I've never trained with a collar just because I've never learned how. A man that has time to socialize his dog well can do that but I can't see how a professional trainer can train that many without the assistance of a collar. And I have seen some shell shocked dogs in he past due to the collar but that seems to be in the past for the most part. I have in recent years seen some fine retrievers that were all trained using a collar.
I know this is an older thread but I can tell you that an intelligent dog trained to an e collar is a beautiful and humane thing. My dogs are trained to a wireless invisible fence and neither now have a need to wear the e collar to respect the boundary. I use the collar on. limited bases in retriever training but almost never in the field. However, some dogs will run through an invisible fence and will ignore an electric chair's worth of shock, especially if the person operating it is not themselves trained in its operation.
If you have ever watched a dog being forced-fetched trained, then you will understand that the collar is not nearly the worse thing that can be done to a dog. MG
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