Originally Posted by jackson

Laudenham, regardless of the behaviourist or trainer seen, the method is only as good as the person applying it. On top of that, a high proportion of training classes and 'behaviourists' are useless. Sadly, negative reinforcers or aversives are far easier to use and take far less time to train with. I don't doubt they work, but they work for the wrong reasons.

If a dog persists in an undesirable behaviour, it is for one of two reasons. Either the dog hasn't been taught a reason not to do it, or something or someone in the environment is reinforcing the behaviour.

I don't buy into the arguement that some dogs lives are improved or saved due to electric or prong collars. You don't put a dog to sleep because it can't be let off a lead in the open, you keep it on the lead, exercise it off lead only in safe, enclosed areas, or use a long line. In situations in which a dog had behavioural issues that REALLY might require it to be PTS, I seriously doubt shock collars would work, and where they did, they would simply result in a shut down, unhappy dog.