I know this subject has been beaten to death on her but I have a few questions..
I have a puppy that's 3.5 months old and I've been doing some research on different trainers and methods etc. I've never owned a hunting dog before so this a new area for me.
I visited a successful trainer (who uses e-collars) to watch his dogs and check out his kennel as I am looking for someone to train my pup. I've never had any experience with e-collars but I wouldn't really call my first experience positive. First, he showed me a couple of dogs that performed flawlessly. The next dog, however, I guess didn't do what it was supposed to do during a blind retrieve, so it was shocked. The dog laid down and "screamed" for lack of a better word. The trainer called it back and I guess it continued to do the wrong thing because the shocking continued as did the screaming for probably like 2 minutes. The dog was running around trying to get away from the pain while foaming at the mouth and finally jumped inside of a nearby utility vehicle and laid down. Finally, the dog came crawling along the ground over to the trainer. The second attempt at the retrieve, the dog sort of did the right thing as it didn't get shocked as much and completed the retrieve. Is this normal?
My puppy is very smart and has a unique, confident personality. I don't want her to be reduced to a hollow, mindless robot that constantly lives in fear of getting shocked. It seems that e-collars can change the personality of a dog which isn't something I want.
Are there other forms of "correction? I understand the benefit of e-collars, and was initially open-minded about them, but now I really don't think I want anything to do with them. I don't want my dog "screaming" at any point during her training. I've read about the "old school" training methods but I'm not really trying to whack my dog with a riding crop either.
Are these the only two methods of correction or am I missing something here?
Not trying to step on anyones toes, just trying to figure out which way I need to go
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