How young is too young to use a shock collar? What age do y'all recommend? Please no comments about how I shouldn't use a shock collar, I honestly just don't care to hear it.

Great question. After the pup has learned some commands. One size does not fit all but six months is a good starting point.

I've been told to let the pooch wear the e collar while you train obedience, but don't turn it on or use it with any setting. That way the collar just means fun time. If I'm wrong I will be corrected as I am no trainer.

yeah about 6 months, when adult teeth are in.

"I've been told to let the pooch wear the e collar while you train obedience, but don't turn it on or use it with any setting."

That is more to prevent a collar wise dog but yeah it can easily be associated with "fun time".

When I was using it, I did not want it to mean anything at all to the dog in order to prevent collar wisness.

Why do you think you will need a shock collar?

It sound like you need to follow a good program for using a shock collar as more questions are going to come up and all of them cannot be easily answered in a forum.

The e-collar is very misunderstood and can easily be abused.

Some programs use the collar as early as 3-4 months old. It is very light...barely perceptible and never used for a correction at that age. It's used to re-enforce a command they are already doing. This is in Hillmann's puppy program.

If you are talking about using the collar for collar conditioning then it would come after FF or at least as mentioned above after adult teeth are in somewhere between 5-8 months old.

An e-collar or training collar (it's not a shock collar) can be used to reinforce taught commands as soon as the dog is mature enough to understand correction. Age is usually six months but as stated some programs start as early as 16 weeks.

The key is that the E collar is not used to teach. Only you can read whether your pup is mature enough or far enough in training for collar conditioning.

Good luck.

I have two GSP puppies. One is 5 months and we use her collar since she was about 3 months. We dont use the shock function, though. It has vibrate and beep that she responds to VERY well. Started by leash training and when you "tug tug" on the leash, tap the vibrate. Thats how we taught the association that it was us telling her what to do and not some evil monster shaking her neck.

I had my lab wear the e-collar since she was 7 wks old as not to become collar wise. She now gets really excited whenever she sees the collar come out as it only means 'good times' for her.

But I started using the e-collar when I was ready to reinforce off leash obedience work... this was about 6 months for me. I would suggest you put the collar around your arm and use it on you first so you have an idea how the 'shock' feels. At the very lowest of settings it isn't much.

One thing I did notice was my training got much better when I started actually using the e-collar. I was able to make my corrections at the exact time I wanted which translated into better communication with the dog.