Electronic Collars
( published in Spaniels In The Field – summer 1996 )
The use of electric collars has become so widespread in our sport, with professional trainers flocking to their use and touting their usefulness in advertisements, that I feel compelled to comment of the impact this will have on the breed we love.
An electric shock is annoying or painful or even deadly to a human, depending upon the voltage involved, but a human has an understanding of what causes a shock. To an animal, an electric shock is a terrifying experience, which is why a 2000 lb. bull can be kept in a fence with a slender wire around it. Many trainers still use the electric collar in this way. I have heard dogs screaming during training sessions before the nationals. I have referred potential clients to trainers and had them report back that they would not leave their dog because of such brutal treatment with electric collars. To those who want to use electric collars, I strongly suggest you learn to use them properly, and not vindictively. If you cannot train a dog without using a collar, you won’t be able to train one with a collar. If timing is everything in training, it is particularly so with the use of the collar. It is so easy to press that button. How far off (timewise) do you have to be to have the dog associate the shock with the bird? To quote from Howard Mesnard, “Remember the old adage; months to train, moments to spoil.”
With the new “electronic” collars, the intensity level of the shock is so low that we now call it a “stimulation”. (Am I the only person who sees some of George Orwell’s “newspeak” here?) Used properly, the dog becomes conditioned to the annoyance of the low level shock and changes his behavior to avoid it. This device makes it possible for some dogs which in former years would have been outlaws to win field trials and thereby be sought out for breeding.
What is our obligation to the springer spaniel? I have never bought in to the “improving the breed” nonsense. Some breeds, such as cocker spaniels, have been “improved” so much they are worthless. I have always felt our obligation was to be conservators of the breed; if we can keep the field spaniels as good as they have always been, we will have done a good job. The temperament and trainability of the spaniel has always been of utmost importance to spaniel breeders.
With widespread use of the electric collar, we will be selecting, consciously or unconsciously, for tolerance to its use. Even with the lowest intensity level, I feel that many of the “soft” dogs with the finest temperaments would never have been successful in trials. The gene pool for the breed will switch toward collar tolerance. We have only to look at the field trial Labradors to see the end results of this. It is my belief that the increasing use of the electronic collar is the biggest threat ever to the spaniel as we have always known the breed.
