"I'm amazed that hunters would need a shock collar. I've had Labs for 36
years and never used one. I find if you have a quality dog (i.e. breeding)
and you spend time with them there should be no problem."
Generally, what you are doing with your dog determines if you really need a
remote training collar or not. I feel that if you can't train a dog without
an ecollar then you can't train a dog with one. It's just a tool.
It's like saying "I can't believe they use nail guns now to build
houses. This hammer does the job just fine."
Most of the training has to be done in the same fashion as it was
before electronics, but by adding electronics to it, you can speed up
the process and communicate with your dog the exact moment that he
needs a correction.
The real beauty of it is that by using them correctly, you can lower
the number of corrections needed and also lower the intensity of the
correction. You can also take out the "human" element of the
correction. Since I can correct the dog at say 200 to 500 yards with
a collar, I don't need to run him down and make a physical correction.
The only real down side to the use of electronics is in the breeding.
Since you can take a "bad" dog and make him perform at a higher level
than you could 20 years ago, more "bad" dogs are getting bred. This
makes finding a well bred dog more difficult because certain breeding
flaws can be fixed or covered up.
Of course, you can fix this by being very selective in who you buy
from. I am real picky about breeders. It's really the most important
choice you can make in your dog training. - Steve
