10 month old Aussie - bit our neighbor

Question
QUESTION: Hi,
I've been reading through your site and seeing some common themes.  I'm sad to report we had a similar incident happen - our 10month old Aussie female nipped our next door neighbor's son.   We are really concerned, because this is not the first time she's gone after a child in our yard, (though she's never drawn blood) and we've been working with a trainer to help correct her.  We've worked on teaching her to heel and learn "place" to go to when we tell her and to stay there until released.  She's very smart and has learned quickly with the help of a correction collar.   We do exercise her pretty regularly and she's well fed and cared for in general.
However, now that we've had this event with our neighbor, both my husband and I are concerned we are never going to be able to trust her fully again.   We have a big yard and would like to have our neighborhood friends over and want nothing more than to have the dog outside with us.   We are willing to do whatever is needed to help her, but will we ever be able to regain our trust with her?  We do not want to risk her biting and potentially injuring someone.

Thanks for your help.

ANSWER: When you say "correction collar" I'm not sure I know what you mean.  Slip (choke) collar, prong collar, shock collar?  Which?  Personally, I would use NONE of these devices.  One reason is that you run the risk of the dog making an improper association.  In other words, if, for example, your dog is shocked (or otherwise corrected) when she heads for a child, the dog could make the erroneous assumption that the *child* caused her neck to hurt.  That sets up a situation where, if the dog is left to her own devices, she may decide to launch a pre-emptive strike by biting the child to keep it away from her in an effort to prevent pain in her neck.  Some Aussie lines are very "guardy" and "herdy" and are not safe to leave to their own devices with strangers.  If your dog was not *extensively* socialized as a young puppy to all kinds of people, you probably shouldn't assume that she will be ok.  These dogs are pre-programmed to herd, and to use their mouths to poke or "grip" to do so.  If children run and screech, the dog may get agitated and want to control that activity by nipping at them.  I cannot condone the use of a correction collar, which I believe is an inhumane way to train dogs, so if you want to pursue that, I am not the person to advise you.  This Aussie was trained not to herd my horse using clicker training: http://www.youtube.com/user/sequoyahbean?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/Di3cH2T6sHc. If you want to try that method, I would suggest finding a KPCT (Karen Pryor Clicker Training) trainer in your area.  Or, find a dog behavior counselor through IAABC.  
For information about the dangers of shock collars:
http://www.greenacreskennel.com/pages/Articles/ART_No_Shock_Collars_Train_with_Y
http://www.friendsofanimals.org/actionline/Fall-2007/good_intentions.php


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for your response and I appreciate your opinion.   At the advice of another trainer, we've used both types of correction collars in the training of our dog (prong and shock).  We keep the shock collar at a very low level so its more of a tickle to her than painful, but that she understands when she's done something she's not supposed to in conjunction with a firm "no".  And, being completely honest, at 10 months, she is one of the best trained dogs you will ever see.  Everyone compliments us on her outstanding behavior.  Our only issue is with what I perceive is a strong herding instinct, which unfortunately is a major issue for us, as we cannot tolerate her biting kids.  We will take a look into a behavioral approach to this as you suggest.   Thank you for your feedback, and please realize, we are in no way treating our dog inhumanely.  I am sure there are people who misuse collars, but we are not among them.

Answer
Regardless if you think they are appropriate, shock collars cause pain, and I've never known an Aussie that couldn't be trained using reinforcement instead.  I would rather train my dogs to expect a reward for correct behavior than to be zapped when they are wrong.  If you are open-minded on this issue at all, please read "The Fallout of Coercion"
My Aussie has an advanced trick title, will lie down and let other dog's sniff her (when she'd really rather be turning around to snap at them), and will do chores around the house, too.  She's never heard the word "no" in her life!!!  What she hears are cues that she has been taught, such as "leave it" or "come" or "heel."  If punishment was working so well for you, your dog would not still do any of the things that you don't care for.  A tickle isn't punishing enough to stop a behavior permanently, so you are, in effect, just irritating her and temporarily stopping a behavior that she may inevitably repeat.  When, instead, you could be training her to default to a behavior you like.  I think you will not be happy with the eventual result here, and my advice would be to give her to an Aussie savvy home with no kids.  If you don't want herdiness, you got the wrong dog.

I'm sorry that you don't like the opinion I gave you, but you should realize that Aussies are my breed of choice, and force free training is my preferred method *for a reason* - I've seen too many herding dogs lose their spirit, bite anyway, or be turned aggressive from merely being "herdy" by the use of such devices.  Sometimes they even end up dead because few rescues or shelters will adopt out a dog that is a liability once it has bitten a child.  Apparently, you had doubts about your dog's reliability despite the fact that the dog is being trained on a shock collar, because you came to this site and you requested an opinion.  I would venture to suggest that if you choose punishment as a method, you need to understand the potential fallout.  Every dog has a threshold for exhibiting certain behaviors.  Aggression is just one of those behaviors.  Dogs that nip to herd are NOT being aggressive, they are trying to move something or stop something from moving, which is a skill that they can learn to turn on and off on cue with good training.  However, when you punish a behavior sufficiently, the dog may not exhibit it in the circumstances that are similar to when the dog was punished, but may do so again if the threshold is reached.  So, in other words, if the dog perceives that the goal is sufficient to make the punishment insufficient to stop him, he may act in a way that you won't like.  I suspect that, had you solicited the advice of a certified applied animal behaviorist, you would not be training the dog on an e-collar.  Rather, you would probably be putting the herding behavior on cue with a suitable substitute (frisbee, for example) and letting the dog herd the object instead of the kids, especially since this is a puppy.  Funny, but you are very critical of me for the advice I gave, yet I have a dog from the most intense herding lines who does not herd inappropriately because she knows which things are ok to herd and which aren't (frisbee and sheep ok, horses and kids not ok).  Proof is in the pudding, so I wish you a lot of good luck for your dog's sake.  Personally, your dog just needs a JOB to do to have an outlet for his herding ability, which is obviously considerable.  Instead, you want him to behave as if he is a Golden Retriever.  Too bad you didn't choose your breed more wisely.  It's sad to see a potentially great herding or agility dog punished for his talent.