What are your thoughts on e-collars?

Question

Jessica Wheatcraft · Answer

What are your thoughts on e-callers? So I would like to think of myself as somebody who can take an objective viewpoint and look at both sides of any equation. My thoughts on e-callers, my feelings on e-callers, you know, obviously stem from my own personal experiences with them. So for example, I had a colleague who was fostering a deaf dog and conditioned some tactile cues for that dog using an e-caller. The dog was perfectly happy to respond, was not stressed by it, and to me that was a perfectly acceptable use of that tool. On the flip side, I have also had a number of personal clients who have come to me after using an e-caller and whose dog's behavior and behavior problem actually got much worse because of the use of the e-caller. And some of those cases were almost bordering, in my personal opinion, trauma. The dog was literally traumatized by the misuse of that tool. And so for that reason, I have just kind of some mixed feelings about this tool. I think that it's something that can easily be misused, but at the same time, I can also see situations in which it could be used in a way that did not put undue stress onto a dog. So it's a conversation that I feel like is coming out more in the dog training world. I think it's going to be really helpful for us to continue talking about this. So I'm not sure who asked me this question, but I'm really glad that you asked because I hope that this is part of something that might be a much larger and ongoing conversation regarding this.

Joshua Broadwater · Answer

What are my thoughts on e-collars? I am a doctor for the eyes of animals, which means that all of the surgery that I do revolves around this little structure right here with very tiny stitches to hold those incisions and the devices in place that we place on the eyes. So I am a huge advocate of e-collars and they are absolutely necessary for what I do. Only the hard plastic cones typically work, the really soft ones or the doughnuts do not. Many owners have a major issue with this. They don't mind the surgical procedure we have to do or whatever we have to do, but the e-collar really bothers them because they project their own feelings of sympathy onto their dogs that their dogs are sad and most dogs do great. Within 24 hours they adjust to the cone, they're able to eat, sleep, drink with it and they do great for whatever length of time they need it. So yes, e-collars are great and absolutely necessary.

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"What are your thoughts on e-collars?"