10/06/2020
Petco recently came out with a statement regarding their position on "shock collars" or e-collars.
They stated they will no longer sell their e-collars and that's a GREAT thing. Their collars are lower quality collars that are unreliable, over stim, and cheaply made. These collars can cause issues.
The problem we have with their statement is they say E-collars cause pain and training with them is training with pain. This is misleading and makes the reader think you can't use e-collars without causing pain and shutting dogs down. They even have a petition against e-collars, which is ridiculous.
My response to this is:
1. Good, don't sell cheap collars.
2. Good collars like Ecollar technologies (we sell these), dogtra, and others are well made, reliable stim, a big range of stim (usually 100 levels) so you can use low to high levels based on the need, great customer service, and more modern/advanced technology. All of this makes these brands a safer and better option.
3. It takes a specific SKILL to train with ecollars. Many dogs are different and require different training methods. Not every dog needs an ecollar but an ecollar can be used on every dog. Knowing how and when to use these collars is a skill that most trainers don't have. It takes even MORE skill to train with ecollars and not shut the dog down. Putting an ecollar on and pressing a button is NOT ecollar training.
4. 99.9% of people I've encountered that are against ecollar use have NEVER used one and don't know how they work.
5. Petco is doing this as a PR stunt. The issue is they are trying to change laws and banning ecollars for EVERYBODY, including those of us with the skills to use them properly.
Here are my dogs/my brother's dog with ecollars doing dog things. I also have many clients who opted to use ecollars with great results.
I've met with a few people who said they'd NEVER use an ecollar or their dog/breed is too soft for an ecollar and I showed them how it can be used with their dogs. These people were open minded and found a new way to train.