27/08/2026
“I use an e-collar but I don’t shock my dog” …
This was a comment last week on one of my posts. The commenter then wrote – “I nudge him on the collar, then there’s a consequence for not responding to the nudge. I have never shocked my dog”
Let’s break that down –
- I nudge him on the collar – this is the first shock, low level perhaps, but remember, she doesn’t shock her dog. I’ll circle back to why this low level is more insidious than it might appear. The “nudge” acts as the recall cue and is given along with or shortly after the verbal cue.
- then there’s a consequence for not responding to the nudge – the consequence is that the electricity is increased - the level, the frequent, or the duration of the shock, or a combination of those (they call it “stim” – it’s the same thing – more electricity). This continues until the dog complies – this is the second shock, but remember, she doesn’t shock her dog.
- The initial “nudge” – comply or else, might not be painful or physically uncomfortable but it becomes the threat of what’s to come – no on thrives under threat. Imagine not being able to escape that.
This person then posted a video of her dog responding to her verbal recall cue – the dog’s behaviour was quite telling. When she called her dog, the dogs head and ear twitched. I asked her if she pressed the remote of the shock collar at this time, she said she didn’t. So, what explains the dog’s head twitch?
1. She was lying - a very likely possibility given she was trying to promote these tools.
2. The dog exhibited a conditioned response – when he hears the word, he has learned that a shock follows, so he either twitches involuntarily, or he braces in anticipation of the shock – either way, it’s a stress response – very likely.
3. It was a complete coincidence. What are the chances that the dog in that specific moment would twitch or have a muscle spasm just as she called her dog? I’m not buying that for a second.
How she explained her use of the sock collar is precisely how they are taught to be used even if “used properly”. The dog never wants to feel the stim/shock and if they do they act to have it either not repeated or switched off. Escape. Avoidance. We only work to escape or avoid unpleasant sensations; we don’t work to have that unpleasantness repeated. So do dogs.
We learn which action goes with which consequence. We also learn to associate those unpleasant sensations with everything else in the environment when they happen. That’s how classical conditioning works. Dogs learn like this, too.
Unpleasant – ranging from uncomfortable and annoying to painful and causing fear – it’s a range. “We all have discomfort in our lives, it’s not that bad” - yes, but if I was teaching you the piano and deliberately used discomfort to teach you, you’d soon develop some negative feelings towards me. Also, a stone in your shoe or a grain of sand in your eye is not necessarily painful, but no normal person would choose this. And if you someone else controlled it, it would drive you mad.
Discomfort and annoyance are not benign.
Lastly, everything which can be trained with a shock collar, can be trained without one.
As always, I have no interest in debate on this, take it elsewhere. I’ll delete any comments which promote, endorse, justify, or excuse the use of these tools.
If you'd like to learn how to train without pain, click the link below
https://everythingdogtrainingskool.com/home
