ok lets talk E-Collars

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.

Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability, and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as 2 days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com/startnow. That's growtherapy.com/startnow. growtherapy.com/startnow. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

Nickelback is back with a show that will blow your mind with special guest Don Proko.

Get tickets Friday, October 16th at Pride Nation, Nickelback. Don't miss the Everything Under the Sun Tour live.

I love football season. The games, the rivalries, the food, getting everyone together. No game day feels complete without a trip to Total Wine and More. I can find everything from cold beer and canned cocktails to wines and spirits for the whole crew. And if I want to bring something different to the watch party, the Total Wine team always has ideas. Plus, it's nice knowing I'm getting the lowest prices. Get your game day lineup ready at Total Wine and More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. Be 21.

It's the Dog People Podcast with your host, Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some 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 I 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 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 is 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. Of course, Max O'Neill, Down Under dog trainer. Max, Today we're going to start a little mini series talking about something that is fair to say. I mean, it's getting better, but there's still a rather contentious sort of topic and tool that is used within the dog training community, and that is the e-collar.

Yeah, we've talked about this one for a while. We've we've planned it out, and we've put it on the shelf and took it off the shelf a couple of times and gone. But we're ready. We want to talk about it because it's. Such an important tool when, and used in the right hand, is such a beneficial tool. And there's also a lot of misconception around that. So we want to be a part of the narrative and help change it. So at least people can, you know, you can like it, not like it, but at least we want you to make an informed decision and have accurate information so you can decide whether it's a tool for you or not.

That's it. 'Cause it's not, it isn't a tool for everyone. That's, that's fair to say. And it's not for every dog. Like every case is, you know, with, when it comes to all things dog related, you know, every case is, is different and has its own merits. I think, You and I would probably both agree that we would suggest that most dogs should be e-collar trained, I think.

Yeah, I think there's only benefits, and when it's used correctly—

Well, that's the, that's the key, when it's used correctly.

Yeah, that's it. I think we'll get into the, you know, what it is and why we use it and how. But, um, you know, I think a lot of people view it as like this final solution. I've tried this, this, this, and it didn't work. We have to go to an e-collar. And it's just the wrong way to view it. It's just another tool that allows us to apply all the same training principles but do it remotely where we don't have to be connected to our dog. And that's got some amazing benefits which we'll get into. But, uh, yeah, we're really keen to just talk to you guys about what it is. Um, and Jack, you know, as we both use e-collars for our own dogs, and we're going to chat to you about that from a couple of different perspectives. For me, who's, you know, certified as an e-collar coach so I can train people with it, and Jack as someone who's adopted it with his own dog. So I think we'll each have a couple of— interesting pieces for you guys, and hopefully you can walk away really understanding it if you don't already.

So let's talk about it in the general sense, what it is and why we use it, because I think the old school term for them, obviously we call them e-collars now, but the old school term shock collar, and that's how people view them as a place, basically as a way to inflict some pain on your dog to get it to do what you want. That's the old school mentality.

Yeah, that's definitely, and we still get that every day. Yes, what an e-collar is, is a handheld remote held by us, the handler, Your dog wears a receiver on the collar, and then we're able to send signals to the receiver on the collar that will then give our dogs some type of stimuli. The e-collar can generally do 3 main types of stimuli: a tone or a beep, just a sound. That beep doesn't inherently want to make them do anything. It's not positive or negative. It's just a beep, but we can condition them to that as a command or a marker. It has a vibration, which kind of feels like an old Nokia in your pocket. It's quite a strong vibration. Some dogs find this quite aversive. Some dogs don't.

So you can— Kira doesn't even pay any attention to that whatsoever.

Yeah, Nelson doesn't at all either. Some dogs find that incredibly aversive, so it can be used as a correction. Other dogs, because it is just a different sensation, you can use it as like a cue. Like, you know, for Nelson, it's like a down at a long distance if he's out of earshot. Say if we're like running and we saw like, oh, there's a car coming, and anyway, something like that. And then finally, you've got the electrics or the stim. This is the one that gets the most amount of misconception, the most amount of flak, the most amount of negativity around it, because again, that's what earned them the name of the shock collar. And don't get me wrong, if you use them in the wrong hands and use them incorrectly, you can certainly give your dog a really strong, uh, stim on the collar. But I don't necessarily ever think you can actually truly shock them because they just don't go to that sort of wattage to actually shock a dog, so to speak. So what it is, the electric stim or that, that part of the e-collar, that function actually uses the exact same patent and exact same technology that a TENS machine does. So a TENS machine, if anyone's ever had a, you know, like a muscular injury or a pregnant wife, they've, or, you know, my wife and I have played, played with the TENS machine many a times.

It's a bit of fun.

Yeah, absolutely. So you've probably used a TENS machine. So a TENS machine, all it does is you've got, you know, it stands for something like transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation. So what it does is you have a positive and negative attachment to your body. So on a TENS machine, you've got 2 pads that will sticky onto you, and then you've got the little, you know, remote in your hand, and then you can provide a current through your body where it forces your nerves and muscles to contract in a nice and therapeutic way. And just like with a TENS machine, you could have it on level 1 where you go, hey, I can't feel anything. You could have it on, you know, level 4 or 5 where you go, oh, that feels nice. You could have it on level 5 to 10 where you go, that's uncomfortable. And then you could have a level 12 or 13 where you go, okay, I don't like that at all.

Yeah.

And then you could have it on high where you go, okay, like, get it off me, that hurts. An e-collar is no different. Most people, when we do e-collar training, when I, you know, but if anyone ever wants to do e-collar training, I always make sure we put that on you first and go, cool, like, you've got to be prepared to do it to yourself and go through it. And most people will try and go, cool, I'm going to put it on level 1, can't feel it. We quite often, depending on the brand of remote and collar, all that, we quite often get to level 10 to 15 before owners go, oh, I can feel a tickle. And then we end up training their dog on a 6 or a 7. Okay. It's not this big bad thing. It's not a taser. It's not remotely close to the taser, both in terms of how the thing works or how much power goes through it. It's not even close. So it, all it does is just makes your muscles contract in a bit of a funny way. And I guess that's kind of one of the benefits of them is we see a lot of dogs who will, what we call like max out a tool like a slip lead or a prong collar or a martingale, which means you can put maximum force on that thing and the dog just no longer responds. The problem is the dog might feel it, like barely feel it, But it could still cause a whole lot of damage because you're pulling on that thing a lot. Whereas the e-collar is almost the inverse of that to a degree. It's like, as much as, you know, if you were one of these dickheads, like one of the local guys around here that cranks these things to 100 and really hits a dog hard, is as much as a dog is going to feel that, it actually can't really do any real damage to the dog.

Yeah, I mean, I was speaking to a vet a little while ago who was pro the e-collar, and they said, look, I have never had anyone— she said, I've had plenty of people come in with issues from, you know, flat collars, other normal everyday training items that people use, but I've never had a dog come in here with an injury from a quote-unquote shock collar.

Yeah, exactly. The only thing that they sort of— you can run the risk of is some dogs will have like a nickel allergy. So the 2 Contact points on the neck from the remote can sometimes irritate the skin, particularly if the dog's been in and out of the water, and that metal can cause a bit of an irritation. But there's always different metals or alloys you can get.

I mean, if you get a decent— because the one I got came with different prongs to attach if that situation happened, that you could change them out.

Spot on. So you can always change things up. But that's, that's pretty much about it, is you really can't do it. People talk about, oh, my dog got burn marks. Again, there's a lot of, which we're going to unpack, there's a lot of myths and false rhetoric around it by, you know, by the community who doesn't really understand or like the use of the tool. But—

And don't get us wrong, people can misuse this tool completely and utterly. Like you spoke about, there's someone who does it. And, you know, that person should not be a dog trainer or anywhere near animals at all. But I mean, in saying that, any tool can be used and can hurt. I mean, you can use, I mean, a slip lead, a flat collar. I mean, you can use any of these, any of I mean, if you get these things in the wrong hands to someone who actually wants to either cause harm to a dog, you know, I mean, they could pick up a stick from the ground and hit the dog. I mean, anything can be an aversive tool used against a dog.

Your dog's favourite squeaky toy could end up doing damage to them. Like one of our, one of my best friends, Shanice, is an emergency vet. And I remember when we were like, hey, I think an e-collar is going to be the right thing for your Weimaraner, because we know we need to teach him a recall. He's got an incredibly high prey drive. We're getting to the stage now where the pressure you put on the e-collar is on the Slip leads getting a bit too much. Like, I think this is going to be better. And initially, her being a vet, same thing, was a little bit hesitant. I went, all right, let me ask you, how many, you know, injuries do you see where dogs come into the, you know, ER with like, you know, collapsed tracheas and things from slip leads, flat collars, etc.? She's like, oh yeah, heaps. More from flat collars? Yeah. How many dogs do you see coming to the ER with, you know, like cracked sternums or dodgy shoulders or cranked necks from harnesses?

Yeah.

Quite a few more and more.

Cool.

How many serious injuries have you seen from an e-collar?

Yeah.

Can't think of any. Exactly. So that's, that's like a big reason why, again, is like how much your dog can feel versus what can actually happen to them is, is pretty different. So that's, that's what an e-collar is essentially. Just, you got the remote, you got the pager, and you simply use it as a communication tool, a way of giving your dog feedback. And it's not always a, hey, no, don't do that. You can put the e-collar on to teach them to do stuff and not do stuff. And if you teach it right, like both of our dogs and all our clients, your dog should see that thing and want to shove their head through it. If I pull my e-collar out—

Oh, Kira's the same.

Yeah. Nelson is shoving his head through it because he goes, oh, I know that thing means we're going to go do fun stuff, but he enjoys it. It's a game. You might think like, oh, like, does he not live in fear wearing the e-collar of the stim? Like, no, because we never put it to that level where it's—

I was literally going to say the same thing. Like, Kira has never yelped, cowered. Anything whatsoever when I've used the e-collar on it, because I've never gone to the level. And we'll talk about, you know, you're going to give some advice on how you can get started, but you always start at the lowest, lowest, lowest section and you just gradually move up. And I was so tentative when I was doing it. Like, I literally was like, okay, I'm going to start right at the bottom and I'm pushing it and getting absolutely no response. I'm like, and then I go just up one and then I push it again. Nothing. And I just kept going gradually, gradually until I saw she just got the slightest flicker of like the ear went up as in like, what was that? What was that?

Yeah.

And I'm like, right, okay, there we are. We're going to start there.

Perfect.

And so I have never gone to a level like, obviously, and again, we'll talk about this, you know, as we go through. But once the dog gets into the, you know, the excitement, the adrenaline, and she's in her mode of like, right, go time, then the stim has to go up. Because when she goes into her prey drive mode, which is why the reason why I initially got her onto the e-collar, everything else is out the window. She shuts down, everything else shuts down. She's just purely focused on that thing that she wants to get. And she will go. The stim has to be at a much higher level. So she sort of snaps out of it and goes, oh, oh, well, okay, yeah, no, not supposed to do that, or whatever, you know, oh, Dad wants me, sort of thing. Even at that level, she's never yelped. She's never cried. She ran into a tree the other day. She cried doing that. So I know what it sounds like when she doesn't like something.

Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability, and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as 2 days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com/startnow. That's growtherapy.com/startnow. growtherapy.com/startnow. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

That dreadful sound.

You know exactly what it means.

Dead battery.

No second car.

No stranger to help. That's where the NOCO Boost GB40 comes in, a portable jump starter that packs 1,000 amps so you can jump start your car yourself, no jumper cables required.

It's compact enough for your glove box and doubles as a power bank and flashlight.

The end of jumper cables has arrived. Get yours at no.co.

Code JUMP10 for 10% off select jump starters.

This week, it pays extra to be a Milo's Rewards member. Through October 14th, members get $10 Milo's money when you spend $200 or more More on an eligible purchase during My Lowe's Money Days. Also using your My Lowe's Rewards credit card? Even better, that's an additional $20 My Lowe's Money. Use it to save on your next Lowe's haul. Exclusions, restrictions, and more terms apply. See lowes.com/mylowesmoneydays for details. My Lowe's Money expires 30 days after issuance. Subject to change. Credit offer subject to credit approval. It's like any other piece of equipment in our drawer. So in our, you know, our dog box, we've got Nelson's collar, His pet collar, his protection collar. We've got his harness, we've got his slip lead, and we've got his e-collar. And all those pieces of equipment he's equally as excited to see because, A, what it represents, and B, the application of that is fair. Like the slip lead, of course he doesn't like when it tightens. That's a normal part of life. Like, consequences is supposed to be there, but we never push that consequence to a point where he's like, hey, I don't ever want to wear that thing again. Like, screw that. And it's the same with the e-collar. And again, there is, you know, you might find this hard to believe, but I promise you there's a level where he really enjoys it because it's part of the game. Think of dodgeball at school, right? You know, at some stage you're gonna get hit and you're gonna get basically punished for not getting out of the way in time, but you're also gonna get this huge thrill when you do get out of the way in time and you know you just avoided some type of, you know, uncomfortable experience. It's the same sort of thrill we get from dodgeball, from both being hit and not being hit, is the same as the e-collar. Nelson knows if my owner calls me and if I come back in time and I missed it, oh yes, like I beat him. But also, like, if I go here and he goes, give me that one sec, and he gets the e-collar that starts tapping, you know, bugger, like I missed out, I want to try more next time. Like, for him, it's all a part of the game. And again, when we condition it right, our dogs actually really enjoy this part of it. I could— well, you know what, I'll screenshot this and put it— and put a photo up in the group once this episode goes live. But I just had a client text me who we started e-collar training with last week. She's got this beautiful little Staffie called Isla who we look after sometimes. We love— she's a high-drive little Staffie, really cool dog. And that was part of the problem. She was getting off chasing birds, recall was going out the window. We're starting e-collar training. Point being, the owner messaged me going, hey, we just did an e-collar session with Isla and she was like the driviest she's ever been. She loved it. Like, she thought This was so cool. And because it added a whole extra layer to the game, she's like, okay, you're telling me that like now we're playing a game where I can gain a huge reinforcer like my ball and food, and there's like this— I don't want to say the word threat, but there's a possibility of like a— I might get this, oh, uncomfortable sensation. For her, it's like playing dodgeball now where it's just this extra little thrill. So when we use it right, which we're going to teach you guys to do, the listeners, it's It's such an incredible tool, and that's where we'll kind of get into the why we use them. Again, it's not this end resort like, oh fuck, like I've tried this, this, this, we have to go to an e-collar. Some people want to go to an e-collar straight away because, because of what it can do. It essentially lets you apply all the same principles of your negative reinforcement and your punishment and your just clear communication at a great distance to your dog. We'll take Nelson to parks and forests sometimes where he's so far from him, like, oh. He's probably not going to hear me, but that's cool. I can page him on the e-collar and he goes, oh, that tap tap tap means I need to come back to dad. It also means I can, hey, correct him remotely if I see him at a distance. I'm like, oh, he's got his head in a bush, he's sniffing out some animal. Nelson, no. Pop pop pop. It allows us to do all the same things just at a greater distance. And it's particularly with recall, it's one of those things where when you do let your dog off leash, if you just have got one of those dogs or one of those relationships with your dogs, you just cannot get that solid recall without it, then the e-collar opens up your world massively. We've got a number of clients, so they go, my dog, if he knows he's on the leash or on the long lead, is the most A1 recall dog ever. The moment he knows a leash isn't there, he just refuses to come back if there's some type of trigger around. And we've got a couple of retrievers in particular that are like this, that are into their birds. And, um, now they're on the e-collar, like, we get messages like, I never thought I'd let You know, Marlin off the leash, and now he's off the leash all the time simply because I can control him with the e-collar and he doesn't run back yelping. Like, he's just like, oh cool, Mum, tap, tap, tap, Mum called me. And this dog's life has increased in quality tenfold because of an e-collar. It's not been ruined by it.

And, you know, you talk about, you know, the dogs with the— I don't have that rock-solid recall when there's a trigger around. And that's what frustrates me the most about the people who say that, you know, the naysayers, I suppose, about the e-collars is they say, oh, well, you're either, you haven't done your training right.

Yep.

You're not working hard enough on your training. It's all about the laziness, basically. An e-collar is for lazy people. I mean, I saw some vet claiming that, you know, said that. I mean, that's when I really flipped onto, 'cause I was always sort of like on the fence about the e-collar, not sure, not really. And then I would watch this sort of debate where a vet was saying people who use e-collars are simply lazy and don't wanna train their dogs. And I took that to the greatest offense because I know I train my dog, I would say harder than 90% of the population. You know, I'm constantly training the dog, you know, recall, everything. But the trouble is she's one of these dogs with an incredible high prey drive. And unfortunately, you know, you can, you can teach them not to train certain things. But I was getting to a point where I'm like, well, I don't know what she's going to chase now because, I mean, essentially the reason I put Kira on an e-collar was one day out of nowhere, she decided to chase a motorbike down the highway.

Yeah.

And she'd never shown any interest towards motorbikes ever before. You know, she would chase birds. That's how you and I first met. I was trying to get her to stop chasing birds. And we worked on that without the e-collar. You know, we worked on all of this stopping of chasing of bikes, all of those things. And it got to the point where I was like, I'd stop her from chasing magpies, but then we'd walk past an ibis and she chased the ibis. I'm like, okay, so now I have to teach you not to chase ibis.

I'm going to get a whole ornithology book.

I've got to go to Corumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. Say, hey, can I borrow a bird from every species?

And one day you spot this rare spotted blue tit. Kiri goes, hey.

Off again. Yeah. You haven't told me I can't chase those. But then, and that's when the motorbike thing came up, and that was the scariest moment for me where I'm like, okay, I don't know now what you're going to suddenly decide one day you want to chase. And so that's when I was like, well, then we're doing e-collar because I need that security to know. Because my mum said to me when I was telling about e-collar, she was so anti, like she said, you're going to ruin that dog. She'll be scared of you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just said, you know, and she goes, oh, maybe she's just one of those dogs that can't be off the lead. I'm like, no. I mean, that is just the most depressing life ever. What's the point? Everywhere. And, you know, and, and, you know, I have the super long, long line, but I've got a story from that because when I was training her one day, she's on the long line and I'm— I was distracted by something and she saw something she wanted to chase and she was gone. Yeah. And now I've got one end of the long line, she's on the other end of it. What do you think is going to happen when she hits the end of that long line? She hits the end of it at full force and flips over.

Yeah.

And hits the ground. I mean, that's so dangerous. She could, you know, I mean, just completely decapitate her throat. So, you know, and having the e-collar, she gets maybe a mild bit of discomfort for a couple of seconds and that's it. Like, it doesn't hurt her. It's not going to kill her. And I'm stopping her from running into the road. Anyway, so Mum actually came over once I'd fully done the training and Kira was still in that process. She doesn't— she She, she looks at motorbikes now, but she looks to me first before chasing them. So we've got that. So I didn't even have to use the e-collar anymore to stop her from doing it. It's just there now as a seatbelt, basically.

Yep.

But Mum saw how sort of towy she was about wanting to chase things, and she was panicking the whole time going, oh, Jack, oh, Jack. And then she went to chase one and I hit the e-collar. Kira stopped instantly and came back. Yep. And she went, I get it. Yeah. There was no yelping. There was no crying. She wasn't in fear. She came running up to me, super excited, ready to play tug. Which is what she's learned, that when you feel that, you get your ball, we play tug, it's a game. And she came over super and she just went, I get it. Yeah, I get it.

That's it. It's just like, it opens up your dog's world more. Like, I could give you the long list of clients who just go, we couldn't do this with my dog because they would not come back or they would prey lock onto things or they would go for other dogs. They would go deaf to me. And now we can do all of these things. Because of the e-collar. And again, guys, like, don't get me wrong, yes, in the wrong hands they can, they can be shit. But like, the exception doesn't prove the rule. Just because a few people misuse it, we shouldn't put a ban on this piece of equipment. Think like, there's people that drive cars like fucking idiots and kill people.

E-bikes as well, you know, you look at the dickheads riding around on e-bikes and, and being idiots. It's like, now everyone suffers because there's a couple of idiots, and everyone's like, well, no one can be trusted. And yeah, and that's essentially what people are saying with the e-collars. Well, because these people can't be trusted, that means no one can be trusted.

Yeah, the answer is regulation, not banning it.

I'm sure I'm sure that'll be a topic to come up.

Well, 100%, that needs to be, we'll talk about that at some other stage, but that's sort of the overarching thing of our opinion on the e-collar, what it's for. But as we said, we're gonna do a bit of a series on this. Max is gonna take you through a bit of a 101 when it comes to using the e-collar. And yeah, just, we're also gonna look at getting someone on who's had that experience of anti-e-collar and then the freedom of now having a dog who's on e-collar. Because that's what it's all about. It genuinely is, it honestly is the freedom. It is the freedom of being able to go out, And essentially having a long line on your dog the whole time and not being worried that they're, you know, they may not listen and they may run off and not come back.

Exactly right.

Or get hit by, in my case, get hit by a car and get killed. You know, I would much, and I love my dog.

Well, let's rewind 12 months. Imagine if you hadn't adopted that, your confidence would be so knocked that you go, Kira's not an off-leash dog anymore.

Yeah. Or we just can't go anywhere. Like there's only one specific place I can go where I know that it's completely fenced and she can't get away or go anywhere. And what, again, what sort of life is that? Like, I wanted to experience new things, go to different places, be able to, you know, go here, there, and everywhere and not have to go, oh, well, maybe we need to check that first, see what roads are around.

And, you know, think of all the behavior problems you'd have right now if she didn't have the freedom she has.

Oh, she's got to— she's hurt herself at the moment with a sore foot. She's not been out for 2 days and she's a pain in the ass because we haven't been able to go out and do things.

Makes you see, hey, of like, how you realize how like how antsy she's got in the last couple of days and maybe she's More whiny, more anxious, more destructive, more needy, more beggy, more pushy. And then you realize like, fuck, imagine this going on for weeks or months or years.

And that's how some dogs end up in the— But they end up in shelters as well. Yeah. You know, because people are like, I can't do this. Yeah.

Yeah.

All right. Well, hopefully we've put together a good case for the e-collar, you know, whether you've been on the fence about it. The one thing, if any e-collar makers ever listen to this, one little bit of, you know, bit of feedback is, can you not make them look so brutal? Because they do also. giant box. I know it has to be there for the stim and everything, but it's just— when I first started using it, I was so terrified of people spotting it and, you know, thinking I was just an awful human being.

It's a tracker.

Yeah, yeah, it's a GPS system, but it just looks so brutal on the side of their neck. Anyway, that's episode 1 on our take on e-collars. Of course, we are open to all and every opinions, any questions. The Facebook group is there for that. So if you are so anti it, blah, blah, blah, please let us know. We'd love to hear why. your opinion, and maybe we can have an actual discussion and a conversation around it. And change your mind. Yeah, maybe change your mind and maybe not. Who knows? So as we said, it's not always for everyone, but we just want to know— we just want people to know that the option is there for you and you shouldn't feel guilty or pressured to not use that because other people's opinions are, you know, what they are. 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.

Thumtack presents Tile Trouble. Every single time I use my sink, I make eye contact with the uneven grout on my kitchen backsplash. The crooked corners eye me, and I'm haunted by more tiling questions than I thought possible. What kind of pro can fix a backsplash? Can I replace one cracked tile, or should I replace them all? What— what if I just use Thumbtack? I can hire top-rated pros, read reviews, and compare prices with a tap, all on the app. Thumbtack knows homes. Download the app today. You've never been one to settle, stand down, or stand still. You're a lifelong learner, energized by excellence. There's a fire inside you you can't ignore. You've got competition to outrun, momentum to build on, and your own high standards to meet. Stop now? Not a chance. At Capella University, we help you catch what you're chasing because you've always had the drive. Now go earn the degree. Capella University. What can't you do? Visit capella.edu to learn more. Hi5 Casino is the top choice for social casino gaming that's free to play! With chances to win and redeem for real cash prizes, free spin rewards, and tons of exclusive games, you can experience more hi5 moments than ever before. You're gonna wanna hi5 everyone! The neighbors, the mailman, all your coworkers, of course your friends— well, you get the point. Your hi5 moment awaits at hi5casino.com. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by law. Must be 21 years or older. Terms and conditions apply.

Hi5 Casino.