So, how do you feel about torturing your patients?

During a particularly painful session with my PT, I asked him how he felt about inflicting pain on his patients. His answer was the perfect response to argue my use of aversive tools in dog training.

“So,” I began, wincing, as my physical therapist slowly smoothed his forearms containing the entire weight of his body across my IT band, “how do you feel about torturing your patients?” 

“Well,” he began, as he held steady over a particularly painful spot, “there’s a difference between hurt and harm.” 

“Tell me more,” I said, through clenched teeth, resisting the urge to kick him square in the face with my foot.

I wondered, if I did kick him, whether that would fall into the hurt or harm category. Probably harm. Don’t. Kick. Your. PT.

“I don’t enjoy hurting people, of course, but the pain ultimately makes them feel better and gets them back to their sport,” he explained. “Harm is intentional pain with no purpose.”

His words ignited my thoughts, momentarily lifting the pain that felt like a stick of dynamite exploding throughout my body.

There’s a difference between hurt and harm!

“I’m going to steal that for dog training the next time someone tells me how abusive e-collars and prong collars are!!” I exclaimed.

The dog training world is highly controversial, as you may already be well aware.

And I, as a balanced trainer who fiercely advocates for tools like prong collars and e-collars, stand on the side of the “bad guys.”

The tools I use are sorely misunderstood by the general population and by dog trainers who push the agenda that they are evil and unnecessary.

Sure, prong collars resemble medieval torture devices, but your kitchen knife doubles as a murder weapon. I’m guessing you probably don’t kill people every time you take out your knife to make your meal each evening.

I once blended my finger in an immersion blender for stupidly sticking my finger in the base to loosen some food that was stuck. Guess what? I still use my immersion blender, but you’d better believe that I make sure it’s unplugged if my finger is going anywhere near the blade.

Clever marketing portrays dog training tools as evil, abusive contraptions that cause pain and suffering (but why is no one talking about how we’re abusing our dogs with excess food and treats causing obesity, which leads to health problems, and ultimately early death?)

Adversaries argue BuT tHe ScIeNcE!!! (Yeah! How about those biased science studies that use the tools absolutely incorrectly? Why don’t the successful results of thousands of clients under the guidance of qualified trainers who know what the fuck they’re doing count as proof?)

Countries and stores are banning e-collars and prong collars (yet somehow bark collars and electric fences are still coolio?)

Got a reactive or highly anxious dog and there’s nothing more the trainer can do? Medicate them! Euthanize them! (A trainer who refuses to suggest death over tools, is known as death before discomfort in the dog world. Save for a few situations, I’m not sure in what world a so-called “humane” dog trainer thinks that death is better than a little discomfort, but we’re the villains)

The fact is, there is more than one way to train a dog. 

I’m going to repeat that again, in bold letters, accented with a colon: there is more than one way to train a dog.

Kinda like there’s more than one way to eat or run or 

Each owner has different goals they wish to accomplish with their dog. Those goals and skills may require different tools and methods.

And that’s ok.

It’s fine by me if you want a couch potato dog who only requires short walks around the neighborhood twice a day.

I don’t care if you want to use a harness to walk your dog (but don’t you chastise me for using a prong collar while your dog drags you down the street like a kite caught in a gust of wind.)

I want my dog to walk nicely, come when called every.single.time, ignore other dogs and people and think that I am the most important being on this planet.

My dog is also leash reactive and has bitten people. He needs more guidance, structure, and management than some other dogs.

I could not take my dog on the trails and out in public without the tools I use and the training method I implement.

I’d hate my dog. I hate my life with my dog.

The truth is, my dog probably would have been put down for behavioral euthanasia if I hadn’t come along. 

From the outside, he looks friendly enough. 

Sure, he explodes at the garbage truck and any motorcycle that has the audacity to drive in his presence, but at the outset, he seems like a perfectly “good boy.” 

And most of the time, he is a very good boy.

However, that appearance is the result of:

• Thousands of repetitions

• Thousands of dollars spent in training

• Constant management

• Choosing when to take him and when to leave him behind

• Setting very clear boundaries with the people in my life and with strangers and other dogs

He is not an easy dog and requires a very regimented management style that is facilitated with the use of these tools.

Because of the e-collar, I can call him off of other dogs, people, skunks, bears, and ground squirrels.

I can ensure he stays in his down when a motorcycle or dirt bike passes by on the street or trail.

I can recall him silently when we’re running with a tap tap.

I can provide effective communication to him in his language without conflict.

Does he yelp sometimes if I accidentally go too high? Sure. I say “sorry, bud!” and we move on.

Sometimes I accidentally step on his foot and he yelps. I say “sorry, bud!” and we move on.

Do I feel bad when I have to go super high to get him to instantly stop a dangerous behavior? Nope.

My intent is never to harm him. That’s the difference. Staunch antagonists claim that e-collar users are intentionally causing harm to our dogs. Not so when done correctly.

Remember: There’s a difference between hurt and harm.

I voluntarily hurt myself all the time. Hell, I have paid my PT hundreds of dollars to inflict pain on me–it’s because it keeps me on the trails, where I’m happiest. Give me all the pain if it means I can run.

There’s no way I could do the things I do with him without the style of training I’ve done. If I had remained closed minded, almost certainly, my dog would have far more bites on his record or have been killed by a motorcycle by now.

I’ll take the occasional discomfort over a dead dog or injured person any day.