# Really weird call off



## Jeff Oehlsen (Apr 7, 2006)

How much electricity do you think they used on the dog at the end of this video ??

It is in the last few seconds of this vid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMcXviKQiFg&feature=related

OUCH !!!!


----------



## Al Curbow (Mar 27, 2006)

Holy crap, must have been cooked


----------



## Jim Nash (Mar 30, 2006)

I've seen this type of reaction watching a PSD at a USPCA Patrol Dog Nationals . The handler was an associate of a well known civilian e-collar trainer . 

This was in obediance . Each time a command was given to the dog would react like he was being stimmed even though he had no e-collar on .

I've used the e-collar alot but I'm far from an expert with it , luckily I've never gotten this reaction with any of my dogs .


----------



## Lou Castle (Apr 4, 2006)

Jim Nash said:


> I've seen this type of reaction watching a PSD at a USPCA Patrol Dog Nationals . The handler was an associate of a well known civilian e-collar trainer .


I bet I know who you're referring to. I've argued about the use of Ecollars with both of them. 



Jim Nash said:


> This was in obediance . Each time a command was given to the dog would react like he was being stimmed even though he had no e-collar on .


This just shows how powerful the Ecollar is. The dog is making the association between the massive level of stim that these folks are famous for using and the command. It's nothing but Pavlovian conditioning. Instead of salivating when he hears a bell, that dog jerks and flops when he gets a command. 

These folks often get good field performance but they have no idea what it's done to their search work, the very reason that we use dogs in LE. They often do quite well in such competitions but have lost sight of the scent work. 



Jim Nash said:


> I've used the e-collar alot but I'm far from an expert with it , luckily I've never gotten this reaction with any of my dogs .


It's not just luck Jim. I'd bet that it's an understanding of the need for balance in training combined with an eye to maintaining all aspects of a dog's work rather than focusing on just one aspect of it. 

It's a shame really. This kind of treatment isn't necessary at all. Getting an out on a dog that's refused to release the bite is something that I'm frequently called upon to do. I've never failed and have never gotten this reaction from any dog. In fact people watching have to be told when I'm pressing the button because the dog's reaction to the stim is so subtle. 

This sort of training comes from trainers who think that the way to get an out is to give harder and harder corrections until the dog releases. To them the Ecollar is just another step up on the pain scale.


----------



## Kristen Cabe (Mar 27, 2006)

Wow. 





typing more to meet the required 10 character limit


----------



## Jeff Oehlsen (Apr 7, 2006)

Quote: These folks often get good field performance but they have no idea what it's done to their search work, the very reason that we use dogs in LE. They often do quite well in such competitions but have lost sight of the scent work. 

So, I don't get it, the misuse of the e-collar affects the search and scent work ???


----------



## Jim Nash (Mar 30, 2006)

Jeff , 

I can just tell you from my experiance and it's not just related to the use of an e-collar , but in search work a balance must be met where the dog is focused on the search but still able to respond to the handler's commands . 

I've seen too much obediance work ( not just with the e-collar ) where the dog's search work is effected . They don't range far and their reaction once they get in scent is not very strong or with some I've seen avoidance to the scent once they are in it , the handler doesn't even know the dog hit the scent many times. I've seen this at seminars I've attended or taught at . These dogs often are VERY obediant and they impress other handlers with there basic and "tactical" OB but when it comes to searching and locating suspects they suck . What I see is a dog that is more focused on the handler's next command because they know they must react very quickly to it . The dog is associating more with responding to the handler then finding the badguy . For me the equation is off with these dogs . Too much obediance not enough rewarding search work training .


----------



## Jeff Oehlsen (Apr 7, 2006)

Ok, that is what I thought, I just thought maybe with some unbelievable misuse, that part of the brain was damaged.

I see the same thing in bitework with older dogs that are corrected for going to the end of the line Koehler style......about the only fault I have with his methods, although one easily avoided.


----------



## Lou Castle (Apr 4, 2006)

Jim Nash said:


> Jeff ,
> 
> I can just tell you from my experiance and it's not just related to the use of an e-collar , but in search work a balance must be met where the dog is focused on the search but still able to respond to the handler's commands .
> 
> I've seen too much obediance work ( not just with the e-collar ) where the dog's search work is effected . They don't range far and their reaction once they get in scent is not very strong or with some I've seen avoidance to the scent once they are in it , the handler doesn't even know the dog hit the scent many times. I've seen this at seminars I've attended or taught at . These dogs often are VERY obediant and they impress other handlers with there basic and "tactical" OB but when it comes to searching and locating suspects they suck . What I see is a dog that is more focused on the handler's next command because they know they must react very quickly to it . The dog is associating more with responding to the handler then finding the badguy . For me the equation is off with these dogs . Too much obediance not enough rewarding search work training .


Oh look. Someone who really understand this issue! So many don't. And many deny that it's a problem. But you'll notice that they ONLY post videos of their field work, ALMOST NEVER of their search work. The one time that one of them did, it was obvious that the dog was not searching until the handler cued him that he was on scent by changing his chatter. And even then, the search work was weak. 

The problem is the shift of focus from the environment to the handler. The dog is anticipating a command because it's so often (sometimes EVERY TIME) associated with a painful stim. And so his focus, instead of being on finding or working a scent, is on the handler. The handler actually becomes a distraction. 

It's not that the Ecollar has affected the dog's nose or his brain, it's that he's no longer spending all of his energy and brain power searching. 

When you ask those folks about this, they refer you to sales figures or point to trophies they've won, neither of which has anything to do with the difficult scent work that's done in detection or searching for humans.


----------



## Lou Castle (Apr 4, 2006)

Jeff Oehlsen said:


> Ok, that is what I thought, I just thought maybe with some unbelievable misuse, that part of the brain was damaged.


If you mean "some part of [the handler's] brain, I'll agree. Lol.


----------



## Jeff Oehlsen (Apr 7, 2006)

I couldn't imagine it was true, but I have seen everything be horribly abused at one time or the other, and figured that much electrical current, why not ??


----------



## Lou Castle (Apr 4, 2006)

It's pretty impossible with today's Ecollars. The current flows the path of least resistance. That's going to be between the contact points, about 1 1/4" apart and with a bit of penetration into the dog's skin. But the output of today's Ecollars is from 3 volts to about 500 volts (when the resistance is added to the equation) at extremely low values of current and it's impossible to cause any kind of physical damage with one. Additionally, the current goes nowhere near the dog's brain. 

There's an older brand of Ecollar and there are still some unit in Europe, never seen one here, called the Scheker Teletakt (or something close to that). It had the contact points on either side of the dogs neck and was famous for having much higher levels of stim than today's collars. Almost the entire length of the collar strapwas lined with batteries. With levels of stim that high and the contact points that far apart, it's hard to say just where that stim went. 

I've heard tell of some training clubs in Europe that use a hard–wired Ecollar with wires that run to several sets of 12V car batteries in the trunk of a car parked on the field. Again, hard to say where that stim went.


----------



## ann schnerre (Aug 24, 2006)

i had to watch the last 20 secs a time or 2, re-read the title of the thread before the lightbulb came on as to what i was really seeing. didn't help that my volume is nonfunctional at the moment or that i'm a newbie. HOWEVER, once the lightbulb DID come on, well, that WAS really weird. REALLY weird.

jeff--do you know if points were lost (or would be) here?


----------



## Jeff Oehlsen (Apr 7, 2006)

It was a good call off, as it was close and the dog didn't bite.


----------



## ann schnerre (Aug 24, 2006)

that's what i figured....but christ, that dog nearly did either a back flip or ran into a wall. 

it seemed really driven going out--why wouldn't it eventually associate any send out with getting burned and quit being so eager to go? just b/c of the random nature of sometimes getting a good fight?


----------



## Jeff Oehlsen (Apr 7, 2006)

It is a Malinois. Gotta figure for years and years with the type of selection used that this is what they produce. Without knowing what type of knothead dog this is, it is too hard to speculate.


----------



## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Jeff Oehlsen said:


> It is a Malinois. Gotta figure for years and years with the type of selection used that this is what they produce. Without knowing what type of knothead dog this is, it is too hard to speculate.


This is a lot of the reason I like the GSD. They think!
Seems the Mal will do the same thing over and over in drive and not connect the dots between the action and the correction.
The two that I had were good in drive but total shitters when they stopped to think about what they were doing.
I realize this is a general statement.
I've also see a GSD that could be platzed on every single sendout and never look back or slow down in anticipation. All it knew was that "My tug is out there!" "My tug is out there"! It had it's advantages!


----------



## ann schnerre (Aug 24, 2006)

hmmm.....

so i guess best case scenario is the nearly-mythical perfectly balanced dog "somewhere" between this Mal and the earlier GSD who looked to me, on ONE GLANCE, as if it might benefit from a bit more drive to engage combined with perfect training...

NO! i'm not going down that road again, and no one can make me. never mind. 

and i won't make the comment on how a good GSD "thinks" (and therefore would quit on the send out if subjected to this evidently excessive e-correction). oops--already made it..

i can't wait to see how your pups get along jeff-truly, i'm excited for you and them 

haha bob, we were posting at the same time


----------



## Jeff Oehlsen (Apr 7, 2006)

We will see.

The whole thing is a balancing act, and sometimes, maybe with the dog that did the acrobatic call off, he was just flat out gonna bite, and it required some crazy amount to get it to work.

Pretty sure that is the deal, as this is a conditioned response, and that does not occur in a couple of weeks of training.


----------



## Lou Castle (Apr 4, 2006)

Bob Scott said:


> Seems the Mal will do the same thing over and over in drive and not connect the dots between the action and the correction.
> The two that I had were good in drive but total shitters when they stopped to think about what they were doing.



If all you do is bash the Mal with pain repeatedly all you get is a hectic, crazy unreliable dog. But that's hardly necessary. My method works on both breeds and gives a thinking dog in both cases. It's just a matter of changing the thinking from one of "I'm being stopped from doing something I want to do" to "This is just part of what I want to do."


----------



## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Lou Castle said:


> It's just a matter of changing the thinking from one of "I'm being stopped from doing something I want to do" to "This is just part of what I want to do."


In all seriousness, that is one very profound statement. 

DFrost


----------



## Lou Castle (Apr 4, 2006)

Earlier I wrote,


> It's just a matter of changing the thinking from one of "I'm being stopped from doing something I want to do" to "This is just part of what I want to do."





David Frost said:


> In all seriousness, that is one very profound statement.
> 
> DFrost


Thanks David. What's really surprising is how easy this is to do. It's a matter of using the Ecollar to teach the dog the recall from a bite and then letting him learn that it leads to a search.


----------

