Why are electric shock collars cruel?

[BelieveInLife]

Apart from that obviously it's horrible to give any living creature a deliberate electric shock...

My friend has just started using one on her lab and I'd really like to be able to tell her actual facts about why they're bad...ie. anyone know the longer term health implications etc?

[DooinMeCleanin]

There are no health implications afaik. It's behavioural implications your friend needs to worry about.

e.g dog barks at bird, gets shocked, dog happened to be stood next to small child when this shock occured. Dog believes small child hurt him, dog see's bird, dog is near small child, dog bites small child before he can inflict pain upon him again.

There have also been dogs who have been known to to bite people with mobile phones or remote controls because they associate the shape (similar to a shock collar button) with pain.

[Kendodd]

I have an electric shock collar with a fence. It beeps like parking censers when the dog get close before shocking. It stops her devoting her whole time to trying to get over/under/around the fence and running away to see if she can find any chickens/guinea pigs/rats etc to kill.

[midori1999]

They can and do malfucntion and when they do they leave horrific burns on the dog, truly awful.

Behavioural implications as Dooin has said, the dog can think the shock came from something about at the time of the shock, such as a child, cat, the owner and not just bite them at the time, but become seriously aggressive because of it.

They can also make dogs very fearful.

Valhalla has posted about a dog they have in rescue who now attacks anyone with something they deem to look like a remote control for an e-collar as they are so traumatised.

[YeahBut]

Because they inflict pain on a dog.
I can see no difference between a shock collar and whacking a dog with a stick. Neither option is going to leave you with a well trained, balanced dog.

[Scuttlebutter]

Thankfully they have been made illegal in Wales.

[ThatVikRinA22]

training should be done through reward for good behaviour not pain for bad that the dog cant associate with what.

i have a rescue dog, she is intelligent and took nothing to train using treats and rewards, i simply dont understand why inflicting pain on your dog is thought to be a good method of training.