The E-Collar Debate

If you've spent any time in dog training circles — online or in person — you've probably run into this argument. It gets heated fast, and both sides usually leave more convinced they were right than when they started.

So let's talk about e-collars honestly, without picking a side just for the sake of it.

What's actually being debated

An e-collar (electronic collar, sometimes called a "shock collar" by critics or a "stim collar" by users) delivers an electrical stimulation to a dog, usually via remote control, at a range of intensities set by the handler.

The debate isn't really about whether the technology can affect behaviour. It can. The real debate is whether it should be used, on whom, and in what context.

One thing I want to be careful about here: you'll often hear low-level settings described as "barely felt" or "just a tingle". I'm not going to make that claim, because we genuinely don't have the data to back it up. A dog's outward reaction — or lack of one — doesn't necessarily tell us much about what he's actually experiencing.

I boxed when I was younger, and getting hit in the face doesn't make me wince or flinch the way you'd expect. What you'd actually see is me closing the distance, chin tucked, guard up, working my jab to find my range.

Or take getting a tattoo. It's genuinely sore, but I'll sit there laughing and chatting with the artist the whole time.

Neither of those situations means I wasn't feeling pain. It means outward behaviour and expression can be a poor guide to what's actually being felt, even in humans who can tell you afterwards exactly how much something hurt.

Dogs can't tell us.

So when someone says a low-level stim "doesn't hurt" or that the dog "barely notices it", that's an assumption presented as fact — not something we can confidently know from the dog's outward response alone.

Where I land

I'll be upfront about my own view, because I think you deserve to know where a trainer stands before you take their advice.

I think e-collars may have a narrow, defensible place in some specialist working-dog contexts — search and rescue, military and emergency service dogs, for example — where the stakes can be extraordinarily high and the dogs are typically trained by highly experienced specialists in tightly controlled circumstances.

That's not the world most of us live in.

In pet dog training — the world I work in, with family dogs and everyday behaviour problems — I don't use e-collars, and I don't build them into my training programmes.

Not for reactivity.

Not for recall.

Not for aggression.

Not for anything.

That's true regardless of how serious or stubborn the behaviour problem is.

Why I've landed there

A few things have shaped this, beyond just an abstract training philosophy.

I've worked with two dogs whose owners had previously used an e-collar before coming to me — one a high prey-drive dog, one showing aggression.

In both cases, the behaviour ended up managed rather than fully resolved.

I want to be careful here: I can't say the e-collar caused that outcome. Correlation isn't causation, and there are a dozen other variables at play in any dog's history.

But it didn't strike me as a shortcut to a lasting solution either.

I've also had clients told — by someone else — that an e-collar was "the only fix" for their dog's behaviour.

When I referred that dog for a vet check first, we found an underlying medical cause that explained what was going on.

No e-collar was ever going to solve that, because the "behaviour problem" wasn't a training problem at all.

That's stuck with me.

Jumping to a training tool before you've ruled out pain, illness or another medical driver of behaviour is a real risk, whatever training method is on the table.

What the research actually says — and doesn't

I don't want to write a section like this and then simply assert things, so here's what's actually out there, as fairly as I can put it.

One of the most frequently cited UK studies is Cooper, Cracknell, Hardiman, Wright and Mills (2014), published in PLOS ONE and based on a DEFRA-funded research project.

The study compared welfare and training outcomes in dogs trained with remote electronic collars with dogs trained without them. The researchers found no consistent training advantage for the e-collar group, while identifying greater welfare concerns compared with reward-based training.

A later study by China, Mills and Cooper (2020), published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science, specifically examined training efficacy. It compared e-collar training with two non-e-collar approaches and concluded that there was no evidence that e-collar training was necessary to achieve good recall and obedience outcomes.

That paper was subsequently challenged by Sargisson and McLean (2021), who raised concerns about the study design and analysis. Among other things, they pointed out differences in where and by whom the groups were trained, and questioned whether the conclusions went beyond what the study design could properly demonstrate.

China, Mills and Cooper then published a response defending their methodology and conclusions, while acknowledging some of the limitations raised. They also pointed to other welfare data from the wider research programme, including behavioural indicators consistent with aversion during e-collar training.

I mention this exchange for a reason.

It doesn't mean "the science proves one side and that's the end of the discussion". It means the evidence needs to be looked at properly, including the criticisms of individual studies.

There is also older research, including Schilder and van der Borg (2004) and Schalke et al. (2007), examining behavioural and clinical responses associated with electronic collar use in different contexts.

So there is a body of research raising welfare concerns around aversive electronic training. But there are also legitimate methodological arguments about how individual studies should be interpreted, and about whether findings from one context can automatically be applied to every possible use of an e-collar.

That's an important distinction.

What I haven't found is research that allows us to confidently say, simply from observing a dog, exactly what a particular low-intensity electrical stimulation feels like to that individual dog.

And that's the point I raised earlier.

A dog showing little outward reaction doesn't automatically tell us that the sensation was insignificant.

Equally, we shouldn't pretend we can directly measure a dog's subjective experience simply by looking at him.

That's where being honest about the limits of the evidence matters.

Sources referenced in this section:

• Cooper, J.J., Cracknell, N., Hardiman, J., Wright, H., Mills, D. (2014). The Welfare Consequences and Efficacy of Training Pet Dogs with Remote Electronic Training Collars in Comparison to Reward Based Training. PLOS ONE.

• China, L., Mills, D.S., Cooper, J.J. (2020). Efficacy of Dog Training With and Without Remote Electronic Collars vs. a Focus on Positive Reinforcement. Frontiers in Veterinary Science.

• Sargisson, R.J., McLean, I.G. (2021). Commentary: Efficacy of Dog Training With and Without Remote Electronic Collars vs. a Focus on Positive Reinforcement. Frontiers in Veterinary Science.

• Cooper, J.J., Mills, D.S., China, L. (2021). Response: Commentary — Remote Electronic Training Aids; Efficacy at Deterring Predatory Behavior in Dogs and Implications for Training and Policy. Frontiers in Veterinary Science.

• Schilder, M.B.H., van der Borg, J.A.M. (2004). Training dogs with help of the shock collar: short and long-term behavioural effects. Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

• Schalke, E., Stichnoth, J., Ott, S., Jones-Baade, R. (2007). Clinical signs caused by the use of electric training collars on dogs in everyday life situations. Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

What I'd want you to take from this, either way

If you're a pet owner reading this because you're at your wit's end with a difficult behaviour, please don't take this post as "there's one right answer and here it is".

Training is genuinely more nuanced than that, and there are experienced, ethical trainers who hold different views on tools than I do.

What I'd encourage instead:

• Rule out medical causes first. Sudden or severe behaviour changes deserve a vet visit before they get a training label.

• Ask why a method is being recommended, not just whether it "works". Suppression of a behaviour and resolution of what's driving it aren't always the same thing.

• Know that referral is normal, not a failure. I refer clients elsewhere when a case is beyond what I feel I can safely help with — including, sometimes, to trainers who do use tools I don't. That's not me passing the buck; it's making sure your dog gets help suited to the actual problem, from someone with the right experience for it.

A word on medication, while we're on the topic

This sometimes comes up in the same conversation, so it's worth addressing directly.

Behavioural medication prescribed by a vet isn't about "drugging the dog into compliance". In appropriate cases, it can reduce anxiety or other underlying difficulties enough that the dog is actually in a better state to learn and benefit from behavioural work.

Medication isn't a replacement for training, and it isn't necessarily a permanent fixture either. For some dogs it may be used temporarily as part of a wider behaviour plan; for others, longer-term medication may be appropriate.

The important thing is that it should be considered as part of an individualised veterinary and behavioural plan, rather than as a way of simply suppressing behaviour.

Where does that leave the debate?

Probably not resolved — and I don't think it needs to be, for every trainer or every owner to land on the same answer.

But I'd rather you understand the reasoning behind a recommendation than simply be told what to do.

That's true of this topic, and honestly, most others in dog training too.

The more complicated the behaviour, the more important that becomes.

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Have questions about your own dog's behaviour, or want a second opinion before committing to a particular training approach? Get in touch — I'm always happy to talk it through. I'll get back to you in my own time, depending on my health and other commitments.