Recently I have had an increase in clients asking me if they should get a prong collar to have their dogs walk better on leash. While in some extreme cases a prong collar may be necessary, I do not recommend them for inexperienced owners. I personally get a more efficient result from a simple slip or martingale collar with tags on them.
Prong collars were designed to mimic a dogs mouth. The theory is: it is like having teeth around their neck, like an alpha dog would do for a correction. Problem here is an alpha does not bite a pack member on the neck for any minor mishap. This makes your dog lose respect for their leader. Just about every client I have been to who has a prong collar, has had it so tight the dog was getting a constant correction. It bites all the time. I have seen quite a few dogs become handler aggressive when receiving a correction from a prong collar, when they get that severe bite from the collar, they quickly turn and retaliate against you. I recently went on a call where the owner had been using a prong collar on a dog-dog aggressive dog. This dog was high energy, and horrible on leash (even with a prong collar). The owner had told me a trainer before was shocked that the dog could take a such a harsh correction with the prong collar and not respond. Needless to say, this dog was becoming increasingly aggressive towards her own pack. Causing such extreme bites, the owner now has to keep her completely separated. This dog has completely lost her bite inhibition. She has been “bitten” so hard by the prong collar that it is perfectly normal for her to inflict the same intensity in her bite to another dog. With one proper correction with a slip collar the dog responded and completely avoided her main target in her house, a nervous male. This is the same dog that literally bent the prongs on her prong collar from being corrected so hard.
There is alot of contraversay about slip collars and how they damage a dogs neck. My question to you is if your dog is on a regular flat buckle collar and continuously pulling, aren’t they choking? How can this not cause damage to your dog’s neck? I have been on some calls where a dog will literally turn themselves purple, and be gagging from being choked with a flat collar. With one or two proper corrections of a slip or martingale collar with tags, they respond and the leash is loose. The sound of the “pop” is what they respond to. I would rather give my dog one good correction then nag them 1000 times or bite them constantly with a prong collar. If you need help leash walking your dog correctly please contact us.
Tara, Brandie & the “pack”
March 2, 2009 at 12:20 pm |
I have been using a prong collar on my lab pup for 1 month. I took him to training class with a buckle… we moved to a martingale* and now a prong (on the advise of the trainer).
I have noticed a huge difference since the prong collar (it was immediate). He does not pull, he does not try and walk ahead and he sits when asked and his stays are getting much better. It is very rare for it to be tight (only the odd time when we meet with another dog and he gets excited). I just do a quick correction and he settles immediatly.
I’d love to discuss it further with you, as I have found that it worked very well for me.
March 2, 2009 at 3:19 pm |
Hi Kathleen
Thank you for reading my article. I have been working with aggressive dogs for nearly 20 years and have many documented cases of dogs losing their bite inhibition due to the over correcting bite they recieve from a prong collar. Many trainers call it “power steering” in dog training, I myself have been fixing aggression caused by them and have worked with plenty of dogs who have changed over from a prong to a martingale or slip successfully. As with any training tool, if you have to correct repeatedly, it is not being used properly. The unfortunate truth is that too many owners and trainers alike, use a prong collar as a “quick” fix, and do not look at the long term results caused by them. We all know dogs have a high threshold for pain, but it is a fact with canine aggression that each bite a dog takes, whether from a prong collar or another dog, their own becomes more intense. We are actually teaching them how hard to bite if we have to correct harder each time.
September 22, 2009 at 6:59 pm |
I wish my dog wasnt so lazy >.> all he does is sleep and go out for walks!