November/December 2007

Avoiding (or Fixing) the Collar-Wise Dog
by Larry Brown

ost of today’s bird dog owners have accepted the electronic collar as a very useful and extremely effective training tool. Those who have made a relatively recent acquaintance with e-collars may not realize the significant progress made in the devices over the last 30 or so years. But e-collar veterans recall transmitters that weighed about the same as a .45 Colt. There was only one button. When you pushed it, the “stimulation” it delivered was somewhere between sizzle and fry.

Those old collars were relatively easy to misuse, especially in the hands of an amateur. While misuse is possible even with today’s e-collars (and leashes and checkcords and human hands), it’s much less likely to happen – at least in the form of ruining a dog by turning him into a quaking critter afraid of his own shadow. But what can happen – and this also falls into the category of misusing the e-collar – is that the dog can become “collar-wise.” In other words: Collar on, Spot is the picture of obedience and instant response to his handler; collar off, he’s an outlaw.

I saw one of those just last year. The owner in question had loaned his dog and e-collar to a relative. The relative did not recharge the e-collar, and the owner hadn’t bothered to check. He put the e-collar on; dog takes off; no response to verbal command; no response when he pushed the button. The only good thing about the whole scenario is that the dog hadn’t headed the direction we intended to hunt. The owner jumped in his truck to catch up with the dog. That was the last we saw of either of them.

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