My goodness, it sounds awful! Horses are anxious enough animals as it is without them getting zapped every time they go to munch on a wooden railing.

I think my gelding would have a heart attack :-/

-- Edited by sedonasilver on Monday 25th of October 2010 01:26:46 AM

Here are my thoughts. First I haven't used it on a horse (duh, wonder why not eh?), but I have used one rarely on dogs. They do not have to be set to be painful in order to work. That being said, How do you know how much pain the animal is feeling. Horses are pretty notorious for hiding pain (as are some dogs, some dogs are impervious to pain), so you won't know what your horse is feeling at a particular level of "stimulation". ANother point is, it is really really easy to misuse the collar by timing the shockz(lets call it a "tingle") wrongly, and the animal could learn the opposite of what you intended. Then comes my biggest two reasons for thinking this collar is a REALLY BAD IDEA. One is you can shock an animal to discourage a behavior, but you haven't taught him what behavior you wanted instead, so he has to come up with something and you might not like what he comes up with. The other is the types of behaviors this method is suggested for. Horse vices often have a reason why they developed. If it is from the stress and boredom of confinement, or frustrating natural urges like chewing, moving around, seeing the outside world, interacting with other horses, and just poking around, then shocking them because they are in a frustrating environment doesn't seem quite fair now does it? Give them turn out to trot around, give them some kind of low grade hay to chew around on, give them some scenery, cars passing, other horses, a barn mate, plenty of exercise, a job, and they probably won't have much reason for vices. You can try the gadget out on yourself, but what you should really do, is try to spend just one entire day and night in a stall, or tiny turn out pen, and then you will understand why horses go crazy. I once had to be confined to a hospital bed for several weeks, and I can tell you what stir crazy feels like, something like bouncing between anxiety and depression continuously. My heart was racing sitting in a bed doing nothing, and I had a bad case of what a vet would have called colic (which was not caused by my original problem and stopped as soon as I got out of the hospital). If a confined horse is also dealing with sore muscles or feet from standing around for hours at a time, it's a wonder they cooperate at all just because someone comes by to ride them for an hour or so a day.
Okay, done with my vent.

-- Edited by Marlene on Monday 25th of October 2010 09:48:30 PM

Horses have vices because of personality and/or circumstances. If they are comfortable and feel safe, they will not have these vices.
Where exactly do electric shocks come into play?
I am appalled by the human race.