Has anybody thought of or tried to use ecollar technology on a raptor?

[outhawkn]

Here is my question and functional analysis about e-collar use

Did the unwanted behavior significantly reduce in frequency?
yes - then it is punishment
no - then it is abuse

I have used them and even sold them for a few years. Have not touched one in 13 years, and have a much higher success rate for training. The idea of using one for a bird is completely deplorable to me. There is no situation that I could see it being effective with a bird (or almost any animal for training purposes).

Andy

What if I'm using not to stop an un-wanted behavior but to produce a desired behavior?

[rkumetz]

What if I'm using not to stop an un-wanted behavior but to produce a desired behavior?

Can you please explain how one uses a negative stimuli to produce a desired behavior? A collar produces an unpleasant sensation that causes a dog to think something like: "hey- when I bark it is kind of unpleasant so I should probably not do that again". Which is similar to a sufficiently evolved human deciding it would not be good to touch the hot pot a 2nd time after having a negative sensation the first time.

I am not trying to flame anyone. I just can't see how this will work.

Splain............

[Mandragen]

What if I'm using not to stop an un-wanted behavior but to produce a desired behavior?

explain?

[rocgwp]

What if I'm using not to stop an un-wanted behavior but to produce a desired behavior?

This is precisely how I use an e-collar with my dogs. An e-collar is a tool I use for a short period of time in training. The e-collar is valuable in helping "generalize" a known cue and bring it under better stimulus control. George Hickox calls it contrast training and is a master at this. I don't know if I will explain it well, but here is the premise...

You use a CR (clicker) and rewards to teach a desired behavior. Once the dog is offering the behavior consistently you overlay a cue. At that point you begin only CRing and rewarding the behavior when the cue is given. When the dog will give the desired behavior on cue 80% of the time, you can move on to generalizing the cue. This is where the e-collar comes in. This also assumes you have gone through a process to teach the dog how to turn off the collar and that the dog has received some other form of negative reinforcement other than the collar (i.e. a bonker). You give the known cue to the dog. If the dog offers the behavior you click and reward. If the dog does not offer the behavior you give a different Marker Signal (One that will always precede the negative reinforcement) and the give the negative reinforcement. The trick to this working is the use of the Marker Signal preceding the negative. Because the dog understands the positive marker, they quickly understand the negative Marker Signal. Another key is that if the negative marker is given it is ALWAYS followed by a negative. Since a variable schedule reinforces a behavior (either positive or negative) you want to be consistent and always follow the Negative Marker with the negative. Otherwise, this is how a "collar wise" (or really "Correction wise") dogs is created.

What happens is the dog quickly learns that when the know cue is given, if it complies, it gets a reward. If not, it is notified with a Negative Marker and then a negative. The collar is used to teach the dog that if it does anything other than offer the desired cue, it will be given a negative. VERY quickly you see the dog offer the behavior when the first sound of the Negative Marker is given. The temptation is once the dog starts offering the behavior in response to the Negative Marker to not follow up with the actual negative. If you are consistent and give the negative anytime the Negative Marker is given, you will soon not need the negative or the negative marker. The dog will offer the behavior on cue in very demanding situations with lots of distractions.

This method works great. I've seen it work on very soft dogs and on very stubborn dogs. The e-collar is just a tool in one's training bag. It is a way to get a behavior very reliable in a relatively short period of time without putting a lot of force or pressure on the dog.

I should also mention that when I use the e-collar I use VERY LOW levels of stimulation. I go through a process of collar conditioning that teaches the dog how to turn off the collar and what the Negative Marker is. In 1-2 short sessions the dog is responding to stimulation so low that I am unable or barely able to feel it on my hands at that level. Once I took my my hardest headed wirehair through this process, he responded to a correction level of 10 out of 50 on my collar. I can't feel the stimulation on my hand until it gets to six. My current female wirehair that passed her NAVHDA Utility test with a 192 out of 204 possible points was trained with a correction level of 6.