Actually, they’re E-bracelets and amazingly they’re self-controlled. This is how they work; you put on a Pavlok then when you want to stop a behavior you give yourself a shock, a negative reinforcement – no different than we do with some dogs.
Where do I start? First the name is an obvious spin off of Pavlov who is often referred to as the father of Classical Conditioning – well known for ringing a bell and getting a dog to salivate. And we’ve also all seen the negative reinforcement experiences….mice are shocked for eating out of a certain bowl and they quickly stop eating out of that bowl.
As a dog trainer an electronic stimulus is in my toolbox as well. Although I’m very selective as to the types of dogs it’s used on, not to mention the behaviors involved – it can sometimes mean the difference between life and death. And if we’re discussing euthanizing a dog due to a particular behavior, I’d rather pull out all the stops and try anything that may work.
But in both cases someone else is controlling the trigger. I cannot imagine an animal ever shocking itself, nor can I imagine many people using this more than once. Years ago I was shocked by a dogs E-collar; it was so severe that I went out of my way for more than a decade to be sure I wouldn’t feel that again.
…perhaps if we gave the significant others of these folks a remote trigger, then maybe we see it change habits and behaviors 🙂
