I had a wonderful Golden Retriever rescue that was big and bouncy -- a "wild child". As part of the agreement with the rescue organization I had to take him to dog training. The dog trainer insisted that I use a shocker collar turned up to "5" with him to curtail his rambunctious behavior.
One of the concerns was that if he chased and CAUGHT a deer in my yard that he might get seriously hurt with flying hooves. I only shocked him once, and I hated the reaction. My trainer shocked him once for over leaping a jump in agility and skidding into the crowd of people watching with their dogs. I stopped using the collar entirely, but I discovered that when I was wearing a flash drive for my computer on a lanyard around my neck, he associated it with the shock collar controller (even though he was not supposed to know where that shock came from). If I wanted to curb his enthusiasm and to "sit", or "stay", all I had to do was to show him this little flash drive and he followed my command immediately.
OMG, I miss that dog. He died last February, and I'll never have such a wonderful dog again. And I don't think I'd ever use a shock collar on a Golden Retriever either.
Exactly my point. Once they have the association with the punishment medium, which may only take a couple of discipline sessions, they make the association and then all they need is a reminder. They have the intelligence and memory to do that - why not use it?
About missing this passed dog, maybe I’m weird, but out of the 10 or so dogs that I’ve raised that later died, I just have fond memories of most, and it’s never sad to relive those and I don’t miss them. The only exception is 2 that died in bad circumstances due to my own inexperience in one case, and stupidity in another.
You give them the best life you can, you enjoy each other, and Golden’s especially don’t have a long life so they pass in 10 years or so. The last part comes from the Man upstairs and I’m not about to question it!