@jk100991 Hey OP - I’m a psychologist and professor so I like to think I have a pretty solid background in behaviourism and the impacts of reinforcement and punishment.
Here’s the thing with using punishers for learning - it doesn’t teach the correct behaviour that should be done in place of the incorrect behaviour. So for example, if Fido jumps and the shock collar goes off, Fido doesn’t understand what he’s supposed to do instead of jumping. Confusion leads to faulty associations. This may be one of the reasons your dog was so - forgive the word - traumatized when YOU used the same painful device in your home that the bad man used in the bad place. That’s an association he hasn’t had before.
Now here’s the thing I really want to tell you, punishers stop deterring behaviour when the punisher is removed. So the regression you noticed once the collar came off was entirely predictable. Think of the raptors in Jurassic park. Everyday they tested the electric fence, and once the power was shut off and the electric fence no longer shocked the raptors, the fence stopped effectively deterring their behaviour and they escaped and bad things happened.
There’s one last thing I want to tell you about reinforcement - negative reinforcement is a stronger predictor of behaviour than positive reinforcement. What does this mean? Well imagine you want Fido to get off the sofa. Option one, you show Fido a treat and tell him to come. He does, and you give him a treat. What you did was ADD something good in order to encourage Fido’s behaviour. Now Option two: you want Fido to get off the couch, so you light the couch on fire. Fido is getting burned and obviously hates it, so he gets off the couch very quickly. The behaviour (getting off the sofa) is encouraged because Fido wants to REMOVE the awful feeling of being burned. Any animal -human, dog, pig, monkey, you name it, will seek to remove pain before it does anything else. In fact, Fido might have hated being burned so much that the sight of other sofas creates an anxious state.
So your Fido wants to stop the pain of the collar, more than he wants to listen to you. The training he received and the e-collar haven’t increased the understanding and communication between you and your dog.
One last thing, last night I was watching Pablo Escobar, the movie with Penelope Cruz. There is a scene where Pablo’s gang is torturing another drug lord by using a dog. They tie the dog to the man, and instead of hurting the man, they hurt the dog. The dog, in his pain, begins to panic and when he can’t get away from the source of the pain, he begins to bite and scratch the nearest person, which is the prisoner the dog was tied to. I think this is a great example of why your dog got more anxious, not less anxious, when the collar was being used repeatedly in front of the other dog.
Anyways. Sorry to nerd out but I though this might provide some of the scientific research that guides (or misguides) animal trainers. Feel free to msg if you have any other questions.
Punishment is a highly effective tool for shaping behaviour, but it won’t create safety, it won’t enhance communication, it’s not reliable, and it’s not a long term solution.