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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]if they have the collars why didn't he use the control when the dogs misbehaved?
 [/quote]

Thanks to everyone for your responses. I was nervous around the dogs most of the visit, and now I’m feeling like I wasn’t even as concerned as I should have been. [b]I do have small children and the dogs did growl and show their teeth to the kids. [/b]

This is a good question, and I don’t know the answer. He did carry around on his belt something that looked like a walkie talkie, which I realized later was probably the controller for the collar(s), though maybe it wasn’t. It’s possible he did shock them—would I have known if he did? He reprimanded them a lot and as I said he hit one of them a couple of times, but I’m not sure if SIL or he used the collar during our visit.[/quote]

A dog should NEVER, EVER be allowed to growl and bare teeth at a human, and certainly not a child. This is a disaster unfolding. You must convey your grave concerns to this couple, and say that you will not visit them while the dogs are there, and they cannot come visit you with the dogs.

[/quote]

OP again. Thank you for this. I have been so bothered by the whole experience and wasn’t sure if I was overreacting—now I definitely feel like I wasn’t. When we first got there and didn’t yet know the extent of this SIL and her boyfriend encouraged my son to give the dog treats and to throw the treat rather than hand feed. DS wasn’t quick enough and the more aggressive of the two dogs grabbed the treat from his hand and DS told me later that he felt the dogs teeth on his fingers and it hurt. I checked and it didn’t break the skin, but it put me on edge immediately. DS likes dogs very much and didn’t want to keep his distance the way we asked him to—DH and I watched very closely from there on out. The more I think of this the sadder I get. [/quote]

Interesting. Believe me, if the dog had received no training at all, or had wanted to hurt your child, they could have bitten the fingers to the bone. So it appears that these dogs have some training, know not to bite the hand that feeds them, but then why do they growl and bare their teeth? Why the lack of control with the e-collars when that happens? The whole situation is not logical from a training point of view. I fear these people are ruining their dogs because they have misconstrued what training entails. Anyway the end result is the same - the dogs are dangerous.[/quote]

It's actually all very logical.

Likely that the dogs weren't well-socialized as puppies. Dogs who weren't socialized specifically with children as puppies often grow up to have problems with kids, because kids are small, unpredictable, grab at them, move like prey, etc. So you take a dog that is nervous around kids because they've never been around them, then they have a couple bad experience where maybe a kid grabs them, or they're punished by an adult for checking out the kid, and now the dog dislikes kids and will growl/snarl more to keep them away. I've seen this happen a LOT, the dog will tolerate being grabbed at and hurt by kids for months/years until finally they have had enough and attack a child. Everyone thinks it came out of nowhere, but it's been a time bomb that's been ticking for years.

OP's kids could have been perfectly well-behaved and even given treats, and the dogs would still be fearful because they either have little experience or very bad experiences with kids.

An e-collar in this situation would make the problem much, much worse. Because now you're taking a dog that is afraid of kids, and pairing kids with a painful sensation. Kid shows up, dog tries to tell kid to leave him alone, dog gets shocked, dog learns that kids=pain AND that growling doesn't work. So next time, the dog will want to keep the kid away even more because kids mean pain, and will escalate things because they know growling won't work so they'll switch to snapping or biting.

I use e-collars for my dogs and we NEVER do anything like this, for exactly that reason. If I shock my dogs when they are already afraid, they will only learn to be more afraid and can switch to aggression very easily. I don't even use the e-collar for things like jumping, because I don't want to punish them being happy around people or teach them that people = pain. That's not what proper e collar training is.

The dog biting OP's child fingers hard is another big indicator that the dogs were not properly socialized. A huge part of puppy socialization is "bite inhibition", which is teaching the puppy that mouths hurt others. A well-socialized dog will have learned to be extremely gentle when using their mouth on others, whether taking a treat, playing, or even biting (well-socialized dogs will use the absolute minimum amount of pressure during an aggressive bite if they need to resort to one).

It sounds like:

1. These dogs were not well-socialized, and so have fear and aggression problems
2. These problems have been made worse by the use of punishment, hitting, and e-collars.
3. The owners are using the e-collars improperly, in a way that they were not meant to be used, which will lead to further aggression.

Like I said, I use e-collars, but it's only on two of my dogs who were extremely well-socialized as puppies, and we used a very strict training protocol that caused very, very little discomfort for them. We have a third dog who received zero socialization as a puppy (was a backyard dog), because she has fear issues and any sort of pain or punishment could trigger aggression. We also do not allow this dog around our children unsupervised, never allow her around strange children, and for the most part don't even let our own kids interact with her because we are concerned she'll bite if she feels threatened. Kids are basically allowed to hand her treats and pet her only when *she* indicates she wants to be pet (I know I'm probably making it sound like this dog is super aggressive, she's not. She's very friendly and loves people, but we are just overly paranoid due to her history. She's also quite old and really just wants a quiet, retired life).

OP, I would not allow my kids around these dogs at all. They do not want to be around kids and it's a bite waiting to happen. 
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