2017: The Year Everything Changed - Part 3

I began my Google search in earnest, starting with the obvious: 

"Dog Shock Collar Aggressive"

I sat back in my chair and waited for the search results to roll in. I was sure that there'd be thousands of stories of dogs ruined with shock collar training. 

Surprisingly, those stories did not show up. Not on the first page, or the second or third. In their place were videos with titles like "Severe Dog Aggression Solved With Shock Collar"  and "Stopping Aggressive Behavior Using The E-Collar." I watched a few of them. The trainers didn't seem tyrannical or sadistic, and the dogs, to my utter disbelief, didn't seem shut down. On the contrary, they seemed happy and eager to work. Most of the time, I couldn't even tell when a dog received electric stim. They trainers indicated that they were pressing the button, but the dogs didn't show any sign of feeling it. "That's odd," I thought. "I thought these things were supposed to hurt." 

Remembering my original goal,  I furrowed my brow and tried to shrug off the cognitive dissonance. I keyed different search terms, each one more horrible than the last. I felt certain that the terrified, shut down dog I so desperately sought was just waiting for me somewhere out there on the Internet. 

"Dog Ruined With Shock Collar"
"Shock Collar Aggression Worse"
"Shock Collar Abuse" 

Nothing.

"This can't be right," I thought to myself. Literally ALL of the trainers I had spoken with had assured me that shock collars were dangerous, inhumane tools. That they should be banned. Unethical. Ineffective. And, the nail in the coffin for me  - Unscientific.  If this was so, then where were the videos? The stories? The bad Yelp reviews?

I felt like I was in the Matrix and had just taken the red pill. Not only were the search results NOT full of shut-down dogs, but I couldn't find a SINGLE ONE. If shock collars WEREN'T torturous, dangerous, or ineffective, then what else might these positive trainers have been wrong about? If they didn't cause the dogs to be shut down/aggressive/fearful, then why was everyone so up in arms about them? The war in dog training resembled a war of religion more than anything else.

One thing led to another, and by the end of that night I had changed my views on almost everything I knew to be true. I chewed on all sorts of big ideas like the nature of punishment, pain, and fear. I asked questions like, "What is force?" and "What is power?" I remembered all the times I had been punished throughout my life. I had been spanked and grounded as a child, and while I certainly didn't LIKE it at the time, it doesn't qualify as abuse. Somewhat humorously, I recalled being made to write sentences like "I will not talk in class" by my Fourth Grade teacher (Sorry, Mrs. Tharpe!) Were these events annoying/uncomfortable? YES. But they did what they set out to do - they changed my behavior. 

That day I ordered two things on Amazon Prime. A prong collar and my very first remote collar - a Mini Educator Two Dog system. The e-collar sat in the box for weeks and week. I was nowhere near ready to use it; I wanted to make sure to have a trainer show me the ropes. I did put it on myself, however, and feel the levels. I couldn't feel the stim at all until about a level 20, and at that point it felt like tickle. Growing up, my dad kept an antique phone around. If I put two fingers on the nodes protruding from one side of the box, I could feel a gentle electrical current shoot into my hands. The e-collar stim was less pronounced than this. 

 I put the prong collar on Margo, my committed puller, introduced her to pressure and release, and within minutes she was walking in a perfect heel. That wan't the only thing.  To my amazement, the constant whining in the car on the ride home had ceased - she simply curled up into a ball and slept.

I cried - tears of joy this time. I was finally able to walk my dog. Since that day in March 2017 I am proud to say I have taken her on a walk every single day, which is a at least a 1000% increase from our usual routine. Her hyperactive behavior began to calm significantly with just the addition of a daily walk, and she began to look to me for guidance and direction. Slowly I began to teach both dogs obedience commands using the prong collar. 

However, there was still the main problem of the girls fighting. While they hadn't made any passes at each other since I began  "Boot Camp," they were still tense and we weren't comfortable DIYing the E-collar. I wanted an in-person trainer to come out and coach me, but I couldn't find anyone local. There were balanced trainers in the area, and we did hire one, but our progress stalled as she wasn't willing to take the dogs off leash and put them in a social setting. 

There were a couple of remote collar-based franchises where I could send them to board & train for a couple of weeks, but there was a disconnect there. I wanted feel like I really knew the people who would be training my precious dogs. As a general rule, I don't trust franchises or large companies when it comes to dealing with living creatures (including humans). I had also seen some behind-the-scenes leaked videos that turned me completely off. I wanted to see exactly how they would train my dog, but their specific methods remained under lock and key. I'm fairly allergic to high-pressure sales tactics, and immediately don't trust anyone who comes across as "salesy." 

So, we trudged along. And then in early summer 2017, things once again took a turn.