in the yard and see them and go, what's up? Just walk past them and ignore them. He knows that as long as I don't book them,

yeah,

he's good. The other risk we run is, you know, maybe it was as Kira lunged towards and stepped on the road, she got this, she got the correction. And then maybe she thinks now I'm like never supposed to go on a road, which isn't the worst, but could, you know, if we did it the wrong way, it could become the sort of thing where even when we try and get it across the road with her, she could pump the brakes. Yeah, she'd be pulling up. There's pros and cons. Like, if you are going to go down the superstitious route, it's really important that we really consider these things and really make sure our timing is on point so that we know we're definitely causing the right association. Because I've had people, you know, clients before seeing us have done it with like things like counter surfing and whatnot. But then all of a sudden the dog won't ever go into the kitchen, which is a problem if the kitchen's a bit of a hallway style. And they go, oh, we actually need to go here to get outside. And the dog's like, I don't go in there at all anymore because they think the kitchen did it. So. So there's risks you run. The other, the other thing you mentioned was really, was really interesting because it's something a lot of clients say was pairing it to my voice. You know, what if the dog starts to negatively associate? I think as long as you pick a level like we spoke about earlier, that's appropriate for the situation, but it's no more than necessary. Like Kira knows now that your voice no can result in—

And that's the other reason why, again, pairing, because as I said, she's not always on the e-collar. So when we're out, if I say no, I want her to immediately respond. And if she thinks the no comes with that potential Yeah. Feeling or the discomfort she doesn't like, my words probably will have a little bit more weight.

Yeah, exactly right. And that's, and that's the key point there is that words carry more weight, especially for people with like really tough, resilient dogs who really struggle to correct them normally. All of a sudden pairing that to your voice, as long as we pick an appropriate level, it's actually a really good thing. Your dog should know, oh no, this person can stop me from doing stuff. This person can apply a correction that I I really don't want to tangle with. And it's, it's a normal part of nature. It's how they learn. Like, that's their first lesson they learn from their mum. Hey, this thing breastfeeds me, but she'll also really pull me into line if I bite her too hard or something like that.

So, I mean, same with the recall, I suppose, you know, if you're pairing your voice, the recall, whatever that might be, to the, to the button. Yeah. Next time you're out, if you don't have it on or maybe you accidentally didn't turn it on or you didn't take it with you or whatever and you need to recall, obviously that recall is paired with that feeling and they're like, oh, I've got to do this because that thing's going to start.

Yeah, that's it.

Exactly right. So it's good to pair with the voice.

Yeah. So, so there's a couple of ways you can do it, guys. Pair it with your voice. Superstitious association.

The toe's a great one for that. 'Cause obviously, as you said, when you're not there and I sort of was doing a little bit with the threshold training as well. So when she would step over the line while I'm not there, bump.

Yep, exactly. Another great one. 'Cause if like, like what we had with one of our clients when, and luckily the training worked, was When they left to work and they clicked their sliding gate shut, it started sliding. They didn't stay to see if it shut. They just went, cool, it started to shut. We'll drive off. Dog was in the front yard area.

Yeah.

What happened is the gate hit a soccer ball, kind of rolled onto it and bounced back. When they got home, they went, oh, shit, the gate's open. I wonder when that happened. They checked their camera, saw that it

literally—

that's what happened. And the dog, the dog waited there all day long. And if you were to ask that dog like, hey, why did you stay there? The dog was convinced like, hey, if I come out of here, I'm in big shit.

Yeah.

So

yeah,

it's, it's worth it for that. The other, the other consideration in terms of is like how we apply it. So when we want to apply an aversive to our dog and put enough pressure on them, which is what we're doing, that they don't want to feel that again, we can either do one big moment of pressure or what I prefer, more of an accumulation of pressure. So think of Kira, right? Like when you correct her, you probably say no, 1, 2, 3 on the red button or something. Is that correct?

Yeah. A couple of taps. Yeah.

Yeah. Cool. Couple of taps. So let's say 35. 35 times 2 is 70. We could go one big moment at 70, or we could go 2 moments of 35. Does that make sense? We can either do an accumulation of pressure or one big moment, and I'm more of an accumulation. Reason being is like, we stay below her pain threshold. Like, there is definitely a level where if you do that too hard, she's like, hey, like, what the hell? I would have listened to this and you took it to this. Why?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, you can wig them out, so Rather than thinking we need to get it to this level where it's just drastically intense for our dog, it really doesn't. Like, if you give Kira one little nick at 35, she might be like, oh, I can take that. Cool. Can you handle 1, 2, 3, 4? No, I can't. I tap out.

Well, that's given you something more to work on. Again, as we've said in the other episodes, obviously, please only do this if you feel comfortable doing it. Always seek professional help, especially with something like the e-collar, because you can really do— you can mess it up. It's a Fantastic tool, as we always say, when used correctly.

And again, please only do this— this is like the final part of training. Only do this if you've listened to other episodes, you understand the e-collar, it aligns with what you want to do, and you've listened to the training process episode, the 40-minute one, and gone through all that. And that could take you a few weeks. So this isn't just a, oh yes, I'm going to go out one of these and stop my dog chasing toads tonight. It's not that at all. You really need to put the work in and I'll keep repeating something Jack said because it rings so true. The e-collar is not a shortcut. It's a whole lot more work, but it will get you further ahead.

Yeah. Any questions, as always, Dog People Podcast on Facebook or Instagram. We'll see you on the next one. The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill. Edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

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