E-collar correction

[aylynfaith]

@davecb You only need to catch the dog doing it once and use a high enough zap and they won't do it again. What is this nonsense about dogs not correlating what they did to the punishment. That's not true at all. They will stay away from the trash if the punishment is sufficiently high.

OP is using a low level shock so his dog just doesn't give a crap.

 

[sherrine]

@aylynfaith Agree. That’s what our trainer did with our dog. What people think is high is not actually high hence why the dog isn’t deterred. The ecollar goes up to 100 for a reason. It’s needs to be positive punishment not negative reinforcement. Alot of people use negative reinforcement level correction for things like this and that’s why the behaviour doesn’t go away.

 

[legendsh]

@aylynfaith They might develop a fear of trash cans though which isn't necessarily what you want

 

[aylynfaith]

@legendsh Sure, but that would be fine by me.

One of my dogs has a fear of drains on the sidewalk because her paws slipped in-between the grills when she was a puppy. It doesn't impact my life in the slightest. She avoids them and I am ok with that.

 

[davecb]

@aylynfaith

What is this nonsense about dogs not correlating what they did to the punishment.

That's not what I said but ok.

If you correct a dog, when you find them in the act of grabbing a chicken off the counter, yes, that works. For many, not all dogs.

If the dog grabs the chicken off the counter, and an hour later you say oh shit, and zap the dog, the dog doesn't connect the two events.

OP is doing this:

My dog kept getting into things (trash, food, couch) whenever I would leave the house but not when I was present. My trainer said to use an internet camera and correct whenever he would get into the trash and that’s exactly what I did.

Unless OP is glued to the camera, there is a delay between the dog doing whatever, and OP discovering it.

My security cameras send alerts to my phone. But if I'm walking in the woods, or out running, I'm not seeing that the Amazon guy is in my driveway till I bother looking at my phone. Same thing here.

OP is using a low level shock so his dog just doesn't give a crap.

OP isn't correcting the dog in the window where the dog would understand what's going on. Again, any delay at all, and the dog won't make the connection. OP could put the e collar on its highest level, and all they'll do is teach learned helplessness to the dog. The stim level has nothing to do with the dog understanding what's going on. The gap between an event, and the correction is what matters.

Are you one of those people that comes home after 10 hours out of the house, finds poop on the carpet, and rubs the dog's nose in it? That would make as little sense as what OP is doing.

 

[aylynfaith]

@davecb I don't understand why you would infer that from what he wrote. I think it's obvious that the correction would be made as he's looking at the camera and seeing the dog in the trash.

No I'm not one of those people what an outrageous accusation. I only shove my dog's nose and it's shit when it's freshly popped out it's arsehole.

 

[davecb]

@aylynfaith

I think it's obvious that the correction would be made as he's looking at the camera and seeing the dog in the trash.

OP is sounds like they are leaving the house. So are they supposed to keep their eyes glued to their phone, in case something happens?

 

[aylynfaith]

@davecb Yes that's how it works. You only need to punish once so it's important not to miss the moment. That means watching your phone the moment you leave the house.

Also it's a dog with a habit of trash diving so it probably does it immediately after he leaves.

 

[eve_marie]

@davecb

I don't understand correcting a dog when you're not there.

This is the only correct thing in your entire comment.

Unless you're just going to watch the camera 100% of the time, and literally do nothing else, this is a pointless exercise.

Why would they need to watch the camera 100% of the time?

You will wind up correcting the dog after the fact, so the correction is not tied to what he did.

Why wouldn't the correction be tied to what the dog did?

Put stuff away, don't leave it so the dog can get into it, and accept the fact that in your house, your dog will be on your couch when you're not home and oh well.

Or, alternatively, they can establish their own rules in their own house as they see fit. There is no reason for the dog to be on the couch when they're not home if this is what they choose.

 

[eve_marie]

@davecb

I don't understand correcting a dog when you're not there.

This is the only correct thing in your entire comment.

Unless you're just going to watch the camera 100% of the time, and literally do nothing else, this is a pointless exercise.

Why would they need to watch the camera 100% of the time?

You will wind up correcting the dog after the fact, so the correction is not tied to what he did.

Why wouldn't the correction be tied to what the dog did?

Put stuff away, don't leave it so the dog can get into it, and accept the fact that in your house, your dog will be on your couch when you're not home and oh well.

Or, alternatively, they can establish their own rules in their own house as they see fit. There is no reason for the dog to be on the couch when they're not home if this is what they choose.

 

[davecb]

@eve_marie

Why wouldn't the correction be tied to what the dog did?

Shortly after OP leaves their house at 8AM, Fido hops up and grabs a loaf of bread off of the counter.

At noon, OP sees that the loaf of bread is gone, and corrects the dog.

How does the dog make that connection? I'm missing the part where dog memories work like that.

Or, alternatively, they can establish their own rules in their own house as they see fit. There is no reason for the dog to be on the couch when they're not home if this is what they choose.

Honestly? If OP can't keep a dog off of the counter when they're not home, they are 1000% not going to keep this dog off of the sofa. Most people have very fluid "rules" (if we can call them that) about furniture and dogs. If OP lets this dog on the sofa at all, without setting very strict parameters, OP is going to have the dog on the sofa.

 

[eve_marie]

@davecb Saying the dog steals a loaf of bread at 8am and the owner notices it at noon and corrects the dog 4 hours later shows you have no idea what you're talking about, or what their trainer suggested they do.

Do you really, truly, believe that was the intention? Use the camera to light the dog up when you check it on your lunch break? Why not just want until you get home, see it's gone, and do the same thing? Come on now.

The camera is to catch the dog in the act of counter surfing when you're not "around", where the act of jumping on the counter itself is what causes the correction from the dog's point of view.

They also didn't mention anything about letting the dog on the couch while they're home, but not wanting it up there when they're gone. What post did you read?

This sub is fucking done if this is the type of stuff that gets up voted now.

 

[dpardue]

@eve_marie Either the timing is off, the stim isn't high enough or the dog has no clue what the stim even means.

If the dog is only getting a correction 1 time out of 10, chances are it doesn't understand where the stim is coming from, as it doesn't occur every time. Otherwise eating out of the trash is more reinforcing than a 25 level stim and the dog doesn't give two craps. OR the dog has not got a clue what the stim means; does it come when the dog has an intention of going towards/into the trash, are they already eating out of it, or has been emptied out already? That all can cause confusion or unclear communication if the timing is different every time OP stims.

I'd work on the dog while at home to clear a firm boundary about the bin, that'll already make it easier.

 

[eve_marie]

@dpardue The timing and everything else you mentioned comes down to the skill of the owner/trainer and is something the trainer should have worked on with them already, or done themselves while they were there.

That's completely independent of the actual idea of what they're trying to do, which is what the person I replied to is saying won't work. Because they don't know what they're talking about. They think the camera is to record evidence of the dog getting into the garbage while the owner is away, present this evidence to the dog when they get home, and then correct the dog, basically.

That is a completely asinine interpretation of the entire scenario, and is another example showing how the majority of people bitching and moaning about tools, pressure, and corrections aren't basing their opinions on anything even remotely approaching knowledge or experience.

Of course they should be working on it while they're at home. Why wouldn't they? Like any other training, they should be setting it up and not waiting for the dog to do something organically. That's one way to not have to worry about only catching the dog 10% of the time.

 

[davecb]

@eve_marie

The camera is to catch the dog in the act of counter surfing when you're not "around", where the act of jumping on the counter itself is what causes the correction from the dog's point of view.

OP wrote:

I’ve been correcting him on a level 25 on the educator e-collar and he lets out a yelp but he is continuing to do it.

If OP is correcting this dog to the point that the dog yelps and continues to counter surf, OP's correction isn't doing anything.

If you nick a dog to the point where he yelps, but he still goes back on the counter, the correction isn't working, and upping the level on the collar still won't produce results. All that happens is the dog is fried, and some will have superstitious behaviors, as part of the shitty fall out.

Why isn't OP's correction working? Again, unless they're sitting there, staring at their phone, to watch their camera, they will miss the nanosecond in which they should correct this dog. Miss that window, and you're just stimming the dog for no reason that the dog will understand.

And all of this assumes that OP knew how to properly collar condition a dog and worked with a trainer who knows how to do that.

If this were your dog, is this how you'd train it?

 

[eve_marie]

@davecb It isn't working because it's not a correction.

Vocalizations have nothing to do with the level being too high or not. It's a correction when it eliminates a behaviour. By definition positive punishment is used to reduce the frequency of a behaviour. A correction is positive punishment. If it's not reducing, or eventually extinguishing a behaviour it is by definition not a correction.

A correction isn't, "my dog vocalized therefore it's a correction". This is very basic stuff. The dog determines what a correction is, not some arbitrary number you're going to assign to all dogs.

Why does everyone bring up the owner not looking at the camera? Have any of you actually trained a dog before? Honestly.

The entire point of the camera is to set up a scenario in which the dog will try to get into the garbage while watching the camera so they can correct it. This is not complicated. Any type of training you do needs to be set up with a goal in mind. It's not, "oh shit, better check the camera. He's eating the garbage where's my remote!?" type shit.

Yes, there will be superstitious behaviour around the garbage can because that's the point and why it works when you aren't around. This is also why you don't want the dog to think you were involved in any way. Hence, the camera.

The dog thinks, "Last time I tried that it fucking sucked. I'm not going to try it again." Even if the dog is concerned about going into the kitchen for a bit immediately after receiving the correction, guess where the garbage is?

I would much rather correct my dog than walk into the kitchen and see a massive vet bill or them dead on the floor.

 

[davecb]

@eve_marie

I would much rather correct my dog than walk into the kitchen and see a massive vet bill or them dead on the floor.

And I don't understand why OP leaves stuff on the counter, but here we are.

Putting stuff away makes it 100% sure that the dog can't grab it. OP is going to think that the problem is all solved, and leave a bag of gum or onions or chocolate and then oops.

The entire point of the camera is to set up a scenario in which the dog will try to get into the garbage while watching the camera so they can correct it.

It sounds like OP isn't doing that. OP is literally leaving the house, and then hoping to see the dog on their security camera, getting into things.

I have no idea what OP is leaving on the counter, but it's enough to attract the dog.

Have you ever collar conditioned a dog btw?

 

[eve_marie]

@davecb Did I miss a comment where they're leaving the house and hoping to see the dog get into things? By leaving the house, do you mean going outside or leaving to get groceries type thing?

Conditioned what collar, an e-collar? No, never. I won't touch the things because someone told me aversives only make everything worse.

 

[daniel1990]

@skilletboy I wouldn’t suggest doing this, and I don’t know a trainer who would suggest this over crate training (or containing the dog in a safe room or x-pen.)

 

[clintpauljohnson]

@daniel1990 I use crates and gates with young and new dogs because they are a great preventive for this kind of thing. But if you have an established problem behavior, I don't think it's so obvious that 10-15 years of being shut away is better than a few well timed corrections.