Here is my reason for being against shock collars...not electric fencing which many of my friends use.
When i was growing up my dad raised quarter horses and always kept a blue heeler (cow dog). He had one named Maggie. She was a true bitch if you know what I mean. She'd bite the ankles of the ups man, she'd keep people from coming up to the front door. Only person she liked was my Dad and he refused to part with her although she did annoying things like running off all the time. He got a shock collar for her. One day a girl who boarded her horse at our place left her car door open to return to get something she forgot. Maggie jumped in her back seat. This poor girl drove 6 miles away before she heard a low "growwwwlll" in her backseat. She said she froze and turned her car around while speaking sweetly to mean ol' maggie laying in her back floorboard eyeballing her. While this was going on, there's my dad at the house, standing on the porch pissed that she's ran off again and hitting that button on the shock thing, so Maggie's being shocked while riding down the road with the girl who was trying to return her. We all about died when we realized what had happened and the shock collar was thrown away. My dad meant no harm, but he was a cowboy and he had his own way of doing things. He loved his animals, just got really irritated with Maggie because she was so pampered yet acted like a total biddy to anyone who approached her. Maggie eventually ran away one day never to return. Its a mystery to us all to this day. My dad had a dog lot but didn't keep her in it 24/7. He liked to let her run in the pastures which is what was in her blood to do by nature. My dad is no longer with us, but my family and I still get a kick out of picturing Maggie laying in the backseat of our terrified friend's car. So I say NO to any kind of shock collar. Electric fencing is something that I feel some need to use for their own reasons and I don't find it to be in-humane. |