Training your dog is a challenging task as it takes a lot of practice to change their natural habits. Many dog owners find a shock collar to be a useful device as it makes training their dogs easier than other tools. But, pet lovers are often confused about how shock collars might affect their dogs.
The dog owners or trainers who use shock collars to train their dogs tell that it doesn’t hurt their dogs. Although the answer is not logical, you will know why it hurts the dog once you know how it works.
How Do Shock Collars Work?
Dog owners use shock collars to train their dogs by punishing them. There are two ways you can use these collars to train your dog. The first one is to restrict your dogs from performing specific tasks. The second way is to train your dog to perform a particular task.
In the first case, you can punish your dog by giving electric shocks when they do something you don’t want them to do. For example, if you do not want your dog to go out of the lawn, you can punish it with electric shock whenever it gets out of your lawn area. It will stop your dog from going out this way.
In the second case, the trainer can ask the dog to perform a task and will start the electric shock at the same time. The trainer will not stop the electric shock until the dog completes the task. It motivates the dog to complete the tasks to avoid electric shocks.
The Impact of Shock Collars on Dogs
Now that you know how these shock collars work, you know that you cannot train your dog without hurting them if you punish them with electric shocks. These electric shocks might also affect some permanent changes in the behavior of your pet. It has adverse effects on the health of your dog in the long run. It will create fear for you or even other dogs or animals in it.
The use of electric collar training will impact the communication between you and your dogs negatively. It will further affect your relationship with your dog. It makes your dog more aggressive as it causes physical pain to your dog. Considering all these factors, it is never good to use a shock collar to train your dog.
Alternatives to Shock Collar for Your Dog Training
Why do you need to use electric shocks to train your dogs if you have better alternatives? These alternatives might take more time to train your dogs but are safer options.
You do not need to punish your dogs. These long-term solutions also stay longer and are entirely safe.
Behavior Training
Behavior training is one of the safest ways to train your dogs as it does not require any harmful tool for your dog. In behavior training, instead of punishing your dogs for the tasks you do not want them to do, you reward them for the tasks that you want them to do. Suppose you do not want your dog to jump on your visitors. You can reward it with some tasty snacks when they do not jump on the visitors.
This way, your dog repeats the same action next time for the sake of that reward. It also improves your relationship with your dogs instead of making it worse in the case of shock collars.
Spray Bark Collars
Spray bark collars are a humane way to keep your dog disciplined. They work the same way as electric shock collars work but, instead of emitting harmful electric shocks, they use safer smells that your dog doesn’t like.
Whenever your dog doesn’t follow your command, you can use the collar to spray some perfume.
The perfume will not harm your dog, and the dog will avoid the action as it doesn’t like the smell. Citronella collars are a great example. It is plant-based oil. They are safe to use, yet the dogs don’t like their smell.
Whistles
Whistles are a great tool to train your dogs without causing any harm to your lovely little pet. Whistles are a very widely-used tool to train dogs for a long time. Here you use sound waves to give commands to your dog.
Dogs can hear sound waves of more than 20 kHz, which is not the case in humans. Your pet can listen to you from far away, and it will gradually start associating a particular command with specific sounds.
These are some most common alternatives of shock collars to train your dogs without harming them. You can consider any of these methods to train your dog without risking their health.
