@jaenalyn The article made it worse. This is one step away from hitting your dog. As another commenter said, I see zero compelling reason why this would be more beneficial than other methods that are more typically used.
@444chris444 I've heard of it being used to stop predatory behaviour, dog was a working breed and got even more excited when corrected by prong or e-collar. What would you use in that kind of situation?
@james700 To be fair: obscenely high prey drive was a big part of why they were there (both directly as a training priority and indirectly because it drastically limited our pet care options while traveling). The facility is on a hobby farm so they were constantly exposed to other animals, which is pertinent given how many free roaming cats are in our neighborhood and overpopulation of deer on our trail runs.
ETA: Their combined weight exceeds mine — and they know it! — so controlling predatory behavior is a major safety risk to other people’s pets, chasing into oncoming traffic, or dragging me down a cliff. If a bonker were truly the least intrusive, minimally aversive option to achieve that goal: fine. But per my post, that doesn’t seem likely.
@james700 Hey listen, not trying to judge but have you actually seen this? I have a husky mix with a crazy high prey drive that we had to work through real fast because we have free range chickens. Throwing a towel at her definitely would not have stopped her (especially considering I have terrible aim lol).
What we did was worked on foundational training such as heelwork and recall, gradually increasing the leash length and proximity to the chickens in the process.
@444chris444 Maybe you should re-read the article again then because a bonker is not, "one step away from hitting your dog." You're SUPPOSED to hit the dog with the bonker. Preferably on the crown of the head. The advantage of the bonker over the shock collar is (1) the bonker does not cause the dog pain, (2) the dog does not have to be wearing a shock collar. They rely on different psychological mechanisms to produce the punishing effect.
@cj I used to use it in the age when e-collars were not widely available. For a dog that is properly conditioned to e-collar I don't see any reason to use it, so I haven't used it since.
I guess there could be situations when the ecollar experience is ruined for the dog by poor training, so that could work instead, or when you don't have time for e-collar conditioning. If the dog is too sensitive for an e-collar, then it would probably be too sensitive for bonkers, but idk. They are also sometimes used to help with table surfing (like, you put something noisy on the table that the dog knocks off accidentally while surfing).
